If There Are Wolves Among the Stars
is a fic by skywalker05, set during Halo: Reach and incorporating elements of Halo: First Strike. The starship Long Night of Solace has been cast adrift, partially intact, in slipspace, and the one Spartan and one Sangheili aboard both have reasons to get back to Reach.
Has a one-shot sequel After the Long Winter’’, set during Halo 4''.
Tropes found in this story include:
- A Rare Sentence: Quote the Author: I bet this chapter is the only piece of literature in the world to contain the phrases "meditative throes" and "he got his mandibles in order".
- Authority in Name Only: Relk's position as Prophet of Reach is purely a spiritual one. He get's no respect from the military leaders and has been explicitly threatened into not going against them. In the end, the only significant actions he takes are saving Six and leaving.
- Ax-Crazy: Lassa 'Ranasau.
- Belief Makes You Stupid: Subverted. Relk takes a dramatic leap in competence after he begins questioning the Covenant. However, although he may not follow the Covenant, he's still religious. He just doesn't know what to believe in.
- Big Damn Heroes: Nobel Six is about to die during their canonical Last Stand, when Jorge and Relk’s Seraph drops out of the sky, distracting the combatants.
- Later after Six has been taken captive by the Covenant, Relk uses his authority as Prophet of Reach to save her.
- Break the Haughty: Read the first section from Relk's perspective. Then look at the entry under Butt-Monkey. He goes through a lot in this story.
- Butt-Monkey: Oh Relk. Where do we start?
- He’s imprisoned and set to be exiled in the first chapter for assaulting a superior officer while breaking up a fight.
- He almost falls into Slipspace when the bomb goes off.
- He's almost killed by Jorge on their first meeting, only surviving by surrendering, which he consider's a cowardly action.
- He almost falls out the ship, again, when it exits Slipspace.
- He almost has his arm pulled out of his socket and is strangled, by Jorge.
- When he finally gets back to Reach he's imprisoned for the first incident and for a murder that Jorge committed.
- He's then sent on a suicide mission against the Spartans where he is beaten unconscious and kidnapped by Jorge.
- Character Customization: True to Halo: Reach form, this Nobel Six is an O.C. Stand-in. This one goes by Aislinn-B312 and wears distinctive 'sunburst' orange armor.
- Character Witness: The straw that breaks Relk's belief in the evil of humanity is having the chance to quietly observe a group of Spartans over several days while being held prisoner. He eventually concludes that rather than being paragons of evil, humans are just like any other race 'strutting around the galaxy trying to be impressive'.
- Crisis of Faith: Relk started one in the final chapters of If There Are Wolves that he's still going through in Long Winter. Six theorizes that being declared a Prophet started the first cracks, although a reader may note Relk's earlier revelation that humans aren't evil.
- Dented Iron: The leg wound Six receives during her Last Stand left her unable to walk for some time and severely limited her mobility.
- Enemy Mine: The situation Relk and Jorge find themselves in at the start of the story. Being trapped on half a ship traveling uncontrollably though Slipspace makes strange bedfellows. Then they do it again to get back to Reach from Helionis.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Wouldn't be a story about crossing cultures without it.
- Relk has difficulty believing Jorge is a human wearing armor and initially thinks his helmet might be an enormous eye.
- Six assumes Lassa is some kind of special operations soldier, rather than an untrained civilian on a revenge quest. She also mistakes Lassa's knitting needles for some kind of weapon.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Noble Team was this. By the end of the story Relk, Jorge, and Six have become this.
- Foil: Relk 'Forsevai and Lassa 'Ranasau are explicitly narrative foils to each other. Both break the traditional Sangheili mold with Relk on the mellower side of the spectrum and Lassa on the dangerously unstable side of it. Both go through a Humiliation Conga but while Relk learns from his, Lassa doesn't or is incapable of learning from her experiences. Relk ends the story with his future assured while Lassa vanishes after her last confrontation with Six.
- He Knows Too Much: Six reflects that if Relk didn't voluntarily want to leave the Covenant, she'd probably have to kill him to keep his knowledge out of their hands.
- Hope Spot: Jorge sincerely believes he saved Reach when he bombed the Long Night of Solace and holds the belief until he and Relk finally get back to it near the end of Halo: Reach.
- Language Barrier: As the Sanghelli language has yet to be translated, Jorge and Relk negotiate through gestures, tone of voice, and the few words in either language that they do know. Later Halsey uses word games to teach Relk some English and begin the groundwork on an translator.
- Lovable Coward: Relk in a nutshell. He may have been taught since birth that surrendering and cowering are a stain on his honor, but when his back is against the wall his will to live wins every time.
- Mauve Shirt: The group of Insurrectionists who briefly save Six and Jorge are reasonably well characterized and seem to have a credible escape plan. They are slowly picked off throughout the last half of the book. Eventually, the Pelican carrying the last survivors was shot down before they could escape Reach's atmosphere.
- Original Character: Many on the Covenant side, most prominently Relk Forsevai, the Sanghelli survivor of the Long Night of Solace.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Lassa 'Ranasau's entire motivation.
- Shoot the Dangerous Minion: The Shipmasters of the Covenant would dearly like to be rid of Relk after he becomes the Prophet of Reach. Meanwhile, Relk is dealing with his own dangerous minion in the form of Lassa.
- The Sociopath: Lassa 'Ranasau is the textbook low-functioning version. She has sudden violent outbursts where she attacks everything around her, believes she is special and doesn't understand why she isn't trusted, is extremely intelligent but frequently self-sabotages her goals through her impulsivity, doesn't learn from her mistakes, and has explicitly only survived this long because her family has taken care of her. The only factor that potentially removes her from this classification is her attachment to her family, although it's left ambiguous whether this is genuine emotional attachment, or if Lassa used her sister's death as justification to act on her violent impulses.
- Suicidal Overconfidence: Lassa firmly believes that she, an unarmed untrained civilian, can kill a Spartan.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: Lassa 'Ranasau is explicitly a master weaver who dreams of developing her own style. Whether her mental illness will allow her to reach this goal is unknown.
- Thrown Out the Airlock: The fate of the rest of the crew of the 'Long Night of Solace'. Also how Jorge kills Gor 'Ranasau.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: For as much Hell as Relk gets put through, by the end of the story he's found a sacred Forerunner Crystal, been declared Prophet of Reach, escaped Reach with his friends, and was given a position as a consultant for the Spartan IV project, indirectly keeping him out of ONI's hands. In the sequel, he’s kept his job and seems fairly content with his life.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Anytime the party splits.
- Uriah Gambit: Relk's plan for getting rid of Lassa. He gives her permission to take revenge on the Spartans, knowing that any of them could trounce her.
- Why Isn't It Attacking?: The first hole punched through Relk's worldview is when Jorge lets him live after he surrenders because a demon wouldn't do that.
