Most of the vampires had departed, but she waited with Rush as Neil and Ares came down the walkway to head off. The sun was creeping up on all of them and no one wanted to be caught here in daylight. Mer herself was ready to pass out in Rush's arms. Neil saw Rush and smiled as he came up to them, much too carefree for the ruling that had just been cast down on them in judgment.

"You guys all look so somber," Neil said with his normal cocky smile. "I'm excited just to get out of here. Got a party planned."

"Neil," Rush spoke first. "You could have lived had you stepped down."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence?" Neil said with a half broken smile.

"Neil, the Arcs are no match for the northern and southern houses together," Rush said, trying to shake sense into him.

"I see you can count," Neil responded with his smile slowly falling. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a buzz kill?"

"What buzz could you possibly be on?" Mer asked, putting her hands on her hips. With no vampires around and mostly human attendants cleaning up things as the sun lit up the horizon, no one was around to hear her. She was just as wrought with worry for him as Rush was, and Neil didn't even seem to care.

"I'm meeting my mate in a few hours," Neil said, his face lighting up, and both she and Rush shared the same bewildered expression.

"You have declared no mate," Rush said carefully.

"Of course not, Remus. Why paint a target on her now." Neil rolled his eyes, but Rush looked up to Ares like he would have more information. Neil's general was as silent as he always was, regarding Rush with disdain.

"If you have a mate, then why didn't you step down to protect her?" Rush tried again, and Mer couldn't help her sigh.

That was also a valid point, but Mer didn't think council servitude sounded better than death. Ares has said it would be "cleaning the stones they walked on", and for a house head, that was the ultimate form of degradation.

"Is that the Shade's solution to everything?" Neil said, finally voicing his frustration. "Remus, I respect you, but you have been taught to count your enemies and fold if you don't like the odds. The Shades think enough that you should be able to figure out by now, that I don't stand alone. I'm not an imbecile, regardless of what Meredith thinks. My people support me because I'm not walking them to their graves, and because they respect what we stand for together. Have the Shades ever stood together on anything?"

Mer groaned, drawing Rush's hard green eyes at her in chastisement that she brushed off. It was impossible to not react though. Neil was right. Darius and Rush butted heads on everything, and they didn't have gatherings of any kind really. There were a lot of Shades but Meredith barely ever interacted with them the way they dispersed into their territory and only came together when it was required, which it rarely was. There was a unity in the Arcs that was enviable.

"How is it all the Arcs just agree?" Mer had to ask. She'd lived with only two other people before and all three of them could barely pick out a movie together. People's opinions had to differ.

"Well, ruling certainly has a learning curve, I've noticed," Neil said, and Ares broke his stern rigidity for a chuckle. "But, I've found in the last few years that if I ask for something or decide something, my people will just up and do it or back my decision. Something that I didn't entirely understand at first, granted, until Ares explained it.

"I have never made a decision without first consulting Ares, who consults his generals, who consult our people. By the time I decide anything these gossip shits have already run it around every avenue possible, and if they have any issues, they raise them back up the chain. If there is no opposition, I sometimes don't even know that they even talked about it. I think what keeps us together is our transparency and commitment to them.

"Sure, some of my people are frightened of fighting for their lives, but just like our avenues of communication, they won't fight alone. When we fight, I will be at the front of my people with Ares, and we will protect those behind us and so forth. That is my responsibility as their leader, to show them the way forward into what they desire. None of us will ever fall without another hand there to pick them back up. That is the essence of my people."

Mer couldn't say anything to that and as she looked to Rush, she saw the understanding in his eyes. For a moment, they met each other's eyes and Neil wasn't the man she'd met all those years back at the bar. Those words weren't the deranged ranting of a man who had tortured someone in the fights for his own pleasure, they were calculated and coached, taught to him because he'd listened to his generals and matured over the years. For all Neil's stubbornness, it looked like he knew how to accept help when he needed it.

"I want the Shades to stand with us, Remus," Neil said to him. "But I understand if you can't. We're friends regardless of what side you choose, but if you stand in the path of my people, I will trample you... with tears in my eyes, but I will not hesitate if you face me as an enemy. Plus, my mate isn't so prudent. She'll cut your legs out for me." Neil chuckled as a blush crept across his face, though it wasn't enough to brush the chill of his promise away. "I know you have no answer for me now, but I will ask you again, when we are at a cross roads where you must choose to go one way or the other. I hope when that time comes, you will be with me."

Neil and Ares passed them by, and Rush crunched his arms together on his chest with a low breath of his frustration. So far, Neil had been patient and earnest with Rush, but things were coming to ahead and he had to put his foot down with how far he could go. Neil was a house head and had his people's best interests at heart, so that was to be expected. That was the essence of a real leader, and Mer wondered just what was going to happen.

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Word Count: 1120