[Adrian] Adrian is out and about. This is an odd thing, of late, to find him anywhere other than the university or his flat, but even he needs groceries sometimes. And toilet paper. Toilet paper is important.
Regardless! There’s a store not far from the flat, and it’s there that he’s headed. It’s late for lunch and early to be off work or have dinner, but still, there’s temptation. The kid hasn’t spoken with Ethan since that meeting. He doesn’t know what’s happened with the older kin, nor does the older kin know what’s happened with him, but now there’s a call ringing through to Ethan’s mobile. Adrian waits, half expecting voice mail; it is a work day, after all, so far as he knows. And if it’s not . . . well. Who knows?
[Ethan] The hour that the Chicago Police Department affords its employees for lunch has long since come and gone; it’s well into the afternoon now, and if Ethan is at work, then Ethan is not going to be able to get away from his desk. It has been a week since they’ve seen each other, since Adrian was told in no uncertain terms that Danicka Musil did not want him in her apartment anymore and he told Ethan that he would be catching a cab back to his place. There have been no calls to make sure that one or the other got back to his place unmolested, no calls to say something or the other has happened in the time since they’ve seen each other.
Whatever it is that they have with each other, it is a transient and elusive thing. It is not defined, and it certainly cannot be referred to as a ‘relationship.’ They owe each other nothing, and they expect even less of each other, and so when neither of them picks up the phone for days at a time, there is nothing lost.
When Ethan picks up the phone, he picks it up from a place that isn’t bustling with activity. Adrian can’t hear other telephones ringing in the background, can’t hear computer keys tapping or voices murmuring. It doesn’t sound as though he’s at work; if he is at work, he is someplace quiet, where he can hear himself think.
Likely the only reason he’s answering the phone is because he thinks that something’s happened.
“Adrian?” is how he answers. “Everythin’ alright?”
[Adrian] He sounds tired but otherwise alright when Ethan answers; in fact, he sounds better than he had the last time they’d seen each other, when he’d been afraid to so much as leave his flat, but more afraid to admit it. He didn’t sleep well before bad, mindbending things happened every other day for a week, and now it’s worse. He doesn’t always escape his nightmares upon waking, these days. It’s a strange thing, and yet another that he doesn’t speak of, hasn’t told anyone about, and he doesn’t plan to change that.
“Everything’s fine, yes, thank you.” He feels a bit guilty, momentarily; he knows that tone, has adopted it himself. He is very young, yes, but he’s kin, and son (both foster and true) to Garou. He is friends with Garou and kin both. He knows what can, and often does happen, and how quickly one grows to expect the worst when the phone rings. “You might’ve let me go to voicemail, if you’re busy. I was just going to ask if you might like to have lunch or dinner or something, when next you’re free.”
There’s no hint that he means anything other than – or more than – just that, but then, there never is. The two men can come across each other randomly, innocently, in an art museum and still end up back at Adrian’s apartment, up to shenanigans. But in this, like everything else about their . . . acquaintanceship? . . . there are no expectations, at least on Adrian’s end. If one forgoes that sort of attachment and connection, one is seldom disappointed, and far more often pleasantly surprised.
It’s a sad way to go about life, really, but it’s worked for Adrian for several years, now.
[Ethan] A more bitter man, a man quicker to anger or snap, might have taken offense to the fact that the younger of the two of them is informing him that he might have let the call go to voicemail if he were busy. Despite his intelligence, despite his proximity to the Trueborn of the city, Ethan is not bitter, and he does not grow angry or snap at the younger man. He lets him finish speaking, and then he draws a breath.
“I’ve been leaving Micah with the babysitter a lot lately and I’d like to spend time with him this weekend.” A beat, and then, “I could meet you for a drink when I get off of work today, but that’s the best I can do until Monday.”
[Adrian] Adrian meant no offense, of course – he is young (as has been pointed out), and simply said what he was thinking. What he’d expected, perhaps, as to truly lack expectation is something of an imposibility. Quite simply, the kid does not necessarily expect the older man to answer the phone when he calls, though he always has; Ethan has a job, has a child, has a great many responsibilities that Adrian does not.
“That would be fine. Any place in particular you’d care to go?”
There are a few places Adrian’s heard about, less that he’s actually visited, but they’re student places, full of people talking about this professor or that, or their theses, or other, similarly academic things. There’s also the lone dance club he’d gone to, at Max’s request. None seem particularly conducive to a quiet drink or two with a . . . well. There’s no name, really, for what they are to each other.
[Ethan] Ethan has more responsibilities than a lot of men his age. Most of the men his age have wives to help them with their children, or they don’t have children at all. With the exception of a pair of detectives in Homicide, he doesn’t know anyone connected with the police department and the Nation, and so doesn’t know of any coworkers who are responsible for the care and feeding of werewolves in addition to their mundane duties as police officers.
For a college student, Adrian has his hands full. He, however, is not saddled with a child while he attempts to complete his degree and get his foot in the door. That’s something that separates him from Ethan: the older man had been mated and raising a child while finishing his Bachelor’s, had never gone back to complete a Master’s degree.
That’s neither here nor there. Ethan has responsibilities, but he juggles them. He also has learned the city well enough that he can think of places to go that don’t involve dancing or trolling for someone to take home.
“There’s this place called Cactus Bar and Grill near the LaSalle Street station,” he says, “on South Wells and West Van Buren. Why don’t you meet me there around six o’clock?”
[Adrian] “Sounds perfect,” he says. “I’ll see you there.”
And so the call ends, so that Ethan can return to work and Adrian can run his errands – there are things he needs – and tidy up the flat and goodness knows what else. He has time to fill, lots of it, before he’s to meet Ethan at the bar.
Time goes, as ever it does (especially for the last while) in fits and starts, but eventually it’s time to find his way to this Cactus Bar and Grill. He is just a few minutes early, and dressed casually for all that he might have come off a runway somewhere; he’s rather chic, as much so as his student budget will allow. Today, as last time Ethan saw him, his hair is tamed, caught down and back in an elastic with the bits that aren’t quite long enough to be held tucked behind his ears. There’s a pause outside to smoke, and he’s quite thankful that it’s actually above freezing, if not by much. Then, it’s inside to see if Ethan’s already arrived.
If not, there’s a spot claimed for them to sit – a relatively quiet spot, tucked away. His jacket gets set aside, on the bench next to him, and he peruses the beer list.
[Ethan] Given the fact that Ethan has, on more than one occasion in his acquaintance with Adrian, been late returning to the office, one could very well accuse him of having a lazy work ethic, or of constantly running late. He must not have his shit together if he’s so willing to let lunch with a younger man turn into a slow, late return to the office; he must not have his shit together if he’s constantly having to make a choice between having a social life and spending time with his child.
Undoubtedly, the child is going to be spending an hour or so with the baby-sitter while his father has drinks with a “friend.” Lord knows what Micah thinks about his father’s “friends,” these “friends” that are never around when he is, who come over when he’s out of the apartment and disappear before he gets back. Some of Daddy’s “friends” become visible presences, and Micah doesn’t typically like the “friends” that make themselves known when he’s around. A lot of Daddy’s “friends” in the past have been scary and forceful and have had no problem showing up at the house and making Micah retreat into his room.
This “friend” of Daddy’s has never been to the apartment. Micah doesn’t have a name for him, doesn’t know that he is younger, doesn’t know that he has been adopted by a different tribe. He doesn’t know anything about Daddy’s “friend.” All he knows is that Daddy is going to be gone for an hour or so this evening, and that he’s promised that they’re going to go to the planetarium and get lunch and watch a movie Saturday, that they’re going to go ice skating on Sunday. Micah has never been ice skating.
That’s neither here nor there. With his past behavior being what it is, one might expect that Ethan would keep Adrian waiting, that when he said “around six o’clock” he would show up closer to 7:00. He doesn’t. Adrian is sitting at a table in the corner by himself for only a few minutes before the door opens and in walks Ethan, out of his uniform and into his street clothes. He looks around for a moment, taking in the decor and the music that is being piped over the stereo, and finds Adrian not at the bar but out of the way, someplace private.
