[Marni]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7) [WP]
[Marni] Near the CTA ‘L’, there’s a ruckus – mostly surprise’d calls, a bit of laughter, the outrage of one CTA official who still can’t quite believe what he just saw. It fades as the train takes off again, and one grungy gnawer is FLYING down the steps to the street, grabbing the railing on the bottom step to send herself careening around the corner and taking off full bore down the street, top speed…
Laughing all the way.
[Kemp Oates] He glanced up with all the distant ruckus. Nothing new in this part of town, but if it meant someone was about to collide with his hot drink, he would be royally pissed. Arrested in the motion of handing a coffee to Imogen as he came out of the little Cafe’ a moment before the commotion started.
“Here. What the fuck is going on now?”
That was about when he saw the Gnawer running their way.
“Nevermind. Seen that one once already. Questions answered. Here’s your moca choka lotta hotta.”
Extending the cup towards Imogen as a thin stream of steam came out the little spout on the lid.
[Imogen Slaughter] “Mocha choco-latte,” she corrects him precisely as she takes the cup from him, “ta.” British thanks as she removes the lid, lifting the cup to inhale of the fragrant steam.
Her gaze lifts briefly toward Marni as she approaches.
“From buses to the El, is it? S’bloody mad,” she observes. In her other hand is a cigarette; the reason Kemp had been in the cafe rather than the redhaired kinfolk. She takes a drag from it, smoke spilling from her lips as she exhales.
She has both her vices with her now – caffeine and cigarettes.
[Marni] She doesn’t stop – not until she’s sure the CTA all portly and out of shape has decided that he isn’t gonna catch her (like he could anyway) and just shakes a fist and shouts something that involves quite a lot of obscenities and physically impossible things he wants her to do to herself.
She bounces to a stop, still laughing, bending over to brace her hands on her thighs, as she catches her breath.
“Oh MAN that was FUN…”
[Kemp Oates] He stepped out of the smoke to a little upwind from it as he took a sip from his own cup.
“I like my name for it better. Server seemed to know what I was asking for.”
Of course he had ordered by number, but he wasn’t going to tell Imogen that.
“Watch, here she comes. Watch your pockets.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen’s eyebrow arches slightly at Kemp’s comment. “Do you have reason to say that?” she enquires, though Kemp has precious little time to reply before Marni comes into hearing distance.
She lowers her cigarette, tapping ash toward the ground. Lifts her coffee cup and takes her first sip, her mouth drawing tight as the hot liquid scalds her tongue.
[Marni] She shakes her head and grins. “Whew. Whataride!” And fingers wrap around the strap of her pack, and she closes the distance between herself and Imogen and Kemp. She’s not any cleaner than she was last time she saw them, though its not really bad yet – just a little grimy. Her hands are dirty, and when she reaches up to scratch her neck, she leaves dirty fingerprints along her skin.
“And a fine evening to you both” is her greeting, as she drops into a curtsy, chuckling.
[Kemp Oates] “Let me guess. Ya rode on top of the El like ya in some foreign country where it’s something they do.”
He touched his cheek, clearing his throat.
“Got shit right there on your face.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen takes another sip of her coffee, then replaces the lid, lifting her cigarette to her mouth.
Kemp has made some comments – Imogen witholds her own, instead inclining her head in a quiet greeting. “Hello.”
[Marni] She just grins and shrugs, chuckling. “Never tried it, huh? It’s the most AMAZING feeling – nothing’s quite like it. Took me a couple days to find a good launch spot – but now it’s all good. Hell, we do it all the time back home!”
Crazy, she is. Or maybe just a daredevil. Probably both.
She’s got something on her face, and she scrubs where he indicates, and naturally makes it worse. “Huh. Guess I’ll have to spring for a shower here eventually. Though Oh. My. GOD. You know that uppity mucky muck Fang chica from the diner the other night?” This to Imogen. “She’s got a HUGE ass pool in her house. I’m tempted to cannonball right on in with a bar of soap!”
[Imogen Slaughter] (eating!)
[Imogen Slaughter] “May I suggest,” Imogen says, her mouth twisting into a minor smirk, “the showers at the Brotherhood instead?”
[Kemp Oates] He had no idea who she was talking about and was busy pointing to various spots on his face, chin, forehead, even his scarred neck.
