[Steven] Steven shakes his head, eyebrows rising, straightens, and turns to head into the coffee shop. Golf club comes off his shoulder, bounces once on the side of his boot, and then he’s opening the door and stepping inside.
[Raven] *Out for an early morning flight, the raven soars above the city looking for things of interest. Man it was already 74 degrees and it was 3 am… *
[Kendra Peterman] Thaney’s voice rose, cut through the fog that was her thickening, heated Rage, spoke her name sharply, almost scolding, and effectively cutting her short and diverting her attention. Her brows furrowed in a slight reflexive glare toward the Philodox (nothing personal, baby), but were snapped back to Evan when the red-haired boy rolled his shoulders back and started walking toward her again.
Once more her chin lifted. She turned to face him completely, squared her shoulders and spaced her sneaker-clad feet apart from one another for a sturdier posture. Everything physical about her showed she was more than ready to either dodge an attack or throw one herself. Her upper lip curled, and the expression she gave to the Coggie’dox was one part sneer, two parts primal wolfish baring of teeth.
“Las’ time I checked, I on’y buckled under ya in one instance– One ’cause my Rage overwhelmed me, ‘n tha’ was me bucklin’ under my own self. Two, ’cause you ‘n Thaney ganged up on me.” She now took a few steps forward, closing what little distance was left between herself and the fresh young Eagle, drew herself up close to him so their chests all but touched. With her teeth still bared, she growled to him in a low voice.
“Oh ya changed alrigh’. Got some arrogance to ya, bolder’n wha’ it was, bu’ I tell ya this… Yeh ain’ changed how you think you has. Tha’s jus’ ’cause you now got strength what you ain’ earned yer own self to ya. Y’got help from Eagle, an’ yeh got Decker watchin’ over yer shoulder for ya too. They’s crutches for ya t’lean on, ain’ there ain’ nothin’ ’bout that what I’ll be respectin’ any time soon, pup.”
[Thaney] Evan and Kendra are standing close together now. Thaney picks up her iced peppermint hot chocolate, gives it a considering look, and pours it over their heads.
[Thaney] (( er, sorry, lost track of whose post it was ))
[Evan McCollach] (I guess I will post then)
Worthless, useless, waste of breeding, your taint should have been cleansed at birth
His breathing quickened as his mind fell into disharmony. The voices of the past echoing in his mind, and there was no resisting this pain, these phantom wounds that thrashed him over the decaded. A weight he bore on his own.
Worthless, useless, waste of breeding, your taint should have been cleansed at birth
The demons of his past eat at his very sould. Consumed his mind. He was could it sap his strength. But his rage flared back, the whirlpool of conflicting issues within his own psyche clashing in a battle to overtake his very soul. He could feel it gnaw at his inners and it drove him deeper into that pit of dispair.
Worthless, useless, waste of breeding, your taint should have been cleansed at birth
He grabbed at his mob of red hair, the pain ribbing at his insides worse than any wyrm minion ever could. And for a second he almost seem to cringe, it was eating him alive. And yet he threw his will against it. Trying to focus his mind from it, forcing it back into the depth from which it came. And with it that calm, patient demeanor of a child of Gaia…… gone.
“You forget the train. And you forget yourself girl. I was kind enough to pull you from the wallowing pity that comsumed you because I felt …. passion for you once. And not the same passion you shared with that arrogant fury or that disgraced shadowlord. I avenged your wanna-be packmates out of compassion. And you spit in my face. That is it. I wash my hands of you girl. And I pray for whoever follows you, because the specter of death follows all you once loved.”
[Raven] *Flying over the urban landscape his eyes looked down and strove to find something of interest. Then he spotted Decker. Decker he knew. Decker was usually interesting, if for nothing else, watching people cross the street to get away from him. And oh look. Other ones! Did that one just dump a drink on someone?? Yep this qualifies as interesting.
He banked and circled high above watching*
[Kendra Peterman] Cold chocolate drink spilled over the brim of her hat, missed her face, but slopped along her shoulders and the chest of her wifebeater. She bowed her head a little, cast a brief glance to Thaney, and for a second thought about taking a step back, letting it slide, forgetting to be angry and just going home. But-…
I pray for whoever follows you, because the specter of death follows all that you once loved.
Her chest clenched, her throat closed up, and for a moment she became very, very dizzy. She thought she may pass out, may dissolve into tears, or worse… thought she may Frenzy. Thankfully, none truely did, though she almost passed out. She swayed on the spot, as though she had been physically stricken (though she probably would’ve handled a punch better than those words). She swallowed hard, tried to get her voice to work properly. It didn’t even make it to the back of her mouth, her vocal cords refused to vibrate properly for her to use them.
