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Light spoilers!
Biffy lay amidst the clutter of machinery and general inventory of innovations, his legs sprawled over the gears and guts of several generations of miscreants failed attempts to stave off the effects of werewolfery or to engage in combat with a member of the pack, his pack. Much to the detriment of said individuals limbs and presumably, well-belling. Contraptions intended to hold said wolf at bay long enough to inject him with rather vile assortment of folk remedies and ill-advised chemical concoctions. Biffy was meant to categorise and advise on whether those who had devised these instruments posed a legitimate threat to the pack, and whether any could be equipped to serve ulterior motives.
He certainly understood the gravity of puncture wounds, as Maccon was wont to remind him at inopportune times, though the pack Alpha had gained a certain gravitas and appreciation to Biffy’s ability to transition from a rather obstinate servitor of those of vampiric persuasion, even if those he now associated with belonged to an equally rough set.
The most interesting set of spikes, gadgets and otherworldly objects interceded between the doorway and the spot in the corner that Biffy had determined was the opportune view from which to differentiate the useful from the profane and unfortunate relics of a far less urbane era. As he leaned in the corner dusting off something that turned haphazardly when he shook it, a quiet voice interrupted his survey of the relics. The intrusion nearly lead to the collision of his perfectly coiffed, if certainly more hairy, head with the edge of something entirely dusty, geary and hulking that, in his opinion, should not be hanging.
. "One does not shake that device if they want to survive with their appendages intact." Biffy turned only to find the rather foreboding figure of Lyall, the beta. In name only, because as far as Biffy was concerned, Lyall was a rather imposing, difficult figure.
"How does this contraption work?" Biffy inquired, innocent of the rather torturous, uncivilised history that Lyall had presumably witnessed in his centuries amongst the unreformed humans. Treacherous lot, those humans were.
"The lower half acts as a shielding mechanism, while the upper half informs the beast of your intentions. While I have no doubt that yours as you would say, are pure, it was rather shocking to be assaulted by such a blatant reflection of the more violent reminders of our interspecies history." Lyall shook his head at Biffy and then proceeded to act both offended and very curious, poised to investigate the various other items and relics of that had sat forlorn in this far corner of the abode. In the upheaval of the latter months, the werewolves had found it necessary to take stock of their more storied collections and avoided past.
"Whoever thought you would be the best to secure our collection?" Lyall inquired, attempting not to sneer at the thought of Biffy, an unknown quantity, amid the often treasured or reviled weapons and lures. Lures. In quite a different context when such a scrumptious young man was in his presence, and yet a very different meaning to the word scrumptious.
Lyall had a purely academic interest in such a boisterous, complicate investigation. Naturally. Though Biffy, being such a new initiate into their pack, had not the knowledge nor the disposition to be sorting through the detris.
“Someone thought it was a fine joke to put me, who was not often, as they so sorely put it, out in the harsh flush of daylight, in the cellar,” was Biffy’s sour rejoinder, obviously not acculturated to the wolves sensibilities nor a true member of the pack if he still so pointedly referred to one of his compatriots as Someone. Naturally, Lyall admitted scorn and perhaps even contempt to a member of the pack so intent at excluding Biffy. He had tried, after all. And so be it if he had the mark of the vampires upon him purely by previous association; if Lyall had been marked by such a tenuous, short term of his own life, he would be amongst these relics himself.
“If you would allow me, I could provide assistance. Purely academic,” Lyall informed Biffy as he focused intensely on one of the other devices that he had uncovered in passing through the doorway and into what could only in most amusing terms ever be referred to as an actual cellar. An actual cellar, especially one that supplied gentlemen of such a high rank, would be stocked with far better wine and not the accoutrements of destruction, or specifically, instigating warfare amongst some of the species. He would rather not think of himself as a species, though he had begun an inquiry into the division of animals and the curious position of his own breed, if you will, and that of the beast. His own consciousness, as he envisioned it, had a role in the wolf, as a man of his level of savvy and academic standing would not wont to admit to losing a not insignificant amount of productivity to such a curse. If it were completely a curse; though it confined him to a rather different lifestyle, he had been lobbying Her Majesty herself to include one of his own pack on one of the scientific missions to South America.
A werewolf could provide an on the ground perspective, as it were. Even if, as his dear friend Charlie had once mused, the werewolves had thrown a particular wrench in the tricky business of catastrophism and scientific investigation. One did not argue the particulars of uniformitarianism and catastrophism and the descent of species with one who had survived centuries with a snarl and a growl. Though gentlemen did not growl. They merely expressed their opinion through different means when they were indisposed with such afflictions as werewolfism.
Biffy assented to his assistance and crept away from him, holding another curious object in his hands. Lyall reached over him, and surveyed the room, finding both treasure and terror. Not terroir, as he would find in such a suitable cellar for a gentleman, he reminded himself, and also thought he would have to goad those in power into accepting his other interests.
“Not that one!” he ended up screeching, as Biffy lunged for one of the more hidden objects. Biffy stopped. “I see that my opinion was duly required.” He did not merely shake his head at this pronouncement, but instead, launched into a discussion with such aplomb and detail, Biffy would either become stunned by the sheer magnitude of content or fall into a stupor.