Neverwinter Forest ah, shit— you left the door unlocked!

@Mal and ref: @Aibreann

mathieu's conversation with valencia left too many unanswered questions. each one led to another, led to another, until matty's mind became so filled with the unknown that he had to actually speak each one aloud. 

he paced between his den and the border, walking in either direction at a hermit's pace. how am i supposed to ask this? matty wondered, is there even a point? because honestly, what were the chances? 

maybe i'll just, uh... just what? mathieu sucked in a sharp breath and bared his teeth, folding his brow into something between frustration and confusion. then, he made way for mal's densite, barking his presence before approaching any further.

peeking around the corner, toward the mess of foliage, matty asked: you around?

Aibreann post after this one, so wait for that. >D

The bark should have been more of a clue. A slight pause, maybe, but considering nobody had ever really taken Mal up on the offer to come by his densite and mix it with a side of Aibreann's scent really rearranging his priorities, he didn't think much of it... Or at least didn't until he heard someone actually getting closer. And then Matty calling out further emphasized that and caused Mal to suddenly let go and attempt to disentangle himself from Aibreann before they had no choice in the matter while uttering a string of garbled curses under his breath.

Mal was typically shameless about a fair number of things -- including sex -- but he hadn't thought his open door policy would actually like.. Maybe be awkward. He looked to Aibreann with an expression that definitely did have an underlying tone of panic for some sort of suggestion about what to do. Um, one sec. -- What's going on? Right now his brain was shorting out from the combination of embarrassment and the instinct that he should step forward and protect her from a possible rival but the two were rather incompatible thoughts. Two seconds felt like five hours.

The interruption catches her entirely off-guard, and her first reaction is... well, not really a reaction at all. She freezes, eyes wide and blank as they fix first on their unwelcome visitor, turning quickly to Mal's retreating form. After a moment, she seems to snap back to reality. I ah... I'll go get something to eat while you two talk, She manages after a moment, words rushed out in a weak, strained tone. And with that, she leaves with as much dignity as she can manage (not much).

mathieu might've been embarrassed, had he been more aware of the situation. he kept his head down and gaze averted, allowing mal and aibreann to seperate without any outside eyes. oh, my bad, matty said, though he wasn't really sure why he was apologizing. 

aibreann exited the scene, leaving the two boys alone. mathieu took a moment to really look at the alpha and think about how plausible this theory really was. they looked alike, sure, but mal had that weird eye thing going on. that, and the fact that no one had ever mentioned mal (or his sisters) at the consortium. someone must've known, right?

well, he wouldn't know until he asked. matty cleared his throat and did a short jig, trying to work up some courage. i'm not really sure how to ask this, and it's probably a stupid question anyway. it's actually really stupid, i think, but val had this whole thing about it and now it's on my mind, so... alright, rambling complete.

do you, and again, this is stupid... do you think we could be, like, related? mathieu only allowed a moment of silence to pass before he was talking again, this time hoping to lighten the air. you just look a lot like me, and like my relatives, and i don't know a lot about my mom or my dad so, hey, no harm in asking! and then he was laughing (nervously) and shaking (nervously) while he awaited mal's response.

And she was leaving -- no wait, he didn't want that..! He reached out to her as she started to go, but it was a confused, sort of feeble attempt that in the end left him feeling more awkward and exposed than before. Don't take too long? was his suggestion to her. Look, he was definitely hunting her down if she wasn't back by the time this discussion was over, no question there.

But that left him there with Matty. Wait, Val? So it was Vallkyrie who brought it up? Whatever. Not 100% important probably. Mal was very set on thinking basically he was alone in the world -- no family except the kids he'd been spawning like mad. He didn't think that there was really much of a chance, not by any sort of reasonable reason but because he just assumed it. It went well with the doom and gloom that had been a good chunk of his independent life. 

