#i love lindulf so much

[iturbide]

Summer Storm

39,663/50,000 words

“…they knew me.”

She froze, staring at him in the dim lamplight.  When she swallowed her half-chewed bite, he saw her wince.  “As a member of the guard?”

“…one of them called me Lindy,” he mumbled.

She sank back in her chair, poking listlessly at the meal.  “So the guard is involved.  Not all of them, obviously.  But someone is part of this, if they’ve got our cast-offs and some of our new arms.  So now we’ve gotta watch for a knife in our backs at the garrison while we wait for a mage to publicly decry you.”

“What?”  Lindulf lifted his head just to cant it to the side.  “Miryn?  He wouldn’t.”

“He saw you phase—”

“And he could have told the Magistrate tonight,” he shot back.  “Instead he stepped in.  He didn’t tell her, and made sure I didn’t have to, either.”

She huffed, stabbing at the venison again.  “And what’s to say he’s not saving that dangerous little nugget of knowledge as blackmail to use later.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Lindulf said simply.

“How do you know?”

“That’s not the kind of person he is.”

She leveled a half-lidded stare at him.  “And Riculf says Miryn’s the naïve one.”

“He had a chance to tell the magistrate tonight, and he didn’t,” Lindulf insisted.  “And before that — after I phased, he was worried about me.  He helped me fight them, when we were trying to get out.  And when I got hurt…he could have just left.  He could have stayed hidden, or just protected himself, but…he saved me.  He healed me.  Why would he do that, if he was just going to throw me under the wagon later?”

“Because maybe knowing your big secret is more valuable than just letting you die?”

“Then why not tell the magistrate tonight?” he demanded.  “Why let his license be revoked — why let himself get kicked out of town, when he could have given me up?”

“Seventh’s prison, I don’t know!” she snapped, ruffling her hair again.  “Why did you even bring him back?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Lindulf shot back.

Izzy went suddenly quiet, and Lindulf shrank under the intensity of her stare.  “What exactly did the magistrate say to you.”

Lindulf scratched at the back of his neck, trying to recall.  “She said…the mission was of the utmost importance, and that…if we brought them to justice, but the mage died in the process, it would be the unfortunate cost of success.”

Silence.  He glanced up at Izzy, who had not moved, did not blink, and seemed to have stopped breathing entirely while she stared at him.  As he took a breath, though, she dropped her knife and buried her face back in her hands.  “I can’t believe how dense you are sometimes.”

“I am not,” he huffed.  “I did exactly what she said: I tried to take as many of them as I could, so Miryn could finish the mission—”

“Dumbass, she was telling you to let him die out there.”

He gaped at her, trying to force the words to make sense.  “What?”

“’If the mage dies in pursuit of justice, it will be an unfortunate cost of success’?  Are you kidding?  You never factored into this: she never intended for Miryn to make it back here.  No wonder she looked like something bit her in the ass when we brought him in.  When you said you were taking him to find those masks without us, I had a feeling she’d signed his death warrant, but I figured you’d at least be smart enough to just send him home, rather than actually dragging him out after those tainted rats.”

“Why would she want him dead?” Lindulf asked.  “He didn’t do anything.  …not maliciously, anyway.  He was defending himself.”

“You think she cares?” Izzy scoffed.  “The magistrate hates mages.  She’s why we have the mage laws: you think she wants to let one go free, escape the punishment she personally added to our city’s code?”

Scowling, he tore off another scrap of venison.  “It’s not right.”

“No, it’s not,” she sighed, chewing at her own slice again.  “But it’s the law.  What choice do we have?”

Lindulf didn’t know.  And that satisfied him even less.

[iturbide]

hello good evening im here for the extended directors cut of summer storm......... ive been here hemming and hawing about what i want to ask about BUT i think i have something...is there more you can tell us about the scene where lin defeats the werewolf?? im (clutches at own heart) owies for him

okay so I have been sitting on this for A Bit because as much as I love the aftermath of Lindulf with the werewolf, a director's cut would require context the audience did not have.

The audience has context, now.

The thing about Lindy having to kill the werewolf is that he absolutely did not want this to happen. He did not have to hurt a fellow werewolf, and desperately wanted the situation to be resolved without bloodshed at all. He's a werewolf, himself: he knows full well that they're not mindless beasts or threats to anyone, but that if they're acting this way, then something has to be very wrong, and he wants to find out what and set it right.

And then they actually ran across one.

He could very clearly tell that something was wrong when they found her, she clearly wasn't coherent and seemed extremely agitated -- but he really did try. He tried to reach out and talk to her, to get through to her and calm her down so that she could shift back, hoping they could bring her in without even needing to mention that she was a werewolf, playing it off instead as a traveler who got robbed on the road or maybe got a little too high on something...but where Lindulf chose to be entirely open, Izzy and Riculf chose to stay on the defensive. Izzy touched her spear, and Riculf pulled his axe out in full -- and that's what set off the werewolf, reading the weapon as a threat and throwing herself fully at it.

Lindulf really didn't have a choice, in the end. She couldn't listen to sense, through the wolfsbane still addling her senses, and he didn't want to die.

He still wishes that she didn't have to, though.