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Oh. Animals don't really like me. He might want to bite me too. [Fight or flight is usually the question when it comes to Garou and animals, and a panther, they figure, is more likely to fall on the fight side.]

He likes everyone. Usually Ren, too... Though he does hit her with his tail a lot when she's being... herself. She gets weirdly competitive with him.

He likes Milla too. If it's a world thing. Which. I dunno. None of you smell funny to me.

[Yeah she had definitely drunk at least a bit.]

To be fair, if I had a tail I'd want to hit Ren with it sometimes too. [They're just not going to confirm or deny if it's a world thing, because, well. Yes.]

But if he's not going to try and have a go at me, I'll come by soon as I can. [And bring some water for her, and maybe a snack to try and soak up some of the booze.]

Mmmn... me too. Which might be why he does it actually. He can understand me.

Kova will be a good boy. Heda's honour.

See you shortly, then. Don't drink yourself to sleep in the meanwhile.

[They rush through cleaning up, and set off to the castle at a quick pace, but falter a bit when they reach Winter. They do know it fairly well, thanks to Jackie, but they have no idea what her face paint looks like. But when they come across a door with black paint on it, they figure that's a fair enough guess, and knock on it.]

Lexa?

[When Lexa answers the door she isn't tripping over herself or even the big mountain lion she still called a cub who came to the door with her to inspect the stranger and protect his mother if need be. She has definitely been drinking, though, and more than that her eyes are puffy from tears that she had long since dried away. She was dressed merely in a black nightgown, it split along the side almost to her hip and it was held up only by spaghetti straps. Her hair was down, loose over her shoulder.

Lexa pulls the door open, wide.

Her room is much the same as anyone else's... if you ignored the throne in the corner. No big deal.]

Thank you for coming. Sorry about the... messaging and the hour and [she waves her hand as if to say "everything".]

[Rowan eyes the cat, and then the throne, before Lexa herself, but they just offer her a smile and a glass of water. They're still dressed, all in black, with a faint smell of stale beer lingering around their cuffs.]

Hey, no worries. It's not like I wasn't up anyway, and work is mostly dead by this point.

[They do take another surreptitious glance over her shoulder into the room to try and figure out how much she's been drinking though.]

[Kova seems satisfied enough that Rowan wasn't about to eat Lexa's face and so after curling around Lexa's legs protectively for a few moments he saunters back over and plops himself on the end of the bed.

She was going to have to ask for a bigger bed one day just to account for her damn cat.

As for how much Lexa had been drinking, well there was an empty wine bottle on the little window seat and another half-empty one beside it and Lexa was leaning on the door a little more heavily than she ever would normally around company.]

Where do you work I forgot to ask. [Lexa says, then takes the glass of water and has a sip of it.] Thank you. You can come in if you want. Or not. Whichever. Promise not to bite or hit you with any tails.

[Which... technically she could.]

With Beau down on the Revelry. [A bottle and a half? That's a decent amount, and explains how soaked she is. Oh well, what are friends for aside from to make sure you don't drunk dial your crush?

They slip past her into the room, grinning at her as they do.] A bite or a slap ain't the worst you could do to me, but I guess I'll risk it. Someone's got to make sure you make it into bed safely.

Oh. I should've known that. [For like a dozen reasons, not the least of which it was Beau's ship and she should visit her there at least from time to time but Lexa hadn't been making too many even semi-public gestures in the last few months. Oops.]

Stabbing friends is generally frowned upon. My bed is safe though. I don't think there's any rabid furniture destroying Ren's in there, she definitely would've said something by now. Or Kova would've bit her. [Such a good cat.]

[Rowan chuckles, crossing over to the bed, but to offer a hand out to Kova to sniff, wondering if he'll let them pet him. Frumpkin did, after all, so maybe Kova will too.]

Bit hard to miss Ren when she's around, I'm pretty sure you'd have noticed.

And don't worry about the work thing, there's much better places here to drink, and I assume you ain't much of a gambler. Better places than your room as well, I'd add.

