[Monty] It’s quite possible that Montressor Sabine was attempting to compensate for something when he invited Imogen to dine with him at ‘Asia de Cuba’, a nouvelle fusion cuisine spot that had no advertising, no walk in clientelle, and appeared more akin to something from a movie that took itself too seriously than an actual establishment meant to serve food. The entrance was a corridor through flowing curtains of white, which opened up into a two story room, the far wall dominated by a stained glass painting of a waterfall who’s actual water truly flowed slowly, as if the glass were melting. A central table runs down the middle of the great room, a mocking gesture at commonality in what is clearly an incredibly exclusive place, while booths circled the ground floor or dominated the balconies that looked down from the second.
The patrons seemed to be almost entirely made up of old men in expensive suits and young models under twenty, and cigar smoke hangs thick and heavy in the air. Elegant music plays in the background, an elusive blend of surreal trance and Indian instruments, while impossibly good looking waiters and waitresses clad in hypermodern outfits ghosted about.
Monty is already seated at a booth, nervously wiping at the sides of his face with his napkin, trying to settle his bulk in comfortably between seat and table, shooting out his cuffs only to reach up and palp his gleaming black lacquered hair. Waiting, trying not to perspire, eying his martini and wondering if he should actually drink it.
[Imogen] The high ceilings, the grandness of the restaurant makes her seem all the slighter when she enters, one pale hand lifting to push back a pale panel of curtain, stepping in on slender heels.
She is neither a model under the age of twenty or an old man in an expensive suit, but there is a poise to her that keeps her from appearing awkward in her surroundings. A carefully cut skirt suit, a likewise tailored blouse beneath, and her hair drawn up away from her eyes, held in place by clips and clasps which do not entirely contain the chaos of the flaming strands. She pauses just before the maitresse d’hote, unanswering the polite and poised question from the other as her eyes scan the impressive room in search of the reason she’s come.
There – an impressive bulk in an impressive room, Montressor Sabine is a little cramped in his booth, his belly touching the table’s edge, his weight spreading about him. He does not appear to have lost or gained a pound, she thinks, before, irrepressibly, logic reminds her that she had hardly measured him the last time they’d spoken.
What she says is too quiet and too far away for M. Sabine to hear, but he can see her nod her head in his direction as her lips move, speaking to the maitresse. She moves that way, stepping easily her gait unhindered by heels or nylon stockings.
“Mister Sabine,” she greets him as the distance closes. She does not quite smile, but her expression is not unpleasant. “It’s been a while.”
[Monty] Monty catches sight of Imogen as she enters the large room. The lighting coruscates in her hair, such that she seems more real than the darker, shadowy figures about her. Her certainty, her definiteness mark as he other than those that swirl and laugh and simper in the immediate environs; she is not here for idle pleasantry, is not here for decadent fare, but rather for a purpose singular and exact. And it is that that sets her apart, that draws Monty’s eyes as she approaches.
With a burst of bravado, he hustles his way out from around the table, edging and sawing himself free so that he greets her on his feet, surprisingly small and shod in brightly polished black dress shoes. His great, rotund form is swathed in endless fields of dark cloth, tailored and fitted to his form with surpassing exactitude, such that while he appears voluminous, he does not seem ponderous; while his bulk his scarcely hidden, it does not, despite all its size, put one in mind of the words gross weight.
“Ms. Slaughter,” says Monty, his pleasure evident, his smile spreading his lips in an expression of nervous satisfaction, “I am so glad you could come. Upon my return to the city, I wasn’t quite sure whom to reach out again, other than yourself of course, and, well.” He pauses, smiling at her, and then turns to the table, extends an arm in invitation. “Please, let’s be seated, this place is awful, absolutely awful, but we’re here now, so.”
He sits, wiggles his way back in, maneuvering his bulk with precision, and then, once seated, smiles at her again. “It has been awfully long time, hasn’t it? More than a year? It seems like ten. How have you been?”
[Imogen] They are a comical juxtaposition. His morbid obesity as compared to her utter slightness, almost doll-like in her size. She sits without ever touching a single edge until her behind touches the seat cushions, then her forearms come to rest on the table’s edge. She has swathes of space about her.
He is friendly, smiling, talkative. She merely offers a curve of her mouth in response to the phrases to which she has no need to reply.
“Must be two, by now,” she observes, before adding, “More, even.”
At his question, she tilts her head a little dismissively, almost as if the single gesture along could be reply enough. Still, a few seconds later, she expounds, “Well enough,” she says. “Busy enough. Things ha’ changed a bit ,as you may ha’ noticed.
“And yourself?” A moment before she adds, “What brings you back?”
The question might be one of friendliness. It could even pass for such, coming from her lips. But there is a defined sharpness to her eyes; her curiosity is as much professional, as much due to their mutual (but not familial) heritage as anything else.
[Monty] “What brings me back? Well. Politics, really. And bad luck.” He offers her an apologetic smile as a waitress pauses by their table. With two elegant sweeps of her hands, the waitress sets forth a bouquet of bread curled into two dimensional scrolls, elegant, artistic, and perhaps even edible. A small dish divided into quarters is also set out, each quarter containing respectively olive oil, a sundried tomato compote, olive tapanade, and dark slivers of what could possibly be seaweed garnished with sesame seeds.
Monty leans forward as the lady departs, waggles his fingers absent mindedly as he considers the options, and then with a fluid gesture takes a scroll of bread, cracks it quickly in twain, dips a spoon into the tomato compote, slathers, and inhales. Dabs at his lips, sets the napkin down, looks back at Imogen.
“Mostly bad luck. I’d sworn to work no more in any major metropolitan city. As you well know, doing so only invites trouble. No, I had my sights set on Gary, but my boss chose to relocate. And, having found my services too useful, insisted, on pain of my continuing to have a career at all, in my accompanying her back here.” Monty frowns. “I almost did quit. But what would I do? So I bowed to the inevitable, and now I am back, in the heart of local government, ensconced within the labyrinthine knot of it all.”
