She looked, to the casual observer, like just another Goth that was out marauding about town. Young, likely not even scratching her twenties yet, and giving that exuding emanation of the Naive Lost Little Girl In The Big Bad City {All the better to hunt you by}… at least so long as one didn’t pay particular attention to that other, niggling feeling that perhaps it would be safer to be on the other side of the road.
A pleated black school-girls skirt that barely had any modesty to its length, a white collared tailored shirt, a {Hentai} Manga-reminiscent style black tie-bow, black and white striped socks that hit just above the knees, boots with heels and buckles to die for, overthrown by a black clinch-waisted jacket against the chill, the rising damp in a cloud speckled sky.
Trouble waiting to happen.
No. She wasn’t the typical presence on this side of town.
{…Nor did she give a rats ass, to be honest.}
[Kemp Oates] “Are ya munched?”
He was dragging one foot along the pavement as he stepped towards Lloyd. Dragging the foot like some bad imitation of the Mummy. Trying to get the crap off the boot as he neared the hunkered down Theurge.
[Llyod] …He sniffed at the air. Nothing animal about it, more an allergic suction of mucus, that was promptly spat into the gutter they all seemed to call ‘Social’ tonight. A hand rose, sleeve heavy, to wipe across his lips, pulling the hood at one end, back a small ways, to reveal the fresh shave of the scalp and the beginnings of the white scar tissue that formed an intricate pattern obscure and incomprehensible for the majority of it still covered.
“…No just tired.”
Said slowly. Carefully, as if he had more to say but had censored all the rest in favour of those three. His attention pulls off the Rotagar’s approaching shadow, casting down the street at the wandering Anime this late at night. The neck stretches and something cracks beneath all that oversized clothing.
“…Commmmmpany.” Dragged out on the lips, mummed and ending with a pop sound to the ‘P’.
“…What the hell you been doin’?”
[Kemp Oates] “Playing with myself, what do ya think? Shit, why ya sitting here looking towards Eagle’s turf like a thirteen year old with his first Playboy and one hand on his dick?”
Slowly his head turned with a squint towards the figure down the way.
“What the fuck? She must be lost.”
[Llyod] “Little girl in a School Uniform, wandering through a Crack ‘Hood, all lunch pails, dark hair and begging for a Tentacle Rape scene and you think she’s lost…”
He snorts, head swivelling inside the hood to return his attention to Eagle’s turf.
“Go say hello. She’s either wyrm out for a meal, Someone with a Death wish or a Crazy with Super powers…”
A beat, hand falling to flick a pebble across the territorial line.
“I’ll be here.”
[Jessica Sorrell] Several jaws of the bag-men and loitering gang members {such petty minds they had, such weak wills that flinched away from doing more than that} had to be picked up off the concrete when she so casually sauntered past — she was not astoundingly beautiful in any way, though she was pretty enough by modern standards… but there was something about her, something magnetic…
Feral.
Animal.
Dangerous.
Sapphire eyes scanned the streets, the other people milling about here and there for various reasons flitting from one warm body to the next. She ignored several cat-calls that were made her way with the aplomb of someone that knew how to effectively look down their nose at those considered beneath them, worthy of contempt or not even worthy of any consideration at all.
An attitude that could get a person dead in this part of town.
Step. Step. Step.
One boot shod foot after the other.
Step. Step. Step.
[Kemp Oates] “You go say hello. I ain’t the fuckin Welcome Wagon of the Green.”
He snorted, leaning back against the building’s edge. Lifting one leg to rest the sole of his boot back against the building as he crossed his arms with a creak of leather. Black on black, favoring the night and his gifts.
“You looking to start something with the Eagles? Seems like you’re itching to cross the line just to see if lightning hits your ass. Don’t worry about it. Too damned skinny for the strike to hitcha.”
[Jessica Sorrell] Finally, she came past Kemp and Lloyd in her foot-based travels.
She passed them…
A handful of yards later…
She paused.
Her nostrils flared briefly, like an animal taking a quick scent.
She turned her head slowly, glancing back over her shoulder towards Kemp, blue eyes latched onto his long frame before she turned, snake like slowly, and cocked her head to the side like a carnivore watching a floundering baby bird that had fallen from the safety of its nest.
