Moving, unsure of where he’s going, not needing to use a Rite of the Questing Stone just yet. Letting the concrete skin of the city unravel beneath his feet. Looking into store front windows to check his reflection, to pause and take stock. He’s simply clad. A powder-blue t-shirt, black jeans, dress shoes. A leather belt, dull iron buckle. He stands out, but seems oblivious to the fact.
Searching, searching for Kemp.
[Kemp Oates] He’d just left the little run down building with it’s protected, cleansed area where he and Skadi had spilled blood in securing this bit of territory. Fighting Umbral against those that tried to take that bit of Pureness from them. He paused just outside the building, hiking his jeans up with a tug, then scrubbing the hair back from his eyes as he squinted against the light change from inside to out.
[Erich] Erich pauses at a street intersection, about to head left, but something holds him, and he turns instead to the right, looking down past the long line of parked cars by the curb, through the sparse crowd, and at Kemp’s tall, distinctive frame. He hesitates once more, and then turns to head down along the pavement towards the man, his face clouded in thought, a frown forming and dissipatinig on his brow.
[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: room for me? Or is this a private conversation?)
[Kemp Oates] ((Open room. ))
[Kemp Oates] His head turned in mid-yawn as that prickly feeling raced along his nerve endings. His expression going stone cold blank as he reconnized Erich. Just what he needed. Skadi had pondered plots and sub-plots after the encounter at Nessa’s that saw them gone from there for her own good and their’s. Now what?
Turning to fully face the approaching Garou.
[Sandra Davenport] Somewhere in that long line of parked cars is a certain 1978 Honda Civic, recently seen spewing smoke and abandoned in frustration by it’s owner, only to have it reappear, fixed and running smoothly again thanks to a certain Rotegar. It is empty, and locked up, parked near a small cafe who’s outside walls are littered with grafitti, and marked with ever shifting pockets of loitering gang members. Inside, at a table next to the window, sits a girl.
She is not a pretty girl, as has been noted. She is plain of face, with mousy hair and glasses. And boys – they simply don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses. Her clothing does nothing to accentuate whatever figure she may have. She is not thin, nor is she fat. She has curves, but they are hidden under a large t-shirt and jeans. She’s got a cup of coffee in front of her, and seems engrossed in the laptop screen set up on her table where she is fiddling with this, that, and perhaps even the other thing. In between fiddlings, she watches the street through the grungy window.
[Erich] Erich approaches, and his face is without that hardness, that coldness that Kemp might expect. The Theurge walks down the length of pavement, his hands in back pockets, brow furrowed as if trying to work out a difficult math problem, or remember the elusive final words to the lyrics of a catchy song. He slows down as he draws closer, noting the Fenrir’s stony visage, and comes to a stop perhaps five yards from the man.
“Afternoon, Kemp,” he says, voice neutral, rough timbered but without aggression.
[Kemp Oates] “Erich.”
He lifted his scruffy chin in the type of salute he’d learned on Decker’s knee, so to speak. Feet braced apart, his arms crossed. As always, the shine of those two pendant’s twinkled with each breath that expanded his chest.
“What’s up?”
Right to the point. The last person he expected to see was Erich. Lifting his arm to muffle the next yawn with the back of his hand.
“Sorry man, was at work before the sun came up. Soon as I slowed down, got sleepy.”
[Sandra Davenport] She turns from the computer screen again, fingers reaching for her coffee as she looks out the window – and she almost knocks it over instead. She catches the cup with a flush of embarassment. She grabs her napkin and sops up what had sloshed over the edge, and tries again.
She just hadn’t expected to see Kemp again so soon. It’s not like she’s stalking him, but he does seem to pop up often enough that it might seem like it. She doesn’t stand and rush out, nor does she rap on the window in hopes of getting his attention. She just watches, while she takes her time finishing up what she was working on.
[Kemp Oates] (( LOL! Mei’s tag! ))
to dead spy, Erich, Sandra Davenport, winken
[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: LOL!)
to dead spy, Erich, Kemp Oates, winken
[dead spy] ;_x
to Erich, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, winken
[Erich] Erich nods, “No worries, man. I understand. Between my Guardian duties down at the Sept, staking out the new territory in Grant Park and my other duties, I haven’t been sleeping much either.”
He walks forwards slowly, drifting in to approach Kemp and position himself by the wall next to him, arms crossing over his chest.
