When the Full Moon Rises (Aurelius)

    Shock raced through the Pirate's eyes, an expression that spoke volumes to how close Aurelius had come to striking the nail right on the head. He wasn't sure what exactly had given so much information away, though technically he had lain with the man, though only briefly, and as a joke. Now he'd wished it hadn't been quite so much in jest.
"No- not exactly-"
Shit, he hadn't meant to say that like he'd wished it were so.
"It- it was just a kiss," that admission now seeming far more innocent and easier to say in light of the much heavier action Aur had placed upon himself and Kendry.
"Two- almost three-"
Shutup.
"It's nothing really."
That was a lie.
If it was nothing, then why did this conversation have his face so red he was starting to rival his own ship for color?
He knew it wasn't nothing. Half of him wishing it was and the other half wishing for more than. Sometimes he could swear it was like two beings inhabited his body and he was not even speaking of the Wolf.
"I don't know what it was nor what's wrong with me," raking his fingers through his hair almost violently so.
"It's not like me to- to-..."
Let himself feel those sort of emotions for someone.
He couldn't. It wasn't safe for anyone involved to let them get this close to him. He was dangerous.
Monstrous beasts don't get to be loved nor love in turn.
Isn't that how it went in storybooks? The Villain's story was never a happy one, and in Finn's mind. He was that villain.
Or at least, part of one.

"I've never felt these weird feelings before."
The Captain admitted to his friend as he let his head rest in his hands.
"It's just so confusing. Maybe- it's just the full moon approaching making me lose my mind a bit."
Wishful thinking on his part. He knew for a fact it wasn't true, because he'd been feeling like this for days now and couldn't shake it like a bad habit.
He found himself missing Kendry more than he missed being out on the sea and that was far from the self he'd come to know.
The Ocean was his first and only love, save for his boat that took him out to meet her, so what did it even mean that he wanted, so badly, to look into those inky black eyes of the Stormbringer.?
Maybe those electric shocks had screwed him up more than he'd thought.

    Confusing was the understatement of the century. The Pirate Captain had navigated difficult waters ten times over and never felt this lost in all his life. Emotions weren't like the current. They didn't make any sense to him, there was no balance or rhythm he could see, no pattern in the waves crashing over him. Just chaos.
He'd much rather be climbing a mast to alter the rigging of a sail in the midst of hurricane than trying to sort out the mess that lay bare before him now. It was a great comfort to know, that no matter the outcome, he had someone like Aurelius in his corner. The Bear King could not know how much Finn treasured his presence nor his friendship. He couldn't even speak to Emerson like this. As close as he was to the older man, he was his crew and he would never be able to open up about his feelings to a member on his crew.
It just wasn't the way he did things on his ship. He was impulsive, childish, immature and perhaps even a little mad at times, but there was some professionalism he'd kept about himself. The Pirate Captain who'd taught him the ways of a seafarer years ago had instructed him upon that much.

"Thank you."
The two words flooded with gratitude as he looked up at the larger man from beneath his tousled strands of dark hair, feeling calmer now at the behest of his dear friend. He hoped what he said was true. That Kendry hadn't forgotten him so quickly on his way to Sunama. He didn't believe so. As messed up as his mind was, the instincts of his wolf were keen and they were telling him that much. The way the two had parted, he was sure Kendry felt something for him too, even if it was more platonic than what wrestled inside Finn's chest, though he was still hesitant to say that emotion was 'love'. An intense 'like' perhaps?
Was that a thing?
But then, he could just be living well within the safe arms of denial and Aur posed the question to him that explained exactly why he would be.

"Yes."
The answer firm. Where he had many doubts in this matter, there were none there. He was terrified of love. Terrified of feeling emotions so strongly for another person, especially after having lived a life where he'd often though love no better than a gilded cage. Watching the men he knew at the beck and call of their mistresses like whipped cattle. He didn't know if he could be tied down like that, how he would fair being so. But then...perhaps the matter was far more different from the inside?
He wouldn't know.
Nothing to speak of the fear he held for any he could fall in love with.
What if he killed them?
What if they got too close and saw the beast inside him and their reaction to it might just be enough to break him entirely. They could hate him as much as he hated himself, sometimes.
If they knew that much darker side of him.
"Absolutely terrified."
His fingers gripping the surface of his empty cup as his nail scraped along its surface., gazing deep into its vacant contents and feeling a similar feeling within himself.

    He could recall the fear filled screams as people had looked upon him after his first change. Back in Ziorang.
He'd been so young then. Thirteen? Or was it fourteen? Days and years blurred after so long, but the painful memories always shone the brightest. He could recall waking the next morning, naked and alone on the outskirts of town with blood coating his body, his hands...his tongue.
Bits of flesh still in his teeth.
He'd vomited for what felt like hours...and the stuff that came up-
He didn't even want to think about it.
He was so disoriented on his way back home, cold and confused. Flashes of the night prior hazy in his mind, but brutal all the same.
The look on his mother's face when he'd collapsed before her. She never looked at him the same after that.
Still loved him, the way only a mother could love a terrible monster.
But he'd seen it every day before leaving. Fear.
It was unbearable.
Heartbreaking, even thinking of it all now he wanted to bend over the table and vomit.