He shrugs out of his peacoat as he walks from the door to the table, and he sits himself down with a smile.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asks.
[Izzy Montoya] Happy hour at the Cactus Bar and Grill and no one needs a drink more than one Detective Izzy Montoya. She enters the establishment, and makes her way directly toward the bar. There’s a path that cuts naturally around her – not because she holds even an ounce of rage like the bunch of children who think they are in charge of her life do, but because she has the unwavering aura of ‘cop’ and people tend to avoid her because of it.
Her long coat – worn open for easy weapon access, the bulge of which is seen on occasion at the small of her back when the coat pulls taut – flares about her legs as she weaves through tables and finally settles to an empty spot at the bar. She doesn’t take the coat off right away, simply runs her fingers through her hair, and lets her elbows find the bar. She hasn’t seen anyone she knows, yet, and the careful mask slips – just for a second, just long enough to nod at the ‘tender when he asks her if she’s had a rough day. “Whiskey. Straight up.”
Happy hour, Indeed.
[Adrian] “Not at all,” Adrian says, looking up at Ethan; there’s a smile, not nearly as strained as the last time they’d seen each other, but not as easy as it had been before, either. As usual, he gives little away – though now, one doesn’t have to see a specific expression to know he’s worn. There are bags under his eyes, even in this half-light, and the planes of his face have become harsher, flatter as he’s lost appetite with his sleep.
If Adrian thinks Ethan doesn’t have his shit together, he gives no hint at such, but really, he makes no judgement. It would be easy to assume the same of the younger kin, who appears to swan about wherever and whenever he pleases. He speaks of classes and study groups, and yet the only testament there is to any such thing in the kid’s life are the books and papers that tend to breed in his flat, the laptop that’s often open to research pages. There are a lot of judgements that could be made about either of them, both of them.
Adrian makes none.
Adrian has no expectations.
Adrian certainly wouldn’t make a little boy retreat to his room, even if he did show up at the apartment when Micah was home.
He is as quiet as ever, as thoughtful, and more prone to stay out of sight if at all possible; hence the privacy of their booth. As a general rule, he doesn’t like it when people take notice of him – that’s when bad things happen, when he finds a friend (or as close thereto as anyone else here, anyway) dead in the bathroom of a bar – not too terribly unlike this one, but more like one of the more student-oriented places someone might expect to find someone like him.
“Your day went alright, I hope?”
Uneventful. In their world, in their lives, uneventful days are good days.
[Ethan] The bar that both police officers have chosen this evening is more of a stock broker hangout than a cop joint; perhaps that’s the appeal of it. The place is tackily decorated, is playing Spanish-language music that most of the staff can likely not translate without a great deal of expended energy, and has a groaning, broken-down air about it; yet, it is doing quite well on a Friday night. The place is humming with energy, and people are enjoying themselves.
Adrian had chosen a booth in the corner of the room, and it’s from this vantage point that the kinsman is able to make out the mildly familiar form of one Detective Montoya as she lopes into the restaurant, looking worn down and like she needs a drink before anything else. The Gnawer’s eyes watch her for several seconds, and then he glances back to Adrian.
“It was quiet,” he says. An inclination of his chin towards the bar, and he says, “We’ll probably get served faster up front. Mind moving?”
[Izzy Montoya] It was quiet. That’s what Ethan says of his day – and honestly, Izzy can’t remember the last time she had such a thing. By the time the drink is set in front of her, though, the careful mask is back in place, an she nods her thanks and slides a $20 across the bar. Her spine straightens [theycantbreakme] and she lifts the drink to her lips for a long swallow, closing her eyes as the burn slides down her throat to warm the pit of her belly.
She sets the glass down, and lifts her eyes to the mirror behind the bar, studying those behind her absently – clearly lost in her own thoughts.
[Adrian] “I suppose not,” he says and gathers his jacket, rises – there’s a glance around, careful (mildly paranoid), and then he’s heading towards the bar as well. Izzy, he’s met once, taken her card and put the number into his phone, though he hadn’t gotten around to ringing so his number would be in hers, should she want or need it; there’s recognition when he sees her. It hadn’t been that long ago, that meeting.
His reflection passes through the mirror in Izzy’s line of sight, as does Ethan’s. Adrian, though, makes no move to disrupt the detective’s reverie; he, too, is often lost in his own thoughts. Sometimes he wants to be drawn from them and sometimes he doesn’t, but it’s always difficult to tell which time is which.
[Ethan] The only one of them who doesn’t appear to be lost in his own thoughts is Ethan. This isn’t to say that he’s exuberant, that he’s got a spring in his step and a joie de vivre that the other two are sorely lacking, but his attention is very clearly on the world around him as he retrieves his coat and slides out of the booth.
Out of uniform, dressed in street clothes, there is still something about Ethan that gives off the impression of his working in law enforcement. He holds his spine straight, his eyes are intelligent, he dresses sharply; he walks as though he is used to having a weight around his waist. His coat is draped over his right arm, held near his thigh, his left held against his diaphragm as though to protect it.
Adrian and then Ethan pass behind the distracted detective, and they don’t sit down directly beside her. Ethan takes up a stool one over from her, rests his coat over the back of the stool, and glances over as if seeing her for the first time.
“Montoya, right?” he asks, breaking into her thoughts with that accented voice of his. “How’s it going?”
[Izzy Montoya] She doesn’t jump, doesn’t jerk from her thoughts so much as simply let her eyes clear and come back to the present. She’s a meeting at 6:30, and by god she’s going to be under the influence for it – at least enough to steel her resolve. But that’s neither here nor there, as her fingerstips trace around the rim of her glass and she turns to meet Ethan’s gaze. Her eyes flicker toward Adrian, then back again.
Montoya, right? “Yeah…” a beat while she comes up with first names – he carries himself like a cop, not a rogue, thus.. “Ethan. Adrian.” The last, are greetings of sorts, as she decides how to answer the following question. 99% of people expect a rote answer, and indeed that’s all they want. Izzy, at times, has been known to give 100% honest answers to any question. It’s very rarely a good thing.
“Shitty day, shitty month. This fuckin city’s going to be the death of me.” Somehow, there’s the sense she doesn’t mean Chicago at large, but a far more intimate gathering of assholes. “You?”
[Leslie] There as just something odd about being at a bar this early in the evening, it wasn’t as though there was a night life this soon. But there was just a certain sleaze to it, like an old noir film that made Leslie smirk, she was only here for a quick cocktail and maybe a snack, she was just on the wrong end of town to get where she wanted and back in time. So this would just have to do.
She adjusts the collar of her coat as she walked in, nodding to the patrons with a bit of a raised eyebrow. Curious crowd. Really quite interesting, but she wasn’t going to stick her nose in where it didn’t belong, at least, not immediately.
[Adrian] “Detective Montoya,” he says with a nod when she speaks his name, and offers a smile to go with it. He is not lost just now, but he is removed, reserved – he watches the two police talk and . . . raises an eyebrow briefly, subtly at the language. The people who know him here, combined, can likely number the times they’ve heard him use profanity, on one set of hands and likely with fingers left over. There’s no sense of approval or dis-, just surprise; it takes a shifting of mental gears to process it, particularly in one who learned English as a second (at best) language.
“I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a rough go.” He knows some of it, not all – he came late enough that what happened between her and a certain Forseti was no longer hot on people’s lips. All he knows is that she’s had trouble, and it’s a tribal matter.
[Ethan] The Gnawer doesn’t flinch at the Fenrir’s language. It barely even seems to register as anything other than a few colorful words sprouting up occasionally; one has to imagine that he’s heard worse in his lifetime, that ‘shitty’ and ‘fucking’ are rather pedestrian. The Bone Gnawers are not exactly known for their table manners or their social etiquette.
Adrian greets the detective, tells her he’s sorry, and Ethan glances the kid’s way before he speaks again.