“There..and there…over there..oh and right there too…no..no…harder…ya missed it…little over that way.”
[Marni] She wrinkles her nose, and finally sticks her tongue out at Kemp. “Oh stop, like I’m so stupid I don’t know what ya doin…” Still, she’s chuckling.
“That’s the second time someone’s mentioned this place… said they got food and shit and Tall Dark And Delicious… what the hell was his name… Luke? Something like that – he was all ‘you can stay for FREE but be nice and do things for them’ and well, I don’t need a place to stay or nothing, but is it REALLY free if you’re required to do shit?”
She realizes she was rambling and gestures absently. “But showers, well – free showers ain’t nothing to sneeze at.”
[Kemp Oates] “Tall, Dark…Delicious?”
One split second went by before he was sticking a finger down his throat and bending over double with harfing sounds.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen merely shakes her head slightly – she doesn’t know of any Luke, and while she has met a Lukas once, it was long enough ago that it would not occur to her to make the connection.
“S’more free than if you had t’pay cash money for it,” she says with a faint smirk, “But I’m sure the showers come without much in th’way o’ debt.”
[Marni] “YOU didn’t see him in speedos.” She smirks, and shrugs.
“But yeah, then he got all ROAR MAH TERRITORY on me, and said I needed an invite, when I HAD an invite from the maid that invited me in for dinner, right? Seems to me, he’s got his nose just a LEETLE to high in the air. He was also all ‘you weren’t invited to snoop…” and she scoffs again. “Like ANYONE under a darkened moon needed an excuse for that. It’s kinda our thing, right?”
She has a grin for Imogen then. “Good, cuz I don’t got much in the way to pay for any debt. I appreciate the 411.”
[Kemp Oates] He was still busy making harfing sounds. When speedos were mentioned, his efforts doubled. It wasn’t till she mentioned territory and invites that he paid much attention.
“So the Brotherhood has become his territory? Interesting. And good.”
It meant he didn’t have to deal with the place at all and anything that went wrong there would fall on Lukas’ head. Just the thought had a wickedly dark smile shining in his eyes.
[Marni] “Nah, the pool place…”
[Kemp Oates] That killed his joy, it also confused him.
“Who the fuck are ya and what the fuck pool place are ya talking about?”
[Marni] Who the… “OH! Sorry. Marni Geller, at your service, sir.”
She snaps a salute, and then continues. “Oh, it was in lakeview. I got TOTALLY lost, and ended up grabbing dinner from that Kate person’s garbage can. They have the pool.”
[Imogen Slaughter] “She means Katherine Bellamonte,” Imogen interjects, casting Kemp an even glance.
[Kemp Oates] “Ok……so, if there is free food at a place, why the fuck are ya eating out of the trash? Granted, I rather hunt rat than spend time in the Brotherhood, but, that’s me.”
[Marni] She chuckles and shrugs. “Well, I didn’t know about this brotherhood place before that, and two – dude, people throw away perfectly good food! I mean shit that won’t go bad for DAYS still and they just toss it like it’s some cardinal sin to eat leftovers..”
She shrugs, and then chuckles. “The city provides, but only if you’re willing to lurk in the gutters a bit.”
A beat “You don’t like that place? Why?”
[Kora] Not an hour before, a Greyhound bus from somewhere in the middle cornfields – Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and points west (points west, they say, in lieu of naming all the little towns through which the bus has passed) pulled into the North Cumberland station. The last person off the bus was tall blonde in her early twenties, wearing a worn US-army issue combat coat, the name and rank patches torn off at the collar and sleeves. The crowd eddied away from her, unconsciously avoiding the predator beneath her skin. She retrieved a heavy backpack – the sort used by serious hobbyists or college kids slumming around Europe for a summer or a semester – but hers was battered and deflated, from both use and attrition. The neighborhood could not be considered safe, but she went unmolested – this despite the blonde hair and open-faced good looks.
Now, an hour later, she exits another bus, on another street. This one sighs and kneels, and vomits forth a few weary passengers before she follows – last off again, her features lit briefly, garishly, by the downslanting fluorescents of the bus interior. This neighborhood is no better, but the transit map suggests that a cross-town express taken from here will get her closer to her goal – an improbable place, in an improbably city.
And if the cross-town express doesn’t come – a promise made by last year’s transit maps, and last year’s transit funding, unfulfilled by this year’s city budget – no matter. She can walk. She’s done so before.
