Civil Communication

Mr James Blood,

Hoping this finds you. I've been informed that you often frequent this area of Diagon, so I hope this makes it into you hands in time.

I'd like to request a meeting with you and your pack. Some of your more established wolves may know my name. I have significant experience with the werewolf community and I would like to discuss the goals and needs of your pack. If you and your pack would meet me in the clearing beneath the smallest mountain in the Hogsmeade wilderness, approximately a mile north of the village, on January -- at noon, I'd like to open a line of communication that you may find profitable.

Jack Dyllan

Jack waited patiently in the clearing for James Blood and his pack. Her Gytrash Elliot was wandering the nearby forest very happily, in his usual shape of a wolfhound, though Jack noticed that he was significantly larger than usual. She supposed he suspected the potential dangers they would be facing. Or perhaps it was just a side of him being back in the wilderness was coaxing out. Jack was grateful for his presence, none the less.

The steaks had been delivered in an elegant chest, and the wolfsbane had arrived in an ornate jug. Jack knew that this communication with the pack needed to come from her, so she had wrapped the steaks in butcher paper before tossing them all into a large burlap sack, which was now properly blood stained. She had divided the wolfsbane into proper portions into flasks. The sack and flasks had been set out on a fallen log. This seemed more appropriate, because it seemed much more in her own vein of thought. She wanted this communication to be between her and Blood, not the Ministry and Blood.

All she had to do now was wait. And wait.

One of the younger males in the patrol had brought the letter. It had passed through Moira, probably because it had Khaat's scent on it, before getting to him.

He had agreed to go meet with Dyllan. He didn't bother with connections to anyone but the leaders of other packs, but his prime connections were still to the Greyback pack. His roots were there, and some of the Greyback pack supported James's mission.

He wasn't fool enough to not bring pack members along to Hogsmeade, but he stationed them within earshot and no further in. He wanted no chance that the Ministry would net them. If it was an ambush, he figured he could fight his way out. There were few things that could slow him down much if he were fully transfigured.

He smelled the blood when he apparated in. Not human blood--he could taste that much on the air. He knew he wasn't alone, though. He walked a few paces in the clearing, his boots crunching under the snow and the lingering autumn leaves beneath the snow cover.

He saw the bag first and then the flasks. It was either bait or an offering. Interesting. He kept a bit of a distance, though.

"Come out," he called. "I won't kill you." Under his breath, he breathed, "Yet..."

Jack had gotten thirsty in her wait, and had strode towards the small brook at the edge of the clearing to fill up her canteen. She was not fond of using magic around werewolves - she had found that a strain of them distrusted it as they were taken over by their more animalistic side - and she knew they trusted those who knew how to live on the wilder side of the world. She filled her canteen, being careful not to wet the bracelet of hair around her wrist, before she heard a voice behind her.

She straightened up and turned, approaching the center of the clearing, where the steaks and flasks waited. "Sorry about that," she explained on her approach. "I was parched - needed to fill my canteen."

She glanced to the log. "Right. This is for you and your pack. Steaks for the full moon, or if any of your pack is having difficulty holding down a job, and a nice supply of Wolfsbane." She glanced around. "I was hoping you pack would be here. I like open communication, and I would like to be in communication with you and your pack."

She paused. She had a lot more to say, about why she was here, and about her connections, and about her past with werewolves, but she waited for the questions to come. She still needed to feel James Blood out. So she ended with, "I'm Jack Dyllan. I assume you're James Blood."

James saw the small young woman emerge from the woods near the brook.  He listened as she spoke, and he attempted to see if he smelled anyone else.  All he smelled was her scent.

"Oh, yes," he said, the memory coming back to him.  "We've met before.  You're the ginger from the alley." He remembered her being in the alley with Edward Donohue.  It was the night he had almost succeeded in getting the stone and killing Khaat Lupin, all in the same attack. Not that the steak she'd tossed him hadn't been appealing, but the temptation to go after such a little spirited human had been far more distracting. And in the process, while he'd gone after Ginger, the Lupin bodyguard had swept away his prey for the night.

He glanced towards the log where the steak and the bottles were. So, a negotiation then.  He had a great many thoughts at the moment, and he gave her the very slightest shadow of a sardonic smile.

"Talk. That's why you're here? Alright. You've bought yourself some time. So, talk. What's on your mind, Ginger?"

Jack had almost forgotten about the previous run in with James Blood, as she was sort of always getting into those situations. He had looked familiar, but she had not been able to fully place why and where. However, he had been kind enough to remind her. She nodded. "So we have."

He bid her speak. So she spoke. "I used to be Head of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. While there, I became the point person for werewolf relations. I have not willingly been inside of the Ministry of Magic in almost a year now, so don't think this is a Ministry sanctioned meeting. I was hoping to re-open contact with the pack. Help you guys with your needs and try to create a civil relationship between you and the Ministry. As you can imagine, they're not very happy with your mission to destroy Khaat Lupin."

"So, I'm to believe you're doing this all on your own, then?" he found that hard to believe. "You come to see me, with no back up, in the middle of nowhere, at this hour." He laughed, amused. "You're either crazy, or you've got a hero complex...or you're lying.