The door opens yet again, this time allowing a woman entrance to the bar. Smack dab in the middle of happy hour, there is hardly any room to sit in the booths, and the bar itself is beginning to fill with stragglers and partying men in business suits. They’re down the street from the Chicago Stock Exchange. Based on how much they’re drinking, it’s hard to tell whether Wall Street had a good day or whether it tanked phenomenally.
“I can’t complain,” he says, and then tosses a question back: “Family trouble?”
[Izzy Montoya] Her language is often the cause for debate and seems to raise more ire than not. She simply doesn’t care. She was raised in a house full of cops, she has been on the force since she was 18. She has clawed her way not once, but twice, to Detective through a male dominated world. She is one of the guys – and she talks like a motherfuckin’ sailor because of it. Adrien is slightly surprised, raising that brow – she simply smirks again. Ethan is unsurprised at all. He’s heard worse, most likely, as he is on the job as well.
Her gaze lifts as someone else enters the bar, her dark gaze following Leslie in the mirror as she moves closer, before she returns her attention to Ethan, Adrian, and Ethan’s question. “Ain’t it always? I swear to god if…”
but she doesn’t finish the sentence. She, instead, lifts her drink and takes another long swallow.
[Leslie] It was full, enough to make the woman just sigh as she shimmied her way through the growing crowd At least it wasn’t the sort of place that gave you tetanus just looking at it. If it weren’t for the overcrowded status, Leslie might even venture to call it a nice place.
But she had gotten to the bar at least, before the last stool was taken up by some fat, balding middle aged man. A quiet victory that made her grin widely before ordering her cocktail in celebration. “Just a Manhattan please, thank you.” she put her cash down and began to lazily gaze at others, while idly listening in on conversations.
[Adrian] There is a seat between Ethan and Izzy, though few would take such a spot when two people are clearly talking unless the place was very, very full indeed. There is also a seat between Adrian and the patron on his other side, though there is none between Adrian and Ethan. The bartender comes and Adrian quietly orders a beer for himself, one for Ethan, and one of what Izzy’s drinking too before sliding some money across the bar while the two policemen are occupied talking to each other. Ethan can’t always pay his way, after all. Leslie, a stranger comes in and gets a polite nod when her eyes graze over the young twenty-something sitting next to the two cops – obvious in posture, in the way they talk to each other – before his attention returns to them.
Family trouble?
I swear to god, if . . .
“Does either of you know Lila?” It could be random. There could be more than one. But given who they are, that narrows the field significantly.
[Ethan] Do either of them know Lila.
Ethan turns his attention away from the detective, it having remained there even as the bartender came over to collect their order, when the young man next to him asks his question. The bartender is busily collecting a pair of beers and another shot of whiskey, oblivious to what it is they’re talking about; it gets lost under the din of dozens of conversations carrying on around them.
The last available stool happens to be between the two out-of-uniform police officers. As Leslie slips into it and orders a Manhattan, Ethan responds, “That’s the second-rank I was telling you about a few weeks ago.” A beat, and then, “Why, ‘ve you met her?”
[Izzy Montoya] Adrian asks, and Izzy simply nods “Yeah, we’ve met.” It’s not said with the obvious ire of a meeting of some of the others – so once can assume that at least THAT meeting went better than most.
Second rank, Ethan clarifies, while Izzy studies the woman who just sat down. Her gaze is not a comfortable thing, and it moves on soon enough, back to the men she’d been speaking too.
[Leslie] “Evening.”
Leslie smiles at Adrian, and takes a sip of her drink as she sits down on stool. At leas it seemed people were polite enough, not telling her to get lost, because that wouldn’t have hardly ended well. Of course her mind just awash with nonsense, she was halfway certain that someone said rank. But then again, she didn’t jump to conclusions…what she thought of as rank, and what other people thought, had to be two separate situations, but still, she couldn’t help but make an amused sound.
[Adrian] “No, Lukas,” it’s pronounced the Czech way, the way Lukas had said it when he introduced himself, “suggested I should meet her.” Ethan knows that Adrian’s tribal elder was contacted about the kid’s arrival – he also knows that Adrian hasn’t met him, or any other Child of Gaia. At least as of the last time they spoke of such things.
“I remembered that you mentioned someone, but couldn’t remember the name.”
Leslie gets a smile – cool, reserved – in return; the boy is runway fashionable with hair that’s somewhere around chin length pulled back into an elastic, with the too-short bits tucked behind his ears. And of course, someone did say Rank.
[Ethan] No one tells the newcomer to get lost. It’s crowded in here, and the reason that they have chosen to come to the bar in the first place has to do with the interests of time. The bartenders are moving quickly to keep up with the demand of their patrons; beers appear before Ethan and Adrian after drinks are handed to Izzy and Leslie though beers take mere seconds to prepare.
There’s an amused noise when the word ‘rank’ is uttered, and Ethan briefly glances over his shoulder at her before he turns back to Adrian. Both men speak with accents, though the older of the two of them has one that is easier to pinpoint and regionalize: he’s from one of the major English cities, his vowels over-enunciated and his consonants softened, though it’s faded, like a patterned sheet that’s been left out on the line in the sun for too many years.
“I don’t recall giving you a name,” he admits, and reaches for his beer with his off right hand. His left arm remains against his midsection, fingers relaxed.
[Izzy Montoya] She nods her thanks as the second drink is slid in front of her. She finishes off the first, and places the glass on the back of the bar for pickup, as she twirls the new on in her fingers, idly. She glances at Leslie when she snorts in amusement, and her brow arches upwards, sightly.
To Adrian though, she continues. “You’ll like her, I think.” Which is almost an actual compliment about the Coggie Fostern. As close as it would come from her, anyway.
[Trent Brumby] Heading in through the door Trent pauses when he notes how many people are packed into the space. He steps aside so not to block others from entering and exiting, while he scans over the place for a spare table, seat or bar stool. It’s his night off and of course he had to walk into a place that was packed to the rafters. He had went to glance behind him, towards the window with second thoughts of heading somewhere else, when some familiar faces catches the corner of his eye.
Trent’s a relatively tall man with a solid, though not over the top, build. Without his watch cap on, he’s got a shock of black hair with a kink at its short cropped ends. The gruff on his face is dark but groomed, and tonight he’s wearing some light blue jeans, a pair of leather loafers and a gray shirt under a black jacket that’s left unbuttoned.
He made his way towards the bar.
[Adrian] “I’ll have to keep an eye out for her, then. Or if either of you has contact information she wouldn’t mind being passed, that would work as well.”
He’s a good kid, and will contact who he must, do what he must – if enough people say he should. He doesn’t avoid the Nation and, in fact, goes out of his way to help when he finds himself in situations that need it. But he doesn’t try to make it a part of his day to day life, and it’s doubtful he’ll change that any time soon.
[Ethan] “I’m afraid the only contact information I ‘ave for her is her name,” he says. “I don’t know if she stays at the Brother’ood or not, but maybe you could try leaving a message there?”
[Izzy Montoya] “She’s not at the Brotherhood – but checks in often.” So yes, a note would work.
She looks up as someone else heads toward the bar, watching in the mirror as she recognizes the Fury kin. She looks a lot better than the last he saw her – physically, at least. Now, the bags under her eyes are simply lack of sleep, and stress, and ire from what her day has dumped in her lap, and what is yet to come tonight. But even still, there’s a little smirk in greeting if he catches her eye in the Mirror.
[Trent Brumby] “You’re looking good.” Trent speaks lowly, but just loud enough to be heard over the chatter echoing around the room. He had approached Izzy and lay a hand on her shoulder to give it a quick, light squeeze. “It’s good to see you out and about, Izzy.”
He doesn’t find himself a seat yet, but stands near her, hand down by his side as he tries to catch the bartenders eye, patiently waiting his own turn. A flicker of his gaze went over the others when the bartender was busy pouring another drink, and he offered a light smile to Adrian, meeting his gaze with a small nod.
