bakerstreet | quote prompts

"I see.

Why do humans not just say what they mean," he laments, not really asking her as much as making a comment about just how unnecessarily confusing humans make communication. And anything, really.

He slides down one of the posts of the swings and sits on the ground, curling up on himself and looking out over the garden. Humans... And now there's yet another one in the household. And seems to be bound to stay. Not that that's certain or anyone has talked about the long-term perspective, but he feels that that's what the general social situation in the household is circling around, working on unspoken contracts and discussions. They probably think nobody is noticing, but to someone who watches tone and scent and body language and all that much more than he listens to words, the conversation about how well Erin would fit into the household long-term is pretty obvious.

"I don't know? Language is hard," Erin says just shooting Laughs a perplexed look.

Erin really doesn't know what the future holds. It kind of scares her because her life has already been filled with uncertainty for a long time. She knows that the others aren't really sure what to do with her. So she has been trying.

Really. But one doesn't just get up one day and be better. Sometimes there are good days and sometimes there are bad.

"Thank you for... For trying to be my friend," Erin says finally. "I know it can't be easy. I'm a weird human girl. But thanks. For making this a good day."

"All humans are weird. You're less bad than some others."

It might not be exactly sugarcoating, or even nice, but that's how he sees it. For a human, she's all right.

"...you're better?"

Obviously better than when they first met, but he hasn't exactly been seeing her every day since.

"Thanks." She actually beams at him. That was an actual compliment from Laughs.

Of course Erin is pretty sure that was pretty much also a declaration of friendship. Erin is down for this.

"Yes. Less... melting down." But the nightmares haven't really gone away yet. Erin is still figuring out how to shake that. She hadn't had one in nearly five years before this.

"Good. ...It will get less.

Some of us have similar issues at first." Not quite the same, not quite for the same reasons, but he's been around cases where a newly-changed would hide in a corner and sob for days. The bloodier the first change was, the worse, most of the time. Or if relatives or friends were involved. That tends to be bad, too.

He tilts his head, trying to find the right words. "So I know."

"Oh." That gets a wide eyed look of surprise. From what she had seen most of the others acted fairly capable.

She guesses that it just takes hard work to not feel like a hot mess. Oddly the fact they too have to worry about that makes her feel slightly better. It sounds terrible but misery loves company.

"I think I'm getting better. Just... bit by bit. It's oddly comforting to know I'm not the only one that's gone through things like this."

He hoped that that would be the case, or he wouldn't have mentioned it.

"It means people understand."

More or less, but they at least have a bigger chance at it than others who've never been around someone who has trouble with what happened - traumatized, is what humans call it because they like to put fancy words on things instead of describing them.

Other traumatized people can understand the way a homid understands how to be a wolf. Not really, but they get a lot closer than people who have never been in that situation themselves.

"...People usually change first because they're stressed."

Which can mean a lot, and within his own pack ranges from being stressed about someone running out the door and oneself being unable to follow in breed form to being stressed about someone assaulting their little sister in a disco, leaving multiple people dead and the place on fire. Laughs himself is one of the rare cases where stress wasn't a factor - he just realized that he could access more food for his pack if he had hands, and didn't think much further about what hands implied about the rest of his body at the time until strange wolves showed up in the enclosure and recognized him for what he was.

"Sometimes similarly to how you were." Making it abundantly clear that she must be kinfolk, not Garou - any Garou would have changed with what he knows about the things that happened to her, even one being lost to the depths of the umbra and back.

"Then I'm very much kinfolk," Erin concludes with a sigh. "Between the.... Thing I don't talk about from when I was a kid then this something would have triggered it. So I guess I'm just a girl who is somehow related to a whole tribe of werewolves."

That part actually gets a giggle out of her. It's the first properly girlish sounding giggle she has had in a long time.

"I wonder how that even happened. I guess I won't know because I'm not interested in talking to my bio-parents ever again." Although in a few years when DNA ancestry testing becomes a thing Erin will be deeply curious.

"Do you know much about the other tribes? I've heard a bit about the Fianna and yours. Not much else." Erin leans forward a bit curiously before pulling back slightly. She likes being respectful of people's space. Although with as much as she trusts Laughs sometimes she is tempted to lean against him. He has graduated or ranked up to person Erin thinks of as a friend.