[Kemp Oates] “Get use to it. I don’t like a lot of places and even more people.”
Came his reply after taking a sip from the cup he held. Long shaggy brown hair curtained his eyes, matted down by the knit cap he wore tugged low. It was below freezing and his breath clouded out when he spoke.
“I’m Kemp and this is Imogen, by the way.”
He indicated the red head next to him.
“We like to hang out on corners and freeze our balls off. And before ya ask, yes, she has ’em.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen lifts an eyebrow as Kemp references her testicles.
“I only hang out on corners,” she says as she lifts her cigarette up, “because yer godforsaken city,” as if Kemp owned it or was responsible for it, “has banned smoking indoors.” She takes a deep drag, the ember flaring, her lungs filling with smoke.
“Or else I might be enjoying a nice coffee in a nice warm cafe.”
A beat.
“Also, those balls are metaphorical, I hope.”
[Kemp Oates] “I don’t know.”
He glanced down her body, turning it into a look at the ground near her feet.
“Thought I saw something roll away for a moment.”
[Marni] She wrinkles her nose. “You think this is cold? Really?” but then she’s eying Imogen, giving her an up and down once over, as if judging to see if what Kemp says is true. Not that she would care – there was this Metis once back home who…
…never mind. She just grins. “Met Imogen my first night here.”
Kemp looks for his balls, and Marni just shakes her head, chuckling. “Nice. You and I might get along JUST fine…”
[Imogen Slaughter] Kemp bends his head down, making a production of looking for Imogen’s balls, which have apparently rolled away.
Tch. the sound Imogen makes with her tongue against her teeth, as she snaps her fingers just beneath Kemp’s nose. “”S’bad bloody manners, that’s what you have,” she informs the Rotagar archly.
A turn of her attention to Marni.
“You were told where the Brotherhood is, were you?”
[Marni] She holds up a finger and shakes her head, curls bouncing. “Ya see, THATS the thing. Folks keep mentioning it? But never tell me where the hell it is. I think they’re scared I might piss in the corner or some such thing…” She snorts.
She tucks her fingers around the strap of her pack again though, and bounces a little on the balls of her feet. “Ain’t found out where the holy land is either. Not exactly.
[Kora] Kora wears neither coat nor gloves, and as tall and long as she is, the combat coat swallows her arms. It was made for someone taller and larger, swiped blindly off a surplus pile, and is thus shapeless and ill-fitting. The wrist cuff hit her hands half-way between the first and second joints of her fingers. She pushes them back up her forearms with a familiar, unconscious twist of her hands, revealing several inches of the sleeve of a worn, graying thermal underneath. Her blonde hair is dark in this light, greasy from a few days without watching, the endless sameness of the bus, the unchanging geometric lines of the factory farms, the fields fallow for the winter. It has fallen half loose from its mooring, and as the bus pulls away, she hefts the backpack through its bent metal frame and carries it to the far side of the sidewalk, resting it against the concrete halfway that divides the street from the row of dirty, graying townhouses beyond.
She pulls out the elastic band, then grabs the mass and doubles it over, securing it messily at the nape of her neck, scanning the street, watchful, as she does so. The bus idles at a desultory red light, then pulls away in a cloud of exhaust. Beyond, catty-cornered from her stop, the three of them joke familiarly. Imogen snags Kora’s attention first, the pull of breeding a scarlet flag flung against the gray winter night. She pauses, her hand on the frame of the backpack, studying the trio more closely now. She is far enough away that their voices are a murmur, but their body language is still clear.
[Kemp Oates] “That’s me, bad bloody something or other.”
Came his reply as he idly watched the bus pull off and knew there was another cloud of poison added to the air.
“I wouldn’t call the Brotherhood the holy land, though some of them that stay there probably do.”
Then he proceeded to fill Marni in on directions to get there.
[Kora] (– er, neither HAT nor gloves. sorry! my brain slipped. :) )
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen stands, straight-spined near the other two Garou. Her hair is a vibrant hue, her skin pale. She is slight, especially standing beside Kemp who overtops her by more than a foot – small boned, the lines of her body muffled by her woollen coat. She wears no hat or gloves, though the hems of the latter peek from her coat pocket.