In that moment he tried to assess how the younger man was holding up. Last time he saw the other, he was a wreck.
[Adrian] Adrian is doing much better than he had been the last time Trent saw him – today, at any rate. For now. There’s no guarantee that the same will hold true tomorrow, or the next day. That he hasn’t been sleeping well (any more than is strictly necessary to maintain his heath) is obvious in the circles under his eyes, in the way he holds himself so carefully alert.
“Hallo, Trent. D’you know Ethan? Ethan, this is Trent.” There’s that, and then, “Thank you both. I’ll leave a note for her then, yes.”
[Ethan] The woman with the Manhattan disappears, leaving an open stool between Izzy and Ethan. The kinswoman clarifies that the Galliard they’re talking about does not live at the Brotherhood but checks in often, and Ethan appears to make a mental note of this as he takes a swallow of his beer.
That’s about the time that the tall stranger–to Ethan–comes out of the happy hour crush to compliment Izzy and smile at Adrian. The older kinsman’s attention pulls away from Adrian when he’s introduced, and a genuine smiles pulls the identified man’s lips as he turns in his stool to face Trent. After setting down his beer, he wipes the palm of his right hand against his thigh and holds it out to shake.
“Nice to meet you, Trent,” he says. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
[Izzy Montoya] His hand finds it’s way to her shoulder, and if anything that smirk of hers? Softens a touch. She lifts her own hand, chilled by the glass that holds her drink, and slides it over his, squeezing lightly. There’s familiarity in the though, friendship inherent. Next to John, the Fury kin likely knows more about what makes her tick than anyone else in Chicago.
She does, however, snort. “I look like shit.” Even if it’s better than before. “As of this morning, most of my restrictions have been lifted. After a meeting tonight, I might have my ass right back on lockdown – through no fault of my own. Thus I figured it warranted a happy hour.” She lift her drink, toasts them silently and slams back a swallow or two.
[Trent Brumby] He’d offer to shake Ethan’s hand when Adrian makes introductions. “Nice to meet you,” he says easily, releasing his hand shortly after.
“Does anyone else mind?” Gesturing to the empty bar stool he’d wait to see if there was any protests before moving to sit. The heel of his shoe rested on the lowest rung while he let the other reach for the floor.
“Thank you.”
He’s silent for the moment then, letting them talk around him as he waits to order a whiskey for himself and another round for the others. “But make hers a double,” he tells the bartender, throwing Izzy a small smirk of his own. “You just don’t know how to keep out of trouble.” Trent knows the truth, but some light heart banter never went astray, especially with Izzy. Serious and heart to heart talks with hers wasn’t the way to understand her. He’d figured that out quickly enough.
[Adrian] “I don’t mind.” The man’s spent the night at his flat before, after all – Adrian’d hardly allow that for a man (or ask it of him, but shh) he wouldn’t sit with at a bar. “I should have called or something, by now. I’ve been in a revisioning frenzy.” It’s almost comical, the very different meanings that word can have – or maybe they’re not so different, really. And Adrian’s been nursing his beer over this time – with the arrival of a second, his eyebrow raises, but he certainly doesn’t complain. There are very few students who would.
“Thank you. You’ve been well, I hope?”
[Ethan] Ethan has hardly touched his first beer by the time a second is being ordered. A quick glance skyward has a clock being located smack dab in the middle of the wall holding up the myriad bottles of alcohol; he hasn’t quite been here ten minutes.
The three Kinfolk converse once the matter of whether or not Trent is going to have a seat is settled, and as they talk, Ethan fumbles his cell phone out of his pants pocket with his right hand and checks the screen. A message has appeared for him, short and to the point, and rather than attempting to peck out a message, he looks up and over to Adrian.
“I’ll be right back,” he says; “I’ve a call to make. Don’t let my beer walk off.”
Leaving his coat over the back of his chair as collateral, Ethan slides off the barstool and walks over to the door, where he lets himself out into the above-freezing air to make his call.
[Izzy Montoya] She snorts somewhat amused. “Apparently.” There’s something there, something darker that touches her gaze. She’s more upset now that she had been before, even when fighting to heal her injuries, throughout the constant rules, the lockdown, the sleeping at the station, the search for loopholes, the…
There’s something deeper.
[hehurtherandshelethim]
Unexplained.
The crack is brief, but she nods her thanks for the drink.
[Lila] [and lalala prelude to an appearance: SNEAK UP ON ETHAN, IS SNEAKY!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Trent Brumby] “It’s fine, as long as you’re alright,” he tells Adrian, seemingly not bothered by the lack of communication since he’d went to elate the others fears. He’d do the same for anyone. Had done similar for Izzy under different circumstances.
Nodding once as Ethan leaves to make his call, Trent lay out some money on the bar to pay for the drinks. It’s then that he answers Adrian, offering the other a reassuring smile. “No complaints here.” Even if there was reason to, he probably wouldn’t. He’s a man with no (obvious) troubles.
Standing up had him pulling off his jacket, tugging one sleeve before sliding out of it and leaving it over the back of his chair. It left him sitting back down in his long sleeved gray shirt. His eyes were a paler shade of the same colour.
He picked up his glass. “So what are we drinking to?” He asked them both, glancing to one side where Izzy sat to the other where Adrian was.
[Lila] Ethan Yates: innocent, unwary, so recently zombie-chow, one of Chicago’s finest, kinfolk of the Nation, a survivor. Little does he know that soon after he places the phone to his ear, likely just after it reaches voicebox or somebody answers, he is become hunted. Cue reality television show themesong music, here.
The young [ingenue] woman notices Ethan and — well; it doesn’t matter where she was yet. But she notices him: hunkers down, and if she had a cat’s tail, it would twitch. As it is: she slips all shadow-like along the edge of a building, around the corner, runs across the street, hunkers down behind a car, peeks through the window. Yep: that’s Ethan! He’s turning to say something, maybe, and she, bent-over, sneaks around the edge of the car.
Then! Lila bounces toward the kinfolk and hugs him from behind. This time she didn’t jump on him! Just: glomped. “Don’t be scared!!”
[Ethan] Once outside, Ethan is decidedly distracted from his surroundings by trying to thumb through his phone with his off hand. Whatever he’s looking for doesn’t reveal itself by the time something moves out of the corner of his eye; the sun went down a few minutes ago and the world is lit by street lamps and noise pollution, cars and mail boxes offering up plenty of places for things to hide.
Don’t be scared!!
“Jesus!” he shouts, doing the exact opposite of what he’s being asked not to do, dropping his phone to the pavement with a clatter of plastic and silicon. It isn’t the first time that phone has taken a tumble, and it likely won’t be the last. Twisting to look at who it is who’s got a hold of him, a palpable breath shoots out of his chest and he says, pronouncing her name with an er instead of an ah: “Lila. Hi. Want a proper hug?”
[Adrian] “To completed papers, I suppose,” he says, and is as reserved as ever – as reserved as he’d been the other night when he met Izzy. As much so as he has been almost any other time anyone’s seen him out of the flat. Inside, away from prying eyes, from people and their judgments, is different. Here, in public, Adrian is very firmly encased in his own bubble of personal space, and that seems unlikely to change – even in the happy hour crowded bar, he’s apart.
Some people take it as snobbish, and that impression is only added to when he opens his mouth and the accent is most easily associated with ‘Big City Brit’.
“You two?” The question is turned back, and given with a smile.
[Izzy Montoya] What are they drinking too? She snorts, and shakes her head, and just gestures toward the two boys. “To whatever you like. Me, I’m just drinking to drink. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a very, very long night.”
Oh yes, despite the bits of freedom that is still less than any of them have, she’s still trapped in a situation she hates, that twists in her gut like a dull knife. But, instead.. she nods. “So completed papers it is.”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] She is a quiet thing.
And very dirty.
It’s cold. She has clothes over clothes, probablly everything she owned worn on her body, under a coat that had to be 10 sizes too big for her. I’m starving. She was quiet as she looked around, keeping to herself at most, and looking in trash cans. Discarded sodas are finished off, and a half a sandwich is sniffed before biting into it.