[Llyod] He waits for the girl to wander past, his voice lowering to a murmur, not even bothering to turn his head or alter his movements in anyway.
“….And if it’s Wyrm and devours something, it’ll be your fault for not doing the whole Super Fenrir Action Man thing…”
He cracks something beneath the clothes again, hood obscuring his features and body remaining where it crouches.
“…And not looking to start anything. Just wondering how determined and diligent they are. We’re probably gonna be neighbours afterall.”
Another beat. Significant.
“I’ve been here a good half hour now.”
Followed eventually by the turn of that hooded head and the cast of those dark eyes up towards Miz Sorrell.
“…What?” Perfunct and bludgeoning.
[Kemp Oates] His head turned with Jessica’s passing. One dark brow rose as the girl turned back with that look. The look eliciting a slow bored smack of his lips as one hand lowered to his crotch to cup his package with a wiggle of brows.
“Fuck that, if something gets devoured, it’s your Gargoyle ass sitting that allowed it. Instead of trying to poke at the neighbors, take a dose of your own medicine. Don’t give me orders. Besides…”
A horribly wicked smile bloomed across his face in a show of white teeth in the dark.
“She’s looking at you. I think she wants cha man.”
[AnneMarie Hoch] It has not been a good week for the metis, and it is likely to get worse, before it gets better. It is the way things go, after all, and she is still waiting for the ‘getting better’ part, while sliding ever downwards into the ‘getting worse’.
But one thing never changes. Seen, or unseen, she is as diligent as the rest of Eagle’s strength, and her patrol eventually leads her toward those perched on the outskirts of their territory. One she knows. Two she does not.
To the one she knows, a lift of her chin, slight, as she closes the distance with measured stride.
[Jessica Sorrell] ‘…what?’ the fetid smelling, toothpaste-needing rag-clothed squatter said.
–and he was completely ignored.
{…I don’t remember letting you into my reality. Shoo, fly!}
Kemp’s cup of his crotch and wiggle of his brows did illicit a reaction, however.
A slow smile curved her black-licked lips.
She closed the distance between herself and Kemp, Lloyd seemingly delegated the task of being… himself and thusly ignored by those who had a sense of decency. Actually, it seemed as though she was going to invade his Personal Happy Space Bubble.
[Llyod] “…Well…”
His head swivels inside the shadowed hood, regarding the approaching Woman, with a stride like a Freight train and a gaze like a boxer. Simplified and brutal.
“…That took long enough.” He crawls forward on all fours, palms to fingers to the balls of his feet, putting distance between Kemp and the Spooky Girl as she approaches, the Theurge rather oblivious for the moment as his attention concregates on the approaching Metis.
“Kemp? Gimme a quick rundown. Who is she and how bad can she hurt me?”
[Kemp Oates] His green eyes narrowed as they flickered towards the new movement that was AM. He returned the greeting, chin lift to chin lift. Part of him muttered deep down in that put out place. Fuck, she is gonna bring out that damned board.
Almost relieved with the distraction of Jessica’s approach. Once more a single dark brow rose, though he still remained in that casual lean against the siding of the old meat market.
“Nice lips, been sucking exhaust pipes?”
For a second his attention flickered back towards Lloyd.
“Annemarie. Eagle. Modi and, heh, lots and lots.”
[Llyod] “Good to know…”
He struggles, visibly, to his feet, a pained expression crossing his features. Five feet and some odd inches, with a no where near a sixth. He watches the Metis on her approach, the further crackle of body parts beneath, testing the air around them.
“…Hi.”
Skeletal fingers on a bony hand rose to wiggle at AM. Amible one might think.
[Kemp Oates] Ok, Lloyd had him gaping one moment, choking the next with the Hi. Then he was turning his attention back to the black lipped Goth Catholic High, look alike.
“Hi.”
Done with the flip of one wrist and in as high a pitch as he could manage.
[AnneMarie Hoch] The cooler weather has brought out the return of her leather coat over silken camisole and expensive slacks. It worn open, with its length wrapping around her thighs with each step. Her hands are in the pockets, resting comfortably at her sides, as she nears the trio. Final clips of boot heels against the cement, and she stops, pale gaze sliding from Kemp, the strange woman, to fall on the one struggling to his feet.