"As for the Ministry, good. Let them come. They're a bit slow on the uptake, but then they generally are. If they want this to stop, then its simple. Give her to me. Look, we all know she's not a saint. You humans don't value life of one person over the whole. Give her to me, and all this will go away--just-like-magic." He pointed his last words in a bit of irony.

He was lying, of course, and he didn't expect her to buy a word of it.

Humans were all the same, really. They believed they were the determinants of all the planet values and operating systems, and that guiled James. Their power for the last age was coming by arrogance and little more. Humans were not the most plentiful species, after all. There were certainly other larger ones. Nor were they the smarter ones or the stronger ones. They were just arrogant and took pleasure in destroying all they came in contact with.

James' plan was elementary. He was simply going to use their own strategy against them until he'd destroyed them.

Jack kept her gaze carefully fixed on James, keeping her expression clear and her posture loose. She was not treating this like the most important meeting in the world, and she was not treating it like a casual hang out. It just was, it just existed. Jack had learned to keep things on an even keel meant bringing yourself to neutral. She was going off instinct, something she was sure Blood understood perfectly.

"You know I'm not lying," Jack said. "There's not a human around. The nearest is in the village, and you would have smelled one otherwise. Of course, they could be in the skies, or covering their scent, but what purpose would that have. They would be unable to really do anything assist me. I have no physical evidence of sanity but you can judge for yourself. And you'll just have to trust me when I say I am not a hero."

She paused. "My motivation is simple. I feel deeply connected to the werewolf community, and your pack is making it difficult for your brethren to be accepted. I imagine this is part of your plan and, if not, only helps, but I just wish to find ways to meet your own needs without harming the desires of others. I come partially out of obligation to my friends."

He told her what she wanted and she shook her head. "That's not what I mean. That's a means to the end, but what end. Why do you want Khaat? Is the whole point of this all for Khaat's head on a platter? Surely there's more ambition in you than that. Is your hope to destroy the most political family in Britain? That, I'd understand. But to simply possess Khaat Lupin?" She was not satisfied.

He was a bit surprised at first that she could keep up. Then he merely got a bit annoyed at her words. Typical human skewed thinking.

"To be accepted?" he glared at her, irked. "My brothers do not need to be accepted! We've been fighting to be 'accepted' for hundreds of years!" His voice became an angry hiss now. "And, here's the truth, we don't need your acceptance!  You are not the superior species!

"We're stronger, faster, and, when it comes to survival, we're infinitely smarter.  We don't kill our own, we don't plot and plan against each other, and we kill when we need to. Not for sport.  

"I'm not doing this for sport either! I'm doing this because its the only way we'll survive human egotism and stupidity!  Your kind can't touch anything it doesn't decimate!  We've had enough.  

"As for the Lupins, they've done the most damage of all!  The famous Professor RJ Lupin, most famous werewolf of our time, and his family spreads nothing but vile about how horrid it is to be a werewolf. They deserve what they get."

Jack kept her cool. "I'm speaking with the words of the werewolves I've worked with. The ones who have the basic need all humans have, to be accepted. I have to fight for it every day as well. It's not a problem only for werewolves, just one with more obvious obstacles. Obstacles that can be dismantled if we approach them properly."

She could see that leading a pack had given him power, and power had gone to his head. He was not speaking with logic or sense, but with desire and malice. "I've never said one was superior. I believe in equality, but the fact of the matter is that humans have the power. I know it's not fair. Just as it's not fair that it's mostly white male humans who hold that power. The problem is, werewolves do have bad press, and killing Khaat Lupin will be even worse. They will send hunters after werewolves. Your pelts will be worth galleons, your teeth sold as trinkets. And that's not what I want to see happen. Righting a wrong with murder has never worked for anyone in the past. And killing a werewolf's child is committing a crime against your own kind."

"Get with the plan, Ginger," he said. "I am not doing this in secret. I have never intended for this to be quiet. Those werewolves that intend to remain as doormats will be casualties. That's the cost of war. And this is war.

"Those who are wise enough to stand up for themselves will also protect themselves. And that's not fair either, but I am not human. By your own laws, I am an animal that's expected to register in the very same process as they catalog their canines. I don't need to think about fair or not fair.

"This is survival of the fittest. And we are the fittest. Your minister is an arrogant man that has ridden on his brother's fame to try to find his own greatness. Looks like its wearing thin, though," he laughed bitterly. "Your own kind make a mockery of him at every turn, even when he's the very person you need to save you all from yourselves. Let's not talk about fairness, shall we? You humans wouldn't know loyalty if it bit you in the ass. Hypocrites, all of you.

"Khaat Lupin is mine. I've marked her. Look at her! Go see for yourself. Your most powerful spells can't change that. I've marked her, I've openly tracked her, I know her scent, I know how she tastes when her scent is on the wind. I can hear her voice when she's calm, and I can feel her fear. If you know so much about hunting, then you know the rules of the hunt say she's mine. We don't ask our prey if they want to be hunted. We take what is ours. And, incidently, she has something I want. So, consider her a value package. A two for one. I know how you humans love a bargain."