Her blood speaks loudly of her history, her family’s heroes, their glory and accomplishments. She is the type of woman whose family name is likely known – not here, thousands of miles from home, but across the ocean, where the deeds of Garou bearing the last name Slaughter are known and told frequently.
Each achievement whispers in the tilt of her head, the flick of her gaze.
She catches sight of the woman idly watching, and turns her head to look that way, while Kemp speaks, unattended to Marni, providing her direction.
[Kemp Oates] ( LOL! I wondered)
to Imogen Slaughter, Kora, Marni,
[Kemp Oates] ( LOL! I wondered)
to Imogen Slaughter, Kora, Marni, snail
[Marni] She blinks, and then.. “Neither did I. I meant the OTHER place, where I gotta go make my official howdydos n’shit.”
But then she nods, listening to the directions to getting there, repeating them back at a murmur, and then nodding. Directions memorized. “Cool. Thanks man.”
[Kemp Oates] “I can get ya where ya need to go. And along the way ya can go into a little more detail about who ya are and who your folks are.”
He looked down at Imogen, then followed the direction she was looking towards and the blonde.
“Heh, not that it matters, but ya ok if just leave ya here. I mean, I know I’m cutting our hot date short, but I’ll make it up to ya with some frozen flowers or candy or something next time.”
It didn’t matter that he knew she would take this all with a bag of salt.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen’s eyes, dark and near-black in the ambient lightlessness of night, turn back to Kemp, her mouth twisting a little sardonically.
“I’ll manage,” she says, dryly. “Enjoy the caern, hm?”
She taps the ash off her cigarette and takes another sharp drag before pitching it into the gutter.
[Kora] In the eight weeks (she does not think in weeks, anymore, she will realize later today, but in moons, the movement of them, half here and half there, hidden or full, waxing or waning or her own – eaten, but only just) that she has been back in the States, Kora has eaten at least seventeen bags of Fritos. Not the snack size your mother (if you were lucky enough to have a mother) might have packed into your lunch (if you were lucky enough to get a lunch), but the full-size bags, the supersized bags, enough corn and lard to swamp a small vessel and more saturated fat than even supernaturally clean arteries should be able to handle. Five of those bags were consumed over the last 72 hours, and she can smell them now, not on her breath but on the tips of her fingers, wreathed in her hair.
This was on purpose. Kora missed Fritos.
Now, though, she pulls open the top flap of the intricate backpack to retrieve the remnants of the last bag. The weight isn’t promising, though, and she crumples it, shoving the ball of plasticized foil into her right coat pocket. After that comes a smaller bag, cloth or leather, with a drawstring closure that she worms open to snag a twist of jerky. Kora has a way of balancing the tasks – watching them, watching her, while shoving the bag back into the pack and securing it all once more. When she senses Imogen’s regard, though – catches the flash of a look, the shift of her attention from her companions to the stranger across the street – Kora’s own attention shifts. First Marni – a searching if passing look – and then Kemp.
However softly, his blood also sings. And this one, this one is a more familiar song.
[Marni] “Dude, thanks! I sent out word on the ‘chain, but didn’t get much in the way of coherent answer. Much appreciated.”
And she tips an imaginary top hat towards Imogen, and grins. “Always a pleasure, ma’am.”
[Kora] (grins) I don’t think my character would approach yours in these circumstances? And I’m okay with that! I assume she knows the way to the Caern, and I’m totally cool with having her run into the Garou at the Caern later, or something. She doesn’t have purebreed, and is a bit unsure about approaching strangers in a city particularly since she knows (more or less) where to go to find the Caern. I just wanted to pass that on. Anyway!
to Imogen Slaughter, Kemp Oates, Marni
[Kemp Oates] “Oh yeah….”
He snapped his fingers.
“Hang on, I got something to share with ya.”
He crooked his finger to Imogen and stepped away from Marni, waiting for Imogen to follow him. When she drew close he lowered his head near her’s to speak in a soft voice.
[Imogen Slaughter] She arches an eyebrow at Kemp, her eyes dropping to the crooked finger. She does not quite shrug, but her head moves slightly in a dismissive agreement, stepping forward – in truth, humouring him with this – so that he may speak.
[Kora] This is important, though: she studies them. She does not stare. That much has become instinctual, some tattoo of the wolfmind – the beastmind – always thrumming in the human body. The animal language of both watchfulness and respect have become second (or perhaps it is first) nature in her now.