“Listen, I just wanted to apologize to you. You and Skadi both. I’m going to have to find her, at some point, but I figured…” He trails off, and frowns. Shakes his head. “I figure I did you wrong, so.”
[Kemp Oates] He froze again, going deathly still as his green gaze moved, shifting back and forth between Erich’s eyes. Was this another of those games Skadi warned of? Fuck, he was going to go nuts trying to figure this shit out. Clearing his throat before speaking.
“Well, ok. If you figure ya need to. Frankly, I don’t get it. Ya feel the way ya feel and that’s, that. I had little against the other.”
Not saying Baaku’s name, just yet.
“Except when he started with the two by four up the ass stiffness and games that go with it. But heh, everyone has their thing. Everyone is different. And sometime shit just don’t go like ya think it would or should. And if any of this offends ya cause ya don’t get what I’m saying, then heh, sorry. I never was much good at words and shit.”
[Sandra Davenport] The last adjustments made, for now, and she turns off the laptop, closes the lid and waits for it to shut down. She takes a final sip of her coffee, and then places a tip on the table, despite the fact coffee was all she had ordered. She had used the tablefor a couple of hours without their complaining. It’s the least she can do.
Once her computer is shut down, she slides it into her bag, and zips it up. Standing, she pulls on her light jacket, and slides the strap of her bag over her head so that it disects her form diagonally, the computer banging lightly against her hip. She slips between the tables, the shadowed wallflower, and steps outside, pausing just outside the door.
[Erich] Erich listens, nodding at first, and then going still. He’s standing now but a few paces from Kemp, and the Fenrir’s tension fair bleeds into the air, and he slowly keys into it. Stiffens himself, his jaw tightening slightly, his eyes on those of the Fostern’s.
Kemp speaks on, and a look of some confusion does indeed cross Erich’s face. He stops nodding, and focuses on just trying to understand what the Rotagar is saying.
“Except when who started with the stiffness? Decker?” He shakes his head slowly, trying to fit Kemp’s words to what he knows. “You mean – are you talking about – your disappointment with the Eagles?” He’s speaking slowly here, clearly at sea. “That’s natural, man. And of course I’m not offended. I – I see why you’d have been disapppointed. That’s why I came down here. To apologize, because there’s no reason for us to be at odds here.”
[Kemp Oates] It was his turn to blink in confusion. Racing back through things in his head.
“No, no man. Well shit, everyone has disappointments in life and confusions. I meant, the only times I could take umbrage with your former packmate was when he got on his high horse and started talking like some cross between a butler and a school teacher or something. Though that last time, I never could figure out what he was so mad about. Mad cause he ran? Mad cause I weren’t mad cause he ran? Mad cause my words were more or less, shit happens, learn from it? Mad because even when I got sick of hearing the self beating shit, I said, fine, ya ran. Happy now? Shit even that didn’t please him. It was like he had a burr up his ass that was turned sideways and it was rubbing his hemoriods or whatever they are called.”
Shaking his head as he glanced down the street and back to Erich.
“Don’t do no good hashing over this now. It’s done. And like everything, every fuckin person that was there, every fuckin person that heard about it, every fuckin person is gonna fuckin get something else out of it and see it differently.”
[Erich] “Wait a second -” says Erich, pushing away from the wall, “My former packmate? Which one?”
He steps away from the wall to stand before Kemp, and his body language is still easy, still relaxed. The only tension lies in the confusion in his face as he stares at Kemp. “You mean Never? Or… Night Devours?”
[Kemp Oates] “Packmate, Tribe’smate, whatever. Ya know what I mean. Baaku. Shit, like I can keep one straight from another if I’m not smelling their ass?”
Yawning again as he scrubbed both hands over his face. His shoulders were tense from lifting, hefting, digging. Belly growling to remind him it was still there.
“So ya just happened to be coming this way?”
[Sandra Davenport] She chews on her lower lip a moment, before she pushes up her glasses with a finger, and moves toward her car. Kemp and the other man are deep in conversation, and it is simply not in her to inturrupt. Instead, she pulls her keys from her pocket, and unlocks the Honda. Pulling open the door that thankfully no longer creaks, she places her bag inside, taking the time to cover it, and make sure it’s not in plain site, before she stands and shuts the door again, locking it once more.
