#*tristan

[softsimulation]

next stop, wakaba camp 🏕️

(bus shot was inspired by @stellarfalls so thank u bree ily)

[softsimulation]

welcome to camp wakaba, time to get settled 🪷

[softsimulation]

why would tristan be in university when he could be globetrotting?

[thecountesselizabeth]

[patronwrites-blog]

i have to cut most of this, so i might as well share it!

  “You probably could pick up some basic shaman shit, you know, if you ever actually wanted to,” Tristan said. “Not that I’m offering. But all that praying is great practice for entering shamanic trance.”

“I’ll pass on the New Age shit, thanks.”

“This New Age shit is saving you a hospital bill in the thousands. Show some respect.”

Before Max could think up a suitably devastating retort, he saw a familiar building in the distance, the sign above it a crackling electric blue. In real life, Jazz Thieves was several neighborhoods away from his own, not to mention that Max had never approached Jazz Thieves on a night when it didn’t have a line reaching around the block waiting to get in, or at least one fight breaking out across the street. “All right, that’s not supposed to be there,” he blurted out.

Tristan followed his gaze and smiled thinly. “But it’s clearly very close to your heart.” The wind fanned his hair across his forehead. His loping stride elongated further so that Max nearly had to jog to keep up. “Let’s go check it out.”

“I’d rather not,” Max began to say, before a canine form poked its head out from between the doors. Its head bobbed as it sniffed the air. Max stopped short, stunned speechless. With a brisk and lively step, the canine trotted closer. It was a large white wolf that came up to Max’s hip, easily. Max could imagine the eyes — clear, almost colorless, a blue so pale they were nearly gray.

Tristan, watching, groaned. “My god, Max, you’re kidding. Still?”

“Shut up,” Max snarled, and knelt in the middle of the quiet street. There had been no cars whatsoever as they walked, though he’d occasionally heard the sound of a train rumbling. He didn’t fear oncoming traffic. Neither did the white wolf, which turned its elegantly pointed head towards them. After another careful sniff of the air, it came towards Max. Max held his arms out, and the big wolf nuzzled into them for an embrace. It had a clean and wintry scent, and its eyes were just as he’d imagined. Max closed his eyes and ran his hands through the wolf’s long, silky fur. The wolf was so warm and solid and real Max could easily forget that he was in trance, that nothing here was really happening.

“Cameron’s wolf form doesn’t look like that,” Tristan said.

“Just shut up.” The wolf whuffed softly at Max’s ear, and Max held on more tightly. After suffering this a few moments longer, the wolf stepped away, and Max had to let the creature go. It sat on its haunches, tail swishing as it regarded Max through those wild, intelligent eyes. Max felt his own eyes stinging and wiped his sleeve across them, hoping Tristan wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t help reaching out again to pet the wolf between its ears. The wolf bowed its head, regally accepting the attention.

“How many times exactly did Cameron cheat on you before you dumped him?” Tristan wondered to the air. “I’m just talking about the times you found out while you two were still dating, not the actual, objective facts you only found out about later, once people stopped pitying how bad he took you in with all his bullshit and actually told you the truth.”

“Jesus, Tristan, shut up!”

The wolf looked at Max unblinkingly until Max began petting it again.

“He doesn’t deserve to be here,” Tristan said. “He doesn’t deserve the way you still think of him. When you love someone like that, you give them a piece of yourself that makes it easy for them to use you. That’s his reward for treating you the way that he did?”

“If that’s what happens then that’s what happens,” Max said. The wolf tilted its head insistently, so that Max could scratch its head better. Cameron had always liked to be petted and cosseted. Max had never minded. It had caused such a sweet and blissful look to cross Cameron’s face as he drifted off, head in Max’s lap. People who only knew Cameron as a showboat, as a flirt and a liar, didn’t understand and never had. Never would. “I wasn’t good to him either.”

“I didn’t ask that, and I’m not kidding, Max. Speaking strictly professionally here, as a shaman trying to heal you and advise you — you’re really okay with letting Cameron Blake, of all people, walk around with a piece of your heart?”

“I loved him. I loved him a whole lot. It seems fair.” Max withdrew his hand and looked at the wolf once more. It tilted its head, its tail steadily wagging.