He waggles his fingers in a hello, and a slip brow quirks upwards over palest blue gaze. Her features are strong, her makeup minimal, her body lean and strong, with little padding. She is not of the pretty sort, though she is not exactly plain either. She simply… is.
She says nothing, however, simply lifts her chin, slightly, in return greeting to Llyod.
[Jessica Sorrell] A cautious momentary flicker of blue eyes beneath a cascade of black hair, taking in the measure of AnneMarie’s approach, a slide across to the rag-tag Lloyd {…oh, it is a person. Fancy that.}.
She heard the ‘Modi’ and she heard the attachment of ‘Eagle’…
She then made a soft noise, starting in her chest and curling up her throat, almost like melding together a growl with a pleasured purr, enough to make the skin goose-bump when the mind said that wasn’t a noise that a normal human should be able to make. For a moment it was almost an embarrassing sound to hear, curling out of her young lips, like the sweet surrender to what the French called the petite morte.
She didn’t deign to answer Kemp’s question, although for a second her pierced lips quirked into another {secret} smile. Instead of saying anything, she merely placed herself against the wall next to Kemp {inside his personal space} tilting her head and watching him, AnneMarie and Lloyd. When Kemp said ‘Hi’ she looked directly at him, the others lost for a moment to her attention.
Words, they say, like thoughts have power.
When she spoke, the words seemed to have a life of their own. She bore no true regional dialect, no thick and almost incomprehensible accent, she dropped no ‘unnecessary’ consonants nor elongated and slurred her vowels. The words were spoken with the educated overtones, or perhaps many years of practice in elocution lessons. Her control over her voice, the exact drop of the right hint of emotion at just the right time for emphasis or a lack thereof, lifted the concept of conversation from a means of exchanging ideas verbally to an art form almost.
“You scent almost edible.”
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, speak English much?”
His reply to the odd girl as she made herself at home next to him.
[Llyod] “…I need some information. Consideration. Potential and Possibility.”
Spoken like she would know what he spoke of. Talking like they’re old comrades. Speaking like she’ll do what she’s told.
“…But for the most part, I need to talk to someone that’ll tell me what happens when I cross the line.”
He points at the space between them, as if it were clearly defined just what sides of the world they both exist on.
[Gavin] Gavin inters Cabrini-Green somewhat more hesitantly than he would have a couple months before–being utterly lost for two months can do that. He walks carefully and slowly, people walking around him without even noticing it, warded off by his Rage. As he walks across the pitted and cracked pavement, a sudden, familiar scent reaches him. He turns, and heads in its direction.
[Kemp Oates] Once more Lloyd caught his attention. Yup, it was a fact, the Theurge was nucking futs. Sure as shit, he was nucking futs. Several possible answers popped in his head, one on top of the other. All discarded as Gavin caught his divided attention.
“Well fuckme.”
[Jessica Sorrell] Her eyes ranged down the length of Kemp’s reclining physique and then back up. She ducked her head enough that her hair fell just a little further into her face, her eyes the most startling {and only} color seeping through. It was a false {dangerous} coy look on her face as she peered over at him through her hair, going so far as to give him pretty, Naive & Innocent eyes.
“I’m waiting to have my night disappointed.”
Her attention, however, seemed suddenly divided, her head moving from the downward coy to slightly tilted towards the direction of AnneMarie, who was silent, and Lloyd who was babbling on about lines and boundries.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Does he now. Not a word passes her lips still, yet there is a slight smirk that slices across her lips in a ripple of amusement. She flicks a gaze toward Kemp, and arches that brow with a tip of her head in Lloyd’s direction. It’s a clear ‘he with you? – he nuts?’ type of gesture.
Then her gaze falls to Lloyd again and rests there. Heavily. Then her hands come from her pockets, and move in a graceful, fluid pattern recognizable as American Sign Language, even if the meaning is not clear to those before her.
One could assume she answered his question. In a fashion.
[Gavin] Gavin is wearing tight-fitting, though somewhat faded and ragged, jeans, and a leather jacket that has a couple of holes in it and seems almost more brown than black lies open, revealing a white shirt with a couple of dirtstains beneath it. He smiles at the sight of his mentor.
