Scherezade stayed quiet in her spot on the floor, legs still crossed. She'd had ample time to process what some of it may have meant to Kat and Renfair, but they needed their own time to do the same.
Katrine being somewhat taken aback did surprise her though. Scherezade knew the answer wouldn't bring full understanding, not yet. And if she were being honest, she herself didn't know the actual specifics. Taking a father's DNA out of a child? Easy. But that hadn't been what she had offered. Whatever had happened four decades ago, she wouldn't tear a child away from its parent. Not when she cared about the child, anyway. Renfair was family. That meant extra terms and conditions; others might end up collateral, but not her.
And of course, Ren's Papi, Aston. He was… genuinely just trying to be there for both Kat and Ren. Scherezade had no beef with that. But she could already guess there'd be a storm of words between him and his mate later.
Still, the Sithling nodded to Katrine. They could discuss the details later.
And now Larentia… Little Renfair, who wasn't so little anymore. The universe was against them after all, wasn't it? How much had Katrine toiled and worked to give her daughter the life she deserved? And here she was, the anger in her flaring up, and though Scherezade was acutely aware of it, she wasn't sure how to help soothe it. Her Renfair wasn't likely to burst out and scream senselessly. Her words still sounded like someone who was maintaining perfect control. But beneath the surface, the pressure was already causing cracks.
Scherezade wished with all her heart it hadn't been so.
Still, Larentia had given consent to the reading bit. That was a good first step. It also showed the girl was wise beyond her years. Scherezade at a younger age would have just screamed no or yes and gone full throttle on whatever direction she'd chosen. She'd never have even though to advocate for patience or being careful.
"I only need one small drop," she said, her voice trying to join Larentia in the adulting and soothing thing with very little luck. One of her blades slid into her hand as the other hand took Renfair's in her own. The tip of the blade came against the child's thumb pillow and pressed. It was as gentle as the Blood Hound could do it. And just as quickly, the blade vanished, leaving the teenager with a swelling blood drop on her thumb.
Scherezade bent forward and gave Renfair's thumb a lick, cleaning the blood off. Sithspit, no matter how many times she did this, she always hated the taste of blood. In a better 'verse, the gifts of the Blood Hound would be bestowed on those who actually liked drinking that crap. In this 'verse, Scherezade did very much
not enjoy it. But Ren was family, and there were
no lines Scherezade would not cross for family if need be. Especially these days.
The coppery tang took her mouth-feel over. It was everywhere. She could feel it on her tongue, on the inside of her cheeks, the roof of her mouth, and spreading to the back of her throat. That was always the hardest part, those first few moments.
And then the visions came, in quick succession, all appearing in the front of Scherezade's thoughts with a layer of red haze over them.
The first one was a familiar one. Little Ren running in the snow towards her mother, not yet realizing that Aunt Rezzie was there, because she hadn't been Aunt Rezzzie then. Scherezade tried to make the equivalent of a mental swipe away when the memory was then crashed by an older Larentia walking up a ship that… Was that Katrine's ship, over fourty years ago?! Why was that there?
Go back, she commanded herself, forcing to leave that afternoon that had ended up in unwanted shifting and a guilty conscience that had been very confused.
The sounds of a baby crying in the night. A tired Katrine. No father figure present.
Earlier! Scherezade almost roared. She didn't want just the memories of the person, of Renfair. She wanted the memories of Renfair's blood. And she was just realizing, it was going to be a lot less simple than she had initially thought. This wasn't an exercise in collecting bits and letting her brain puzzle it out, this was very intentionally looking for bits that rarely wanted to be found.
The red haze turned to black before colors filled her mental image again. The wolf moon, she somehow knew, just as she somehow knew it was not the wolf moon as it were today. This was older, but not ancient. Some parts were the same, but all parts felt
different.
Scherezade's breath skipped as the images came running now, a kaleidoscope of moving memories of wolves, of a scientist, of a banishment. Less and less she could see in any corner, but more and more did some of what the blood had gone through, now screaming inside her head, warning of the dangers. She could feel her own blood pumping in her ears now, warning of as well.
