Trust.

[flint_garou]

This is hard. My heart says one thing, but my memories, and Kavi-rhya, and everyone, seem to say something else. I think I can do this, though.

6 June, 2012
The moon is in the waning Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (84% full).

Instead of video games, Flint's settled at one of the computers in the breakroom, headphones hanging around his neck rather than on. For the moment, the teen seems to be engrossed in reading whatever article he's got up, tapping fingers against the table, until he just sighs and leans back in the chair for a little, eyes not closed, but definitely zoned out.

"Hey," Rina offers, as she comes in.

Flint startles a little, then turns around in his seat. "Hi Rina," Flint says, smiling a little, though there's also a furrow of concern to his brow, quickly hidden away, as he observes the kinswoman.

Rina half-smile tugs upward at one corner, and she hangs her jacket over a chair and takes off her guns. "How's things?"

Flint turns around a little more, resettling so that he's ignoring the computer and faced away from it. "Pretty okay, I… I think," Flint answers. There's a faint tension visible in the set of his shoulders, otherwise ignored. "You?"

Concern comes to the woman's face, etching lines into her expression. "Better," she says quietly.

"Good," Flint says, quiet, with a smile that doesn't seem to entirely counter a tiredness in the teen's manner.

Rina's brow furrows in thought. "What's up?" she asks.

Flint stifles a yawn, and considers the question. "Not much. Since I finished, not. Not very much. Going to finish settling stuff, with. With the pack, soon." Another nod. "Tomorrow, probably."

"Settling what?" she asks quietly.

"I. Found someone with the rite, who'll do it for us," Flint explains, raising a hand to rub at his forehead. There's a slight hint of excitement, as well hidden as everything else behind the quiet manner. "So. That, basically. Becoming, a real pack, not just. Not just saying we're going to."

Rina smiles a little, then, a flicker of pride in the dark eyes. "Excellent."

Flint nods, quickly, and there's a distant expression for a moment before he bites his lip and squints his eyes shut, tuning something out before looking back to Rina. "Yeah. So, just. Resting up, a bit. For that," he says.

Rina echoes the nod, smiling a little. "Totem quests can be hard, from what I've heard," she says, glancing down.

Flint grins, a bit. "Yeah, I. I've heard," he responds, "and. But, it'll be good. Alexandra and Kyler and me work good together."

Rina tilts her head. "Who are they?" Obviously she doesn't know.

"Alexandra's ahroun, Ky's ragabash. They're Shadow Lords," Flint responds, "but. Also my friends." And then there's a definite visibility of Flint having an argument with, it would seem, himself, before attention snaps back to Rina.

Rina's jaw tightens. "Better be sure of that," she murmurs, "before you pack up with Shadow Lords.

Flint sighs. "I know," Flint responds, tone a little tenser. "And, I'm sure. The rest of. Of their tribe? No. But Lex, and Ky? Yes."

Rina nods minutely, looking decidedly worried. "Okay."

"I'm being careful," Flint offers, assurance perhaps, a faint furrow of brow forming in response. "I am. Plus, we. I—" There's a pause, eyes squinting shut again, and then whatever the galliard was going to say is dismissed, a headshake to indicate that he's lost train of thought, or simply can't put the words together right.

"No, go ahead," she murmurs in that low, husky voice.

Flint sighs again, barely even audible, then nods. When he speaks again, there's still that flicker of excitement in his voice. "After we, after that. I don't know. Haven't had much, to do, since finishing the memorial. But. Yeah."

Rina takes a slow breath, and looks down. Definitely doesn't look at… it. "You— I didn't, I haven't had a chance to tell you. That you did really good."

Flint sits turned around in one of the computer chairs, and nods when Rina speaks. "I… thanks, Rina." Tone alone conveys that her words mean a great deal to the cliath.

Rina's in a chair, elbows leaning on knees, her head bowed.

From out in the hallway, the rattling clank and whir of the elevator can be heard.

Flint lets the silence continue, glancing towards Rina but obviously not wanting to say anything. Instead, Flint's gaze goes a little more distant in the direction of the doorway, a return to the previously ignored internal argument.

The rumbling from the elevator continues as the car rises. Eventually, it lurches to a halt, and the door slides open. Kavi steps out, guitar in one hand and his green canvas pack slung over the opposite shoulder.

"You hungry?" Rina asks quietly.

Takes a second before Flint's attention snaps away from that point in mid-air, and the turns attention to Rina and grins. "Is the sky blue?" Flint responds, then even laughs, though it's a thin sound right now. "Or, is. Grey," he corrects himself, given the current rainy weather.