“Kemp! How’ve you been?” He is grinning broadly, seeming somewhat more open and less held in than he had been before his trip… which he was supposed to be back from more than a month ago…
“Sorry I’m a bit late, I got lost. How have things been?” he asks as he walks up to his friend and mentor.
[Kemp Oates] Once more his head turned towards Jessica for a bare moment as he gave her a narrowed look.
“Heh, well good luck to ya.”
His attention shifted back to the little show between Lloyd and AM as he snickered with a faint nod.
“Theurge.”
That should tell her all her look asked. Gavin bringing a shake of his head and a snicker from him.
“I’d ask how ya got lost, but if ya knew that, ya wouldn’t of been lost. If I had known, I’d tracked your ass down. Figured ya moved on to another place or something. Welcome back kid.”
[Llyod] The head lifts a little further, hood pulling back along that shaved scalp to reveal the features beneath. A splatter scar spreads out across his features, spearing ’round features and blotching in odd manners and ways. You’d have to be a Mother most devoted to love that face, carved like a Ghoul’s and etched like a war Veteran.
He watches the movement of her hands, flickering before those sunken eyes, deep within their sockets. Hollowed and broken some might say. Assume. Consider. Ignore.
“…I see. Well. Isn’t that just a clusterfuck of a thing…”
The conversation behind him continues ignored, from new arrivals to snippy comments to hormones run a muck. His attention remains with the Modi, who answers in her own fashion. It changes his features and the emotions and means behind it. Easily read, as flesh scar-wrinkles grotesquely. Seventy years old on a voice no more then two decades.
“…I’ve moved in down the way. Not far but far enough not to be intrusive. However considering I serve the Hot spot in this Scab that you and yours walked away from, I’m going to consider this a bit of a Political parley. You can’t talk to me and I can’t understand what you’re giving me. So I need to talk to someone who can explain a few things.”
A beat, his head swivelling back towards Kemp as the next words arrive on slim and scar speckled lips.
“…What was his name again? Silence?”
[Jessica Sorrell] “My Sweet whispered words of Hives flexing, of Dancers passaging, but…” Her voice was rich, textured, almost touchable. A Galliard was a teller of tales and she had schooled her voice to be her ultimate weapon. Her words almost licked across the skin, in no way supernaturally, but by the sheer ability she had to control the way each word left her lips.
Phone sex — she could have done this and made a fortune.
Instead, she was a warrior for Gaia.
Go figure.
“…Ah well. A pity. Ophois is so rarely wrong.”
She was talking, to be sure, but she seemed more keen on listening to the words that intertwined, passed back and forth between the others in her vicinity, among her own.
Tidbits and Tempters.
[Kemp Oates] “Not was, it is. And she can’t talk as ya might of figured out and fuckmen Lloyd, if you’re gonna stir shit…..”
Shaking his head slowly. Before Jessica had his attention again.
“The human killer? I seen the skulls and what they said on them.”
[Llyod] …Ophois is rar–
“I freakin’ told him not to use that name, damn it.”
Muttered without turning his attention from the Modi.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Bemused, that would be the look hidden within pale eyes. Kemp has seen it once or twice. It does not come to light often. And it never lasts long – now is no different. There and gone, before it completely registers.
Slender fingers, tipped with manicured nails, slide into the left pocket, and remove the hated (by Kemp) white-board and felt tipped pen hidden inside the depths. Her print is neat, compact, and easily read for all the speed that she places phrases upon the reusable surface.
She turns it toward him, to allow it to be read.
~I have not gained this age without discovering ways to communicate. You may speak with me. I will call Silence only if necessary. The boundaries are marked clearly, and easily understood. Walk around. If there is an emergency – a true emergency, pass through. Otherwise, take the long way. Simple, yes?~
[Jessica Sorrell] “Hmmmm?”
She drew back her attentions {intentions} of listening, to the Fenrir Rotagar she was so pointedly perched beside in much the same way as he was standing, no less, mirroring him.
“Skulls… skullls…” She lifted a ring-bedecked hand and tapping her painted nails against her lips, as though in thought, “Would that be from before or after the incident with the emergent BSD?”
[Gavin] Gavin blushes slightly, abashed, then smiles.
“Good to be back. And thanks.” He stands quietly for a moment, trying to sort through the rush of emotions. Home again… and then he stops.