Then she turns, and leans on the side of the car, arms crossing over her chest, feet scuffing against the cement until she is comfortable.
[Kemp Oates] For a second he glanced towards the movements down the way again. Lifting his chin with a wiggle of his brows for Sandra before turning his attention back to Erich.
[Erich] Erich reaches up and scrubs at his own face as if seeking to rub some energy into his head, to force his mind to pierce the funk that seems to have descended on it.
“Wait – Baaku? Baaku wasn’t…” He pauses, frowning again, going back to what Kemp had just said before. “So – hold on – so what you said before was about Baaku? Being disappointed and so on?”
He lowers his hands and rests them on his hips. Still frowning. “No, I wasn’t just coming down this way. I was searching for you. Specifically. There’s shit between us that doesn’t need to be there. You’re good people, Kemp. Skadi is – well – a force to be reckoned with, and I don’t any of us to be pissed at each other if there’s no need. Our last meeting ended badly, though…”
He pauses, frowning again. “Though there’s no need… for it to have done. Not if we’re on the same page. We – I – should have worked harder to have smoothed things over.”
[Sandra Davenport] Cue blush. Kemp wiggles his brows, and she ducks her head, hiding behind her hair as the color paints itself across her cheeks. She takes a breath, before pushing away from the car, and starting to close the distance. She takes her time, though, so as not to intrude completely. Well trained, this kin.
[Kemp Oates] For a moment his dark brows furrowed, knitting together as he inhaled through his nostrils deeply, trying to pick up the smell of pot or drink on Erich.
“Ya sure you’re ok? What happened, happened. You are entitled to whatever it is you feel or whatever.”
Crap, was he fucking with him now? Damnit, what game was this?
[Erich] Erich reaches up again to rake his fingers through his hair, mussing it up, and turns to look down the street at where Sandra is approaching, flicking his dark gaze down at her like the crack of a lash, and then back to the Rotagar.
“I… I have this headache, but I’m fine.” He takes a breath, studies Kemp, and then lowers his arm. “But, yes. What happened, happened, and will of course be dealt with. No… worries there. I’m just glad things are straight between us.” He pauses, not sure that they are, frowning still. “And… I’m going to find Skadi. Tell her the same thing. I… do you have any advice on how not to rile her up?”
[Sandra Davenport] Arms uncross, and hands shove deep into the pockets of her jeans. There is nothing that draws attention to Sandra – if it weren’t for the blood in her veins. She tends to fade into the bacground, to disappear, to be less there then she really is by virtue of her nature alone. She is who she is, no more, no less.
[Kemp Oates] “Don’t grab her ass. Pisses her off like nothing else.”
Nodding sagely as he glanced towards Sandra again with a small warning shake of his head.
[Sandra Davenport] And that’s enough to stop her. She nods, slightly, with a little smile and turns around again, to retrace her steps.
[Erich] Erich smiles weakly, and slips his hands into his back pockets once more.
“Alright. I’ll try to control myself. I guess… I guess the main question is whether either of you will try to stop me if I try to…” he trails off, looking for the right word, “Right some wrongs. You two are no longer involved, correct?”
[Kemp Oates] He sucked in a deep breath, coming out with it point blank.
“Ya gonna challenge me Erich? Challenge Skadi?”
[Erich] Erich looks completely taken aback by that, to the point where he actually jerks his head back, eyes narrowing, “What? Challenge you? Why the fuck would I do that?”
[Sandra Davenport] Once at the honda again, she leans back against the front fender, and then presses her hands agianst the hood, shifting her weight to sit atop the car. She doesn’t go, just yet, but she’s no longer encroaching on hearing distance.
[Kemp Oates] “Ok here we go. Hang on to your shorts and listen to me here man. Ya have a headache? Maybe ya hit your head or a fuckin plane fell on ya? Or maybe it’s a weather change or something bad coming in on the wind? Could be ya spent the night drinking or listening to some woman whine and whine and bitch? Whatever it is, ya just asked me if I would try to stop you if you try to, right some wrongs. So out with it before I get your fuckin headache. What wrongs? Cause ya see. I am Fenrir, Erich. So’s Skadi. So are the Eagles. Each of us stands on our own two feet. If we are in a battle, a pack situation, sure we fight like a pack. But, as ya know, I ain’t one of them no more, neither is Skadi. But above all that shit. We do have our own honor and if ya make a challenge to someone, I ain’t gonna jump ya from behind or nothing.”