If it weren't for that, maybe he could believe it. Instead, he shrugged, I dunno. My dad's dead. My mom didn't exactly stick around -- she left, came back then instantly left again, and then maybe came back again except maybe that was some sort of weird fever dream. I don't know anything about either of them beyond that. Chances were Matty had more information that might actually be useful at figuring it out than Mal did -- not that he was thinking clearly at this point, so, give him a few to piece his brain together.

okay, well...alright. mal didn't seem really convinced, but he didn't seem un-convinced either. if his "i dunno" was any indication, then there was some hope in the situation. matty laughed and lifted his brows, turning to leave. yeah, yeah, he said to himself, so probably not.

but then he turned back, and this time with more urgency. it's just that, family means a lot to me, so i'd really like to prove this thing one way or the other. the thought of having more family outside of the consortium wasn't just one that he could brush away, even knowing that it would make things much easier.

mathieu searched his mind for possible solutions. he could ask where mal was from, but he was pretty sure it wasn't where matty was from. he could ask for his full name, which might help, but it felt kinda invasive. then again, the entire premise of this conversation was invasive, wasn't it?

he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, before finally asking: do you know their names? your parents, i mean. matty didn't have much information about his dad, so if there was something there, hopefully it wasn't through that side of the family.

Family. Yeah, I get it. He thought his family had meant a lot to him -- or at least that they might think the same of him, but the way things had turned out, he knew some certainly hadn't cared, and others may or may not. He hadn't been as close to his sisters as they had been with each other, it was only with Solomon gone that he'd been close to Brillo. 

Mal nodded, Delight and Queenie. He expected no familiarity there -- certainly not with Delight at least. Delight, after all, had stayed well within Mal's realm of knowledge even when he was busily pretending his father didn't exist. The thought that his mother could have had another litter hadn't ever come to mind.

my mom's name is stephanie st. clair, mathieu looked toward the ground, but her apodo is queenie. everyone called her queenie back at home, just like they called him el princípe. given names weren't often used at the consortium, and for obvious reasons. 

mathieu looked back up at mal. his voice was soft, almost afraid to form the words sitting at the tip of his tongue. and her dad, i don't know his real name, but we call him grandfather. his kids call him daddy bruce. the mastermind behind it all. if nothing else, matty had to give the old man credit for building their enterprise.

without waiting for a response, he continued: she's got two brothers. my uncle baby and romeo, plus a bunch of new ones who she's never met. queenie forgot about family much easier than mathieu ever could, but he figured that was thanks to his father's genes. whoever that guy was.

mathieu shrugged his shoulders, waiting for mal to either confirm or deny.

He didn't know what an apodo was, and there wasn't enough context for him to make a super accurate guess. But he did recognize St. Clair -- after all, it had been part of his name. The rest of it he started tuning out as he stood there thinking -- it was all unfamiliar stuff to him anyway, perhaps he'd parse it together later, but for right now it was nonsense. People he'd never meet.

The pause dragged on a moment or two after Matty stopped speaking. When Mal did speak he seemed kind of hesitant, for multiple reasons, one of them being because it seemed way too lucky for him to have met his half brother here. Did he really want to trust it? His expression was a confused mess of things, The name I was given was Malachi Singing-St. Clair.  I--- But there he kind of mentally froze. He wanted his sisters, he didn't know what to think of having a brother appearing out of nowhere. It was too confusing to think there were others out there -- they'd never meant anything to him before because he didn't know they existed, but now were they supposed to?

malachi singing-st. clair. most of it meant nothing, until the very end. it was a confirmation of valencia's suspicion, something which held more weight than he could have anticipated. mathieu didn't say anything for a long while, instead allowing that imposing silence to brew.

he knew that someone would have to speak. did you know her? matty asked. mal had mentioned that she'd been in and out of his life, but that was more than he'd ever gotten for himself. she didn't stick around for us. it was a sore topic, that of his abandonment, but he figured that mal ought to know.

it doesn't have to be weird or anything. mathieu's pitch lifted an octave as the nerves returned. i'm not gonna bug you about it, but — but what? — it's nice to know that i'm not entirely alone.

Silence. Both probably for different reasons. Mal was trying to figure out what this revelation actually changed.
Not really. She left early, I might not have recognized her if she hadn't shown up later -- I just saw her at a distance then. I talked to her a year ago.. But it was really weird. Weird enough I'm still not sure if it really happened. But it was just like... a normal conversation. I didn't learn anything. And I haven't seen her since. That was about it.