“Human killer?” he asks quietly and curiously as he walks up to stand by Kemp, absently rubbing a hand through his hair. “Whats going on?”
[Llyod] “…I’m not gonna stir shit.”
He frowns, the motion that of a gargoyle’s mask.
“I keep hearing all this scary business about this Fellow and I’m not gonna pretend he isn’t that.” A pause, lips quirking oddly “Scary, that is. But if I’m gonna pee my pants over somebody I’d like to at least meet them in person…”
He’s staring at AM, head tilting and shoulders shrugging.
“…Ya know?” And then he sees the board and squints, reading. “Huh” is the first reaction.
“…Don’t really want you to call him. I’m sure neither you nor he would appreciate that. I just need some answers and some assurances and I’ve got something to know.” Said like all those were three different things.
“What I need from you is pretty simple. Either give me permission to enter your turf so I can find him and pee my pants on my merry own? Or let him know I’m looking for him and that he can follow the scrawl on the walls beyond the Mirror if he’s got any inclination to find me.”
[Kemp Oates] “I’ll fill ya in when there ain’t some stranger standing next to me like I done became a twin joined at the ass with her.”
He winked at Gavin before giving Jessica a pointed look.
“Maybe ya should ask him since ya seem to be on buddy, buddy terms with ‘im”
[Kemp Oates] “Oh holy fuck Lloyd. Samething. Why play the get permission, hunt him down game? Or the leave bread crumbs, follow me here game? If ya got a hardon to see if he makes ya piss your pants, then let her call him. I’m sure the pissing will be all the better the sooner it’s done.”
[Llyod] “…’Cause I call ’em here without it being an emergency, like she said, and I get nothing but Modi piss on me. I go find him or he makes the choice to come find me or not and maybe I get some of what I need…”
His head turns to look dead on at Kemp, eyes narrowed.
“Now stay out of this” Turning back to AM “You had your chance.”
[AnneMarie Hoch] She swipes the board across her thigh, a darkened patch stained on otherwise perfectly washed and pressed slacks suggests this is a habit. Once again, she writes quickly, easily.
Pausing only to look up and shoot the smallest of grins toward Kemp. It’s gone before she returns her gaze toward her board. She’s always liked Kemp, truth be told. Still does.
~Answers to what questions, and what assurances? I told you the rules for entering. Emergency only. I doubt you’re pissing would be considered such by Silence. Ask your questions, Theurge, and quit wasting my time.~
[Jessica Sorrell] She laughed, a chocolate-syrup liquid sound and looked quite bemused at Kemp’s statement.
“Buddy-buddy with a Strider?” Another ‘mmmmm’ of sound ended that rhetorical question, “Interesting concept, but hardly the case.” She pushed off the wall from beside Kemp, all Gothic Anime clothed movement. Another flick of sapphire around the four, “Interesting.”
Before she was walking again.
Away.
[Jessica Sorrell] (Later!)
[Kemp Oates] “Fine, fuck you too.”
He pushed off from the wall with a jerk of his head to Gavin, calling over his shoulder.
“Have at ’em Anne.”
Knowing the name always pissed her off.
[AnneMarie Hoch] She shoots a snarl at Kemp – before it ends in a lift of her chin. That’s all the closer to getting her goat he is going to manage tonight.
[Gavin] Dammit, if he hadn’t gotten lost, he would have understood most of that… with a small snarl at his own stupidity, he turns about to follow Kemp.
[Llyod] He reads again, squinting. Then frowns scar-wrinkles at her, eyes lifting to meet her own.
“….You said it. Not me. The Rules. So I want to talk to the one who made ’em. Or is making them at least. I suffer for it, fine that’s my bag. You don’t want to escort me, ok. You don’t want to tell ’em? Ok too but this is the method.”
He shuffles away from the territorial line, turning to glance at the retreating Kemp.
“Three days from now” Yelling to be heard “Get the others together. We’re cleaning house.” And then he’s turning towards the North, parallel to Eagle turf, though half a block down and that wouldn’t last.
[Kemp Oates] He leaned his head down towards Gavin’s as they headed off down the alley. Muttering to him.