A sigh. “But it’s not all bad. Chicago has some wonderful eateries. This place was recommended to me by a friend, but it’s… trying too hard, don’t you think?”
[Imogen] The waitress asks Imogen for her drink order, her attention well-dressed, well-trained and completely distant. Imogen treats the younger girl with the same regard as she orders a white wine. For the moment, she takes no bread, instead turning her attention fully to Monty, her eyes resting upon him as he says in dozens of words what might have been said in less.
It’s part of his charm. His style.
Her eyes move slightly to pass over the restaurant as he refers to it. “I imagine they thought tha’ a grand hall like this would make its customers feel like royalty. Kings in great dining halls, or Vikings in Valhalla.”
Her mouth twists a little, a curve of a smirk over her lips, “S’not my style, really.”
Despite that, she reaches forward now to pluck a scroll of bread from the basket.
“Do you want to hear about your family in the city?”
[Monty] Monty is about to reach for more bread, when she asks her final question. He’d been nodding affably up until that point, chin protruding and then receding into his folds of fat, but stops, freezes. Purses his lips, takes a breath in through his nose, and then nods one last time, lowering his hand to the table.
“I suppose so.” He does sound miserable. He looks down at the table cloth, and with two dainty fingers flicks away a bread crumb. “Yes, I suppose I do. Well, I don’t want to, but you know what I mean.” Eyes flick up to her, small and dark, curious, sharp, perceptive, shying away again immediately. “Or perhaps not. You seem pretty wedded to this life. Our family life, as it were. I’m still… still coming to terms with it all.”
A brief pause, and before she can answer, he takes up another scroll of bread and snaps it angrily. “Oh, tell me, I knew you would, this has all been inevitable since I realized I was coming back. Best make the best of it and all that. How is everybody? Kemp? Decker?”
[Imogen] Imogen studies him as he speaks, watching him as he ruminates and then comes to his angry conclusion.
She carefully cracks open her bread with her knife, smearing a small layer of olive tamponade on it.
“If you would prefer,” she says, her expression illegible, “We can talk of other things and I will not mention your name or bloodline to anyone.”
Her eyes lift and fix on his, her eyebrow cocking in commentary, “Nothing is inevitable.”
[Imogen] (ahem. correction!
“Nothing is inevitable” = “Not everything is inevitable.”)
[Monty] He eyes here.
“You play with me. Insofar as we both know that our blood condemns us, or promises us a place in this world that the common man and woman need not take. But us, it is thrust upon us.” His voice has grown leaden, heavy. “There is no running from this world. Wherever we might go, shadows precede us, and within those shadows, be they true physical ones or mental, psychological ones, well, therein dwells the promise of our… enemy.”
He frowns again, and something of authority comes to him, in this moment of gravity, the authority incumbent to a man of such political stature as he wields. Unconsciously wielded, now, perhaps, but it is there. He frowns, and shakes his head. “No, cowardice, much as I desire it, will not serve me in the long run. I am no ostrich to bury my head in the sand and actually believe I’ll be safe.” A wry smile, almost a grimace. “Best I learn to take up arms, and in opposing, end them.” He pauses, pensive. “What was that line from Hamlet? The part that follows ‘To be or not to be’. A sea of sorrows, and by opposing… something. Hmm.”
Monty takes his bread, cracks it, dips it in the olive oil. Considers it. “So, let us talk of family.”
[Imogen] A spate of silence. imogen sets her bread down on the side plate, as yet unbitten, and now ignored.
“‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer,
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or take arms against a sea of troubles
and by opposing, end them,'” she quotes impassively, before offering a faint smirk, “I had to memorize it for school.” And apparently, she had never lost it. What she does not extrapolate is her own shakespearean collection, or the source of her own name.
Let us talk of family.
“Decker Rohl is at another Sept fer the moment,” she says, “Garou business, though he intends to return.” She’s never spoken of the claim this particular Garou laid upon her, and even when she speaks now, there is barely any suggestion that she speaks of anyone who is more than an acquaintence. If he’s perceptive he may catch it, the flicker of tension at her mouth, there, then gone, controlled rather than faded. “A Garou named Joe – War Hand, I believe – has taken his place as Jarl. Kemp Oates is still ‘ere, and there is another Garou named GutSong, a Skald, who wants as many stories as he can gather. He is traditional in his views and rigid as well. Joe’s young; a skinhead, if you believe his tattoos.”
She pauses, drawing in a breath thoughtfully. Now is when the waitress comes with her wine, and the redhaired kinwoman stops speaking while the other is present. She picks up her glass by the bowl, holding it between her fingers as she gently twirls it to watch the liquid cling to the sides of the glass.
“There are two kinfolk who were unaware of themselves until recently. Drew and Laila. I’ve not seen them for a bit, though, but that is as likely because o’ our paths not crossing than anything else.”
[Monty] Monty nods, slavishly buttering his slice of bread with a mixture of olive and tomato paste, carefully seaming the cracks and crevices of the bread with the mixture. That accomplished, he carefully inserts the whole into his mouth, and brings his lips closed just short of his finger tips, which he plucks free from his face as if to touch his own lips was to scald them. Then, carefully, voluminous cheeks not even bulging out, he crunches and cracks the bread within his mouth, eyes serious as he listens, delectating with quiet extravagance on that which he eats.
Finally: “GutSong. What a horrible name. It summons up every image that gives me the chills. Ropes of tendon and intestines, all gleaming as some monster sits festooned with them like a Christmas tree, singing some hey nonny nonny song about tummy aches.” He grimaces, and delicately takes up his martini.