She did not let go.
This was not a story you told children when you tucked them into bed.
The scientist, a mad Sith, who thought he had a good idea but lacked the
heart to get it done properly, changing the blood so that it was no longer pure, but intermingled with parts of… Puppies? No. Those were not puppies. Those were the cubs of Lloth-wolves, and they were easier for his purpose than using the adult ones.
Why? Why would he do that?! And how-
No, the precise details of the
how escaped these memories. The blood didn't care about the how, it cared about the what, and it was now changing, no longer alone, but joined by that of beasts. That was where he had gone wrong. That was how he doomed the new mingle of blood into something that looked like Lupine but was not. It wasn't Lupine, but it wore Lupine like a second skin. Same. But so very, very different.
She couldn't see where the rest of the blood went to, or what had happened with it. How could she? That was not inside the blood that ran through Larentia's veins. What ran through them was the survival of several generations despite the madness.
And then came more of the black.
Scherezade opened her eyes and covered her mouth, spitting the remains of the blood into it before realizing a napkin would've been a better option.
"Not an abomination," she confirmed with a dry voice, looking around for a glass or a bottle or any fluids she could drink without dying if she wanted to wet her throat.
Krak her sideways. She was going to have to explain. All those memories had felt like forever as she ran through them and saw them, even though only a handful of seconds at most had passed to the others in the room. Time was stupid. Always was, always would be.
A glass of water had somehow ended up in her hand. The Sithling drank from it as though she had not had a drop in weeks while walking through a desert, and a second one soon replaced it. Only now did she notice it was Alwine who had understood the signs. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that made sense.
Her thirst quenched, Scherezade turned her attention back… Well. Both Katrine and Larentia. How the heck was she supposed to put all she'd seen into words and explain it to them without freaking everyone out?!
"So…" she fumbled, trying to put her words very carefully into the right order, somehow feeling like it was doomed in advance,
"Part of your blood, is just Lupine," she began, sending a quick look to Katrine. It was Katrine who had told her all those years ago that a drop was enough, that Lupine would always take over whatever other species had come into the mingle of children making because it was the dominant one.
"That's the part you got from your mae," she explained in clearer words,
"the other part…"
You buttholes, you better be prepared to soothe her once I finish speaking, she yelled, nay,
shouted at the spirits through the Force. She had no connection to the three anymore, but she knew they were listening to every word.
"The other part I only know because I've met Lloth Wolves before," she sighed,
"the other part is Lupine mixed with Lloth Wolves. Some idiot a while ago, and I don't know if a while ago means decades or centuries or longer, thought it was smart to mix the two and see what happens."
She needed to dig deeper. She wanted to dig deeper. She also knew she couldn't, because that would require a lot more than blood.
Scherezade sighed and shook her head. It was too hard to compare the precise outcome of what would happen to those who had that Lloth Wolf mixed into them. Could they breed with other species? Were some things certain to happen, while others were not? Unless she had one of those experiments to test, she couldn't be certain. If she ever had children of her own, she knew she would push them to go into the STEM fields and not the Blood Hound fields. Being a Blood Hound felt so useless when it truly mattered.
But, it also explained why she had thought they'd all been Lupines at first. They were so very, very close. And she wasn't sure if she'd be able to tell the difference at a glance if she hadn't seen what the blood had just showed her.
"So like I said," she emphasized,
"not an abomination. Anyone ever calls you that, you punch them right in their ugly faces. And if you want the weird stuff out of your system, I can do that only the specific Lloth Wolf chit out, but leaving the rest of your sperm donor's blood in you. But never, unless you ask for it."
With that, Scherezade switched from sitting on the floor, to just lying on her side on it. Force, she was tired. She wouldn't fall asleep. She was here for Kat and Renfair. She just needed to go horizontal for a wee bit before she could do something hard again.
Scherezade deWinter
words, about removing that blood from her. He wasn't going to argue, that wasn't his place. That was a choice for Larentia to make, hers. 
Katrine Van-Derveld
