Winston returns from sacrificing himself for the greater good.... Again. Tony tries to wow Neara with his clay skills and does not end up succeeding. Neara gains a powerful new suitor, which pisses off Orson because JUST MATE DAMN YOU!!!!

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Winston appeared in the doorway, fists clenched to his sides. Half-healed scratches and gashes twisted his body. He'd obviously tried to clean up before coming, the dried blood stuck to his kilt and the tip of his ears. Neara's heart dropped to her stomach. He'd just barely left, how was he back so soon and looking like he'd come back from a... well, he basically had gone to war. A one-man war against the Scorpions.

"Agatha, I must speak with you." His voice sounded strained, like he'd yelled too loud for too long.

She stood and gingerly approached him. His energy felt violent, barely restrained blood lust. He probably wouldn't hurt her, but the intense stormcloud grey obscured his normally silver eyes, making him look flat and made of pure rage. He nodded and walked down the hallway to an empty storage room that had once housed extra dried meat, long since distributed to the Tigers. Despite the emptiness, a thick smell of meat still assaulted her when she walked in and she almost swooned.

"Agatha, I can't ignore Ape King's threats anymore." His voice echoed more of the barely restrained fury from his body language. His entire frame looked stiff and unyielding, like he was carved from limestone. "It was not Scorpions outside the walls, but a Colossus."

Neara's hands flew to her mouth and her eyes shot open so fast she felt the wind on her corneas.

Winston continued talking, looking over her head. "He knew I'd have to fight to protect the City. This was a death mission. I believed I had to be loyal because he protected the City, but now I know he is not capable of saving us." His intense gaze shifted to her, although a little warmth flickered behind the storm. "You, I believe, are the one who will help the City."

A deep breath pulsed through her nose as she tried not to erupt into nervous laughter. Her? An anxiety-ridden female? Woman. Damn it, she was a woman. Well, maybe she shouldn't be too harsh to judge because they didn't use the term like a neckbeard did and she'd already referred to herself and others with that term, but wasn't she setting back feminism, what little there was, by using it or was she just putting her world views onto a society that didn't conform to them? Who was she to lead anyone? Sure, she could invent, but most of the things she came up with were things other Clans had already discovered; she could only help them in the barest possible sense. "I don't know if I can help anyone," she finally said after getting her ribs under control.

His gaze softened significantly, although he still towered over her. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and bathe his wounds and throw herself off the balcony for thinking like that.

"I will not force you." He paused and blinked slowly. "I should see to Ethel." He gazed above her head and out the door. "She's mated to an Eagle and they sometimes carry off females. She should be warned."

"Oh. Ok. Makes sense." Neara's throat felt like it was going to collapse on itself like a marshmallow in a vacuum.

"Is there something you need from me? Say the word and it is yours. Tony let me know you were prevented from drinking the other day. Let me know when you want a drink and I'll make sure you're never stopped again."

Her words couldn't find her mouth. I thought we had something but you've been acting weird since you found me again? I thought we were going to mate but you acted like I was just another female to protect? You used to look at me like you couldn't look away and now you're always looking somewhere else? She couldn't say any of that; worse than being ignored was being rejected. Besides, she felt powerless to open her mouth anyway. There might as well be cement in her jaws.

After waiting a long time (it felt like an hour) Winston walked out, his tail hanging slightly from his kilt. Neara's eyes followed him and she suppressed a sense of longing with her overwhelming embarrassment and shame. She was... just a checklist to him. Talk to Neara: Check. Warn Ethel: Check. She looked at her hands and gripped the bottom of her skirt, nails digging into the leather so tightly it hurt. Her pain clawed at her throat and needles slapped against her eyelids as she fought the void. A raw heat pushed at her throat like she was going to give birth through her mouth, distend her jaw and rip her cheeks open in the attempt to keep herself together.

A wavy feeling came over her, like she was a mirage in an oasis. The pain faded, the prickles stopped, and she moved forward. She had a checklist too: make pots. It wasn't going to happen if she stayed here. Her hand brushed against the gritty stone as she walked back to her room. Tony jumped backwards, his fingertip grey and wet.

His tiny ears disappeared in the brown tangles. "I wanted to see if it felt different in a small ball. And it didn't."

"So what's the big deal with the balls anyway? Just looks lumpy. If you're trying to stick the pots together, there are trees outside with much stickier sap, although it's a waste of pots if you ask me." Benedict hovered behind Neara's shoulder.

"We have to build a kiln."

"I'll get some furs." Tony disappeared out the door before Neara could correct him.

"A kiln?"

"It's like the well outside, but you set it on fire and it'll bake the clay."

"Just put it outside." Benedict gestured with his large hand. "It'll cook in no time."