For the time she said nothing and did nothing. Just stared blankly up at Evan from under the dripping bill of her cap. Danger crackled in the air like electricity, raw and hot.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Much as Decker can appear out of nowhere, so can she. Tension felt along the wings of Eagles from the newest member, and it does not take long for long strides to carry her around the corner, through an alley, around a second corner, and to settle near Decker, her back against the brick, her stance easy. She says nothing, but really – at this point, it cannot possibly be a surprise.
[Decker] You feel something like that. A disjuncture in the mind of a packmate: it’s felt when the pack is bound as tight as this one. Woven together, and together again: by totem, by link, by all the sweat and blood and pain and rage they’ve dumped into the bettering of Eagle.
There’s a reaction in the Modi; subtle. He straightens up — a glance at Thaney: the glance reads, what the hell did you do?
And totemic: Back off ‘n let ‘er go, Evan.
[Steven] Steven emerges from the cafe, and slows, stills, just a few feet outside the door. His eyes razor from one still figure to the other, coffee held a scant few inches from his lips, door swinging closed behind him. The tension in the air near ripples, the intensity of it hotter, more scalding than his coffee proper, and then he moves forwards.
Walks past Thaney, to Kendra.
Pauses, and places one hand on her upper arm, exherting pressure, guiding her away, moving her with him, Thaney too if she falls in step, away, down the pavement.
[Thaney] Evan has a breakdown, and, with his breakdown, induces a breakdown in Kendra; Thaney has gone as pale as winter, and as shocked as roots are, which did not expect the frost. Decker gives the philodox a glance, and she feels it; gives him one, too, and it reads — well. “Get off my territory, Evan,” is what she says, finally, when she finds her voice. And Steven may lead (or try to lead) Kendra away, but Thaney won’t be going for a while yet.
[Steven] (brb)
[Evan McCollach] He did nothing to try and comfort her, he did nothing to move to aid her. He washed his hands of her, she was no longer any of his concern. He just turned around and started to walk away from her, his movement not as fluid as he imaged it was and his jaw just clenched up. He looked at Decker and just stands there. Never had his eyes seem so pain. His eyes twitching. And when Thaney yells for him to get off her territory he just nods.
“Understood.”
His voice softer still in his mind, across the link to the Eagles, weakened at that very moment to almost a whisper.
I think.. I am going to stay with Randi… tonight. I will bring her about tomorrow.
And if Decker or AnneMarie do not stop him he moves off, but with each yard he seems to stagger a bit.
[Thaney] ooc: She does not yell, dammit. (grins) She never yells.
[Evan McCollach] (Opps sorry, edit post to say. Thaney speaks out…)
[Thaney] ooc: (the stickler in Jess – satisfied)
[Raven] *The bird tilts his head. Hurm now what just happened here. Shit… he didn’t know. He spiraled down and landed on an edge of a building and folded his wings watching them all scatter now. A taloned foot came up to scratch at his ear hole and he ponders. Only thing stranger than bunches of garou at moots yellin’ and scrappin’ was bunches of them on the street in a good neighborhood doing it*
[Kendra Peterman] Steven’s hand moved toward her, paused, hesitated, then landed on her upper arm. She likely would have flinched from the unanticipated approach and contact if she wasn’t so wrapped up in what had just occured, if she wasn’t replaying the words that Evan had cut her so deeply with over and over in her head, checking and researching them, studying to pull out every possible underlying meaning that might have existed in his words, trying to find some hint of emotion. …She couldn’t make any true sense, do any picking apart to find hidden meanings, she was in just as much shock (so much more) as Thaney.
She did not resist to being pulled away by Steven. She met him once, briefly. Knew he was wolf-blooded too, knew he was extended family of a sort, and knew that since he was tight with Thaney he was a good guy. She let him guide her away, but didn’t tear her eyes from Evan’s retreating back for a dozen seconds or so. Her eyes had grown wet, grown red and glossy with tears that gathered one on top of the other but refused to fall, just swam about in front of her forest-green irises.
And, comfort of the new Ahroun be damned, when Kendra finally parted her eyes from Evan’s back, she stepped in to walk close beside the man guiding her by her forearm, pressed her face against the side of his chest in some childish attempt to hide her face and the weakness it displayed from the world.
[Decker] There is, of course, no help forthcoming. Evan had shattered against himself, and so he’ll learn to put himself back together. Or so the party line goes.
Naw. We’ll talk tamorrow. You kin bring ‘er by tha day after.