“Honestly, why can’t any of them be called, oh, “Prepares The Fated Dish”, or… “Righteous Niceness”…. or….” He pauses, looking up and to the left. “‘Eater of Honey and Chocolate’? No?” He eyes her, smiles ruefully. “Guess not. GutSong it is. And a skinhead too? Well well. I honestly can’t wait to meet them all. At least Kemp is still around. I remember him being at turns quite pleasant and disgusted with my presence.”
A pause. “And… was there not a Skadi? Cowboy girl, remarkably attractive, in a white hot poker kind of way. Made me very, very uncomfortable, might I add. Whatever happened to her?”
[Imogen] “There was,” she says simply. “But I don’t know what happened t’her. She left th’Eagles and stayed fer a time, then disappeared altogether.”
A pause as she picks up her bread again taking a measured bite from its tip, “Someone at th’Sept might know better.”
[Monty] “Huh,” comments Monty pithily, nonplussed. “She seemed the kind to leave a mark, you know, all hot and tempestuous and… attractive, if you will.” He smiles uneasily. “Not that I ever had designs, lord no! Can you imagine? Ho hum.” Suddenly embarrassed, he tackles the shards of bread on his plate, and busies himself with slathering and buttering.
“So, yes, if you recall, I’m a relatively important figure in local politics. Executive Assistant to the County Manager, which means, well, connections.” He waves the bread airily as if demonstrating a point. “Budgeting, community service centers, zoning, police and fire department business, all sorts of things.” A big crunch as he demolishes the bread. Speaks around it, reaching up with one palm to catch falling crumbs, “So, yesh, if you need shtuff, happy to–” pauses to crunch, swallow, “Excuse me, happy to lend a hand, get things done. Send money this way, if I can, send money that way if something else needs doing.”
[Imogen] Can you imagine? Monty asks, before subsiding into embarrassment, and Imogen regards him for several moments, bread poised in the air, as if, at that moment, some measure of imagination works its way into her mind. She shakes her head infinitessimally, and takes the last bite of her bread.
She carefully wipes crumbs onto her napkin, before lifting a hand to her face to push hair back from her eyes.
“Well,” she says, “in return, I’m once again a doctor at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. I’ve still quite a bit of influence in law enforcement and a few other places.”
A pause, “Of late, the most common thing I’ve done is -” she stops speaking as a waiter passes, continuing as he moves out of ear shot, “burn corpses. There’s been a rise in combat between the Full Blooded and their enemies. Kinfolk have been attacked as well.”
It is her version of a warning, or at least, full disclosure.
“Still, I imagine there are ways we can help each other, should the need arise.”
[Monty] Monty’s face visibly pales. “Oh, ah,” he says, for lack of anything better, and busies himself with more bread. They’re running perilously short of it. “Burning corpses? That’s, that’s delightfully morbid.” He tries to smile, fails. “Almost, almost I’m inclined to ask how you go about disposing the bones, but you know, I’m not sure I’d be hungry if you did. And if my hunger fled me? I’d be bereft.”
An attempt at humor, and then his shoulders sag further. “But it’s gotten bad, has it, or worse than it was? Kin are being attacked? I consider myself a member of that category, you know, which means, which means–” he pauses, straightens a little, meets her eye. “Which means I could be in danger? Actual, tangible, could happen next week danger as opposed to the abstract, the enemy is always out there kind?”
Monty tries to be tough. Tries. But in his eye is a gleam that indicates he simply did not want to be a hero in some dark and tragic tale. He’d much, much rather read about it.
[Imogen] Her humour is more genuine as he speaks of his hunger fleeing him, his bereftness if that state of affairs should come to pass. “Perhaps we should change the subject,” she observes, and he does, but only slightly.
Imogen shakes her head slightly, “I don’t believe tha’ half-bloods are bein’ hunted,” she says. “Only tha’ some ha’ been unfortunate enough t’be in the wrong place at th’wrong time,” a pause, “Or have been too careless to stay out of the way.”
She straightens, and throughout this all, she’s watched him, speaking not in comfort, but simple, straight facts. “Consider it time fer awareness o’ yer surroundings,” she says. “Not panic.”
[Monty] “Panic?” He smiles, almost a grin, a flash of teeth, an impressive display of fearsome gnashers. In this, perhaps, he is Fenrir, and were he full blooded, his bite would be lethal. “I am not given to panic, my dear, just sudden urges to move rapidly toward all exits, and once I have passed through them, find the next set of exits, and make my way through them poste hate, and so on and infinitum, or ad nauseum, you take your pick.” This all delivered rather quickly, such that he takes a deep, steadying breath by the end of it.
“Ok.” Places palms on the table top. “Time for awareness. One thing I am very aware of is my complete inability to defend myself. Other than sitting on my opponents, I am without physical means of offense or defense. I do believe you would agree that I should tend to this insufficiency?”
[Imogen] “The best thing you can do,” and here she takes his own phrasing and turns it back toward him, “is head fer the nearest exit. Then the next and the next. If you must, learn how to use somethin’ long range – such as a gun.”
A pause. “However, I’ve always seen such weapons as somethin’ t’be used when running is not an option. Rather than ‘in lieu of’.”
[Monty] “Well, in that we are agreed. I shall work on both my running, then, and my gunmanship. Is it ‘gumanship’? Gun play? That sounds even worse, to play at guns. I shall endeavor to improve my ballistic skills. Or whatever. Hmm.” He eyes her. “Would you happen to know of a friendly local gun store? Or shooting range? Or… have any suggestions on what sort of gun I should look into buying?”
Frowns, pensively. “Shotgun in each hand? Or platinum plated magnums, which I would of course fire sideways, like in the hip hop/rap videos?” A wry curl to his lips at the very end, amused despite himself.
[Eddie Vaako] Somewhere in the smoky, sitar touched buzz of the lower level, two well dressed men grow closer over time. Rather than giving the impression of a pair of friends or lovers, they lean at each other from across the small table. What had been breezy smiles and the impression that each seemed inclined to rule the tiny space, slowly turned into glares. Quietly veiled threats.
