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Lupercalia Festival

The Festival (February 15th) CLOSED TO WEREWOLVES AND EAST END ALLIES

James has been anxiously anticipating this holiday ever since last year. Not out of excitement. But terror instead. Ever since their Alpha's abandonment of the pack, James has been steadily rising in the pack's esteem as the next potential Alpha and it has not been easy to do so. Greenwich went over well with the pack and he was hoping the good will from the territory claim would allow him some liberties with this festival but... as it is, he's afraid of falling out of their good graces.

Lupercalia is about change. Growing up and sacrifice are the themes but it's a surprisingly jovial holiday for anyone who has grown up with the tradition. James is not one of those few but he wouldn't dare try to change things too much.

For those that have been waiting to activate their curses; those that would oppose or hunt werewolves have been gathered and held for the express purpose of killing them. Up until now, they have been well taken care of and even before their death they're plied with drink and food and generally they're too drunk to fight back. It's considered good manners to make sure they're well fed and plenty sloshed before being killed.

Vampire allies, the few humans involved in the organization of the rave and werewolf hunters are all game. Traditionally, the elderly of the pack would be included in the list of sacrifices. Especially those directly related to the young wolves who are activated their curses, in the belief that the closer relation would be better for the sacrifice. In the interest of modernizing an already bloody holiday, James has arranged it so that is off the table. The move hasn't gone over well with the more conservative and traditional pack members, which makes James even less likely to step on toes today.

The activation of ones curse is considered to be a highly intimate moment and in the interest of keeping it more private, the sacrifices are taking place inside the house. When the time comes those with inactivated curses are ushered inside along with their sacrifice and they're left alone to complete it together.

Once the new werewolf emerges, they're integrated back into the festivities as a full fledged member of the pack.

The festival is also meant to honor those who have activated their curse since the last festival. And for just one night they're treated like kings and queens. (It isn't exactly kosher for women to activate their curses as natural born werewolves are hard to come by, but should it happen they are not frowned on).

Games, food and dancing are accessible to anyone who is eligible to attend. In the interest of safety the festival is being held in the courtyard of a beautiful home - some say it belongs to one of the oldest members of the pack, but no one is really sure - and there is enough security to ensure that only those that belong are present. Allies of the pack are welcomed just as easily as werewolves might be but if you're a vampire or even remotely smell like one you'll be getting grilled before being allowed in.

Wake (February 16th-17th) OPEN

In honor of the dead and their sacrifice (willing or not) James has elected to have there be a wake of sorts after the festival. It's in the same courtyard as the festival was but it's far more upbeat than any wake was thought to be, thanks to the liberal amount of alcohol and food. But should one wish to pay their respects to the dead, there is a less frivolous corner of the courtyard that has many candles and pieces of paper meant to write good wishes to the deceased. A candle can be lit in their memory and there are a few objects strewn about that look like offerings to their memory.

This little change from the norm is teetering on not going over well with the more established families in the pack. But so far everything seems to be going swimmingly...

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For her part, Skip is... obviously less than enthused about being here. The massacre was only two days ago, and she knows everyone is staring at her, wondering if she really managed to screw up. Because she might have attacked vampires in that darkness, but she might also have attacked living people. And killed them. There's still a week before she'll know for sure.

Which is far more terrifying than anything else in her life.

She's dressed in a purple and gold party dress with a white shawl over her shoulders to keep out the cold.

She stays on the outskirts of the party, mingling if someone comes too near or engages her, but she certainly isn't at the heart of everything today.

Initially, Kyle was welcomed graciously. He assumed that maybe Skip had something to do with the invitation and he'd accepted because he had no reason not to. Upon arriving, however, he was finding the event less and less welcoming. People were trying to force food and especially drinks on him and, when he'd finally had enough, he wasn't allowed to leave. It didn't occur to him until then that he was actually a prisoner.

Eventually he was taken aside, forcibly restrained, and dragged away. He suddenly became very aware of what was happening at the Festival, thanks to Skip's information about activating, and quickly began trying to bargain for his life. It didn't take long for him to realize that there had been a terrible mix-up somewhere, that he had been declared a vampire ally due to his presence at the rave and his reputation as a hunter. Which still bothered him, given that he hadn't hunted anyone since arrived. He demanded to speak to their leader, Skip, Simon, a werewolf lawyer he'd been told about, or anyone else he could possibly think of to name. Whatever he could do to survive.

[Feel free to run into him in initial festivities, after being restrained, or after eventually being freed and freaking out a little bit at the Festival before leaving.]

"Didn't end up dead, huh?"

It's easy to laugh a bit. To mock someone who almost got killed as part of the rituals of this insane holiday. Because it's much, much easier to prey on someone else's fear than to admit that she's terrified about what will happen on the next full moon.

"'S the problem with just wanderin' in without doin' your homework, cowboy." But it's not meanly said. If anything, it sounds like she's trying to tease him about all of it. "Y' get caught up in an awful lot an' in a bad way."

It's uncommon that the soldier doesn't try to keep things light. Near death is apparently one of those few occasions as he finds himself more angry than he's even allowed to express right now, let alone joke about. When he sees Skip, teasing him, Kyle scowls at her and it's very clear that he's not in the mood.