Sure, Matty's brother might have vanished, but he wasn't alone -- certainly not as much as Mal had been over the past year or so. Still, he could remind him of some of it, even if Mal wasn't as confident and smiley about it all as he might have been, I dunno what to say. But you're not alone -- you've got a pack here. And apparently a bunch of other people elsewhere that are all strangers to me. All the people I knew are gone. It wasn't like Matty had said he couldn't go back to where he was born. He wasn't alone in either sense of the world.

yeah, but, mathieu thought for a moment, unsure of how to explain, that family doesn't really count. technically, he could return to the consortium whenever he wanted. the st. clair name was an irrevocable pass to a portion of the family fortune, but matty had decided that he didn't want any of that. 

he didn't want to be a part of their family's dirty schemes. the commerce brought into that place had blood on it, and something about that didn't sit right with matty anymore. my brother was all i had and now he's somewhere else, so i am alone. mal's lack of emotion revealed the sort of reaction that matty could expect going forward.

Honestly it seemed like neither of them were bubbling over with joy at the thing. Family was a tough subject. When you got right down to it, Mal didn't know what a real family was supposed to be like in the first place and it sounded like Matty hadn't exactly had an easy time of it either. It was going to take a bit more processing before he was really open about things because Mal wasn't exactly open about anything very quick.

But he tried a little. But with what you've said.. You're still not alone. If blood matters then yeah, I'm here. You have an uh.. Nephew? He was pretty sure that was right. Probably more later. Which was the only slight tug of a smirk. Matty had kind of interrupted that. You can always start over here, it's kind of the whole point of the pack.

mathieu had to remind himself that although they were brothers, he and mal hadn't been raised in the same environment. at the consortium, lineage meant everything. he was excited to have his assumption about the baby confirmed, and even more excited to hear that more might be coming soon. still, matty kept these feelings to himself, not wanting to seem overzealous.

he still had more questions, though less imposing. matty looked around to make sure she wasn't nearby before asking: since you're technically my big brother, is it okay if i ask you for girl advice? he didn't wait before continuing, simmik and i had this weird talk the other day and she like, kissed me, but then i ran away 'cause i don't know what to do in that situation. so i'm worried that maybe now she doesn't like me anymore? i'm totally fucked on this one.

He was wondering if that was it. Matty did stay quiet for a moment after all. Mal had started trying to think of something else to fill the silence when Matty went in a different subject entirely for their continuing discussion, Uh--

It definitely caught him off-guard -- a new half brother asking about someone who Mal treated like a sister. If the story Matty told had been reversed, maybe Mal would have been protective of her but if she was the one making a move, well... It was still weird and made him feel weird but he couldn't put a name to it. Momentary mental flailing aside, Might be overestimating my wisdom a little. A sort of almost laugh at that. But, um. Simmik's always been reasonable. I think if you tell the truth you can probably fix things? Say you freaked out, that you're sorry.. Maybe bring her something? He shrugged, tilting his head. Did that sound good to him?

bring her something? like what? they'd visited the warren multiple times, but rabbit skin didn't seem like the sort of thing simmik would be into. that, and the fact that matty didn't know how to skin a rabbit anyway. he could bring her one as a snack, but that seemed too casual.

mal's wealth of advice didn't run as deep as mathieu had hoped. he'd expected some grandiose explanation for making women fall in love, which was very different from the bare-bones answer he'd actually recieved. matty shrugged his shoulders, figuring he'd be pretty much on his own with this one. alright, mathieu said, i'll leave you alone.

he smiled and turned to walk away, ignoring the feeling of gloom growing inside. now wasn't the time to wallow; that was more of an evening activity.

Yeah, catch something, invite her to share a meal so you can apologize? Unless you know something else she really likes you can just give to her. Or at least, so it made sense to Mal. He had no idea what else might be giftable though -- he didn't exactly have some crazy background in other things in the world that might be cool. It was all just stuff and half of it vaguely named. She'll appreciate honesty -- she always has with me. Hell, their last conversation had been sort of a painful reveal for Mal, but she hadn't turned on him... So it seemed like a good thing to continue.

But Matty was already starting to leave -- which left Mal feeling rather like he'd been chucked in about four different directions in a short period of time. Probably also accurate. It felt sudden, and Mal was wondering what he'd somehow done done wrong again. I'm around if you need me. Just gimme a shout, yeah?

advice considered, mathieu was already out of sight. he heard mal's final words and nodded, calling back: yeah, yeah. for sure. what had their conversation led to? well, matty knew that it hadn't made things any better than they had been before. now, instead of having to worry about one missing brother, he had to think about the possibility of having relatives scattered all over the place. he didn't like feeling alone, but the other option wasn't so great, either.

he walked back to his makeshift den and settled for a long, deep sleep.