[Kova wasn't an ordinary cat, or even an ordinary panther since the fey had made him for Lexa specifically and he understood her all too plainly. Which meant he got the general notion that Rowan was a friend and so after sniffing their hand he nudges against it, agreeable enough to get pet.]

She definitely would've added my bed to the list of casualties if she heard me talking to you, that's for sure.

[Should Lexa be bothered about hot girl who can tear apart wood and break marble? Maybe. Is she? Nope.]

No, no I should've known because I know Beau very well. Not that I go there much. She might actually tie me to one of the.... nevermind. I don't mind drinking alone. Being around people is weird.

[Heck yes, Rowan will take that hint, stroking Kova's head all the way down to behind his ears and scratching there gently. For someone who said animals don't like them, they sure know what they're doing, and aren't put off by his size either. Though they also seem over the moon for the opportunity, smiling brightly as they continue with clever fingers.]

Oh, well, if you're visiting her in off hours I ain't going to be there. I like her, and my job well enough, but I spend enough time on her ship. [Look, it's fairy fuckland. Rowan isn't here to judge anyone for being tied to anything by anyone.]

And Ren can live. It's better to talk about this shit then let it fester. I'm glad you said something. [Not so much about the dutch courage, but Lexa's an adult, she can drink herself into a stupor if she likes. It's not like Rowan has a leg to stand on here anyway.]

[Congrats Rowan: you got a new best friend in the shape of one very languid, happy panther who was definitely no longer a cub no matter what Lexa said. Better still, he purrs as he gets stroked and scratched, rolling around and preening and showing Rowan all the best spots.]

Not off hours. Just not in a while. [Lexa has to pause a second there and wonder if she just somehow admitted to fucking Beau in her office while everyone was aboard. Which, you know, she had.... but still. Drinking was such a dangerous game around here. Back home her secrets were the kind she would never drunkenly ramble about.]

Ren is very, very alive. Usually, it's nice. Less so when she acts like she's got a dick to swing and makes me sound like an old wise woman at the grand age of twenty-two.

[One of the advantages of spending a lot of time around wolves is that you quickly pick up on the signals for 'pet me here!'. The cat versions might be a little different, but overall Rowan's better than the average human at picking up Kova's hints about where their hand should move next, smiling at him while they talk to Lexa.

And bursting out laughing at her description of Ren.]

God, she really does act like that. She makes me feel like a fucking parent and all. Part of the package though, innit? [They glance up at Lexa and grin at her. They don't envy her for her choice in crush.]

It seems to be. I would not mind except when we are naked and I have to school her like she is one of my natblidas it is... a strange moment.

[If cats could laugh Kova definitely would be at that statement.]

She is... unlike others I have been with before. [Not that the list is long.]

Wait, schooling her in how to have sex? Or just because she goes off on one, being Ren? Because yeah, I could see that. [Unless she really was bluffing about her experience with women, just because she wanted to compete against Silent?]

No, not sex... though actually. Do you know how hard it is to return the favour with her???? She wants to shove her hand down my pants and then fly out the door like she thinks you two are spying from the fucking window. [Lexa would not normally be so candid, but Ren confused her and worse, had hurt her and she didn't know what to make of any of it anymore.]

She does leap to some very unhelpful conclusions sometimes, though. Like when she decides I'm clearly kicking her out as I try to talk her into bed with me. You would think I had the plague or a second head.

[Rowan sits up straighter, a small frown wiping their usual from from their face. They've heard of men justifying themselves sleeping with other men by refusing to be on the receiving end, and they can't help but wonder if Ren's running something similar unconsciously. The more they hear, the more this sounds like this is affecting Ren just as much as Lexa, even if Ren is either unaware, or pretending to be.]

You would think that she'd be at least smart enough to realise that we ain't a problem; Silent's shacked up with Peony, and I'm, well, me. She knows my Mums are gay too.