Kavi initially starts toward the far end of the hallway, but something catches his attention, and he turns, instead, to the breakroom. "Hey," he says from the doorway, and looks from one to the other a smile forming.

Rina rises swiftly, a smile dawning—lopsided, with a familiar flash of teeth. "Hey yourself," she says, closing the distance between them.

Flint looks, and ducks a nod to the elder galliard. "Hi Kavi-rhya," is said, before Flint turns to shut down the computer he'd been using.

Guitar and pack are set aside quickly as the kin approaches, freeing hands to reach for her. "Everything is okay," Kavi says, intonation suggesting a question. His gaze shifts to include Flint, if only briefly.

Rina slides arms around the Galliard to give him a swift hug. "Have you eaten?"

Flint glances to Rina and Kavi for a moment, and then turns back to the computer just as quickly, a grin fighting with the attempt to tune out the display of affection in his expression.

Kavi returns the embrace, holding to it for just a moment longer. "No," he answers as Rina slips away again. "Not yet."

"Cool, we can all have some ziti," the Kin answers… heading for the kitchen.

Flint finishes up and gets up, to the edge of the kitchen, though it's more an attempt to not get in the way as much as it's waiting to be told if there's something he can do to help. Standing, the tension in Flint's shoulders is much more noticeable.

Kavi moves the instrument into a safe spot along the wall, and drops his pack onto the couch. As he turns to follow Rina and Flint toward the kitchen, he slows, and his brow furrows.

Rina heads for the freezer to get out the foil pan, and turns on the oven, puttering about contentedly in the kitchen.

Flint grins slightly, moving into the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of water, and then turns towards Kavi. Brows uptick slightly in unvoiced question.

"What's wrong?" Kavi asks as the younger galliard turns to him. He glances past the boy, just long enough to catch Rina's eye, but then gives his full attention to Flint.

Flint pauses, then looks down. "Nothing, really," he answers. "Everything is. Things are good. We're—Lex, and Ky, and me—going to, to go on our totem quest, tomorrow." A smile crosses Flint's face, though it's got the same hint of an ignored internal argument in the expression, and quickly turns to a thin line of frustration. "Nothing's wrong, just…" A pause. "Little tense, I guess," the cliath acknowledges.

Glasses are taken down, filled with ice water; Rina hands over Kavi's and then Flint's, her dark eyes serious as she listens.

Kavi can't hide the momentary shift in his expression at the mention of Flint's prospective packmates, but he does manage to quell it quickly. He nods, offering a more sympathetic frown. "It's… You'll be okay," he says. The offer of the glass provides a brief reprieve, and he thanks Rina with a nod before accepting and taking a small sip.

Flint's brow furrows a little more, glass accepted with a nod of thanks. "I." Pause. "It feels like the right thing to do," Flint says, quietly. Which is only a thin cover of the fact that this still bothers him some. "For me, now. But, it's—" Another pause. "A little dissonant, still."

Rina looks to Kavi, a flicker of concern in her eyes, and a seriousness.

Kavi's gaze dips downward and is slow to rise again. "You— You have to make your own choices. You have to… to listen. Not just to what we tell you, but to what your heart says." He pauses, swallowing in the space between, and he looks to Rina, holding there for a moment before he returns. "I worry. Not about you, but for you. But. But I also trust you. And if you're certain that you can trust them, and that they deserve that trust… Then you have to do what feels right. Even if we worry for you."

Flint nods, setting his water on the counter for a moment. The cliath's slow to respond, clearly weighing the elder galliard's words. "My heart says. One thing," he explains. "Says that this is right, and I am certain, but." Another pause, and Flint taps his forehead. "The memories that. The ones that aren't mine? That's where the dissonance, is."

Rina looks to Flint, tipping her head. "You have strong past lives? Ancestors in your head?"

Kavi nods at Flint's explanation, but his frown returns.

Flint glances over at Rina, and nods. "Yes," he says, quiet. "Some things, they're louder about, than others." The teen chews on his lower lip, and looks at Kavi again, then. "Thank you, Kavi-rhya," he adds, quietly.

Rina's brow furrows, as she turns to get some plates and put the pasta in.

Kavi settles into his seat with the glass of water and takes another sip. "It doesn't… A lot of packs are temporary. Bonded for a purpose, and only until that's complete. If. If everything is good, then. The memories will fade. And if. If it's not? Then you can leave."

Flint picks his glass up from the counter, and moves to sit down across from Kavi, and nods. "More memories now," the teen observes. "Should give. The ones that aren't mine, or now, less place to. To be loud." And that seems to be all that Flint's got on that subject, because there's a grin on his face once food comes to the table, the previous tension at least lessening.