AlreadyForgiven

^^Wisdom. A good talk with Richard is needed. I suspect he might struggle a touch but Patrick will get him past it.

Whelp, I was wrong, Richard really is a bit naïve!

I'm hoping Richard actually knew. It was likely him who pinched a condom...

Yeah, have to echo some of the sentiment here. Getting them in the same room should have been months away at least, she clearly isn't ready for that. Devyn himself should have had advance warning too. Having her write apologies to him (with no intention they be actually sent) should happen first, but I doubt she'd even be ready for that yet.

Absolutely worth waiting for, wonderful tenderness and understanding.

*Channels the collective fury of the nation just north of him* It's a KILT, not a skirt Richard!!! Ahem. Sorry, back to the story...

I found the first part of this chapter profoundly beautiful. The melancholy of the ritual, the acknowledgement that it wasn't enough, that nothing ever could be... stunning.

Heh. Benefits of reading this all in one go without waiting between chapters - I remember exactly where the notes are. Loving the way this is shaping up.

She was faking it. Jason could almost guarantee it. How long had she been left alone in the house, free to do whatever she wanted? The whole thing had been staged to make Richard let her stay. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings... well, not the mouth in this case, but still. Hopefully she's off somewhere to get the help she's desperately needed for a long, long time.

“If you step out that door, you will never be welcome here again,” Margaret said loudly. Straight to a nuclear option you can't possibly be willing to carry through. Never a good move, will just teach the guy your warnings are toothless. I'd usually agree, but Jason has already been thinking that the family was happy before he arrived and it was him moving in that ruined everything. He doesn't have the perspective of the reader, unfortunately.

Yeah, 'it's fine, she's in therapy' is a bit of a stretch here, Richard. There's no way in hell she could have changed enough to be safe around the boys yet, even with the best psych help in the world.

I'm guessing Erith has seperated entirely from his wolf self Gara - Dissociative Identity Disorder. Nowhere near as dangerous as Hollywood would have you believe, though it potentially can be. At least his teachers seem aware. Or he has an identical twin. Would werewolves be able to smell the difference if he did?

My mind is going back to the calico that blessed baby Dylan in Damian's Wolf - pretty sure it was mentioned that the religion was believed to have been extinct...

Oh Richard - I know he's got a lot on his plate, and the boys are certainly old enough to be alone... but not so soon. I'd definitely be leaving them with the pack, just for peace of mind if nothing else. Suspect he's going to regret this.

I think a lot comes down to timing. I was adopted at birth myself, my sister isn't related to me by blood but the concept of having any kind of sexual encounter there repulses me on a fundamental level. Jason and Devyn though; they only just met each other. It isn't the psychological 'sibling=off limits' that would be an issue I wouldn't have thought, more the pressure of societal norms. Oddly, a lot of research into siblings separated at birth who subsequently fall for each other points at smell being a factor. Humans do use it far more than we think - liking someone's scent seems to mean your immune systems are compatible for long term living in close proximity to each other. We also like people with similar features, give someone 8 pictures of people and they can guess who is partnered with who with surprising accuracy. Tl;Dr- the sibling avoidance and mate attraction parts of our brains are two very different systems.

...and yet I still feel pity for her. Unfortunately the time for therapy to prevent her from ending up this twisted was long before the story started. It really didn't have to end up this way. I'd like to think she'll seek it out now, at her lowest point, but somehow I doubt she's going to. Obviously nothing excuses her behaviour, and it's likely far too late to get her family back, but not too late to salvage something of her life if she puts the effort in. Given how well she deals with guilt though, I dread to think how she's going to react to this. Richard obviously loved her at some point, I think he was unwilling to see she'd changed - good on him for coming to his senses, even if it did take a serious injury to a son to manage it. I imagine if we had the story of Margaret's life up to this point in full she'd be an absolutely tragic figure. I severely doubt she was always the person we love to hate here. Bloody good job on your bad guy, Yeoldebard. Not a moustache-twirl in sight.

Fascinating to see which details interest folk! Jinx certainly took more from it than Finn likely intended; he essentially just used a language he doesn't understand and luckily said the right thing. It will be explained eventually, don't worry... Next chapter already racked up to come out on Friday. Thank you again for reading!

^^all of this. Regardless of feeling that I understand how she could have ended up in this state, there's a limit to the sympathy when it boils over into abuse.

Props on the hippocampus stuff, makes perfect sense to the psychologist. I wonder if it translates to better spacial memory in elves too - they'd likely rarely forget where they left their car keys!

Wow, I'm not going to be popular among these comments! Even more convinced now that Margaret is just terrified for her son - she has to know what happened to the last born-wolf shifter. Her reason for changing while pregnant has to have been to save both their lives. Yes, she needs therapy. Yes, she's projecting grief, but just as much she's scared of losing him utterly to his more feral nature. I get it, I really do - but her actions are pushing him away. Hence therapy.

I think I'm getting quite a different impression of Margaret than most readers. Absolutely, seen from the point of view of the boys she's not fun, but that's probably more because they don't grasp her motivations. We don't know her backstory, why she had to change while pregnant despite knowing the effect it would have on her unborn child - whatever it was must have been incredibly traumatic (I'm suspecting it was a flight from a Silver Hand attack). Her attitudes are coloured by whatever she's been through, you can tell by the way she won't let Devyn off their property for fear of werewolf hunter's despite there having been no mentions of attacks in the area. It's all coming from fear of her child being hurt, and if anything I feel sorry for her. Then again, I assume assholes cutting me up in traffic have their reasons to be somewhere fast. Maybe I'm too willing to look for the good in folk.

It strikes me that the discrimination against calico neko is possibly counterproductive; a better approach would be focusing on why they are immune to the disease. Calicos are likely the key to permanently wiping the plague out...

I'm going to give Margaret a bit more credit here - we're all familiar with a particular virus being able to survive on a surface for a few days at most, but some (especially norovirus and hepatitis A) can last weeks outside a host and still be viable. Elroy definitely needed a wash, as does everything in Jason's room. Devyn not grasping that is understandable and very sweet, but Jason's safety trumps scents.

Pretty much exactly how I'm reading it, Margaret is guilty, focusing too much on changing something she sees as an issue that will make her son's life harder rather than accepting who he is. Sounds familiar - I love how Yeoldebard takes themes and presents them as metaphor. As to why Devyn pushed out his human side - likely for this precise reason. He was pushed to embrace it rather than encouraged to. The analogy with Jordan's issues in Damian's Wolf is a good one.

Guessing there's a fair bit of guilt motivating Margaret, and she never intended to have a child born in wolf form (I run far too much Worlds of Darkness tabletop, can't help just thinking of him as Lupus. Certainly how he comes across if you know it). It's hard to watch, projection of guilt, but understandable.