Then compromise. Thankfully, before their noses had grown so close that someone dragged a tie through the plum sauce.
Each man leans back.. trading glares yet, as the shorter, thickset Italian shuffles from his chair, slashes his name angrily across the check, snatches his card from the waiter and stalks toward the door.
A tall, rangy, vaguely threatening man remains behind. Two long, clever fingers flicker against the tablecloth like talons as Eddie leans back and sips at the last of the wine. Having narrowly earned the freedom to people watch for a while, he does so. Pale green eyes nearly shine white in the blue glow of the falling water, and the intense man’s attention begins to crawl slowly across the other tables. Nonchalant, subtle enough- but this place is clearly above his normal financial range. The tasteful, complementary clothes don’t show it. His faintly tourist nature does.
[Imogen] “I imagine one only calls it gunmanship when one competes professionally,” says the good doctor, turning away to reach for her handbag beside her on the booth. She opens the clasp and reaches inside, her fingers nimble amidst her billfold, a small notebook, then a slender pocket. It is from there that she retrieves a series of business cards, her eyes lowered as she flips through them.
“You can try here,” she says, picking out a small card and passing it over. The writing on it is crude and amateurishly designed. Some gunshop with the name of the owner in its title, a phone number, a fax number and an email address from some free webmail service. “I know they ha’ lessons fer beginners. As fer a gun, yeh should try yer hand at a few before deciding. I recommend yeh favour accuracy over firepower. It won’t matter how much damage it can do, if yeh never hit with it.”
Her awareness of the other patrons of this restaurant, an haut-couture style which is stiffling in its attempt to provide just the right atmosphere for its high-flying clientele, has been minimal, until the tension at a table across the room garners her gaze.
She watches briefly, her eyes moving to track the departing italian gentleman, before her attention returns to the remaining. When their gazes cross, she nods – something like greeting, acknowledgement.
She turns back to the table and snaps her hand-bag closed, moving it back to her side. Her thus freed hand picks up her wine glass as she says, “The gentleman over there is kinfolk as well, if I recall correctly. Different family from yours.”
[Monty] “Hmm,” rumbles Monty, deep within his chest. He picks up the card, eyes it, and then slips it inside his jacket pocket, where he pats it twice before turning his gaze to try and locate the indicated gentleman. It takes him several sweeps before he clues in, and then he immediately looks back at Imogen, trying to appear nonchalant and failing quite miserably.
“Oh,” he says. “I see. Family. Should we send over a glass of wine?” He smiles at her, and then shifts his weight. “Or not? You seem to know the man. Nice fellow? Looks a bit… intense.”
[Eddie Vaako] The strangely satisfied air with which Eddie had been sweeping his gaze across the restaurant shattered as he noticed a certain luminous face topped with red hair on the balcony. Teeth flash white reckless as he shoots a grin at Imogen and returns the nod… while his swift mind scurries frantically for some indication as to whether or not she’d recognized the man he’d been having dinner with.
Its all part and parcel of walking a very narrow line. The chance of being caught always just around the corner, and Emil’s fingers slide contentedly across one lapel as the readied lie leaps into place just behind his lips.
Something else occurs to him, and his attention returns to the balcony. Vaguely excited, or perhaps haunted. The slightly overly tall cop rises to his feet, sweeps his glass into one hand and- faux pas- the half empty bottle of wine into the other. A swift but abbreviated glare for the waiter, as apparently Eddie doesn’t know they’ll tote the bottle up the stairs for him. Maybe thought the young man meant to take it away. Three hundred dollars a bottle, Guiseppe had said. No way he’s giving it up ’till he’s sucked the last bit of Italy out of the thing, by God.
Ed’s gait is a confident strut. The subconscious sort every cop develops in time. He weaves through the exclusive crowd
[Monty] (Heads up–I’m rapidly starting to fade. Next post might be my last!)
to Eddie Vaako, Imogen, Izzy Montoya
[Imogen] Imogen shakes her head slightly, lifting her half-drunk wine for a sip. “I don’t know him very well,” she says. “Though I imagine you are not the first person to call him intense.”
As if proving it, the tall police officer gets to his feet, his attitude, devil-may-care as he sweeps up his wine bottle and glass.
Imogen’s amusement flickers briefly across her mouth. Though she possesses poise and after a fashion, a manner of etiquette and manners, she does not find his faux-pas offensive. “I don’t believe it’s neccessary to offer him a glass of wine,” she observes as Emil heads toward them.
[Monty] Monty in turn rises to his feet, taking his napkin and passing it once across his mouth before dropping it in a crumpled ball on the wide table expanse.
“Well, I shall take this opportunity to visit the little boy’s room,” he says, and then pauses. “Big boy’s room, as it were, but yes. Excuse me, I shall return shortly.”
A tight smile, and his spherical form quickly makes it way through the crowd, parting it with ease, and disappears round the back.
[Eddie Vaako] A moment or two later Eddie’s form paints the head of the stairs in shadow. Rangy as hell. Even gaunt in the wrong light, he cuts a spare and harsh figure. Driven, perhaps. The smile comes easy again and pale eyes slip against Monty’s broad back, the interest plain, but cursory.
He sweeps toward Imogen’s table, planting the bottle exactly between them with a flick of one talon- like hand. He leans over as he sits, and at the same time whispers.
“There’s three of them now! All of ’em kids! What the hell do I do! Try the wine. Someone told me its good.” A frown spikes across his face for a moment as he gestures to the bottle. Some sort of puzzle he’s offering to let her help him figure out.
He plants himself in a chair with little preamble, half rises again and holds. He quirks an eyebrow in a silent question.
[Imogen] Imogen lifts her own eyebrow, but it is more in commentary than in question, as she leans forward slightly to turn the bottle’s label toward her, looking down to read it.