"It needs to be really hot; hotter than the sun can get it."

"Then I'll put it on the cooking fire." He reached down to scoop it up.

"No!" Neara put her hand on top of his and he flinched away. "Trust me, it'll get hotter in a kiln."

"Ok, fine, we'll do it your way." Benedict held up his hands in defeat. "So we need to build a well?"

"Like this" Neara sketched a crude model on the ground, "Neither of you helped with the chimney, but Franklin and... well, Franklin should remember how to do it. We're going to use the same materials only instead of building it on the side of the house, we're going to make it its own mound. This will trap the fire inside and get it hot enough to make pottery."

"Pot-tur-ee?" Benedict stretched the syllables out. "Sounds disgusting, but whatever. I don't understand most of what you said, but if you need someone strong, I can definitely do it better than anyone else." He flexed a thick arm with a smirk on his face.

She rolled her eyes and studied her design. When she paused to breathe, her sight blurred like it was trying to look straight ahead. Her conscious still hovered behind her and no matter how many times she tried to analyze whether or not the firepit underneath would be hot enough, her mind kept dancing around Calvin's voice. It had to be him, right?

"I need to go." Neara stood and walked out the door, painfully aware of the grit stuck in her knees. Her cloak billowed around her as she sped down the hall, hoping for a moment of clarity. Her guards would be behind her in a second, but she had to breathe. Fresh air was good, but she couldn't go outside, but she couldn't stay there. The furnace! She could start building the furnace! If she could bake soil into a chimney, she could bake clay into a pot! Pots were useful and nice and damn it why did she still see Calvin's face twisted in hate as the Eagles drove him away?

Stupidly trusting her feet to make good decisions and absorbed in the process of not thinking about that leopard, she ran straight into a beastman. He looked at her and flinched.

"Are you Agatha?" His hands shifted uncomfortably around a large leather bag. It looked like a water sack, but infinitely bigger.

She stared at him for a long time, waiting for him to say something else. Embarrassment filled her throat as she realized he was talking to her. "Um, yeah, I'm Agatha."

He held out the bag towards her and she accepted the heavy load, almost buckling under the weight. "This is from Leopard King."

Yeah, she could see the ears now. Wait, what?

"He also says he's sorry the guards kept you from drinking and will make sure you can drink when the Leopard Clan drinks if you wish." His ears slightly turned backwards when he said it, and Neara didn't have to be a mind-reader to understand he thought his King was crazy.

Her mouth dried and her mind disappeared. Left without a purpose, she stood there awkwardly clutching the bag until he left, at which point she sank to the floor. Calvin sent her...water? Blood? It felt warm, but everyone knew how hot it'd been lately, so that wasn't really a clue. What was she going to do about this? About... her breath tightened around her chest until she couldn't breathe. Shay would have known what to do, or at least she would have bluffed her way through it. First she'd tell Neara to stop freaking out and there's no way Calvin would have recognized her otherwise he would have killed her; if he was brave enough to try it in front of Eagles, he would have done it in front of everyone else, especially since he had a new stripe. Then she would send Curtis to kill him and he'd grumble about it, but do it at night and they'd all be awoken with a huge uproar because the death was discovered and poison would be obvious but no one could stop them and they'd be kicked out all over again...

"Look! I turned it all into balls!" Tony held out his hands and small, wet clay balls bounced out, some sticking to her legs and chest. "I saw you working and I thought you'd like it if you didn't have to work so hard." His smile faded when she didn't say anything. "Do you need more water?"

"No." The word came out with a sob and tears plopped down her face. They felt like lava on her skin and she angrily scrubbed them away. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of a male. Beastman. Ugh, what the hell, she was just going to call them all males from now on... see how they liked being reduced to their sex rather than their personhood.

Tony knelt in front of her, his eyebrows gently stitched together. "I can do them over. Don't cry. I didn't mean to make more work for you."

"It's not that." Her sobs punctuated the words and she covered her face in her hands, too ashamed of what she might expose if she drew her legs up. Even the comfort of modesty was taken from her in this horrible place. No Shay, no pants, no way out.

Heat bent over her and gathered her up, surrounding her with a stomach-butterfly warmth. She didn't have the strength to push him off. A deep rumble permeated her bubble and stopped her chest-racking tears.

"I have you."

His heat was contagious, spreading from the tips of her toes and nestling in her cheeks. She felt every inch of his muscular chest pressed against her side, her legs draped clumsily over the side of his rock-hard arms that didn't falter once while carrying her upstairs. She heard Benedict start to say something, but he stopped and shuffled out of the room, leaving them alone.

Winston sat, holding her tightly, and arranged her carefully on his lap. She inhaled shakily and he waited until she put her hands down, exposing her puffy, raw face.