"Well, mine aside they always have way too many human-born members," and does she spy some derision in there? Yes, she definitely may. Really, everywhere's overrun by humans these days, even the Garou Nation. Or well, homids, in that case.

"What have you already been told?" So he can weigh his options on what to say. He doesn't want to say too much, but there's a few pointers that he can and will give - there's a wide variety of knowledge spread around the household, anyway.

...Speaking of the household, spilling at least a tiny bit of tea on the whole Stargazer situation might be necessary, anyway, if nobody has done it yet.

"I can see why that'd be bothersome for you." Erin may have some issues left over. Seeing a murder cult had changed her views on humanity just enough that Erin will admit normal human society may no longer make her feel comfortable.

"Um. I know that the Fianna follow Stag. I don't know exactly what that means yet. I also know that they have ties to like, very traditional Celtic stuff." Like the Fair Folk. Erin had picked up on that right away because when she was five she wanted to be a fairy princess. No one gets to see the embarrassing pictures ever.

"I was told the Red Talons are mostly all wolves mostly. I asked why. Um." Erin chews at her lower lip.

"I... think it makes sense. Historically pe-- er, humans have done some really crappy things. I can see why the Red Talons would have started to think the way they did. I mean with some of the big wars humans have waged against each other it left literal scars on the land just from the destruction on both sides. Plus uh, other things too." She wasn't introduced to any of the more extreme thoughts the Red Talons have expressed about humanity. Just enough of the basics to keep Erin thinking.

Laughs, on the other hand, thinks that Erin has in fact been told about the whole extermination of humanity concept and agrees with it on principle, or at least carries understanding for it. Which... okay? Cool? He'll roll with that. He's heard of humans with that attitude before, and considering her recent encounter with some especially Wyrm affiliated humans it's probably not that strange.

Which means that he'll focus on the Fianna for now. Partly because that is the most important for her. "All tribes have someone they follow. Stag's," a bit weird, considering that stags are prey animals, and while Laughs doesn't say that it shows in his voice that he doesn't think too highly of that, "proud and his tribe really likes poisoning themselves and sex. But they tell good stories." Look, maybe the tribe she's affiliated with isn't the one he has the highest opinion of. Higher than some others (don't ask him about Glasswalkers) but still not terribly high. Fianna manage to be very human in ways that have nothing to do with technology. It's weird.

As much as he's learned to deal with their weirdness, considering that they keep running into them, just like they keep running into the area of things that Erin summed up as Fair Folk.

Erin was just told Red Talons really don't like humans. Going into the maybe all humans should die thing hadn't sounded like a good idea to the person who had told her things. Which is exactly why Erin is convinced that Red Talons just really don't like humans much and is cool with it because right now she doesn't really have warm fuzzy feelings for humanity as a whole. Which totally makes sense.

"Poisoning? Oh. Drinking." Erin actually pulls a face. "I think I might avoid any Fianna hosted parties. I don't think that's my idea of a good time. Some... creepy stuff can happen to women at bars."

Not that Erin thinks that the Fianna would let her gets hurt. Erin has the feeling that overall she's probably pretty safe so long as she stays back from anyone who acts overtly aggressive.

"But I'd be okay with stories. If they're any better than my books I'm game," Erin smiles quickly.

"Any story told by someone is better than a book. Books are just stories someone killed so they can be reproduced."

He doesn't know what she means by the creepy things that can happen to women at bars, though he can make assumptions based on observation of humans. Either way, he won't dissuade her from not affiliating with people who're drunk or on the way there. Alcohol is ridiculous and sucks.

"What?" Erin gives Laughs a baffled look. "No. A book is just a way to preserve a story. So others have a chance to read and share it."

Erin is not going into details. He doesn't really seem like the sort who would want to know about more ways humans are shitty to each other even if it's men sucking mostly. Anyways enough of that line of thinking.

"Have you ever wondered about why books?" This might as well be a useful conversation. Erin loves books.

Edited 2020-03-24 09:15 (UTC)

"No." The answer is obvious, after all. "Humans want to control everything and stop it from changing and developing like any living thing would. So they write it down."