[Trent Brumby] He glances from Adrian to Izzy, looking at her for a longer moment and taking in her bitterness. She’s entitled to it and he doesn’t say anything against it. Instead, he nods to them both and adds his own; “To good health and safe keeping.” For both of their sakes rather than his. He hasn’t been beaten, eaten or otherwise hounded by Garou or Wyrm-things alike.
Drinking down half his glass, the ice rattled against the sides as he set it back on the bar, wincing a little at the burn down his throat that spread across his chest and warmed his belly. Even his eyes went a little watery until he swallowed it all down, swiftly recovering.
[Aaron Yates] Aaron Yates: jaded, bitter, antagonistic to the nth degree. Trouble-maker, ladies-man, last to admit he’s ever in the wrong. Likes: himself, women, himself again, his brother [usually, unless he was doing something incredibly stupid], women, his nephew, and ESPN.
Dislikes: Garou, especially any that resemble his brother’s ex, any that are male, any that look at him too long, any that bug him, cream cheese.
Ethan and Lila are hugging, or sharing an embrace, or just doing something that Aaron Yates, appearing from God knew where, out to do God knew what, wishes to avoid. So, when he draws near enough to recognize his brother, and glimpse a vaguely familiar [naggingly so, who was she and why did she remind him of a girl he’d known] girl with him, Ethan’s twin doesn’t salute him but rather pulls his hood further down over his face and slips past him, retreating into the Pub.
[Lila] This time he didn’t drop a pile of groceries, but she still feels bad when he drops his phone, and sweeps it up off the pavement with a street performer’s conscious [magic trick] grace. She offers it back, however, with green eyes gone [winsome (if only they weren’t also laughing and pleased)] large. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d drop it,” she says, contrition warring with whatever the opposite of contrition is.
And then! He offers a proper hug. Lila — Lila is a creature who walks side-by-side with elation; he totally elates her. She bounces up onto her tiptoes (tall! you’re tall!) and smiles, “Reeeeeeally? A proper — ” here, she eyes him, suggestive as a matter of course. She can’t help who she is. ” — hug, hmm?”
Then: “Yes! Yes, please! I would love a proper hug.” And she rakes her lower lip with her teeth, then, bouncing once more, moves in for the killlllll … er, a proper hug. “What are you up to, Ethan?” The question may-or-may not be muffled.
[Ethan] It’s with an artist’s dexterity that Lila swoops to pick up the dropped cell phone, and it’s with a wan smile that Ethan accepts the phone back, using his right hand where he appears to be favoring his left arm. She didn’t think he’d drop it. A soft huff of laughter leaves his throat, and whatever he had come out here to do appears to be forgotten as he pockets the phone and offers her a proper hug.
One would think that he had just offered her a rare fetish or the key to a house or whatever it is that gets Fostern Galliards excited, the way she reacts to his question. The young woman is all eyes and oozing charm, wasting her powers of suggestion on the wrong brother–and there goes Aaron, pulling up his hood so as to not be seen–before she darts forward. He wraps his arms around her shoulders, and perhaps she can feel the bulk of gauze wrapping up his left arm through the thin fabric of his dress shirt; perhaps she can’t. It doesn’t stop him from giving her a squeeze, or from answering her question.
“I’m just inside ‘avin’ a drink,” he says. “There’s someone I think you ought to meet. Fancy a beer?”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] She eyes the two on the sidewalk. So hungry Quietly, she puts her head down, and makes her way past.
It was deliberate.
The hard bump into Ethan as she tried to snake his wallet from his pocket, and hopefully not get caught.
[Adrian] Adrian: Not-blond-not-brown hair pulled into a neat elastic, beer in hand, sitting next to Ethan’s jacket, one chair down from Trent and Izzy. Likes: Archeology, Sociology, Anthropology, any kind of social -ology there is, especially when paired with history and adventure, books, foosball, weapons, guns.
Dislikes: Spiders (!!!!!) and anything else with more than four legs, ESPN, television in general, bad tea, repeating himself.
His bottle gets raised in this toast, and he sips – they’ve not been here long, and he has a way to go left on his drink, if not as far as the Bone Gnawer kin has. He is like this – he sucks things in quickly. Knowledge, experience, anything, it becomes a part of him almost as if by osmosis.
It would be easy, now, to just fall quiet, and that is the way his inclination lies – to fall into his thoughts and stay there, to be reserved and observe. The tall man in the hoodie enters a crowded bar with little in the way of free seating (it’s happy hour, after all, on a Friday) and gets noticed, but not marked out as anyone familiar.
“More family business?” This is asked of Izzy quietly.
[Izzy Montoya] She slings the drink back, and holds the back of her hand to her lips as her eyes close and she feels it warming it’s way down her throat. Trent has seen her drink before, knows that it’s been said that she drinks like a fuckin’ Fianna, and has the constitution to match. Even so, she is on call for the rest of the evening, and when the bartender looks her way again – she points to a beer instead of anything stronger.
Adrian asks, and she nods with that same little smirk. Even now there’s still tension wound up around her shoulders, along her spine. “Yeah. I somehow don’t think it’s going to go well.”
[Lila] “I wouldn’t mind a beer at all. Who’ve you got inside?” A beat: “Actually; you haven’t seen a tall, taller than you, guy around, have you? With dark hair? He looks kind’ve surly? I’m — ” Perhaps she notices the bulk of gauze and it gives her pause. Indeed: there’s no perhaps about it; that’s just what happens. Lila blinks and she is about to say something [there’s a question (see it?)], but then the hungry woman is bumping into Ethan and failing to quite fumble his wallet out of his pocket. What’s more: she isn’t very sneaky about it at all. “Hey,” Lila says to her, smile gone, replaced by something serious: “Why’d you just try to do that?”
[Trent Brumby] Trent’s quiet, listening to Izzy and Adrian talk. He’s watching people order drinks at the bar while nursing what’s left in his own glass. He’s sitting next to Izzy on a bar stool with Ethan’s empty one at his other side. They both have jackets over the back of their chairs. Trent’s is black.
[Aaron Yates] Aaron has the same height and build as his younger sibling, but when he pushes that hoodie back off his head it’s really where the similarities end — oh sure, the face is achingly familiar but upon closer inspection the differences start to mount up — there’s a slight scowl that rests on Aaron Yates’ face that is rare on Ethan’s. There’s a tiny scar on his brow, now, and his hair was grown out more, his jaw darkened where a particular laziness had him forget to bother to shave for a day or so.
His clothing choices are entirely different, to boot.
Aaron tended toward expensive, designer leather coats and work shirts that cost a bundle; he always smelled like aftershave [Brut] and the aura the man gave off — well — let’s just say that if that man standing in the doorway was Ethan, he’d returned a different man — with facial hair.
[Ethan] The man the starving girl just bumped into understands what it means to be hungry. Maybe not homeless, but he understands what it means to not have the funds necessary to make sure that food comes into his belly on a regular basis, knows what it means to have sacrifices. He’s dressed well enough, as though he doesn’t miss very many meals anymore, but he could understand why it is that she’s trying to pluck his wallet from his pants.
The man the starving girl just bumped into is also a police officer. He’s not on-duty, he’s not in uniform, but as Izzy could likely attest to, there is no such thing as an off-duty cop.
Lila addresses the girl first, turning to her with a grave expression on her face, and Ethan releases the Galliard to turn towards the girl who had just tried and failed to filch his wallet.
“There’s a soup kitchen,” he tells the girl, “about four blocks north of here, on West Monroe. I suggest you head there instead of trying to pluck people’s wallets, it’s less likely to get you arrested.”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] Caught Her eyes widen a bit, not from the Rage of the Galliard oddly, but that she was caught. She looks frozen like a deer in headlights. Run idiot, run! But she stands there. She keeps her head down, keeps the bruises hidden.
But her voice was soft. Strange. Strangled.