[Kemp Oates] “Most of all, if one of them loses a fight withcha? I ain’t gonna act like no pussy ass pup with something to prove and come out a huntin for him that won.”
[Erich] Erich listens intently once more, like a man about to go into court and receiving his final last second briefing from his lawyer. He nods, shakes his head, frowns, and finally looks past Kemp and over his shoulder to focus on nothing in particular.
His eyes move from side to side as he tries to place things together, to understand, and finally he nods, once. “Alright.” A deep breath, and then he nods once more. “That’s what I wanted to be sure of.” He pauses again, looks off, then back.
“But… what wrongs? I’m talking about what we discussed last time we spoke in Nessa’s home.” He looks at Kemp as if unable to understand why the other man keeps failing to comprehend him. “I’m going to set straight what was put crooked. Vengeance, my friend.”
[Kemp Oates] “What do you have to need vengeance over, Erich? Tell me this. Did ya lose a lover? A Mate? A future together? Was he taken completely innocent? Was he not capable of backing his words up? His challenges? He was handicapped? Exactly what do you feel you personally have to avenge that the elders of the Sept have not seen the need to avenge?”
[Sandra Davenport] AFter a moment or two, she hops down to unlock her car and retreive something from inside. Once again, she takes perch on the hood of the car, her feet thumping lightly against the tire below her, as she opens the heavy book and begins to read. All down time is study time, right?
[Erich] Erich again looks confused, clearly not expecting Kemp’s vehemence. His face closes, and he takes a step back.
“What do I have to take vengeance over? Are you serious?” He waits a moment, sees that the Rotagar is, and then shakes his head, “A cub… challenged a Fostern… in the fucking street… and slew him in violation of the Master of the Challenges orders. A Fostern of my fucking Tribe, Kemp. You talk all pretty about how Fenrir are Fenrir, and butt fuck each other when ever the other bends over, and suddenly don’t get why I might take some fucking umbrage over such a casual murder of my own Tribe mate?”
In a moment, Erich’s temper has flared. His face is livid.
“Have you just forgotten everything we discussed at Nessa’s? How even if the Eagles lie outside of the Sept of Maelstrom, they are still part of the Garou Nation? How they can’t just slay Gaian Garou when they will, how they will, and that to do so makes them fucking ronin?” This last is hissed, a lethal spew of words.
Erich’s eyes blaze, and he shakes his head again, “I just don’t fucking understand you, Kemp. One moment you’re leaving the fucking Eagles in protest of this murder, now you don’t even understand why the deed was wrong?”
The air about Erich has thinned. His control has slipped, and something coils and uncoils in his eyes, in the black, flat depths.
[Kemp Oates] He coiled, turning to face Erich as his own temper flared and his chest puffed up, hands clenching on his hips in fists.
“You listen here scrambled head. Listen good Erich. Take notes if ya have to. First of all, if anyone is gonna call the other tribe a bunch of ass fuckers, then it sure as fuck ain’t the Fenrir. At least we don’t run around plotting and planning behind backs. Now, ya don’t like what I just said? Fuck you. Guess ya better worry about bending over if ya think that’s what we Fenrir do. I ain’t never, ever said that. Also?”
Huffing for breath as his temper soared.
“I didn’t fuckin leave the Eagles over the fight. I done said it once, I’m gonna say it again, so get that tape recorder ready so ya can listen to it again when in doubt. It weren’t no MURDER. He knew it was coming. He tried his gifts on her. Fuckin ain’t murder. His pack was there. Oh yeah, I forgot. They say they were told not to fight.”
Turning his head to spit.
“Pussy shit, that is. Excuses to cry murder over. And it weren’t out in the middle of the fucking street. It didn’t even happen on this side of things. Oh hello? Ya make it sound like she lay in wait with the rest of the Eagles, all armed to the teeth, in the middle of the fuckin street to jump his ass while putting his pack on freeze frame. Oh and I forgot. All behind a duck blind so he wouldn’t have no idea it was coming. Blind sided him. Right. Course, he could piss and spit on Fenrir honor and it didn’t mean shit. Bullfuckinshit! Bull FUCKIN Shit! Ya don’t like it? Get a fuckin life Erich. Ya want to hurt and fight and maybe die over this shit? Bring it. Bring it man. But ya start pissing on me as Fenrir and we are gonna have some serious ass fuckin going on and I ain’t gonna use no lube.”