“Now that there freaky ass, scary looking thing back there? The male one? That was a Theurge and yep, sure as fuck they are fucked in the head, weird. That one seems intent on some insanity that I think only electro shock might help. Like if they hooked a battery jumper cable to his dick and put it on full charge? The other one, we use to be Pack together. She don’t talk and is always writing on that damned little board.”
He paused to lift his voice, calling back.
“This ain’t gonna work if you’re gonna be a crazy fuck! I got enough crazy ass shit in my life without more!”
His voice lowered again as he continued speaking with Gavin on the way into the darker end of the alley.
“Anyway, like I said, fucked in the head.”
[AnneMarie Hoch] He shuffles away, or starts too. She doesn’t touch him, he finds her walking across that parallel line. Her strides are purposeful, and outright daring him to cross that line. The rules were explained. He won’t be the first idiot to test them.
Or to test her.
The minute he crosses that line, his version of the rules no longer applies, his method of madness inapplicable. And she’s had enough irritation this week to be perfectly content to take it out on someone not of her own pack, for sure.
[Llyod] Kemp’s bellow comes from the distance and he sighs, ghostly white air passing before the hood, a muttered phrase dancing on his lips with none but the metis to hear the ramblings.
“…And the wyrm takes a backseat to Pride.”
He doesn’t cross the line…
But he does stop. Turning to look at her after two dozen paces, squinting again in what might pass for confusion on those features.
“…Told you. I’m nearby.”
He points, Northeast, away from Eagle Territory. His piece of the pie.
“…Through the Mirror.”
Half a block on and the parallel doesn’t last. The Strider makes a left away from the divider and on towards the distance, deeper into the neighbourhood surrounding them. Slow and steady…wins the race.
[AnneMarie Hoch] And when he turns and moves away, he gets a sign that is clear as day – universal, easily understood.
She flips him the bird.
And then simply watches him walk away. Briefly over the totemphone. Strider being a piss ant. Refuses to speak with any but Silence about territorial rules, but didn’t cross the line. Yet.
[Gavin] He glances back at them and shudders.
“Anyway… what happened while I was gone? Dammit, did I miss anything important?” He licks his lips anxiously; he hated being left out of stuff.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, naw. Nothing much.”
How was he suppose to compact the past couple months into one quickie. Shaking his head as he lead the kid off.
“Come on. I’m hungry. We’ll talk over food.”
Their voices fading as they rounded the next corner.
[Llyod] …A few steps and the world goes pop…
…Wading through penumbral mist, flickering back and forth between a tinted red and an opaque white, the ghost grey buildings an apathetic mixture of Weaver and Wyrm. Shadowed windows and moaning spirits, eck out livings and discomforts, with the stray gaian echo haunting high places above or dark alleys around.
He’s a wraith, shuffling absently through the dark corridors, Luna’s sliver of light (My Moon) casting enough illumination along the way, the familiar flicker of etched glyphs identifying familiar territory. Home in a half mile.
[AnneMarie Hoch] He disappears, and there’s a smirk that finds home across her lips, and then she is on the move again. Not for long, however, as she finds a bench and settles to sit. Slender legs cross, one knee draping over the other, as she looks out over the concrete distance.
Silent, as always.
[AnneMarie Hoch] (le SIGH)
to AnneMarie Hoch
[Torben Agmundr] A new night, a new city. Things have progressed well since the Norweigian had come to the Americans, and on the flip of a coin had found himself booked for a flight to Chicago. Now, tonight, he prowled the streets looking for any sort of amusement he could find.
Long, thick blond hair fell to below his shoulders, as a beard of equal thickness and length spilled across his chest. Eyes so blue they were almost gray flicked about here and there, as heavy booted footsteps fell down the sidewalk. Jeans, a black shirt and a grimy duster that was missing it’s right sleeve completed the ensamble.
Passing one bench, he paused to speak with the woman sitting there. She didn’t look like she wanted any sort of interaction with the common public, but Torben figured it was a start. “Do you know a cheap housing development?” came his soft rasp. For all his musculature, for all his thickness, his soft words that were just a touch louder than a whisper, yet still possessing a deepness to it. Thus, the bearded man stood regarding AnneMarie.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Same night, the same city. She has been sitting her a while, now, in what would be the equivalent of lost in thought to one such as her. Ever vigilant, no matter the seemingly stillness of her form. People have passed by, have made a wide path around her, have tried to avoid her thousand yard stare. She has ignored them all, remaining seated, still.