Her teeth flash white in the darkness as she snags the jerky between her incisors and worries it back to her molars, freeing her hands. She steps forward, away from the concrete wall, hefts the frame of the backpack up, balancing the weight against the concrete as she snakes first the left arm, then the right, through the shoulder straps. The nylon crossbelt swings out, free, as the pack settles into place. She grabs it and pulls it across her waist, snicking the plastic mechanism to, just so, then reaches up for the jerky with her left hand, tearing off a bite as she turns to study the city map on the back of the bus shelter.
[Kemp Oates] He lowered his head to her short little height and began to speak softly. The heat of his rage and warmth of his breath close enough to touch her cheek and ear.
“I don’t know when or how ya keep in touch, or if ya do with the Eagles. But I just found out the other night that Moira had no clue, so maybe ya ain’t talked with her or nothing, or no stupid ass thought to tell ya, but Joss and Curata?”
He shook his head slightly.
“Time came, they done drinking in Valhalla now.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Kemp speaks a little too close for Imogen’s comfort. Her head tilts away, half turning so she can see his face as he speaks to her. Still, she had leaned forward to hear him – and by the time he’s done, she straightens away.
A beat.
“When?”
[Kemp Oates] “Few nights ago. There was a group of them, ran into trouble and those two came back on their shields.”
He had straightened up, though he still spoke low and solemn.
“I thought one of the pack would of told their Kin, but I guess not.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Her jaw clenches – he can see the band of tension along the side of her face before she forces it to ease – and this, to speak.
“No,” she says evenly, “apparently not.”
A beat. “She has items – spirits bound into objects, some up in the attic o’ the Eagle Pack house – the one where th’ kin used to stay. I imagine it might be kind to release them.” Truth is, Imogen does not understand this, not entirely. She is not even one hundred percent correct, her experience limited mostly to the small car that escaped from time to time. She draws her own conclusions, correct or not.
A pause, “Do me a favour, will you?”
[Kemp Oates] He wanted to groan, but managed to give a faint nod.
“What?”
[Kora] The city curves like a fishhook hugging the long shores of Lake Michigan and – through the graffiti and the gang tags, the etched paeans to love and hate and the best blowjobs this side of Memphis cut into the resistant plastic overlay – the stranger sees the way clear enough. She looks up at the sky, then, backwheeling away from the bus stop, frowning through the amber-soaked streetlamps to the clouds above. The familiar stars are swallowed up by the city’s glare, but she is a wolf now, and she knows the moon – where to find it, where it moves, and when. Squaring her shoulders, she turns and walks – east for now, until lakeside or morning unaware of the solemn business being transacted behind her, the crown of her head sheened dark gold, and then enshadowed, as she passes through the wide rivers of darkness and pools of light.
[Imogen Slaughter] “Make sure there’s someone t’know t’tell me if you’re dead.”
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, if anyone knows when I bite it? I hope they tell ya. But I can leave word at the Caern and see to it someone sends a message if my cold dead body turns up. How’s that?”
[Imogen Slaughter] A pause.
“Might as well just leave it on hope then,” she says, a little wryly, “Bit silly t’leave a note at the caern.”
A tilt of her head toward Marni remains, “Yer new friend,” said ironically, “is waiting.”
[Kemp Oates] “Not if I have someone send word from there. I mean, shit Imogen. How the fuck else am I gonna tell ya I’m dead? Come haunt your ass in the shower?”
[Imogen Slaughter] “Kemp,” her voice is forced low, quiet. “If you leave word at the Caern, chances are, no one will gi’ a damn if a Kinfolk knows or not.
“Never mind it. You should go.”
[Kemp Oates] “Ok, think of it like this. If ya don’t see or hear from me in a week? I’m dead, cause I don’t got no one to tell ya! Ok!? I ain’t got no one!”
His temper was rising and about the best thing he did was spin on his heel and start to march off with a bellowed.
“This way Marni!”
[Imogen Slaughter] She flinches – not so much so that Marni can see it, but clearly enough that Kemp can. It’s a flicker of her eyelids, a blink out of place, one that lasts too long.
She watches him stalk away without a word, before turning away herself, pitching her half-drunk cup of coffee into a nearby trash can with more force than was necessary.
[Kemp Oates] ((Thanks guys! ))
[Imogen Slaughter] (thanks for the RP!)