Cameron had never actually permitted Max to see him in his wolf form, though he’d relented at least enough in the face of Max’s curiosity to disclose what he looked like while changed. He had said he was dangerous in his wolf form — uncontrollable. Max didn’t see the difference between that, and Cameron any other day of the month, but Cameron had ended the discussion there. It was one of very few topics of conversation that Cameron flatly refused to pursue.

“He’s the very first thing that came by. In fact, he came to you,” Tristan observed. “Hmm. All right, Cameron, shoo.”

[patronwrites-blog]

“Jon doesn’t have a crush on TJ,” Max said. The waitress came by to collect their plates, and Max ordered a coffee, because caffeine helped with migraines and Tristan was well on his way to giving him one. Juliana was making her own contribution to the migraine effort by the hesitant sidelong look she was giving Max. “Oh come on. He doesn’t! If he was scared of freaking TJ out with para shit, he wouldn’t have introduced TJ to those two. They’re as para as you fucking get.”

“Do you even know what they are?” Tristan said with narrowed eyes.

“They’re in the Prince’s circle, obviously they’re para. They felt para, anyway,” Max said with a shrug. He remembered the snowy glow of Sade’s skin, the uncanny precision and smoothness of Chris’s movement. Tristan looked openly contemptuous. Rattled, Max snapped, “Well, they’re not human, whatever they are. I’ve never met a vampire’s Pet before and I have no idea what the hell a Construct is, no.”

“Well, Max, a Construct is constructed,” Tristan said, slowly, drawing out the syllables as though he were speaking to a child. Juliana hit him on the shoulder, and Tristan desisted, though he still looked at Max as though Max were being deliberately dull. “Only a high-level artificer-mage can make one. They build the shell out of whatever — wood, plexiglass, steel, whatever they want — and call a spirit from whatever plane. If a spirit exists that adheres to the master’s requirements, the master can bring that spirit over and house it in that shell.”

“So Chris is motherfucking Pinocchio?”

Tristan started laughing so hard he choked on his beer and started hiccuping. He had to put his head down. Juliana banged on his back, looking up at the ceiling in a most prayerful fashion, as though she were entreating the Lord for the patience not to let Tristan laugh himself to death. “Can you please ask him that?” Tristan wheezed. “While I watch?”

“No,” Max said. His coffee arrived and he nursed it and his injured pride both, blowing on it till he could take a sip without scalding his lips.

Finally, Tristan collected himself enough to continue. “The spirit brings life to that shell, makes it fully organic. But the master doesn’t create the spirit — the spirit is answerable only to itself and the contract that came with its shell. A master that buries their contract in nitpicky bullshit won’t find a spirit who accepts it, even though it’s the easiest way for a spirit to come over, you know, bridge and shell already in place and everything. But most spirits would rather come the long way than deal with all the bullshit. With Chris — this is just what I hear — the master tried to pull a fast one and switch the contract on him after Chris had settled into the shell. So Chris killed him and went solo.”

“And that’s the guy Jon lives with? That’s his guardian?” Max said, appalled.

“Guess so. No one’s going to hassle Jon with any petty bullshit, that’s for sure.” Tristan finished his beer and smothered a repulsive belch. “Honestly, considering how susceptible Jon is to petty bullshit, you should be glad for him.”

“What about Sade?” Max demanded.

“Sade’s a typical Pet,” Tristan said with a shrug. “Glenn drinks only from him. He’s been with Glenn a considerable while. He started out human, but Pets, after a while they wind up kind of demi-vamp, since any loving vamp wants to protect their own. Only the real ancient vamps can really have one, seeing as they’re the only ones with the self-control to do what’s necessary, bringing their Pet to death’s door and back without ever letting them step one toe past that threshold. A regular vamp tries that shit, all they’ll do is make a new vamp. Any asshole can do that.”

“So, what, Sade’s a glorified Jar, then?”

Tristan snorted. “Like your boy Gem? One of a string of human beggars, oh-so-eager for the pleasure and power only a vampire can give them, begging for the chance to shed their blood for Daddy? No. To use their lingo, Sade is a Chalice, and a very fine one. If Gem were a really good boy for a long damned time to the same old vampire fart, he might possibly have a shot at being considered as an extra Chalice, but a Pet? I sincerely doubt it. Glenn’s the only vampire in town that can make them.”

“What, he kill the rest of them?” Max said sourly, taking a long, bracing sip of coffee.

“As it happens, yeah.”