"I'm okay." Her voice shook unconvincingly.

"That's good. You've been crying a lot since you came back from the mountain." His soft steel eyes gently landed on hers like moonbeams. How could someone so wonderful... no, if he was interested in Ethel, she couldn't lead him on, no matter what they'd said before.

"I... I miss..." Tears came to her eyes again and she looked down in embarrassment.

"She was an important person to you." He stated this simply, his deep voice reassuring.

He let her cry, his arms held straight to his sides. He didn't attempt to touch her or stroke her hair, or pat her back, or anything, just let her process her grief.

Eventually she slid backwards from his lap to the floor, cool in comparison, and wiped her eyes again, knowing she'd have to reapply the powder if she wanted to leave the room. "I'm sorry for crying. I know it's weird and now my powder's gone and..." when he didn't say anything, she continued, "... and... thanks."

He waited a little longer, then nodded. "You are safe here." He looked at the pot and rough sketch of the chimney. "Another invention?"

She nodded. "Yeah, it's... it's to make clay pots."

"Clay?"

"It's dirt, but if you heat it super hot, it turns into a really light kind of stone."

It was his turn to nod. "That would be useful to have. Stone cauldrons are hard to drag to and from the well. How do you heat the dirt? With this chimney?" He gracefully scooted (how did he do that?) over to the drawing and studied it from a crouched position, hands on top of his knees and a small line underneath his mouth. "We built one at the old house. It was sturdy, but thick. How do you make it thin and sturdy?"

"By heating it up." She wrapped her arms around herself, although he wasn't looking. The hallway outside seemed full of beastm... males, but she couldn't see any from where she sat. She wondered if they could hear her... would it make any sense to them, or would it just be confusing?

He nodded, the firm bump of his chin lightly tapping the top of her head. "I will build this for you. We will get rid of Ape King, and I will rule the City of Beasts for you."

His rumbles still echoed in her heart and she couldn't find the words to refute him. His arms lightly wrapped around her, his voice humming in her chest, everything... "How's Ethel?"

Winston didn't move a muscle, though it wasn't like he stiffened either. Like she'd been sitting on a statue and it lost its heartbeat.

What if he misunderstood? "I mean, you seemed like you were interested in mating her, so I was wondering how that was going. Not that I care, if you like her, you can like her, and I know you used to like me and it's fine if you can't. Don't. Sorry, I've been crying a lot lately and..." she sighed, "and I think it's messing with my brain a little."

"I..." His fingertips brushed her shoulders and he moved his arms to his sides.

"I mean, if you want to mate her and are worried about hurting my feelings... well, you don't have to. I want you to be happy too. We're friends and... even if whatever we had between us is over, I still care about you. And you should..."

"By the gods." Orson snorted from the corner. Neara jumped, forgetting his white skin practically melted into the stone underneath him. His face puffed in the dust, little clouds growing by his ears. "If you two would stop being scared of each other..."

Winston set Neara down and whirled in an attack, his foot slicing through the air where Orson once lay. The Sheep beastman glared from the balcony, his eyes glowing green behind the cloud of dirt.

"All right, fine. Pretend we're not fighting a war and lives are at stake. Pretend you only have a handful of brain between you and can't remember where you dropped it. I'm just glad she and I didn't have this... this..." He moved his hands sporadically, but couldn't land on the right word. "... mess. Ugh, that was predator-speak. Forget it; you're starting to steal my brain now, and as a Sheep, I only have so much to spare." He flashed another scowl. "I'm going back to sleep. My pillow will be a tiger's paw if you try that again."

Winston's eyes gleamed a dull silver as he watched Orson drop onto the floor again, his body perfectly lining up with the dust patch beneath him, although a trail cut through the head portion and ended at Winston's foot, still poised inches away from the Sheep beastman.

"If you two don't bump uglies before winter, I'm going to tie you into a large sack until you figure it out. Then I'll flood it with honey and make you lick it off each other, I'm going to tie you two together and make you watch the ferals go at it until whatever hormones you're experiencing..."

His monotone rant, directed at the stone beneath his lips, trailed off as Winston walked away with Neara following. When they walked downstairs, Winston gestured to the corner of the throne room where several furs and packets of leather were stacked. "This is for you."

"I couldn't take supplies from the Castle... it wouldn't feel right."

"This is for you from the Leopard King." His face remained impassive. Why didn't he show emotion? Logically, she knew he normally didn't so even if he did feel complete and total disgust, he wouldn't let it show...but not even a hint or his jealousy... if he did feel it?

"Oh." She stared at the pile, which seemed to expand the longer she looked at it. "I thought the Leopard King was mated already."

Winston's shoulders barely moved, synchronized with his eyebrows.