"Not now, Skip," he replies tersely. This had nothing to do with homework or preparation. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, someone else got confused, and suddenly Kyle was only a few minutes from being ritually murdered so that some wolf could get their power. It's hard to see them as being much better than vampires in his current mood.

"Ain' kiddin'." For a moment, all lightness and joke fall away. She looks just as serious as he does. Because, well, she was right there a few days ago. Wrong place, wrong time. And, for all she knows, the next full moon is going to see the end of everything she's worked hard to keep her temper in check to achieve.

"It ain' safe, an' no one 'round here is gonna apologise for that. 'Cept maybe James."

And, well. It's Lupercalia. A holiday she hates almost as much as she hates Valentine's Day. No. She actually hates Lupercalia more. "Dark hair. Indian. He's pretty likely t' be the next Alpha. You want somethin' done 'bout it? Officially? Talk t' him. Tell 'im I sent you."

"I already met the guy," Kyle mutters, running a hand through his hair. He's clearly anxious, antsy, shifting his weight and almost constantly looking around. The situation itself almost justifies the paranoia, but with his history in the military and the trauma that came with it, they're lucky he's not doing a lot worse. Still, no reason to stick around.

He winces slightly with the thought of seeing Alex dragged away by James, still not entirely sure what's going on and half convinced that everyone he's met since coming to London is tied up in all this supernatural bullshit somehow. "I have to go. We'll talk later, alright?"

"You decide you want some alcohol an' company t'night, you just ring or text. I can give you my address or meet you somewhere."

Whether she's serious or not, well.

To Skip, sex was the cure for almost every ill. But especially ones in the head. A scare, nerves, upset. Especially when liquor was applied as well.

"Come with me. Right now." He says lightly, a suggestion rather than a command. Kyle looks as shit as he feels and can't help but want the company to drown his sorrows, especially one as hot as Skip is. He knows sleeping with her in his current mood is a bad idea and hopes to avoid it, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't thinking about it. "Let's get a drink."

This has been a weird February.

She's almost been killed. Spent Valentine's Day with someone. And now, on Lupercalia.

"Fuck it," she says, shrugging her thin shoulders before she walks over to him, lacing her arm with one of his and moving right up against his side. "Long as it's away from here? I'm game."

"Good. Then let's get the fuck out of here," he murmurs into her ear, taking advantage of the proximity. Kyle moves quickly and easily in navigating through the crowd. He has to focus to suppress his anger and not pick a fight right now. Not when he hasn't figured out what the hell Alex was doing here and why the werewolves are ritually killing people. He needs time to think before making allies or enemies of the group. That's what the drinking is for.

It doesn't take long to find a nearby pub and Kyle begins pulling Skip along in that direction without a word. He wants to get shit-faced with her, have a good time, and make it home at the end of the night for all the nightmares to come. If he can manage that, the evening will have been as much of a success as he can make it.

(for Kyle and James)

Ever since she was a little girl, Alex had hated Lupercalia. It was for the good of the pack, her father had always said. Young wolves had to activate their curses, werewolf hunters had to be put down. It was for the good of the pack. Still, it always left a rotten taste in her mouth, so she hung around the sidelines, picking out the victims-to-be and half-imagining warning them what was about to happen.

When she picked Kyle out of the crowd, she didn't know what to think. Was he a hunter? Had he been lying to her this whole time? Or was this a mistake? If he was innocent, she had to protect him, and if he wasn't, she wanted an explanation. She ran after him, catching up in the doorway and shouting, "Let him go!" to the two men dragging him. One ignored her, and she kicked hard at the back of his knee. The other spun towards her just in time to get punched twice in the chest.

"Let him go," she snarled again. She pulled out her knife, intending to free Kyle from his bonds.

(for James)

Alex sat on the floor, her forearms resting on her bent knees and her back against the wall. She was trying her best to look nonchalant, like none of this bothered her at all, but everything about this bothered her. Her first Lupercalia in years, and of course it had gone terribly. Lupercalia was always terrible.

She could still hear the sounds of the party filtering in from outside. Apparently her violent outburst hadn't done much to ruin the mood. "So, what," she said to James, sounding like a sullen kid. She finally looked at him instead of the opposite wall and went on, "Are you gonna explain proud werewolf tradition to me? Tell me it's all for the good of the pack?"

Kyle was terrified and wasn't ashamed of that. He was very near to death in a situation he never could have predicted, not a warrior's death but an effective clerical error. It's why he pleaded and tried to reason with the two men dragging him off, why he was dropping names and doing everything in his power to remedy their mistake.

That's when his world turned upside down. The only thing more shocking than seeing Alex here would have been seeing Cooper or his dead sister. He wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if he'd known her all that long, but he felt like he knew her more than this. To see her here, free, meant she was either a werewolf or.. what? Was there even another option?

"What the fuck?" The words came without his brain's acknowledgement as he stared, watching her take out the men holding him. When she pulled the knife out, he instinctively took a step back. "Hey, whoa. Alex. What the hell?"

[Post-restraining?]