[They rub their face tiredly.] Look, there ain't going to be an easy fix to this. Our society as fucked us all over one way or another. But I will try, okay?

And try not to let it get to you. I know being rejected like that can... well, it lingers. [Okay, they've never been rejected by someone that they had a crush on, but that's just because they don't do crushes. It's not much better to be half way to shagging someone only for them to turn around and declare that because you don't have the body they expected they're no longer down for this.]

I did try to tell her that, but I don't know anything apparently. Also, she wasn't really hearing me... [As one tended to not when they were too upset. And so it goes.]

She didn't just reject me, Rowan. The love of my life put a knife to my throat. I could handle her not being into me.

She rejected... I do not know the gonasleng for it, and in trig we do not... [That the fairies provided translations to everyone, real-time, did not mean everyone got the words to express themselves if their own societies did not know or possibly need them. Lexa flops on her bed, annoyed and graceless and definitely almost on Kova who jumps off the bed just in time, smacking the side of her head with his tail on his way. Ow.]

She rejected what you are, not who you are. A piece of your identity. [Rowan reaches out to put their hand gently over hers.]

‘S why it lingers. Don’t matter if someone don’t want you, but when they don’t want to recognise your place in the world, or the world as you know it, that stings. Even more so when it’s someone you care for.

She's rejecting part of herself, too. A part of her that I have seen, a part of her I know she wants to at least not entirely ignore even if it is not the part she will choose when the time comes to... settle down or however it goes. I wouldn't know, natblida's are never long for the world, we do not have the time for such things even if our people didn't try to discourage it.

I do not see why sleeping with women as a woman would ever be a problem... There are no complications beyond those of the heart, which can happen in any combination.

[Lexa pats the bed beside her.]

You can sit. I won't bite.

[Rowan doesn’t need further encouragement to flop down beside her, toeing their shoes off, and then tucking their feet up under them.]

It were only 50 years ago where we’re from that it were legal for two men to sleep together. Before that, if you was caught, you could get sent to jail or “feminised”. [They drop air quotes, their tone full of distaste.] My Mums could only get married six years ago. My gender ain’t recognised, ‘cos I ain’t a man or a woman. When we was born, me and Ren, teachers weren’t allowed to talk about us in school because that was “promoting our lifestyle”.

And our country is good with this stuff, Lexa. There’s places where being what we are’d get you killed. That’s what you’re up against with her. It ain’t nice, not at all, but all through our history people have hidden themself to keep safe.

And the worst part is, there ain’t no reason for it. People decided we were bad, and so for the last two thousand years they’ve been trying to get rid of us. That’s it. Because we’re different. Because they don’t think we’re normal.

[Lexa listens in silence, staring at the ceiling like it could offer her some wisdom or let her talk to the other Commanders once more. Without the flame she cannot hold all the memories, but she still knows the gist of things and she is certain enough that if these things were once true they had not been true even before the first great fire. Becca's people no more cared if someone was gay or queer or otherwise different than her own did. All that mattered was that a person did their job, filled their place in society, helped when they could for the betterment of all.

Who you were attracted too, what you called yourself, how you felt did not hinder those things, it was not a sin, not a burden, not a horror.]

There are many things that I deserve to die for. So many, I couldn't begin to tell you before the sun rose and set again. Not that, though. Ironically, since I kind of did die for that even if the bullet was meant for my love and not for me.

If you were among my people you would be accepted as you are. If I had not been born a natblida, I could've had any girl I loved who loved me in return and no one would have batted an eyelash. Life is too short to believe otherwise, and the world full of actual injustices to chase and deal out justice for.

How could they do those things?

'Cos people are mean and cruel and don't like people what are different to them. [Rowan sighs, leaning back on her. Probably best not to even go into the various other ways humans (and Garou) have been dreadful to one another over the course of history.]

No, not everyone. And things are changing, slowly. But it ain't gone enough yet that people can live without coming under the influence of it somehow.

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Cw: real world anti LGBT+ stances

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