Norris came to fetch Riordan for dinner not long after. Riordan returned the original copies of the notes to Norris and showed the man the files they had made, where everything had been saved, and where he’d made back-ups on a USB drive at Daniel’s recommendation, just in case anything went wrong. For his part, Norris made interested noises, paid attention to the important details, and praised both Riordan and Daniel for a job well done. It felt kind of like he was reacting the way a parent reacts to a child’s crayon drawings, but Riordan still soaked it up like a sponge. He hadn’t realized how starved he was for positive social interaction of even the simplest types.

It reminded Riordan of something a friend had once told him. The friend claimed that they never got thirsty, that they just didn’t understand how people knew when it was time to drink something. They always had to remind themselves to drink something manually and often forgot. Then they had gotten married and their spouse had provided water regularly and reminded them to drink. After a while, the friend realized that the reason that they never felt thirst was because they had always been thirsty. Thirsty had just become normal for them.

That’s how Riordan felt at that moment. He was sipping at social interaction and finally recovering enough to realize his mind and soul had just been low-key screaming for it for so long. That adaptation had allowed him to survive the isolation of exile. Waking up that part of him hurt, its mental muscles long underutilized and atrophied. He rubbed a hand over his chest, feeling ghost pains in his body to echo the ones in his heart.

Of course, that might also be lingering soul damage or heartburn. It was hard to tell sometimes.

Still, when Norris told Riordan to go wash up for dinner, he was quick to obey, even if he was dreading another awkward meal like lunch had been. Upon reaching the dining room, Riordan discovered they were alone. Norris was just putting some finishing touches on his buffet style set up on the counter, but looked up when Riordan entered.

“Ah, good,” Norris smiled at Riordan like he was genuinely pleased to see him. “You can help me carry things over to the other room.”

“What other room?” Riordan asked, even as he was moving to obey. Norris quickly loaded him up with a tray of covered dishes, grabbed one of his own, and indicated for Riordan to follow him.

“I cleaned up one of the side rooms to use as a private dining space. With you and the agents here, we’re going to need a more private space to discuss things anyway,” Norris explained. “Even with the best of intentions, the pack can be a bunch of gossips. Commandeering the main dining hall wasn’t sustainable.”

That felt a bit like being put in a corner, out of sight and out of mind. Norris must have read something in Riordan’s sudden tension, because he glanced at Riordan and added, “Frankie warded the room against spying as well. This isn’t because we want to keep you away from the pack.”

“But you do want me away from your pack,” Riordan muttered, stung.

The room wasn’t far and Norris shouldered open the door to a reasonably large room with a table and chairs filling most of it and a dresser at one end acting as a side bar. Norris placed his tray there before rounding on Riordan.

“Riordan Kincaid. I understand that you are hurt and lost and vulnerable, but that doesn’t give you the right to put words in my mouth,” Norris said sternly, the tone a mix of military dressing down and grandfatherly disapproval that had Riordan’s sullenness wilting instantly. “You are a political, magical, and social landmine, one I am trying to navigate safely for everyone’s benefit. Including yours. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir,” Riordan replied, managing to keep his voice steady.

Norris studied him for a moment. Then he took the tray from Riordan to set it on the dresser with the other one. “Good. I don’t think you are a bad person, Riordan. An awkward one, yes, and one who has made some serious mistakes in your past, but not a bad one. You would actually be a good influence on the majority of our pack members. This is a rural pack and many of them are content to live in their small pond, disinterested in the larger world. You’ve got the larger world bred into your bones and ground into your skin and oozing out in your every action. You make them uncomfortable in a way that’s good for them.”

“However,” the stern tone was back in Norris’ voice, “you are also still in crisis and don’t need their nonsense interfering with you. Especially since you insist on prioritizing the investigation and stopping the death mage over your own issues.”

Riordan felt equal parts chastised and bolstered by this strange speech. When he’d been young, Riordan hadn’t understood the place of elders in the pack, except to consider them powerful since that tended to be a side effect of long life and practice. But he had exhibited the youthful assumption that physical strength and health mattered more than some sort of age-bound, obsolete wisdom. It hadn’t helped that his Ima’s parents were dead, killed during the Holocaust in Europe, and Abba’s parents had been far away in India. Then he’d moved to packs that had far fewer elders and never really thought about it again.

Norris was what Riordan thought an elder should be. Experienced enough to know how to handle different issues decisively for the greater good, but also wise enough to know that the world and its issues were complex, able to be viewed from multiple valid angles. The greater good could be a lesser evil when ill-applied or if viewed from the other side. Being magical and long-lived didn’t grant them anything beyond a human’s single perspective. The advent of the internet and instantaneous communication helped break down walls of understanding that had stood for ages just from sheer lack of exposure and ignorance.