“You feel funny.” Idiot Trash! Why aren’t you running? She backs up slowly, hopefully obvious who the comment was meant for. Her arms fold into her, to keep her hands warm. It’s no fucking wonder he beat up. Idiot.
Again, the soft voice.
“Sorry, just don’t hit me ok? I’ll find someone else.”
[Trent Brumby] Cell phones have became such a pest in modern day times. Once people would head out, left uninterrupted with messages left on a home number. Now phone’s ring in pockets and text messages use lazy language to get the point across. Trent’s alerts him that a message has come through. He takes it from his pocket and reads it over before flipping it closed and slipping it back into his pocket.
He finishes his drink quickly and gets up to pull his jacket on. “Sorry Izzy, Adrian, I’ve got to go.”
“Maybe we can catch up another night for a dinner or drinks,” he suggested, wanting to make up for his early departure. When he’s jacket is on, he tugs his collar into place and pats himself down to make sure he hasn’t lost his wallet from a pocket or anything else.
[Adrian] “If there’s anything I can do,” he says, though he’s young – baby-faced enough that he’s been carded by both the bartenders, hustling on a Friday night – and borders on skinny, a runt; it’s a question, really, what he could do. “Please let me know.”
And then Trent has to leave, stands, and Adrian does as well – not to leave, but politely. “It was good to see you. Feel free to call; dinner or drinks would be a good thing.”
[Izzy Montoya] (on the phone – Izzy’s quiet for a bit)
[Trent Brumby] “I will,” he promises Adrian.
“Take care.”
When he leaves, he’ll give Ethan a brief wave of a hand; a lift of it really, as he headed off down the street.
[Lila] You feel funny. Lila wasn’t bouncing any longer. Wasn’t motion, held barely restrained; wasn’t jittery, wasn’t tapping her thigh or running her fingers through her hair or do anything else. Yet: there’s a certain kind of stillness that is present; that gathers itself up [this is how unseen things slip from shadows: from dream: mythic]. Her forehead creases. “Actually, I feel kind of cold, or, well, I do feel funny, just watching you run off. I mean… don’t go find someone else. Just… Do you need to get arrested? I mean, uhm, do you need a place to sleep or something? I don’t actually know where any shelters are, but uhm, I have some money, I think …”
[Ethan] “If you need money to take a cab to a shelter,” Ethan tells the girl, piggybacking on what Lila’s saying, “I’ll gladly give you some. Lila or I can even go with you if you’ve never been to a shelter before. You have options other than pick pocketing. If you don’t take one of those options, I’m going to call the police right now and have you arrested for attempted theft. Either way, nobody’s going to hit you.”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] They’ll call him if they call the cops, Trash. You need to run.
She backed up a bit more at the mention of police, and hugged herself tighter. “No cops.” With her head down, she eyed left to right. Escape!
“No cops, no shelters.” Another steps taken back, she was very close to running, both of the could tell.
[Izzy Montoya] (sorry bout that- back)
[Adrian] Izzy, who Adrian’s only met once, falls quiet, and Adrian picks up Ethan’s beer in one hand (so as not to let it wander off) and his own with the other. He is reserved, quiet, to a point that appears shy? But the last is not an accurate descriptor. So, he approaches the Yates brother by the door (is of a height with him, but a much more delicate build) and raises an eyebrow.
“You must be Aaron,” he says – quiet, a pleasant enough voice, somewhere lower than tenor but higher than a proper baritone. “I’m Adrian.”
[Izzy Montoya] She offered Trent that same little smirk as he takes his leave, and then runs her fingers back through her hair – pushing aside the whiskey to take up the beer instead. She checks her watch, and then checks her phone messages, and then simply tips the beer back for another long swallow
Somewhere, there, in the mirror, Ethan’s lookalike walks in. She doesn’t mistake one for the other, since se has seen them both together before. There are subtle differences as well. Adrian is quiet, and she watches Aaron’s path as he winds through the bar, right up until Adrian stesp up to meet him halfway.
[Lila] “You don’t have to be afraid,” Lila says, persuasively: calm down, trust, nobody here is bad, not even the wolf-in-woman’s-clothing (she’s not a wolf in woman’s clothing; she’s a wolf and a woman and a monster in — well, in some sort’ve clothing; she’s not anything; she’s three things). “Just calm down. Most cops suck, it’s true, but not all do. And we’re trying to help; what can we do so that you don’t just go right off and get into trouble?”
[Aaron Yates] Aaron’s actually moved in a little from the door by this point so as not to prevent the flow of people coming and going; he’s considering a beer and not much else save perhaps the legs on the girl down a ways seated at the bar when Adrian approaches him. Aaron Yates does his best to ignore the kid, since that’s what he appears to be in Aaron’s minds-eye, anyhow until he can’t any longer.
You must be Aaron, like he was a living legend.
“Do I know you?” Not one for small talk, is Aaron.
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] You did it now, Trash.
“I..I just want something to eat, that’s all.” That soft voice coming out, strange and strangled a bit. She was growing edgy by the second.
[Adrian] Or like he’s the twin brother of someone Adrian’s at least acquainted with. An eyebrow raises at the question, so abrupt, and Adrian shrugs. “No, we’ve never met. I know your brother, and his coat’s just there, so I was going to invite you to join us.”
Polite, he, and Aaron is British – for all that the Americans hear Brit when Adrian speaks, Aaron knows it isn’t (though there are the lengthened vowels and clipped consonants of London, too).
“He’s just stepped outside to make a call, should be back in.”
[Kora] Down the street then: half-a-block away, waiting at the light at the corner, for all the intersection is empty now: another wolf in woman’s skin. It’s late, but not late. The businessmen and women, all the black-coated murders of lawyers, the insurance adjusters and accountants, the brand managers and comptrollers, have abandoned the city’s core for the weekend. Those who remain and inside place, warm, drinking. So the streets are quiet and the intersection is empty, though the stop light still cycles through its stages.
The walk sign says Go then. She goes, walking quickly – long, sure strides with long sure legs, her hair a loose tangle down her back, darker at the ends and still damp from a recent shower. Kora is a tall thing, dressed in shabbily comfortable clothes – worn jeans, steel-toed boots, the laces cinched round the shaft of the booth between a half-dozen and a dozen times – a short peacoat of some dark wool, held closed more by her hands fisted in the pockets than by the few remaining loose black buttons.
Ahead: Lila and a pair of strangers; it’s enough to snag her attention – enough for her to stare, chin high, hands still held in her pockets. The creature’s pace slows and her trajectory alters, a subtle reorientation. Not now: but soon. She’ll be there soon.
[Lila] Lila isn’t one for forcing people to keep company with her (unless, of course, she wants something specifically from them; then it’s a game. This isn’t a game, though,) and she studies Trisha for a moment. She hasn’t moved yet; now she does, methodically searching through her pockets until, hah!, she turns out a handful of wadded up bills. These she offers to Trash without comment. Well, almost without comment: “Cheaper food in Chinatown.”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] She looked at the offered money Take it and run! and slowly reached out for it. Arm stretching and the bruises around her wrists are somewhat seen.
She snatches the money and quickly folds her arms back up again. “Where is Chinatown?”
[Aaron Yates] Oh, wonderful.
It’s another of his brother’s conquests. Or maybe this was a potential conquest and Ethan had scurried off to go weigh the pros and cons of sleeping with this one. He was kinda… pretty. Ugh, Aaron Yates’ contempt is poorly hidden for a beat, though it seems more inwardly focused than outwardly. He gives a curt nod toward the bar. “Sure, why not.” Unlike his brother, Aaron’s accent was barely there at all, his voice was smoothly modulated, impressively so.
A hint of his true voice seeps in when he’s around other Brits, however, especially Ethan.
“I’m just gonna grab a beer and I’ll wander over.”
[Ethan] “If you want to walk,” he says, “take Canal Street about two miles that way.” He points north, the way he had said the soup kitchen is. “We’re literally across the street from the subway station, the subway will take you to Chinatown as well.”