She is not a wine connoisseur but the vintage sounds impressive enough.
“Three -” the way she pauses is indicative of a lead-in, an invitation for him to explain what in heaven’s name he’s talking about. While, perhaps he does, Imogen leans away slightly, catching a waiter’s eye and signalling for another glass.
She may not be a connoisseur, but she knows enough not to mix white wine with red, even in the smallest of doses.
[Eddie Vaako] He only waits a moment or two for permission to sit- then plants it with aplomb. Screw manners anyhow. Its time for monster talk. He clears his throat and smooths an eyebrow with the pass of one long finger before his odd eyes fasten against Imogen’s face.
“What? Oh- three of them, right.” Oddly animated for the normally dour cop. His attention nearly sizzles, for all that his face retains its poker- ready stoniness. Three fingers rise in the air as he rests his wrist on the tabletop.
“Three um.. cousins. Right? My cousins. My mean little big cousins. There used to be one. But she died recently.” That part slows him down a little. He’d met Marrick. His eye might be more trained than before.. but the grandmothers who haunt his instincts still tell him she was a little girl. He stares at his wineglass and continues.
“So, what do we do if there’s several of them? I mean… who’s…” He gestures vaguely. “The boss?”
[Izzy Montoya] Izzy is not often wanting for company, despite her foul mouth, her tough as nails demeanor, the fact that anyone within a 50yd radius can tell she’s a fucking cop. Despite all that – or perhaps because of it and the fact that she very rarely says no.
Everyone has their vices.
Tonight is no different, though perhaps what IS different is that the man she entered with, she does not leave with. He gets called off to some task or another, some work thing or another, and leaves her sitting at the table alone. Then, though she’d been fairly observant of her surroundings already – as it’s really stupid not to be – she actually takes stock in those that share the balcony seating with her.
In particular, Dr. Slaughter, who’s lost one companion only to have been joined by another. Should she look in Izzy’s direction, she simply offers a lopsided little smirk, and raises her glass – whiskey, not wine – in toasted greeting.
[Imogen] He says someone had died, and had Imogen been the type to be more aware of the tribes of other Garou, she might be troubled to ask who it had been – she knows a Black Fury, but is unaware of it. She knows who has died. But is unaware of it.
Her eyes touch his, the pupils to check for dilation. She attends to his words, and absently listens to see if any slur or clip more than she can recall. Emil is more animated than usual and the bottle is half empty.
A waiter brings an empty wine glass, his expression one of indifference tempered by dislike, though it’s hard to identify the source.
“Often whoever is the highest rank is -” the way she handles the next word makes it clear that she uses his own verbiage, despite its disparity with her own, “or it may be whoever has beaten the others in a challenge. Or whoever wants it. It differs from tribe t’tribe how it’s handled.”
She takes the bottle of red wine and pours herself a small dollop, lifting the glass to inhale its aroma. She does not sip, instead turning her attention back to lift an eyebrow in Emil’s direction and ask the question, “Why, ha’ they gi’en you conflictin’ directions?”
[Eddie Vaako] “No.” Emil’s fingers snatch his wineglass up again, and his tasteful leather coat creaks as he leans back against his chair, letting one long arm dangle behind him. He tips the glass, then replaces it with a hasty tap against the table between them.
“Its just that I’ve heard they generally don’t like men much. The one or two I’ve met seem.. almost pissed off by some questions. So I figured before I ask them directly, I might score points by already knowing some of the answers, right?”
The man’s pupils are actually tight little pips of black on a field of milky green. He isn’t sweating, and there’s a clipped, hasty tint to his normally rumbling, deep voice. The wine doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the vibrating energy pouring through him. Its all vague.. on the edges of his demeanour rather than a glaring feature of conduct… but the good Doctor has almost certainly seen an aide or two on stimulants after a triple shift.
[Imogen] Imogen’s mouth twitches, a little tightly. “Does the answer really matter?” She takes a swallow of wine, letting it remain in her mouth first before letting it trickle down her throat.
“‘Someone’ was right,” she says, setting her glass down and reaching for the bottle again, as she’d only poured herself a swallow before. “The wine is good.”
Izzy and Imogen have already shared a regard, Izzy smirking, and Imogen offering no shift in her expression. She tilts her head slightly in invitation, but turns her attention without waiting to see what the police officer chooses.
[Izzy Montoya] Some days, all it takes is an invitation, and when it arrives, only then does Izzy gather her glass – the meal already paid for – and stands. She lifts her coat from the back of her chair where it was draped. In doing so, there is the clear view of her gun holstered at her lower back, before she stands and turns to move in their direction.
“Evening, Dr. Slaughter.” A beat, as she studies Eddie, and then.. “Vaako. Long time no see.”
[Eddie Vaako] Not so dosed that he doesn’t notice his surroundings, Eddie’s posture shifts only slightly as Imogen’s eyes pass against Izzy as the latter approaches. A shift of an elbow. That’s enough. Of their own accord the first two fingers of his right hand tap a battle hymn quietly against the base of his chair. Mean cusses, those two fingers..
He tips his head to Izzy once he sees who’s arrived, and flashes a slightly too- reckless grin again. All white teeth in an olive face.
“Montoya. Have a sit. Try the wine. The Doc recommends it.”
Sharp, vulpine features swivel back to Imogen as she answers him, asks questions of her own. They taste rhetorical in his own mind… but being mistaken can be very life threatening these days.. so he shoots anyway.
“I don’t understand what you mean. The answer to my question? I don’t know who’s top-” A wince, and he doesn’t complete the statement.
“Is it impolite to ask who’s boss, then?”
[Imogen] “Detective,” Imogen greets Montoya mildly, tilting her head toward the booth across of from her in silent agreement to Emil’s invitation.
I don’t know who’s top- Emil stops and winces. Imogen smirks. “Dog?” she inserts, an eyebrow arching.
