kore_logs | (no subject)

Derek is out sulking in the shadows around town when the lights casting his concealment begin to fade in and out, and if it weren't for the accompaniment of the beating wings and the overwhelming scent of nature in brief warning, the lack of a scent he's able to recognise is enough to catch his attention before the man appears out of no where.

He hazards a guess at angels, something he's been informed about, but that he's been reluctant to acknowledge until witnessing one for himself where he can use his abilities; he's starting to wonder, now, if he didn't bring this on by distrusting - it wouldn't be the first time.

It takes everything in him not to let go, to keep himself under control, because he can sense the power coming from him, and, here, alone, without what is admittedly a sorry excuse for a pack, he doesn't want to sign his death warrant so soon after arriving. He stands, stiff and still, ready for a fight if it comes, even though he knows he can't win, and his eyes flash red.

"What do you want?" he asks, blunt, to the point, because he's long past stopping for pleasantries, and for all that he tries to sound as if he can more than hold his own, it falls flat even to his own ears.

Raphael stands still, more still than a human would, barely reacting to Derek's posturing, though he does tick a brow very faintly. Nor is he likely to react violently.

"To borrow you for a few minutes." It's phrased as a request, but there's nothing about his tone or posture that suggests it is anything else than a slightly polite order. "Someone needs your attention."

An eyebrow lifts in confusion, as if questioning why anyone would require his attention, but he doesn't vocalise it, knows better than to antagonise the locals, especially outside of his own territory, without back-up, and when the chances are he'll be sticking around for a while.

"Take me to them."

Raphael reaches over, the tips of his forefinger and middle finger touching Derek's forehead, flying him to Brigid's location, with Raphael following. Angelic flight isn't very pleasant for humans and Raphael rarely uses it, so he's not sure how much of the disorientation and uncomfortableness of it will hit the werewolf.

In truth, he doesn't really care.

"Brigid." It's both a command and a summance.

The hand coming towards him gains a fleeting look, but he doesn't move away, letting the angel do whatever it is that he does, and he feels the pull as soon as he leaves the spot where he was standing, certain his stomach is still back there. But he's known physical pain in varying doses, and he takes the experience as it comes, composing himself when he feels solid ground beneath his feet as quickly as possible.

He remains where he is, not entirely aware of the situation, and allows her the choice whether to come to him willingly or not.

She skids out of the woods, claws scraping against the ground. Brigid growls and her eyes glow blue. Backing away, Brigid huffs out an annoyed sound. An Alpha and an Angel. She can't take them both on. Wolf she may have become, but she's not suicidal.

Her feet remain light on the ground, ready to run at any movement at all. Her eyes flick back and forth between the pair. A noise off to her right sends her into flight on all fours. She's not sticking around.

... Then, she howls, trying to call her pack, to see if they're anywhere near. It only sets off the direwolves.

It's immediate, the reasoning behind Raphael summoning him here help, and he reacts instantaneously as his own instinct kicks in, eyes flashing red as he grow stiff, repositioning his stance ready for a fight; if she comes at him, though, he doesn't plan on harming her, not unless it's absolutely necessary.

He growls, fangs elongating, but he doesn't shift completely, and he tries to control the situation with the authority of an alpha; he's aware that she's not his beta, but he's hoping she at least recognises him over the pull of the moon.

"Good so you have this then?" He knew he was likely to only further agitate Brigid, and he was a little frustrated.

More than a little, really. He doesn't like not being in control. He looks at her for a moment, wanting to bark out an order to obey. But that wouldn't help, this, this time, it's not his place. He does understand that.

He steps back - he'd seem gone, flown away, but he's watching, at least for a few minutes, to make sure they are both going to be ok.

Alpha. Something in her pushes her toward Derek, but then the moon appears from behind a shadow and she shakes her head. Brigid jumps up on a fallen tree, looking around. The Angel is gone, good. Growling at the Alpha - not hers, hers isn't here - Brigid takes off deeper into the woods. She wants her pack.

Skidding around a tree, she comes face to snout with a tiger. It growls; her growl is louder. The tiger grabs its kill and backs away. She makes no move to chase it. Why should she?

Brigid looks back. Those red eyes make her turn. Alpha... Alpha... she wants, but... not hers, not hers. The whimper is strangled under another growl.

Derek spares Raphael a curt nod, and trust might not be something he comes by quick or easy, but he manages to convey his appreciation in an accompany look for being brought here. She might not be one of his, but she's one of the good ones, and while they're here they need to stick together.

At the sudden bolt, Derek shifts into his beta form, and for once he doesn't take the extra seconds to make a show of it. He follows cautiously, at first, but doesn't plan to let her out of his sight, to let anyone get hurt.

