[Private] What's in a Kith?

Gavin had been caught up in the whirlwind of adventure and turmoil that came with the death of poor Yasmin. It's not that he'd forgotten Rowan's offer to experiment with changing Gavin's kith to something other than what his keeper had made him, he'd just been entirely too busy. It had taken him some time to pay off the sleep mortgage he had accrued in Callahan's lab. Further to that, he'd had to play the undesired attention of two gangs off on each other to buy himself a reprieve. It was had been a ruse to convince the Black Dragons that he'd been affiliated with the other group and deflect them off his trail: appear to be going to their territories a few times and disappearing before being seen by the other group. The heat from the second gang hadn't cooked off yet; that was something yet to be handled. 

As much as the feeling of impending dread from the failed Spring rite weighed on Gavin's mind, he had to admit he was doing quite well in the broader sense within the Freehold. He'd earned some adulation with Summer for helping to save a few mundane lives and incidentally seal up some of Spring's justice. It had left him a strange mix of giddy and nervous. 

If Spring's contracts of renewal were to fail, as he expected, the liability of Gavin's claws would be at its highest. This was a great time to be testing if he could perhaps be contained by a friendly action before things got out of hand. Gavin suggested one of the less used trail areas he'd had some experience with in his day-job as a trail guide: a place where he knew the area and its secret hideaways. Gavin brought his usual kit with some extra water and food in the case of something going awry and needing to hunker down. He'd picked a place where he knew wild horses were a fairly common encounter. It was his practice to maintain options and be prepared. The presence of horses he always found comforting. They did not feel the same of him however, not since his return. 

"Found your way alright, yeah?"

He nodded at the arrival. "More than I'd care to admit. Bit of a thing when you grow up in the bush where everything can kill you, yeah? Less than I remember being though. Some stuff didn't come back with me," Gavin was sure the last part was a shared affliction.

Turning to face his arriving compatriot, his birdlike eyes adjusted quickly to the new direction of the light. "Nah, it's more of a just in case thing. I like to be reasonably prepared for the elements in case the situation changes. It would do terrible for my reputation as a guide, in either of our worlds, if I were to get all FIGJAM and die of easily preventable exposure."

Rowan's read on him was pretty clean if lacking in depth. He sensed that Gavin enjoyed being out in this environment and was quite comfortable. Even without an explanation of the colloquialism, he would know it was a layered way to imply he was good at his jobs, but not so arrogant as to play around with safety. There was a deep undercurrent of anxiety, but he didn't notice any link between it and the experiment of the evening--perhaps the clarity of a connection was blurred by competing hope.

"I even brought a little extra survival supplies for you. Again, just in case," he shrugged like he was a bit self-conscious of his 'concern for the unlikely' and deflected his inner-demon of self-doubt while portioning out a smaller secondary pack.

"How're you doing?" Gavin had noticed the nervous energy Rowan had at Ostara which culminated in delaying the experiment at that time. The shadow play on Rowan's face had made him a bit inscrutable and he hoped a voiced answer would clear things up.

Read on Rowan, Wits + Empathy rolled 4 dice and got 0 successes. 5 6 4 6

At the mention of the near-death experience in the desert, Gavin grew a vaguely haunted look and nodded slowly for a time after that. "You're here though. Still with us, that is. That's something. You learned from it. Like I learned to bring extra and always respect nature."

Hubris. There was that word again for the second time in as many weeks. Cinder had thrown that one at him the last time around. He just wanted to fix things. To save a lot of people a lot of pain. That's what Gavin liked to think was behind his actions. It was a much nobler version than the truth. He really wanted to be less afraid. 

"Nature gives me clarity. It's a constant reminder of my mortality. With these ..." pausing to wave his reptilian clawed hand. "If I hang out with Lost, I don't need reminders of others' mortality. I see it in their faces. With just mundane people for too long though, I can forget. I can never be allowed to forget," he punctuated the last statement with grim certainty. Even with Rowan's confident read on Gavin's comportment, he couldn't tell if Gavin was speaking from experience or merely worry. "Not like this anyway."

"I do have a few questions. What's it like to change to something else? Does it feel different? Do you think differently? Do you just know you can do the thing the other kith specializes in?" his characteristic manic energy was surfacing.

"Oh yeah, I do remember that part. That's the part that interests me. If it was only surface deep, it'd just be a temporary removal of that reminder to check myself, like when I'm around the mundane too long. Can't have that." He carried that energy of interest forward.

Lean into it. Gavin wondered if it would even be possible for him to do that. He concluded that he could after some consideration. It wouldn't be risk-free though. 

"That's not going to be the easiest thing. Giving myself over to it, that is. I've spent years away from others, either in the Hedge or out here in the bush, practicing restraint and rigid control. I have very few channels where I can safely let my instincts run free," it was only fair to flag the situation to his compatriot, since it had occurred to him that Rowan might be sizing him up for learning the ins and outs of his kith to maybe add it to his repertoire. Is he only considering things through the perspective of kith and perhaps his own seeming? Gavin found himself pulling back on the reigns of his excitement, reminded of the need for control.