“There’s no one ‘ere t’take offence.”
She shakes her head slightly, “Not tha’ I can imagine. S’merely a question o’ hierarchy. I imagine there are some who will take offence regardless of the question you pose. As fer my earlier question – all I wondered was if th’answer truly mattered to you. After all, how they order themselves isn’t goin’ to affect you. How you interact wi’ them, and they with you, that’s different.
“S’a matter o’ opinion, though. I don’t consider th’question inappropriately rude. The term I’ve heard used is ‘Tribal Elder’. Yeh might ask that.”
[Izzy Montoya] She drapes her coat over the back of the booth, and slides in to take a seat. She studies Eddie for a long moment, taking in his posture, the flash of white in an olive face, reckless and sure, all at once. She makes no effort to hide it, but whatever the thought behind it, she merely smirks. “Miss me?”
For her part, even now at the tail end of what was quite possibly a date – or what passes for one with Izzy – she is dressed no differently than any other day. Slacks, button-down tailored blouse, sensible shoes. It’s rumored that once in a blue moon she actually dresses up – but most declare it a vicious awful rumor. There are no pictures to prove it, after all, so it simply didn’t happen.
“Meant to ask ya at the fuckin’ meeting, but had some things to discuss with Thornton. You in the same boat as him? Newly noticed, and all that shit?” Same ole’ Izzy. “What tribe we talkin, anyway?” The last to Imogen, curious.
[Eddie Vaako] “Like rabies, Izz.” Eddie winks broadly in answer to the other cop’s question, one long, skinny finger tracing the level of wine in his glass. Otherwise, the rangy, too- thin cop watches Imogen’s face as she speaks. Her lips, her eyes, drinking in the dimly perceived cues of posture and gesture- such as they are. Gleaning every bit of information he can almost hungrily.
“Its sorta like this…” He plucks a piece of nonexistent lint from one sleeve of his jacket and splays that hand against the table as he answers Imogen. His voice is a rich thrum of words that can be felt in the feet and chest even as one hears the words themselves. Good cop voice. Sounds hellish- or good- close in the ear. He probably knows that. Vanity for miles, in this one.
“I used to have this lieutenant who would completely loose his mind if I asked one of his sergeants a question that affected all of an investigation. A certain amount of that I can understand- but everything was so personal with this guy I’m surprised his heart hadn’t exploded yet. I wanted to sorta avoid that kind of situation, since being offended seems to mean a whole lot… more… to these people. Whether or not they explain anything to you.”
He nods, once, then leans toward Izzy. “Black Fury. I’m about as new as it gets, but I’m learning.”
[Imogen] “There are quite a few of them,” Imogen observes to Izzy, rather than answering the question that she had posed. A question that Emil answers instead. What tribe? Black Fury.
Emil offers an explanation as to why he wants to know what he wants to know, and Imogen studies him, her expression carefully neutral. She is a difficult woman to read – pale skin, dark eyes, a rim of copper lashes on each lid. Her skin may as well be composed of porcelain, her bones of ice. She has little by way of overt emotion, no hint to her next words or decision.
“Ask them about Tribal Elder. If they won’t tell you, and it’s important enough fer you t’know, I’ll ask a Garou who will get me the answer.”
[Izzy Montoya] She chooses to answer Imogen first, chuckling. “You’d think for a buncha fuckin assholes who want to keep us ‘protected’ they’d be able to keep a better eye on where an’ when we pop up, hm?” She lifts her glass to her lips, draining it by half. She doesn’t try the wine. She does, however, gesture to a passing waitress that she wants another, when they have a chance.
Black Fury. “Jesus.” Something in that amuses the hell out of her. She doesn’t clarify though. Sometimes she keeps things to herself, though it is rare. She nods her agreement with Imogen’s suggestion. “Ain’t easy for an old dog to learn new tricks – but learnin is good.” A beat. “An’ if there’s anything I can do to help, well, you fuckin’ know where to find me. I’ve been around this block many times.”
Yes. She’s aware what how that statement could be interpreted, thus sayeth that amused little smirk, anyway. “Fenrir, for me. Known since birth though.”
[Eddie Vaako] “I dunno.” He scowls into his glass. “I mean.. I get it, for the most part. They’re fighting shit… check. Thing is-” He rustles as he sits up. “We fight shit too.” The gesture includes the three of them. “With a whole lot fewer people caught in the crossfire. I don’t mind if they don’t want to protect me or whatever.” He snorts. “Been doing that fine for quite a while-” He glares at Izzy. “…Thanks for pointing that out. Anyway- they seem sorta irritated by us. Not real inclined toward protection. So why is what we do,” A significant glance to both of the women. “Or with whom, such a big deal? I mean… pick one!”
One of Eddie’s eyes quirk. “What’s a Fenrir?”
[Imogen] “Get of Fenris,” Imogen says, “S’also called Fenrir. S’a tribe.”
A pause.
“As fer what is done and with whom, they make a big deal about it because they feel they have th’right t’do so. S’not the same as protecting.
“A Garou o’ yer tribe might see yer existence as somethin’ they’re responsible for. Yer actions can shame them. Make it seem like they’ve not got their kinfolk in order.”
[Izzy Montoya] What’s a Fenrir? “Me,” She quips. “Only angrier – with fangs n fuckin’ claws.” Hard to imagine, likely, but it’s as apt an explanation as any – though Imogen’s is certainly more correct.
“Also, since fewer of the assholes are being born, an’ they can’t have them without us, it means they’ve gotta dictate who we spread our legs for so’s we can squirt out the next generation of assholes who’ll do the same.” She’s got a gift for putting it out there, don’t she?
She grins at Imogen, and lifts her glass. “Sounds nicer when she says it, of course. ‘Keeping the kin in order’ and all.”