Slender legs are crossed, and the toe of one boot lifts every now and again, as pale gaze watches the buildings across the way and the people that pass before it. When her eyes lock on someone, they move faster, without knowing why. Thankfully, it is not her moon. Yet.
She heard the bearded man before she saw him, though her gaze, hot and heavy even now under Luna’s darkened skirts, rests on him soon enough. There’s a flare of nostrils as she inhales slowly, the scents of the grimy duster filling the air, as do the tell tale signs of his blood. A brow quirks, upwards, as he decides to stop and speak with her.
He asks about cheap housing developments and she pointedly looks at the rundown, ramshackle buildings that surround her bench on the edges of Eagle land. Back to him, that brow lifts again. Quite frankly, its an easily understood ‘Duh…missing the obvious aren’t ya’ without voicing a word.
[Torben Agmundr] An eyebrow slowly arches up at her response, or lack there-of. Quite thankfully, it is not his moon either. However the Forseti merely grunts. “You do not speak much, do you, woman?” came the rasp again. She does not speak, and he does not speak loudly. Meeting her gaze stare for unblinking stare, he then takes a look around. Dilapidated apartment complexes, street thugs and even more scum.
It seemed like Torben might well fit right in here, but yet was to be seen. There was a hidden nobility about him, a hidden pride in the lawman. “It is a good a place as any,” he said as he turned to look around a bit. With that exposed arm from the missing duster, the futhark was inked into his skin running from shoulder to wrist. Upon the back of his right hand, capping the futhark, was Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor. If one looked closely, they would also notice that his fingernails were unusually thick and long.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Lips twist into the briefest of smirks, slicing across her lips and disappearing before it could find a home. Perhaps she finds him amusing. Perhaps there is something else. Perhaps she doesn’t really care. She studies him, though, her gaze unflinching and direct, before she slips her hand from her pocket, and points to the street on her left.
Only then does she pull the whiteboard from her pocket, and write a single sentence. ~Better past that street. ~
Now, if he looks around, and looks closer, there are signs, even here, that he stands on claimed territory. They are there for those who know how to look, claiming the boundary of Eagle land, and the suggestion that a wide berth be made. Usually phrased as ‘keep out’ but still.
She flips the board around so that he can read it, before sliding it across her thigh to clean it off again. The darkened stain of the material there shows it to be habit, the one thing that currently mars her carefully put together appearance.
[Torben Agmundr] “This land does not care for passersby, or strangers I assume.” His arms folded over his chest, chorded muscles bunching up even further as he glanced at the street she pointed out. The markers, he had seen, but otherwise ignored. Where there were markers, there were Garou, and it didn’t hurt to meet and find out who was in charge around these parts. Torben merely shrugged and turned back to her. At least he knew why she did not speak: she couldn’t.
“I am Torben Agmundr, the Jotungreifer. Forseti of Great Fenris,” he said even softer if that was possible. Any passersby would only see his lips move, but no words come out. He had an easy ability to direct his speech to those he wished to hear. “We are not strangers, now.”
[AnneMarie Hoch] She watches him still, her gaze unsettlingly direct, until she drops her eyes to write again. Her print is neat, easily read, compact so as to maximize the surface available, quickly. Again, her words are short, direct.
~No trespassers. Period. I will walk with you beyond the boundary, and we can continue this discussion there. I am AnneMarie Hoch, Ruhiger, Modi. Eagle. We claim these lands. Walk with me.~
As he reads, she stands in a single, fluid movement, lending truth to the animal that rests so closely under her skin. She hands him the board, and gestures to the street in question, to start himm moving that way.
[Torben Agmundr] Torben merely nodded, as he read the board and handed it back to her. What he didn’t need was a fight, here tonight, however much he was sure he could handle himself. Against an entire pack, however, he would have his doubts.
There was no gentlemanly gesture, no sort of “by your leave” from the Norweigan. He began walking as soon as the whiteboard was back in her hands, and very likely she had to step quickly to keep up with his long legged gait. He was 6’5″, after all.
From his profile, he was what most Get of Fenris looked like. Blond hair, blue eyes, and an impossible attitude.