"What's your startle response?" he asked in obfuscated rhetoric, "Step away, scare, freeze, run, hide, deflect, throat-punch, mind control?" He unloaded a barrage of reasonable to escalating reflexes and pantomimed them as he went--for mind control he held two fingers to each temple with a wide eyed expression.

When it looked like Rowan had considered his answer and was about to give it Gavin punctuated his point with a flat matter of fact affect. 

"Mine's eviscerate."

Gavin could see Rowan was trying to connect with his meaning. Fight or flight was the right direction. It simply didn't capture the distance down that road Gavin had meant though. Gavin could transform into a bear right now start growling menacingly and he'd start to see fight or flight from Rowan. How could Gavin translate an instinct like his? Tickle him and you risk losing an arm. A jump scare and you're counting how many ribs you still have intact before you bleed out.

That just covers the reflexes and excess capacity for violent results. 

What person could understand an instinct where your limbs built up a longing ache that could only be briefly sated when bathed in the warmth of fresh blood? Gavin doubted Rowan's vision of fight or flight had room for an ecstatic trance that could peak in a shower of arterial spray from multiple victims. His Keeper built him not to be the most difficult prey in his realm, but the most dangerous prey. To suit that purpose he was made to take animal joy from the murder. 

People that take pleasure in the deaths of others generally attract unflattering descriptors and titles. 

Gavin could tell Rowan was doing a few loops of his own managing the internal machinery. Perhaps there was some room for understanding to be found in the direction of similar patterns. 

"Instincts in people maybe," Gavin was no psychologist. "You know much about birds? Ever hear of a shrike?" he paused momentarily to note Rowan was following along. His gregarious and playful demeanor turned serious.

"It's known as the Butcher Bird: it's kind of like the 'Vlad the Impaler' of birds. It skewers its prey on available spikes in its environment after breaking necks and such to stun or kill. It will do this to excess and put on a gruesome display of its future meals. It doesn't eat everything it kills. It kills for fun and practice. Instincts compel that behaviour."

"I have been made to be this way. You are right. I am not responsible for that," Rowan did have some good points and they were probably useful for most others. "Think for a moment though. Do you think people are going to care about where the blame for my actions land if half a dozen bodies are on the ground on the strip?" Gavin paused hard looking like he was considering saying something more and struggling. "Or worse."

"There's no room for me to go easy on myself. It's better for everyone else. I need to be relentlessly careful."

An ounce of pure truth poured out of an inner exhaustion, "I want a minute where I can look at another person and don't have to silence the darkness." 

Gavin worried that in saying enough he had also said too much. There could be no friends though if he always had to hide. It was a risk.

He scanned his companion for signs he was right worry.

The pair's struggles were quite similar. Similar in the way a funhouse mirror reflects a dark and twisted form. Rowan felt disconnected from his body. Gavin struggled to hear anything but his own body's commands. In both cases it was action without input. The consequences would always come free of charge and accept no refused delivery. 

He had escaped Arcadia. That was true. It was a great accomplishment all on its own, not that he remembered much of it. Gavin had set about learning the esoteric to return some structure to his experiences there and allow him to scaffold his sense of self and build something with what remained. It was a hunger he could feed. 

He had been listening intently, nodding at points confirming understanding and reflecting on his own version of the truth given voice. 

Gavin started to relax a bit when he got the sense Rowan held a better understanding than he gave him credit. It could be worth sounding out the suggestion. It also had the effect of thoroughly dampening his hopes on what a Kith change might do for him. It was still something he was interested in knowing for sure though.

"I do too. Maybe if I understand all the things. Somewhere in the mess I will find a way to be in charge full time. Also, you got to keep busy, right?" Their similarities were starting to feel a little spooky. Gavin even had trouble shutting up at times. He chuckled at the absurdity of it all.

"Alright. Say I was interested in taming or exorcising these demons--the commands of reflex and urge. Who would I talk to about that mess?"

Gavin copied the contact into his phone. He was slow about his movements in the use of the device. He was taking care to not destroy a third one. The most recent incident he had punctured the battery and it ended up bursting into flames. That lesson led him to keeping his contact list in the cloud. "M I T C H E L C A R R," spelled out deliberately to manage his pace. 

He nodded at the specialization imagining the parallels between the driven nature of Elementals and Beasts couldn't be so far off as to be useless. Rowan seemed to be getting benefit enough to mention it and that wasn't worth nothing to Gavin. 

"Right, the contract," he shifted his feet to settle his nerves. "I'm still good for it. Mostly adjusting expectations for it to be a more scientific experience. No chance at Panacea here."

"So Whisperwisp, Gravewright, and Coldskin were the options, yeah? Which one did you try first?"