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] There was a quick, nervous wipe of the face on her sleeve. And a quick flinch touching painful area.
“How many streets is 2 miles?”
[Ethan] “I don’t…”
Now, Ethan isn’t exactly an impatient man. The man has a seven-year-old who asks question after question after question, who asks question in his sleep some nights; he is a public servant, a sworn officer of the law, someone with nerves very much akin to the material his gun is crafted from.
But right now he is in pain, and standing in 30-something degree weather in nothing more protective than a dress shirt. He has to stop himself to take a breath to keep from snapping. He does stop himself. When he speaks again, his teeth are chattering but he’s in control of his tone.
“You’re going to follow the river until you get to Twenty Fourth Street. It’s… over two miles, it’s a lot of streets, but there are signs. Just follow the signs.”
[Lila] That’s like some kind of esoteric word problem on a math test. Lila’s gaze goes inwards [daydreaming (blank)] and she slips her hands back into her (now empty) pockets. Kora is just down the street; Kora is approaching — and the woman’s presence (her familiar gait) is enough to draw Lila’s (vague [distant]) eyes away from Trash. Kora is approaching; Lila looks at her, and lifts one hand, wiggles her fingers in a wave.
[Lila] “Jesus,” she says, suddenly; it’s an echo of Ethan, earlier, an unconscious mimicry: “Get inside or I’ll give you another hug.”
[Lila] ooc: (blithely tags that on)
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] She slowly pulled herself away. More strangeness coming, need to run, need to flee.
“I…I’ll try and find it.” Step back one, two, and she turned and ran. Could have been worse, should have been worse She ducked into the nearest alley and crouched behind a dumpster. Waiting, listening. Can’t read, dumbass, maybe you should have told him. A hard bang of her head against the dumpster to shut up the voice in her head.
[Kora] Lila waves. It’s still too cold for Kora to pull her hands out of her pockets, to let the wool coat swing free, so she does not return the little wiggle of fingers. She just – turns her head, sidelong, flashes a grin. In a few heart beats, the long-legged woman is drawing up alongside the little trio.
They are in public, on a cold dark street, on a cold wet sidewalk, in a cold windy city. Kora’s greeting is of necessity human then, but there’s a certainly familiarity in the subtle way she hip-checks and brushes shoulders with her fellow Galliard – an easy physicality in the gesture that suggests without showing the wolf beneath her skin. The Fenrir woman is shoots Ethan a brief, curious look over the crown of Lila’s golden head. Trisha receives a more cursory look, examined and then dismissed, all in the space of a breath. “I’m not the snuggling type.” – she inserts, after Lila’s threat to Ethan. The corners of her mouth are twisted into a neat little look. ” – but I think I owe you a drink, Lila. Or maybe you owe me one. I’ve lost count.”
[Adrian] “…..right, then,” Adrian says, and steps back, away, to go back to his seat and rejoin Izzy – well, sort of, since his stool is two away from hers. He reclaims his seat, held by his own jacket, and sets Ethan’s beer back in front of his stool before again sipping from his own.
“I didn’t mean to leave you alone,” he says with a hint of ruefulness. “Unless, of course, you wanted to be.” Which is to say, he’s here now, poor company as he may be – conquest or not. Pretty or not. He’s not sure how to continue conversation, though – their fields are vastly different, he knows. Normally, he’d just start talking about school.
Normally, he’d be with other masters students.
“What department?” It’s a silly question, out of his mouth before he remembers it had been on the card she’d given him. Detective Montoya, homicide. Oops. He flushes lightly (yes, prettily), and manages a subdued laugh. “That was . . . goodness. I’m sorry. I’m not really the most social, I’m afraid.”
[Ethan] Off into the alleyway the strange young homeless girl goes, Ethan looking after her as a tall blonde joins them, hip-checking the Galliard at his side and glancing him over once. There is no breeding to be scented or sensed on him, no purity in his blood, but that doesn’t mean much; he’s at ease around Lila, doesn’t tense and suspiciously eye the newcomer, doesn’t seem at all fazed by the way it feels to stand around them. It can’t just be that he’s distracted by being near-frozen.
Jesus, Lila says, mimicking him in a manner that only his brother can pull off with less effort, and then threatens to hug him again. A chattering laugh leaves Ethan’s throat, and he leaves the two women to decide whether they’re going to come inside or not. He’s already invited Lila inside, told her there’s someone she ought to meet.
Without another word, he ducks inside, a huge shiver coursing through his body as the warmth of the crowded happy hour bar hits him, and then he walks over to his brother, playfully socking him in the upper arm with his right fist.
[Izzy Montoya] She finishes the whiskey, and switches to that beer, right about the time Adrian settles back into the seat. She waves away his apology with that same little lopsided smirk. “I know I’m not much company tonight. It’s alright.”
And then she chuckles and confirms what he already knows. “Homicide. It’s made me a bit… jaded.”
[Aaron Yates] “Hey,” Aaron Yates is bracing his elbows on the bar, waiting for his beer when his younger brother comes chattering back into the bar, smelling like winter. There’s a brief cause for smiling, and it does tremendous things to Aaron’s level of appeal when he actually does it, without sneer or scorn.
“Met one of your admirers, Adrian. He invited me to join you,” Okay, now there’s some sneer. He accepts his beer with a nod up at the barkeep, and hands over a note, straightening, drink in hand. “You go around telling everyone you meet you have a wonderful older sibling called Aaron?”
[Ethan] Ethan falls in beside his brother, down the end of the bar away from where he left his beer and his coat and his date, leaning against the bar’s edge rather than bracing himself as his brother is doing. His teeth slowly stop clicking against each other as warmth pervades his body, and he turns his head to listen to Aaron as he speaks.
Met one of his admirers. Invited him to join them.
The question makes him laugh, an honest, open sound that few people can pluck out of him, and he stands up straight, sniffing to clear his sinuses and cutting a brief glance back towards Adrian before answering.
“Well, yeah,” he says. “I’ve got to warn them, don’t I?”
[Aaron Yates] Aaron smirks, a broad expression and playfully thumps his brother in his uninjured arm. He’s aware of what took place the other night, of Ethan’s zombie encounter. He’d had a delightful phonecall from Liadan that filled him in on exactly what they’d been up to. He might have asked exactly why it was that whenever his twin hung around with the redhead, trouble seemed to find him.
He might have inferred she emitted some sort of Wyrm pheromone.
She might not have appreciated that, much. “You’re just afraid they’ll like me better than you,” he claims without a trace of modesty and drinks deeply from his beer, his eyes on Adrian for a beat, then, they flick back. “That reminds me, I might be headed interstate for a few weeks, got contacted about a potential job over in Malibu. Some movie the studio’s are looking to cast, they need a vocal trainer.”
[Lila] Lila leans into Kora (brief, these subconscious responses. These words in a language that is shaped with the whole body, not just the tongue, not just the vocal chords, no strings). She does not flash a smile yet. Trash runs away and Lila’s gaze is pulled back into the young woman’s wake, troubled or perplexed, and she takes a deep, deep breath. Her shoulders go up; on the exhale, they collapse downward, and she watches the road for an unblinking second.
Then — mischief [no guile (coy, sensualist] — she bumps Kora again. Sidelong: “I bet I could change your mind.” Re: snuggling type, clearly. She raises both of her eyebrows, invitation, and then turns toward the dive-bar-or-pub-or-mix-of-the-two: “Kin,” she explains, low-voiced, of Ethan: “Rats. Actually, this will interest you: his name, and the names of two others, is on some trophies back at the ol’ homefront — I read them. Sadly, I just gave away my last dollar, so we’ll have to go with you owe me a drink this time ’round. And I can owe you two, next time.”
A hop-step, and she is holding the door open for Kora, glancing once more down the street.
[Trisha “Trash” Williams] Just as Lila looks, she sees the young girl peeks around the corner to where Lila is, and ducks back once more.