The struggle behind her wild eyes is obvious, and the fact she doesn't make chase immediately is a good sign, so he steps closer, but he doesn't appear too imposing, afraid of startling her. "Do you recognise me?" he asks, confident despite being out of his depths, and he wishes now that he had checked to see if she had an anchor, to make sure that she had something to hold onto. But the full moon is out of sync here, his own control harder than usual because of it.

She wants to be part of a pack. A pack where there aren't lies and there isn't a basement where her father was killed. She just... can't. She can't leave her pack.

Something in her mind keeps her away from the humans, from those that could get hurt. Control is a tenuous thing, at times, but she's always had it. Always. Her Alpha insisted on it and had beaten it into her along with all the betas.

His question startles her and the growl is instinctive. She knows what he is, at least.

"Alpha."

The word is growled, around elongated fangs. Not hers, though. Not hers.

Poised on the balls of her feet, Brigid takes a slight step back. She wants to run, to find them.

He should have expected something like this, although maybe not so soon into his arrival, but life can't throw him a bone, it's been a long time since things he touched didn't fall down around him, and this is no different.

He feels the responsibility on his shoulders, a chance to prove himself worthy of something, but things rarely pan out, and for all that he tends to throw himself into things with good intentions without taking the extra time to plan them out, he begrudgingly finds himself missing the group of misfits from home that tend to be there to pick up the pieces when he fails miserably.

Derek stills on the spot, hands slowly rising in a gesture of surrounding, in an attempt to show that he means her no harm. "Not yours, but one that's willing to help." How, he's not quite sure, because there's no where here to hoard her up, to chain her down, and he learned the hard way that it's not exactly the best plan. But, on the plus side, there's only one of her. "If you'll let me."

Two months. Two months without an Alpha, with the steadying presence of a pack. In which she'd been turned into a Fire Fae and she'd had to fight for her life.

Two months can be a very long time, sometimes.

She takes a step back when his hands move. Brigid doesn't want to be caught, doesn't want to be confined. Her Alpha would have put her on the ground by now. To still be standing feels... different.

Her eyes fade just the tiniest bit, before the wolf resurges against her control. It wants out, and the full moon is a perfect opportunity. She keeps such a tight rein all the time....

To trust an Alpha, one not her own, is wrong. Everyone knows you don't interfere with other packs, not without your own Alpha present. That same odd growl-whimper crawls up her throat.

Brigid looks away. "I... can't." Her fangs recede. "Two months without an Alpha. I'm not meant to be Omega." Crouched close to the ground, she keeps her claws buried in the earth, fighting the pull of the moon, the pull of the wolf that wants to destroy. Brigid clings to the scent of an Alpha. Her body shivers and breaks out in sweat.

Tenuous, brief control.

A part of him doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at the words she utters, because he can relate, even if it's not quite the same. After Laura, Derek found himself alone, without an alpha, without a pack, and without any family (none worth noting, anyway).

"Your alpha might not be here, but they're still out there, right where you left them," he tries, hands slowly lowering to his sides, and still he doesn't make a move, but he's ready to pounce if it comes to it, to chase after her. "As long as that's true, you're not going to become an omega."

She snorts out a breath that plumes into the chill night air. Brigid isn't sure she believes him. Her Alpha had lied to her. Her Da wouldn't challenge him. She knows that. They were both Betas, happy in their places within the pack and willing to do what needed to be done to protect it.

Her eyes glow blue again and she looks up at him. Her fangs elongate again, ready to fight if necessary. "Here, I have no Alpha and you have no pack."

It's harsh truth that crawls out of her mouth and dangles in the air between them. Brigid isn't sure that she meant to say that. And she's not sure what she means by it. Not yet.

He gives a solemn nod, voice taking a moment longer to catch up with it as it he utters a quiet but agreeing, "Yeah."

He doesn't mention that he doesn't exactly have much of a pack to speak of back home, but at least he doesn't plan on repeating any of his previous mistakes if it can be helped.

"I'm not your alpha. You're not my beta." It's his way of assuring her that he doesn't want that to change, that he's not asking her to join him to create a new pack here. "But we could be allies."

Brigid watches him, wary of such an altruistic offer. Alphas aren't kind. They aren't just willing to take on betas that aren't their own. They don't like other pack wolves, even when they're just a messenger. Even around other Alphas there's a certain amount of posturing that happens.

She slowly pushes herself up on two feet, her claws still out. Brigid watches Derek for a moment more.

"You don't know me, Alpha." She points out. Brigid wants... to accept. To maybe find out why she's so scared to leave her pack. Indecision fades the blue in her eyes. "You... would be willing?"

To hold the wolf back is always easier with an Alpha near by. Whether it's hers or not, it seems.