Just like how they put pictures on film or on canvas, like they put sounds on phones and tapes, how they ...treat everything, really. True creatures of the Weaver, is what humans are. And a dash of Wyrm in there, more often than would be acceptable.

"No. Not... there are some things we don't want to forget. They're either so terrible or beautiful that we need to remember it happened. Just saying it happened isn't enough. The truth can get distorted the more people talk about it," Erin tries to explain.

She isn't sure that helps at all.

"Like. History matters. Knowing what happened. Why. So like... the bad things don't happen. Sometimes we can't just talk." He wouldn't get it. Sometimes humans need ways to bare witness. Books help when they aren't based on lies.

"There is no one truth." He gives her an incredulous look. Sure, humans love to think that, but it's just so wrong.

And perhaps part of why they're so messed up about killing stories and nailing them down. Perhaps they think that if they're nailed down enough they will, somehow, magically, become the one single truth that doesn't exist. "Books are just one version of the truth, too.

But humans think that they're truer than other truths." Which: No.

"Well duh. It's about finding all those different perspectives and looking at them until you can figure out what actually happened versus what someone claimed," Erin said with a huff. She sounds annoyed but really there is a lively sparkle in her gaze.

He accidentally or maybe on purpose drew her out of herself.

"I don't think that. But if... If you can't ask someone what happened, how do you find out?"

It's a good question.

"That's like looking at a landscape and then trying to say what the one colour of the entire landscape is." Which humans do. And it's just as ridiculous. The fields in the summer evening sun aren't golden, they're a thousand colours, one of which might be a warm golden light. "It is never complete, and thus always wrong.

You can't trap what is or was.

All you can get is parts of it."

"Well the problem with that is it's subjective," Erin finds herself agreeing. "I mean. Some humans don't see color the same way."

Erin frowns at just how firm he is that humans are all wrong. "Just because they might be wrong about a... like, field or something doesn't mean they're wrong about events that happened. It just means their perspective was limited. No one person can know everything. I mean, do you know everything that happened that night you rescued me?"

It's a fair question to ask. She smiles tiredly. "I was there too and I can honestly say I can't remember it all. That happens but it doesn't mean I'm wrong or intentionally hiding things that happened. It just is what it is."

There's things that he's probably never going to get over properly, and one of those things is that humanity as a whole is so fundamentally broken that it's beyond rescuing. Being fine with a select few humans - Kaisa, her children, and to a degree the other kinfolk living in this house, including Erin - because they are clearly exceptions from the rule is probably as far as he'll get for a long time.

Which is already him leaning pretty far out of the window, figuratively spoken, and he would never admit to it in front of another Talon. Not that there would be a reason to. Exceptions just prove the rule, right?

"And if no person can know everything, why do you think that the person who writes the book that has five persons opinions in it knows everything?"

"Well. It could be that knowing the opinions makes it easier to getting closer to what actually happened? Of course knowing for sure what happened in any situation is pretty hard. But most folks are too sure of themselves to go 'oh, here's what we think might have happened'," Erin finally allows.

Stop being almost kind of close to right Laughs. That isn't fair.

"I don't think people intentionally lie when they write." She thinks that perhaps she and Laughs will never get along as far as books go.

"Honestly. I find books fairly comforting still. They're not people. People kind of spook me still."

There is a wide, wide chasm between a universal truth and not-a-lie, in his experience. But he'll let the matter drop. It's not like he's ever managed to agree with a human on the topic. This tends to be as close as he comes.

So he'll focus on the issue of people spooking her, still. "Because of what happened?" or because of things that happened, before that, too?

If he was looking for a human with a deeper understanding of universal truths Erin is not his girl. She won't get it now or possibly ever because that is going pretty deep.

"I was kind of like this before. Social anxiety I guess? I'm better with like, one or two people at a time." Erin hates the idea of having so much attention focused on her.

"If it feels like I'm not going to be focused on I can cope for a bit."

He personally thinks that humans tend to hold no truths in general. Even if mages seem to like to think that they've understood the essence of the universe.

"...you grew up in a small family without many friends?" he guesses. It's such a strange thought to him, groups in general making one nervous. The pack he grew up in was huge. Way too large for the enclosure, but that's a whole other issue.

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