[Eddie Vaako] Strangely enough, Eddie purses his lips, and after a moment of consideration, nods. Apparently finding the part about shaming another with your own actions easy to swallow- or at least a familiar idea, if the grimace is any indication.
Candlelight from the small brass cup on the table gleams in the pupils of his eyes as his attention sweeps from one of them to the other.
“Don’t hold back Izz, fer Chrissake.” He tilts an eyebrow and chuckles darkly. The expression falters soon enough, as the real weight of what Izzy said settles into his mind. The older man stares off at the slow moving waterfall and murmurs. Something about ‘Hector’ and ‘asshole’.
As something else occurs to him, Eddie tilts the bottle first toward Imogen’s wine glass, then his own.
“So. How do you guys get around that part? Anything I can do? What- fake a headache?”
[Imogen] “You refuse,” Imogen says simply, lifting her recently filled wine glass and taking a deep swallow. “Or you give in. There are obviously variations on the theme, but it’s the crux of it, all the same.”
[Izzy Montoya] “Have I ever?” Held back, she means. And the answer is no. Even back in the day, when this was not a discussion they could have, when their work was all they had and all they conversed about – even then, she never gave any indication that she held anything back. Ever. Balls to the wall, mach 10, all or nothing, Izzy. It’s no wonder she’s always been one of the guys, and can number her female friends on a single hand.
“What she said. Me, well. The rumors you’ve heard are likely true, but I have rules. They want my precious breeding, they can get it from the fuckin cryo bank, like everyone else. That’s as close as I’m gonna get to fuckin’ furtherin’ the bloodline.”
A beat, and a smirk as grins at Eddie. “An’ I never fake anything.”
[Eddie Vaako] Eddie stares at Imogen as she replies. Continues to watch her face. His own pale, intense eyes shifting from one to the other of her own. After a moment that stretches for quite a while, he exhales in a gust of wind almost solemnly.
He purses his lips again, then tilts the bottle over his glass until only drops come out.
[Imogen] Imogen watches Emil in return – her gaze steady, unwavering, unflinching. Ungiving.
Izzy mentions a cryo bank, and Eddie empties the wine bottle into his glass. Imogen picks up her own glass and takes another swallow, bringing the glass down to half.
“Who died?”
She changes the subject, arching an eyebrow. “You’d mentioned one o’ yer tribesmates had died.”
[Eddie Vaako] His eyes flick back up between the two of them.
“Marrick. Nice kid. Quiet. Pissed as fuck. But a kid god damnit.”
[Izzy Montoya] The amusement fades. It’s replaced with something else, something that shows there’s an awful lot more to Izzy Montoya then what she lets most folks see. “They’re all kids.”
Some days, she feels incredibly ancient, horrifically old. The truth of the matter is the Trueborn don’t live till old age. They just don’t.
[Adamidas] (psst, loves I saw open. Location?)
to Eddie Vaako, Imogen, Izzy Montoya
[Imogen]
[Imogen] (It’s always so embarrassing when I do that.)
[Izzy Montoya] (Imogen has such a way with words!)
[Eddie Vaako] (This sort of mistake, from someone who holds the FATE of NATIONS in her hands! Her very digits! We’re DOOOOOMED!)
[Imogen] (DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMED. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Hahahaha– oh yeah, I need to post)
[Adamidas] (psssst! Saw open, what’s the scene and is it still open?)
[Izzy Montoya] (They’re in a restaurant somewhere, and I totally crashed, too. Crash away! :) )
[Imogen] A tendon tightens in the slight woman’s jaw. Emil litanizes Marrick – not really, though he offers some of her traits, from his perspective. Izzy makes a comment that they’re all kids, and Imogen takes a drink from her wine glass.
She reaches down, picking up her purse and retrieving her billfold. She counts out the cash that will cover her share of her own wine, and the food she had shared with Monty, adding it to the bill in the corner for a waitress to pick up.
“On that particularly vibrant note,” she says without irony or dryness, “I should get goin’.”
[Imogen] (It’s this uber crazy asian fusian restaurant, very expensive. Great wine, snooty waitresses and old men smoking cigars. and, uh, three kinfolk drinking alcohol in a booth)
[Eddie Vaako] (Guys, I didn’t realize what time it is… I’d probably better consider going to bed myself.))
to Adamidas, Imogen, Izzy Montoya
[Imogen] (Yeah, I have sooo gotta go to bed. *LOL*)
to Adamidas, Eddie Vaako, Izzy Montoya
[Imogen] (is going to wati for final posts, though!)
to Adamidas, Eddie Vaako, Izzy Montoya
[Izzy Montoya] (Wusses. I’m still awake for a while – I can play if ya want, mindyloo.)
to Adamidas, Eddie Vaako, Imogen
[Adamidas] (haha! Praise Lessa for her strange, Alaskan Stamina! *happydance* I’ll wait a second to see where people go before posting in)
to Eddie Vaako, Imogen, Izzy Montoya
[Eddie Vaako] Eddie leans back. A long, wiry figure cast in bronze skin and well tailored black and cream clothing. He crosses his feet at the ankles and nods to the two women as he digs out one of those slender cigars and lights it.
“Keep in touch guys.” Its distracted. The rich rumble making its way with casual ease to the appropriate ears.
Sharp, aquiline features shift smoothly to take in the slowly falling water as he takes a while to sit, tip the glass of expensive wine that tastes to him like any other, and think for a while.
[Izzy Montoya] Imogen takes her leave, and she’s followed quickly by Eddie. “Goodnight, Imogen, Vaako.”
And then she simply watches them go, reaching for her new drink that was just delivered, and waving for the waitress to feel free to clear the table. When asked if she wants anything else, she shakes her head – and then changes her mind. “Something chocolate. I don’t fuckin’ care what.”
[Imogen] (Thank you for the scene guys! I had a good time.)
[Izzy Montoya] (Me too! Sleep well, guys!)