"Parts."
Finn tried to explain.
"I told him a few things and I think he might have put the pieces together, but if so he never said. Nor did I. Not directly, anyways. He knows I'm cursed. That much I did outright tell him."
Cursed in body and in soul.
Perhaps Kendry was right to have left for Sunama...perhaps he'd be safest if he did not return to Finn. No matter how much the Pirate yearned for him to.
There were things even Aur didn't understand about his transformation.
"Does it- Is your transition the same?" He had to know for certain if Aurelius understood how he felt.
What he'd done.
"Does your beast steal your mind and control away too? Leaving behind nothing but bloodlust. A lust that is not your own. Not at all."
He'd leaned closer across the table now, to speak with Aurelius in a hushed tone. Not even Lavinia knew what Finn was and he wasn't about to let anyone in this room find out now, casting a paranoid look at the other patrons to be sure none seemed to be listening. They all seemed to be absorbed in their own conversations and affairs, however.
Finn was thankful for that.

    He'd always known Aurelius was a warrior, that the land he came from was bloodier and more violent than anything Finn could have ever been used to, hailing from a place that strives to be as civil as Atelus does.
This land wasn't perfect, but there were rules, laws, negotiations and he may find all that mind numbingly dull, but he was, overall, thankful he didn't hail from Yhavastus. As much as he admired and adored their King and the men he'd met that had come with Aur were a rowdy but overall decent seeming bunch. Finn was sure he would not survive a land of such blood and death. That wasn't him nor his nature.
He valued the beauty and sanctity of it all. Life.
It's why he tried his hardest to not kill. Every life had some form of beauty to it, _usually.
Someone who loved that person and would break should they die. Being the cause of that pain, it made holes in his soul. Holes that could not be filled in, no matter how hard he tried. He knew the face and name of every person he'd ever killed, wolf or no wolf.
Finn saw every single one of their faces when he shut his eyes.

    If he was being absolutely honest, the way Aurelius spoke of the slaughter unnerved him a bit. He still cared deeply for the man, it didn't change that. He'd known he was a killer, but the notion of shredding woman and children...
His wolf may have done that, but he'd been screaming for the beast to stop from the depths of his mind the entire time. He couldn't imagine siding with the monster in the slaughter.
He couldn't understand the culture Aur came from, wouldn't. But he understood the pain curling through the larger man's face and breaking him down. No matter what Aur was or what he'd done. Finn hurt watching the pain on his friend's face. The crack in the Bear's voice, the water budding from his eyes.
It was a painful display that made the Captain of the Wolfsbane feel hollow inside. He wouldn't say what Aur had done on his path to King-hood was okay. Because it wasn't. Not to Finn. Not to the man who believed every life was more valuable than a kingdom and perhaps that was just a stark difference who the men were.
But he wasn't afraid of Aurelius. Not at all. He knew the Bear would never hurt him, though he could not say the same for Aur's safety from his Wolf.
There was no bond between Finn and his monster, no understanding or partnership.
Only conflict.

Finn's curse.
Aur's gift.
They were similar and yet so different.
Aurelius spoke of being the bear, of them being one, but Finn never felt that when he changed. He felt used and broken the next morning.
So empty.
He had no words of comfort for the other, but still he rose from his seat, moving to stand over Aurelius who cradled his head in his hands.
Finn slid his arms around the Bear's neck and pulled him close to his chest as he stood there, his hand running over the King's head in a soothing manner.
"My wolf and I are not one. He owns the night when the full moon rises. I can only spectate his destruction."
His voice soft, reverberating with a broken tinge as he noted that he still had yet to meet another who understood that.
But he understood pain.
He wanted Aur to not hurt.
So he simply held him close, offering the only thing he could think to.
Comfort.

    Finn was beginning to understand Aurelius more, the more he told the Pirate of the life he'd led before. Perhaps they were not as dissimilar as he thought. They'd both killed innocents they had not meant to. Both had stains on their souls that matched.
Finn had always thought very similarly to the way Aurelius did about it all. He didn't know what waited on the other side of all this. In his trips and travels and friendly ways. He had met many different kinds who harbored many different beliefs of the beyond and the here-after.
But one thing they all shared was a belief that an ill-fate awaited those who had sinned. Wherever Aurelius was headed, Finn was most likely headed there too.
He knew that much. Maybe it's why it was so easy to be a thief and a Pirate. A soul as tainted as his could hardly get much more so.
The drive to not kill, however, that was nothing to do with fixing his wrongs, he knew no amount of good deeds could ever cure his ails now, but a matter of empathy for the look in another person's eyes.
When someone died, you could see that light leave. Their body hollow and vacant. That emptiness in their gaze haunted Finn's dreams the most. He never wanted to snuff out a light. If anything, he enjoyed it much more would he could inspire that light to brighten, even just a little. It made him happy to see people's gazes glimmer in wonder and amazement.

Aur's mom sounded like a wizened woman.
Finn's mom had offered him no guidance save for telling him to run.
He'd been doing it ever since.

"It's alright," the Wolf assured the Bear as he placed a hand on the side of Aurelius's face to meet his stare.
"I feel like I know you so much better now. Understand you more. I've done the same. I felt no control in those moments nor since, but I know what a look of horror crosses the face of a mother and child before Death meets them. It's not a stare one ever forgets. Like branded upon the mind's eye."
Closing his own as he rose up and patted Aur on the shoulder.
"We have some time before I'd prefer staying close to my boat...in preparation for the full moon."
He could smell the coming of the moon on the air, like the instincts of the wolf glowed bright under his skin.
"Maybe a walk would do us both some good."
Besides, he didn't get much room to stretch his legs once he was confined to his cage. Fresh air might be nice for the moments leading up to his isolation.
He didn't do well, waiting for the wolf to come. Trapped, enclosed.
It was awful, but necessary.