[AnneMarie Hoch] She does not have to hurry to keep up with him. She is, after all, not a short woman, standing 6’1″ in the boots she currently wears. She would not hurry, anyway, for this is her territory, not the other way around. She simply takes the board, swipes it across her thigh as she moves, and that is that until they step beyond the edge of Eagle land.
To the normal passer by, there is nothing that delineates the boundary between the territory and the area beyond, but to her, she knows this land as well as she knows the back of her hand – every piece of concrete, every building. She has walked miles of it over and over again, day in and day out. This is -her- land.
She nods toward another bus bench, and she moves to sit there. It is easier to write while stationary, of course. ~Now, Torben Agmundr, Fenrir Foresty, what is it you seek in Chicago?~
[Torben Agmundr] He followed while making it seem like he was not following. An inch or two behind; it was her land after all. He was just a visitor. She motioned toward the bench and sat, and he did likewise. One foot was brought up to rest atop the opposing knee, and his arms laid on his lap and thighs easily. A man sure of himself, sure of whom he was.
“A home, perhaps. Time will tell if this is the place for me,” he said with a glance to her. “What can you tell me of this place?”
[AnneMarie Hoch] (and really, she printed his auspice correctly. *L* Lessa’s an idiot. *L*)
[AnneMarie Hoch] She crosses her legs, one knee folding over the other, and her hands slide across her thigh to smooth the material in it’s stretch across skin, to pull the pleat tight at the knee, to maintain her perfectionist level of being put together. She sets the board on her thigh.
There is a moment’s contemplation, before she places the tip of the pen to board once again. ~That would depend on what you want to know. There is a sept here. Small, down by the docks, beyond Eagle land. You will go around our land to find it, unless there is an emergency, which can be forgiven – if not forgotten. There is plenty to fight, the war is in the scab with an intensity that should be expected. You will find leaders here, and followers. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between them. Just as anywhere else.~
[Torben Agmundr] “Who is the Jarl of our tribe in these parts?” he asked after a moment’s thought after her written words. That was always of an utmost importance. That she mentioned a sept beyond their lands made him think that they weren’t a part of the sept. Such things have been heard of before, and very likely it was none of his business.
“And who is the Grand Elder in this city?” Proper protocol, after all. Torben grunted a slight bit, barely preceptable.The Forseti smoothed his beard down onto his chest, and then brushed loose strands of hair from his face to hook it behind his ears.
[AnneMarie Hoch] Again, she cleans the board across her thigh, and resettles it. He does not ask if they are part of the sept just yet, and she gives nothing other then what is asked this time.
~Decker Rohl, known as Silence, Adren Modi and Alpha of the Eagles. The Grand elder is Balance without Fault, Adren Glasswalker. ~
She turns the board so that he can read it, once more, though she does not watch him do so. She, instead, studies the area that surrounds them, forever alert, on patrol even when she is unmoving.
[Torben Agmundr] Torben nods, considering the information that she gives to him yet again. His eyes swept out from the board to flick around their vicinity. There seemed to be no trouble of any sort just yet, but one never knew especially in cities.
Popping his knuckles, he drummed the thick nails of his right hand against the leather of his boot. “Are there many of our tribe here?”
[AnneMarie Hoch] ~I do not know the current numbers.~
It is simple, and to the point, and unflinchingly honest. What he doesn’t know, couldn’t possibly know, is that this is the longest conversation she has had with anyone in months. It is in part her fault, and in part circumstances. Sometimes – it is nice to simply answer questions. Nothing of this, however, shows in her face.
[Torben Agmundr] He would not know anything of the sort, being that this is his first night within the city. Very likely Jotungreifer will sleep outdoors tonight within the woods, and venture back to the city proper in the morning. He appeared to of done such many times before.
Moving to rise, he nods to her. “Thank you for the information, Ruhiger.” With that, he moved off in the opposite direction. Away from Eagle territory.
(It’s nearing 4:30am and I need to sleep. Catch you later, Lessa! )
[AnneMarie Hoch] He stands, and thanks her, and she lifts her chin in response. Once more, the board is cleaned, and this time tucked away into its pocket, before she stands and smooths her coat over slim hips. When he has shown his direction to indeed be in the correct direction, only then does she once more cross the line, into Eagle territory, and head back home.
(Night!)