"I've been told you want to speak with James Memon?"

He wasn't about to just let Kyle know who he was, not when it could mean his life. Ever since The Incident he'd grown increasingly paranoid about things like strangers knowing who he was.

The only reason James came to see this one versus all the others was that he reportedly claimed he wasn't a werewolf hunter. Something James doubted greatly, but mistakes could happen - it'd be better for him to double check just to make sure.

This night just kept getting better and better. First he was dealing with the blow-black from changing method of sacrifice from those who'd been planning on dying tonight, and then this whole mess. He was going to talk to this Kyle later but members of his pack came first. Specifically new ones.

Reconciling the fierce girl he patrolled with and the one who tried to free Kyle with the girl sulking against the wall was... well, odd.

She looked so normal right now. James sighed at her questions, feeling more than a little run down at this point but deescalating Alex was his priority now.

"No."

He wondered if that would surprise her. She seemed to expect a lecture. (Which may have been coming.)

"It's obvious you don't like it. Nothing I'd say about it would change your mind in just one night."

Alex tried carefully not to react, but she couldn't help her frown deepening and her eyes narrowing slightly. She had expected a lecture, a really stern lecture. She looked away from James, back to the wall.

He was right, nothing he could say right now would change her views on the holiday. Thirteen years of growing up listening to her father extol its importance hadn't. Her mind wasn't going to get changed in just one night, or ever, as far as she was concerned. But if she wasn't getting a lecture, she assumed she was getting something worse. "What, then? Are you gonna toss me in a hole somewhere until I've learned my lesson? Or maybe sacrifice me in Kyle's place?"

The two men dragging Kyle along weren't going to be deterred by Alex's assault so quickly; despite the fact that one was still practically gasping for air thanks to those punches to his chest and the other was limping with the leg Alex kicked - they still stood to try and stop her, snarling just as viciously.

James was close enough to hear Alex shouting and immediately started pushing through the crowd that had quickly formed around them. Well, more like there had been a very sudden push back from the violence.

"Hey!"

He was still shoving through the suddenly thick crowd as he shouted. There would not be any unapproved bloodshed tonight, damnit!

Huh. James had to wonder what kind of pack she came from if that was her thought on her punishment. Instead of looking slightly horrified as he felt, James snorted in response to the options Alex tossed his way.

"Don't be so dramatic. I don't even think my -," my predecessor, he was about to say. But he wasn't Alpha yet. "our last Alpha would have done something that drastic."

"But. I can't just let you get away with doing that. You know that."

It'd be seen as weak should he just allow Alex to walk away without any consequences for what she'd done. Admittedly, he was beating around the bush now because he got a little pleasure out of watching her squirm with the possibilities of what could be done.

James has been....well, hovering is too strong of a word. Keeping an eye on Skip? since the massacre. While he doesn't consider The Incident to be at all on the same level as what Skip went through, he knows a little about trying to process some bullshit trauma in public.

Instead of insisting she try to fake it or telling her to go home even - mostly because he wants to keep keeping an eye on her - James offers her a very cold bottle of vodka from behind the bar.

"Here."

The seal is still intact, and he didn't know if she was at the point yet where drinking something straight sounded like a good idea.

"You look like you could use it."

Skip looks at the bottle and reaches over the bar to grab a whiskey tumbler. Then, she opens the bottle and pours what's probably a good two or three shots into the glass before raising it to him and taking a healthy drink of it. Almost like it's water.

After a moment of waiting for the burn to go away, she takes another drink.

"Fuckin' hate Valentine's Day," she mutters after she swallows that mouthful. "Fuckin' hate Lupercalia. And really hate the fucker who decided they should be right t'gether."

Once there are drinks in front of them, Skip holds hers up for a toast. She smiles, but there's something darker in her eyes. And then she offers the tribute for the drink.

"Fuck Lupercalia."

It's not said loudly. Just an offer to only him.

James only arches his brow in response to her little toast and watches her practically pour the vodka down her throat. The urge to just...take the glass away from her and let her drink from the bottle itself is strong, but he refrains in favor of letting her do what she wants right now.

"Probably a romantic."

He says it with disdain.

"Get married on a day for 'love' and have the 'wedding night' be the first few hours of a day of fertility."

She takes another long drink before she sets her almost empty glass down and runs her index finger around the rim.

"So fucking romantic, my family. 'S what me da did every time an' what Pat did an' what I'm gonna fuckin' do."

Huh. Now that he didn't know. James wasn't long for the world of werewolves, and as far as marriage was concerned he only knew Indian weddings intimately. His older sisters were all married.

"Even if your ah - fiance - doesn't want to?"

"Like he's going to argue with my da. 'Sides, if he's at all superstitious? He'll think it sounds like a great fuckin' idea."

She finished the liquor in the glass and looked at the bottle, as if contemplating whether she wants more.

"Sounds like a blast," he sounded tired as he said it.

The idea of a wedding seemed so far away from now. Especially with everything that had been happening as of late. The fact that her fiance and James were one in the same person was barely registering on his radar anymore. He'd gotten comfortable being the 'other man'.

Along with a few others he was aware of.

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Lupercalia Festival

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