[Kemp Oates] “One more thing? If I were you, or your Tribe? I wouldn’t go around bragging about a Cub taking down a Fostern of my Tribe. Damn. Makes her sound pretty fucking good, don’t it?”
[Kemp Oates] “Now ya wanna do what Baaku done? Ya wanna challenge a pack? Ya want to take it back and do it again, twice at two moots in front of the Sept? Ya want to keep grabbing dicks and jerking them only to stop just before they cum? Then go for it man. But get your facts straight and think about how it looks for a Fostern to go down before a Cub. Pretty fuckin bad for that Fostern.”
[Sandra Davenport] Tempers flare and she looks up, as they huff and puff and threaten to blow each other down. Teeth worry over hr loer lip, as she watches. She doesn’t try to hide it even, she just watches. She can’t hear them – but their society is built on body language, some that a kinfolk learns faster then most.
[Erich] Erich takes a step closer. His face is ice. His eyes are frozen pits of fury. His voice, when it comes, is devoid of emotion. It’s flat, turgid with oozing rage, but distant, as if some emotional side of him has just closed down and died.
“You’re a liar, Kemp Oates. To my face you said different, and now you’re changing your game. I guess that shows true Fenrir colors right there.” All spoken softly, quietly almost, as smooth and cool as ice water.
“You have no honor.”
He takes a step forwards. Kemp can back away, or they can go face to face.
“Your Tribe has no honor.”
[Kemp Oates] He didn’t back up, infact he stepped forwards and went chest to chest with Erich.
“Blow me. Blow me cause your sense of honor is ass fucked sideways backwards.”
[Kemp Oates] “Ya got any brains in your little head Erich? Any sense at all? Cause frankly, I think you’re so fucked in the head ya just don’t know what the fuck you’re doing no more. You hear whatcha want to hear, believe what you want to believe. You who wasn’t even there. You who knows how full of hot air and shit that one could be. Ya want me to tell ya I left the Eagles over Baaku? Fuck that. I said we had differences. I didn’t say it was cause your tribesmate lost a fight with one of mine. I didn’t say it’s cause your Fostern, lost to a Cub. Which in itself is enough to shame a tribe if ya think on it. Nooooo. But ya want to shout to the world that he couldn’t win against a cub? That face to face. Using his Gift on her, knowing damned well what was coming, he what? Was fucking glued in place and held down by a pack so he would lose? He lost cause he weren’t as lucky or good as she was. He lost. Lost, lost, lost, lost. And your death. My death. Any other fuckin death is not gonna fuckin bring him back.”
[Erich] Their eyes are but inches apart. The air between them is shimmering like the surface of a superheated blacktar highway through the hellish interior of a Nevada desert.
Kemp speaks. His words flow, rain down on the Shadow Lord, seeming to shower endlessly from his mouth, chipping away ceaselessly at the Theurge’s self control, at his patience, an unceasing tirade that Erich suddenly ends as he jerks his forhead forwards in a vicious head butt right at the Rotagar’s face.
[Kemp Oates] That’s all it took. He stumbled back a step with the headbutt. A wicked smile flowed across his teenage face as his lips pulled back.
“I take it, that sucker butt there was your idea of honor. You showing me your Tribe’s sense of Honor. You, a Claith, showing your sense of honor to me, a Fostern. Your challenge. Come then. Let’s take this to where it should be done. Let’s take it to those that done judged this fucking bullshit and done doled out punishment. Come on fuckweed. Let’s take it there where I’ll show ya how I ass fuck.”
[Sandra Davenport] She gasps, her fingers sliding up to cover her mouth with the headbutt, but she doesn’t move from where she sits.
[Kemp Oates] “You’re the one that insists shit be done by the book. Well come on fucker. I’ll meet ya there. Take your grief before someone to judge it, cause if this happens, I’m gonna get interest accured for that cheap ass shot.”
[Kemp Oates] With that he dared turn his back on Erich, showing him his disregard. Heading for the Caern as he called over his shoulder.
“Hurry along. I ain’t got all fuckin night.”
[Kemp Oates] He winked at Sandra as he passed her. A red spot showing on his forehead, jaw ticking with anger and he was gone.