If Norris thought that Riordan should stay apart from his own pack, there had to be reasons for it. It was Riordan’s defensive habits that made him assume that those reasons could not include any thought for Riordan or his own wellbeing, especially since he was feeling slighted and heart-hurt.

Riordan moved to sit in one of the chairs around the table, a bit overwhelmed with conflicting reactions. Finally, he settled on an action he could approve of rather than a knee-jerk response. Riordan asked Norris for his advice.

“How should I approach your pack, Norris?” Riordan said quietly. “Or, should I avoid them entirely? What’s the right answer here?”

Norris sighed, lowering himself stiffly into another one of the chairs. His body clearly ached. He was old, though aging gracefully with the support of the shifter’s passive vitality. “That depends on what you want, kid. I can tell a few things about you already. You are highly capable, but doubt yourself a lot. You push people away before they can abandon you, but are loyal unto death when you do give your trust. You have no idea how to act as part of a community, but are excellent as part of a team. You won’t sit still when you see injustice, but can also go off half-cocked or be too caught up in something to see important things.”

Wow, Riordan felt each item on that list, bristling to cover the uncomfortably vulnerable feeling that arose when Norris spoke. He barely choked back a growl. Guess he could add “responds to discomfort with aggression” to the list. He was a mess.

Norris kept talking, though he must have read that Riordan was reaching his limits because he stopped listing Riordan’s perceived traits. “What I don’t know about you is what you should do with your life. You would be wasted as some house husband or paper pusher, but you are also talented in enough different ways that it’s hard to say what you could do best. Or would be happiest doing out of all the options you have. You’re intelligent, strong, organized, and seem to have a rare instinct for magic. I don’t recommend that you become a diplomat though.”

That last comment surprised Riordan into a bark of laughter. “No, that probably would be unwise. People annoy me, especially in large groups or if they are particularly demanding.”

“Unless something changes when we get this killing tree thing resolved, you are going to be a shaman,” Norris said. “Obviously, there are a lot of ways to do that and it doesn’t even have to be your main thing. And being a cranky bitch doesn’t mean you would be a bad shaman. Just look at Frankie. That woman knows how to put every one of us in our place and keeps us from bothering her with unimportant things.”

Riordan cracked a small smile. “I’m no Frankie.”

“No, but you are yourself. There’s a place for you out there.” Norris paused and then sighed. “It’s just probably not here in the long run. This pack has little to offer you besides the company of other shifters. That’s fine for a while, but don’t settle. Even for us, life is too short for that.”

Those were definitely words to live by. Riordan nodded, trying to process everything Norris had just laid on him. It matched his own conclusion about his fit for this pack, or lack thereof, but he still didn’t know what would fit. Likely, he wouldn’t have a clear answer for that for a long while. He had some serious work to do on himself. And he had to live long enough to do that work.

“When are the others getting back?” Riordan asked, changing the subject.

“Soon,” Norris said. “Before that, I’m sending Vera down to talk with you.”

Riordan jerked up straight, staring at Norris. “What! Why?”

“Because she's the pack leader and she’s not doing that right by avoiding you. I love that woman dearly, but she’s a stubborn fool sometimes, especially when confronted with strong aggressive men. Too many years of fools underestimating or undermining her. She tends to either avoid such people or shut them down hard and neither is the right response for dealing with you,” Norris explained, looking off towards the rest of the pack house with a fondly annoyed expression on his face. “So she’s going to come down here and get to know you.”

“And if she decides to shut me down instead, since you are taking avoidance off the table?” Riordan asked, cocking an eyebrow and ignoring the internal panic he felt. Pissing off the pack leader wasn’t what he wanted from the day, no matter what Norris thought. Riordan knew his current self well enough to know he wasn’t going to be able to put his best foot forward for long if she got snappy at him.

“I’ll be here too,” Norris reassured him, “I’d send Frankie to deal with Vera, but I doubt you need to see the pair of them yelling and then making out when they make up.”

Nope, Riordan wasn’t interested in seeing that at all. Two strong women butting heads as one cut through the habitual bullshit of the other would be uncomfortable enough. Being stuck in a room while they were being romantic and vulnerable in front of him afterwards would be way too much. He had never minded people doing public displays of affection but he’d never really understood it either. Riordan shook his head with a shiver.

“Fine. I’m not sure what you think this will fix,” Riordan agreed reluctantly.

“Just give her an update on the stuff you did today with the notes,” Norris advised. “A professional conversation should be manageable and it’s a start.”

“I can do that.”