[AnneMarie Hoch] She watches the last minutes of this, and then her pale gaze follows Evan’s walk away and Decker’s declaration through her mind. If she’s concerned, it doesn’t show. If she cares, it doesn’t show. She simply watches.
[Ash] Steven’s arm slips out further around Kendra’s shoulders, her slender frame pulled in, and it’s with some urgency that the Ahroun begins to pace away from the gathering, the trembling Fiann at his side. His stride grows longer, and as buried in grief as she may be, perhaps she doesn’t notice with what gentle determination he’s pulling her away, moving her towards the street corner, than around it, cutting off their line of sight from the others.
He doesn’t know where the fuck he’s going. But he can sense the paralyzed crystal pain within her, cracked and waiting just one more blow to send shattering and raging across the street.
“C’mon,” he says, voice quiet, “Just a couple more blocks. Thaney’s place. Thaney’s house. Just a couple more blocks to go.” His voice is more quiet, comforting murmor that anything else. The golf club gets ditched, tossed into a trash can as they pass it.
[Thaney] Evan staggers off; AnneMarie comes around the corner (and, yes, the welcome mat is out; see it?), slings herself against the brick wall. Kendra lets herself be collected by Steven. Thaney watches all of this, narrowly, her gaze flicking from one set of figures to the other set of figures, and back again. Nobody helps Evan. The philodox tugs on her earlobe, meditative, tense. There’s just quiet. Just quiet, quiet, quiet as the group fractures, drifts apart. Quiet, and Silence. And, quietly: “Silence-rhya. Can I have a few words?”
[Evan McCollach] He didn’t know if he was going to be able to get home, he didn’t even know where that was right now. He didn’t know anything about the world at this moment. It was over 70 degrees this twilight and all he could feel was the icy cold touch of his home once more. He tried to warm himself up, against an imaginary wind as he walked.
Maybe the iced coffee was making him cold.
[Kendra Peterman] Kendra didn’t quite stumble, but she didn’t walk with the strength of her common stride either. She kept tucked into Steven’s side, kept her strides paced with his as well as she could, considering the difference in length of their legs, and didn’t make a sound.
She could feel that hurricane of Rage, grief, frustration, and sorrow rushing about inside her chest, knew full well that even the smallest cry, the quietest spoken response, could open the floodgates and let it all loose. So she was silent.
[Decker] Decker watches Evan go. Thaney speaks to him. He glances first to AnneMarie; that glance ends on a slight, subtle tilt of his head in the vague direction Evan left in. He doesn’t say anything — doesn’t need to. The meaning is clear: keep an eye on him.
And then, to Thaney. The marijuana high has dissipated in the meantime, trickling away so slowly that he only feels sobriety as a sudden realization without quite knowing where it had come from. A nod, or something like it. He waits for the Philodox to speak her mind.
[AnneMarie Hoch] He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have too. AnneMarie simply nods to the young fianna philodox, and pulls from the wall to follow Evan. She doesn’t walk quickly to overtake him, she simply follows. He will find his strength to walk – until he cannot. Then she will step in to guide him home.
[Thaney] Decker nods, or something like it. Her gaze has angled once more onto Evan’s receding back: going, going, gone around a corner. AnneMarie nods to Thaney, then follows. There is no return of color; if it weren’t for her hair, she’s be grayscale. Thaney forces her jaw to relax, and leans against the wall Decker is leaning against; there is a good two feet of space between them. Then, well, she speaks her mind.
In PMs. Muwahaha!
[Raven] *The bird noticing that the group had pretty much broken up, and not wishing to strain his ears to listen in on Thaney, takes wing and heads on out. Time to find a coffee place. Sun would be up before too long.*
[Raven] (( waves* Night all. 5 am hath done come))
[Decker] He turns — no, he rolls his head sideways to face her, as if every bone in his spine were a ball bearing; as if he were nothing but pistons and ball bearings, smooth and mechanical and flawless.
“Why don’tcha jus’ tell me why yer tellin’ me.”
[Thaney] ooc: (sweeps that PM up, in a haze of nostalgia)
[Decker] (*hides* good thing jess didn’t drop the post that said, “I want you. DESPERATELY. Do you know why I’m telling you?”)
[Evan McCollach] (Time for me to get to bed too… have a good night everyone. And thanks for the scenage. And I just knew it…. Fiann on Get loving… it is forbidden in more ways than one *laughs*)
[Evan McCollach] *Fianna
[Decker] (*LOL* night man)
[AnneMarie Hoch] ((oh sure. leave me here all alone, all left out of the whole PM thing. *SOBS*))