[Adamidas] Suffice to say, yesterday sucked.
The Fury was making her way down the street, rage too bright for a frame relatively small in comparison to her pack sisters. She was, however, of an average size. Of a medium build and none of that. She started into the overly poshe restaurant if for no other reason than… well… she needed to use the bathroom.
She had made an attempt to look older than she was, which meant to say this: she looked legal, for once, but not like she could or shoudl be drinking.
Like Alethea Penelope Adamidas ever drank, though. Always so in control of her faculties…
with oo much rage for a relatively small frame, stripped of most of her spiritual connection, and holding a tenuous grasp on her will, Adam wonders if this is what an ahroun feels like all the time.
She does not envy them.
[Izzy Montoya] It’s a somewhat posh restaurant, not exactly the type of place Izzy Montoya usually frequents. But their whiskey is good, the food was alright, the company was pretty good, and well, the whiskey was good.
Her table is vacated for the second time this evening, and Izzy drags her hand through her hair, holding it back from her face for just a moment, or two. She’s no great beauty, Izzy, but she’s nothing to scoff at either. Mostly, for those in the know, she’s purely bred – she’s got the blood that sings of heroes and warriors and it tends to pull attention her way. It’s something one says they’re used too – though they never quite are.
Adam garners attention too, for an entirely different reason. Her rage opens the crowd before her, and she cuts a path through the crowd without having to deviate in one direction or the other. It causes her gaze to turn, to see what causes the sudden unfocused shift in the restaurant’s humanity. And she watches – without trying to hide it at all.
[Adamidas] She doesn’t like it. There’s tension there, something that needs to be burnt off and stripped away like a bad memory, but it won’t leave.
it holds too tight, too tense, too oppressive for her to get rid of. It’s nothing compared to some, but she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Adam is a different sort of creature. She is uncomfortable, she is nervous, she is tense and intense and she feels like she might be choking on air that may or may not be there and-
She stops… she inhales… she centers herself.
She heads over to Izzy, carrying and conducting herself like a woman instead of a traumatized girl.
“Can I sit with you?” she asks. May as well.
[Izzy Montoya] She arches a brow, slightly, as the (..kid. they’re all fuckin’ kids…) young woman asks to join her, and after a moment Izzy nods, and gestures toward the empty booth seat across the table from her.
“Sure.” Adam is too tight, too tense, too oppressive and seems a bit out of sorts. Uncomfortable, nervous. “I’m Izzy. Everything alright?”
[Adamidas] “Adam,” she offers.
She’s a theurge for chrissakes, this is not something she is used to. Hands in her lap, and she slips in tomake the acquaintance of this particular Fenrir. She observes her, and she doesn’t have the typical faraway look that her eyes have. Not like they usually did, or at least, not the same otherworldlyness.
Was everything alright?
A beat.
“I need a hug,” she tells her. but that was about it.
Another beat.
“I don’t think Fenrir are down with hugging random strangers, though.”
[Izzy Montoya] Adam needs a hug, and that brow jumps upwards again. Of all the things she’s been asked for by members of the nation, this is quite possibly the first time she’s been asked for a hug. Information, yes. Her gun, absolutely. A fuck? Sure. But a hug?!?
There’s a first time for everything.
“Typically, no.” Says the Fenrir, about hugging random strangers. “That’s not exactly up my alley. How about we start with desert, and go from there? I just ordered some death by chocolate thing, and if that and conversation don’t fuckin’ cure ya, we’ll try something else.”
Izzy is older. Brash. In your face. She makes no apologies, takes no prisoners (well, except for the ones she arrests), kicks ass and takes names. She doesn’t censor, and she sure as fuck doesn’t back down. Sometimes it’s a welcome change. other times it’s positively maddening. Time will tell what tonight is…
[Adamidas] “Chocolate helps,” she says, “it’s feminine wisdom. If something can not be solved by careful application of desert then it really isn’t worth solving.”
The crescent moon states as though this is simply a fact of life. She is many things. Her cheekbones are high, her eyes dark, and she even sports a facial piercing. it’s adorable, to say the least, though there are times that she does betray precisely how old she is. Adamidas leaves it there.
“Chocolate’s the way I want to go. I not in battle, then by chocolate,” she announces.
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly. “Then that’s they we’ll start.” She waves a hand at the waitress, and points to her new companion, and raises a second finger. The waitress nods her understanding, and then goes back to put in the order.
Afterwards, Izzy relaxes back into her seat, her fingers tapping absently along her glass, before she lifts it up and takes a swig. “Wanna talk about it?”
[Adamidas] She’s quiet for a bit, asks for a glass of water from the waitress, and takes a second to think. She stops and she looks at Izzy. She’s, embarrassed. She shouldn’t be embarrassed, but she is. She knows this is silly, especially given that whatever had happened had harkened back to pre-change memories she would have rather not relived.
“I got stuck yesterday when I was in a fight with my pack… and… I was fighting… and this big blob thing, like… ate me, and I couldn’t get out… and I panicked, and couldn’t think of anything but I need out of here. It took a full three seconds before I could get into rational thought..”
She stops.
“I shouldn’t have been so scared over something that stupid,” she chastizes.
[Izzy Montoya] Adam takes her time, figuring out if she wants to talk about it, if she wants to explain what has her so out of sorts. She’s embarrassed, and knows she shouldn’t be. She thinks it may be silly, that she was so upset. For Izzy’s part, she simply listens.
“We can’t always control our fears. They’re often irrational – which means that they are far from stupid.” Izzy doesn’t suggest that he fact it only took her three seconds to retain rational thought is amazing in any other walk of life. In the Nation’s war, that’s a lifetime.
She’s not exactly comforting, Izzy, but there is something of an understanding there, a knowledge that it happens, and it often can’t be helped.
[Izzy Montoya] (Slaps a pause on it!)