"It's a plan," Laurie finally said over the discussions.
"What do we do if they can't handle it, though?" The question came from two or three people, voiced in slightly different ways, but the gist was the same.
Laurie, like everyone else, looked toward Larisa in the hopes that she had some kind of brilliant answer, but from her expression, it was clear that she had no more idea how to deal with a…asecurity breach…than anybody else.
Briana spoke up, her voice steady, though not loud. "I've just been looking through the town's social media and news. There's a lot about the mudslide, and there are a few 'did anybody else see abearout there' comments, and even some people saying they did, but there aren't any pictures and they seem to be mostly convincing each other that the wildlife they saw got swept down from the mountain in the landslide. Nobody,so far, is saying 'did you see people turning into bears?' That's something."
A brief silence met her comment before a couple of people chuckled and Liam said, "When you say it out loud, it sounds crazy enough that maybe nobody wants to be the first one to say it. Maybe just talking to them will be enough."
"We'll start in the morning," Laurie said firmly. "Why doesn't everybody head home and get some sleep? It's been a really hard day, and even if everything goes perfectly with keeping shifters out of the limelight, we've…" His throat tightened up again and he had to brace himself against a sense of overwhelming loss. "We've got friends to mourn and a whole Renaissance Faire to clean up and resurrect," he said a little roughly. "So let's try to get a good start on that in the morning."
The gathering started to break up immediately, as if a string holding them together had been cut. People headed out in ones and twos, until the only people left in the pub were the three Torbens, Jon's mate Alis, and, to Laurie's surprise, Briana.
Jon caught his eye, arched an eyebrow, and with a little protest from Ashley, got both her and Alis out of the room, leaving Laurie alone with his mate.
She looked exhausted, although unlike everyone else, she also looked clean. It made Laurie feel extra grubby, though he knew it wasn't exactly his fault that he'd been bowled over by a landslide. He said, "You okay?" carefully, and Briana gave him a tired smile.
"Yeah, as okay as any of us are right now. I just wanted to say…" She inhaled and sighed it out. "You did good today. Directing people. Handling the situation. Giving them ways to use their energy. And I thought I should…tell you I noticed."
Laurie ducked his head, pleased enough that the compliment hit him like a brick wall. It actually took a minute for him to beable to catch his breath properly and glance up again. "Thanks. You did a great job, too, for what it's worth."
Briana nodded, then exhaled again heavily, and braced her head in her hands for a moment. "This is really bad," she said eventually.
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. I think we all do, but I don't know what to do except try to face it as it comes. If any of the people who saw us shift refuse to keep quiet about it…"
"We can't eat them," Briana said. "Or do anything else that we really mean when we say 'eat.' Laurie, your tavern," she added, looking up again. "I'm so sorry. That's been a staple of the Faire since it began."
"Your smithy," he said in response, with a helpless shrug. "It hasn't been there as long as the tavern, but it's still a huge loss. And don't take this wrong, but I'm pretty sure Thunder Bear Brewery has more financial standing to recover than the smithy does."
"You're not wrong. Well." Briana smiled faintly. "I don't know anything about the brewery's financial footing, but the smithy's has always been precarious."
"The brewery's…" Laurie abruptly remembered how Ashley had yelled at him and Jon about the brewery, about their older brother Bill's struggles running it, and the work she'd been putting in the past year and a half. "Well, we'll figure it out. All of us, together. The Faire is a community."
"Yeah. Look, um." She stood, pushing both hands backward through her hair andnotshedding mud the way Laurie had done earlier. "I just wanted to say you'd done a good job. I'm gonna head out now. I promised my housemates I'd come home tonight."
She wouldn't have stayed with him if he'd asked anyway, Laurie told his own surge of disappointment. His bear said,Aww. We could den together,and he had to fight down a little smile at its dashed hopes. "Drive carefully, okay?"
"I will. I'll, ah." Briana looked around like there were answers hidden somewhere in the pub, and finally shook her head. "I'll probably see you on site tomorrow. After I try to talk to Stephen."
Laurie wasn't exactlytryingto keep her talking, but he had to admit he wasn'tnottrying, either. "Stephen Ward, right? I kind of know him. How's he gonna take it?"
"I know him through climbing, and honestly, I think he's going to be ragingly disappointed that there are shifters and he's not one. Specifically that there are mountain goat shifters and he's not one." Briana smiled again, a little more strongly this time. "And he's also going to think it means I'm slightly cheating somehow, because I can out-climb him."
"He's not exactly wrong," Laurie said almost apologetically. "We do tend to be weirdly strong."
This time her grin was a flash of teeth, bright and real. "Yeah. How about…you've got Lisa Dees, don't you? I kind of know her, too." That was how the Faire was: even if they didn't know each otherwell, the employees and performers did tend to at least have a vague idea of each other's existences. "How will she take it?"
Laurie grimaced. "I'm not actually sure I'm a great person to talk to her. We dated for a while and it ended sort of messily."
Briana's eyebrows shot up. "Players gonna play?"
"No," Laurie said, offended. "I do take my relationships seriously, when I have them. Just not as seriously as Lisa did. She thought I was going to propose on our three monthiversary."
Briana's eyebrows, if possible, went higher. "Oh."
"Except instead of an engagement ring I brought a bucket of fried chicken. Which she threw at me when she realized there was no little black box hidden in it."
Briana opened her mouth and closed it again a couple of times before eventually saying, "It would be really disgusting to put a little velvet box into a bucket of greasy fried chicken."
