[OOC: Sometime after this.]T
RICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE, someone said once, and though Wells has never heard it said, he would be inclined to agree. Right now his head is ringing with the insistent demands of the wolf-
( packmate / little sister ) killed, ( packmate / cub ) savaged, fire-smoke-blood-earth-stranger smells everywhere, find the one, do it- in ways and on levels he wasn't even aware he could perceive. If it had been like this that awful night in Scotland, Cooper wouldn't have been the one to kill Ryan- he'd have died with his fangs in Ryan's throat.
Article Three: In order more effectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.But this isn't Scotland, and Ryan isn't to blame. It's not even the full moon. There are no fangs, and no claws, and no wolf-body to even come close to making an excuse for it. Oh, yeah, the full moon's five days off, he doesn't have to look at a calendar to know that- but it's not here yet. And even if it were, that wouldn't change things any.
Article Five: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.He can't slip. He doesn't dare. Not now, not here, under the circumstances-
Article Six: For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:Ace told him that her kind of shifter, if they ever go all the way over physically, don't turn back. Wells doubts he has to worry about that kind of thing, but there's a colder, quieter certainty nestled amidst the black muck at the bottom of his skull. If he lets the instinct out
now- if he lets it win, deliberately or accidentally, during a time of nothing more than mortal rage, outside the reach of the full moon- it will have the rule of him forever. He's dead certain of that.
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;So he's trying with all his might to stay where humans live: abstract thought and cool words, a layer of distance between the urge and the deed. He's repeating things in his head, phrases and paragraphs made by men who had to hold other things at bay, and maybe it's just his imagination but it sure seems to him like it's helping to separate him from the
do it now insistence of the wolf.
on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.Still, trickery with words isn't everything. There's simple human rage beneath it all-
my boy, my dog, my friends, you son of a bitch you'd better HOPE it's a curse or God help me I will find you first- and he can't let that have him either. He's got to
do something to stave that off. So if you're out behind the Bar today, you'll find him there: down where they practise with guns, in the open space marked at one end by a painted line and at the other by padded bales. He's got the pistol Hephaestos gave him and a box of .45 ammunition, and he's putting everything he's got into placing one ruthlessly silent bullet after another into the target.
Maybe it'll be enough.
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