[Adrian] “It happens, I suppose.” Nights of being poor company, becoming jaded – either, both. And she confirms what Adrian already knows, that she is, indeed, homicide. “I can only imagine it would – make one jaded, I mean. Only seeing the worst of people would do that to anyone, I think.”
He’s quiet for a moment, sips the last of his beer, claims the second that Trent had bought. He’s going slow, will not be found unconscious in another bar, with another friend dead, and . . . no, let’s not think of such things. Thinking of such things leads to hurrying home, carefully unafraid, and putting heavy things in front of the door once it’s locked behind him.
“I’m working on my masters,” he says, unsolicited. “In Sociological Anthropology.” He could be speaking another language – maybe is. It sounds like a useless degree, really, until he says, “A lot of my undergraduate was Archeology. I get to go on a dig a year – I find things.”
[Ethan] Another laugh when Aaron makes his claim, and then he settles down; they begin talking ‘business’ now. Aaron might be headed to Malibu to work on a movie. It was only a matter of time before news like this came down the pike, and Ethan doesn’t seem remotely surprised. If anything, he looks as though he’s happy for his brother. The man has been getting by on tutoring assignments for months now waiting for more substantial work to come in.
“Oh, really?” he asks, turning to face his brother rather than the mirror across from them. “When do you find out if you’re headin’ down that way?”
[Izzy Montoya] She arches a brow slightly, and chuckles. “Sociological Anthropology. Jesus, that’s a mouthful.” She spins the bottle around on top of the bar, letting it slide through her fingers absently.
“You get an Indiana Jones hat to go with your degree?” She might be making fun, but she’s not really. She knows very little about the field he’s talking about.
[Kora] Rats, says Lila; she mentions trophies and that drags the Fenrir woman’s dark gaze back to her face. “Huh.” The creature’s pale brows arch a sketch of interest, enough that as Kora ducks past Lila and into the packed pub, she searches the crowd inside for the Ethan again. And finds him: and his double, reflected in a mirror. There’s the beginning of a story, there – but it’s not the sort of story the Fenrir tell.
Her kin, too – scattered down the back, strung like pearls. They’ll see her as easily as she sees them. She’s a tall thing, Kora – tall and narrow, with a distinctive crown of long pale hair, which ends in six inches of split ends and old black dye, in a dark wool coat, revealed to be plum in the light, missing more black buttons than it retained. “I’ve got cash,” she says, flashing back a smile – (open, this – there’s an energy in the room, in the crowd gathered at the week’s end, the steamy baseboard heat, the drink specials – which is infectious) – at the smaller Galliard. ” – you don’t even need to owe me.”
For all her good humour, though – the crowd parts subtly around the pair of them, and they have an easy line to the bar. There, Kora draws the bartender’s attention with a sharp rap of her knuckles against the wood and orders a round: the winter ale for herself, pale ale for Lila. Or vice-versa. “Take your pick – ” she says, standing sideways to the bar, looking down toward Izzy and Adrian. Her voice is low-toned, but there’s enough noise in the room that she has to increase the volume, just, to be heard. ” – I like ’em both.”
[Aaron Yates] “Should be in the next few days,” Aaron supplies with a brief cut down to the watch on his wrist, it was one of the sort that offered the date as well as a timing device and who knew what else. “How’s the wrist healing?” He asks idly, as if he weren’t already aware, as if he weren’t really too invested in the answer one way or another. Then, the door opens and two Garou females step inside.
Cue the tightening of Aaron’s jaw.
Of course, that is until he takes notice of the blond thing stepping inside in Kora’s wake; he sucks a breath through his teeth and then releases it with a sharp bark of laughter. “Well, I’ll be God damned.”
[Adrian] “Hopefully one more . . . modern? There is a flair to the classic look, I’ll admit,” he says with a hint of grin, a bit of amusement – it’s more than most people have seen from him in a week or more. “But there’s so much better out there now.”
One only has to look at the kid to know he follows fashion – of course he’d want something with a little more current flair to it than the traditional fedora. He would look rather dashing with a whip on his hip, though. And there’s Kora – it’s not because he lacks in the fortitude required to handle Rage that a small bit of tension comes to that spot between his shoulder blades. But she’s with another, smaller, that Adrian doesn’t know, so there’s that; it’s not that he has any issue with the Fenrir Galliard. He might even like her – as much as anyone likes a Garou – were she not of the Tribe that birthed him. She has noticed him, that, he knows, but does not interrupt her conversation and thus?
Neither does he.
His attention returns to Izzy, though he is suddenly several degrees more aware of what’s going on around him. “But I’ll admit to those movies being a big part of what spurred my interest in this direction.”
[Lila] [you can’t save the woooooorld!!!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Izzy Montoya] She still watches the crowd in the mirror more than she does her current companion that she’s conversing with. As such she sees the unmistakable tall form of Kora when she enters, with little Lila at her side. She tips back another swallow of her beer, and perhaps considers that it’s time to go – for half a moment or so.
She is still angry.
She is still bitter.
[hehurther].
In the end, though, she turns back to Adrian, that smirk resting easy and practiced across her lips. “Looking for the lost ark, are ya?” And then, when he notices the two down the way… “The little blond. That’s Lila.”
[Ethan] How’s the wrist healing.
“Slowly,” he says.
They both know that that isn’t entirely true. It’s not healing as slowly as it would be if he were entirely human, if the blood coursing through their veins didn’t put them in the lineage of werewolves, but it’s still not healing quite as quickly as he would probably like. Aaron’s seen the array of medications that have taken up home on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. It would be much easier if someone had happened along to lay a healing hand or crack a talen over his arm, but he’d chosen to go to the hospital instead.
But at least he had made a choice.
The reaction that his brother has to the presence of one or the other blonde to enter the bar draws his attention now. The night that had preceded the fistfight in an alleyway, a request had been made of the younger Yates brother. He’d never passed the message along.
Oops.
“Go say ‘Hi,'” he says. “I can practically ‘ear my beer crying ‘Ethan, come back!'”
[Adrian] “Something important, anyway,” he confirms; important to whom, he doesn’t say. How he’ll identify it as important is anyone’s guess. But Adrian has a way of picking up on things other people miss, so one never knows. Then it’s being indicated that one of the two blondes that recently entered is Lila, and Adrian glances her way, briefly, before turning back to study her in the mirror, or from the corner of his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says, appreciative of the information – it’s always a handy thing to have. And he is now contemplative. It will take some thought, the decision on whether he should introduce himself tonight or not.
[Lila] The kinfolk — they don’t know this — peeks out from around the edge of the alley just as Lila looks and so, of course, Lila sees her. What she sees causes the expression in her green eyes to go opaque, her forehead to, once again, crease. However: she doesn’t go chasing after Trash. She doesn’t leave Kora to fend for herself, doesn’t leave the warmth of the pub (incubus, now: drawing her close, promises), the there’s somebody you should meet, the promise of beer (from two people, in fact).
Nope: she follows in Kora’s wake, a little more slowly than perhaps she’d’ve entered otherwise, and then, given a choice of ales, she rubs the back of her neck, puts her hand on the top of her head, stays balanced that way for a second, thoughtful, thoughtful, and then — because she can’t keep it contained; because the thought of tasting something pleases her, draws her out again: “Both? I’ll take,” and the pale ale is what she takes, “But,” a suggestive (hello) cock of eyebrow, “can I have a sip of,” a nod towards. And then she turns to scope out the rest of —
HEY. IZZY. Izzy, first. Lila takes her hand off the top of her head to wave at Izzy, smile like a bloom, spring-time girl. This turns into a point-at-me, point-at-you, can we join you and your friend sort’ve dance. “Do you know her?” she asks, of Kora, and then her eyes wander on by, and there is Ethan next to a mirror except the mirror has facial hair and she sort’ve stares for a second. The mildly perplexed stare of someone who’s not-quite-sure how the visual trick is being played.
… Ah. Triplets.
[Izzy Montoya] She chuckles. She doesn’t ask him to clarify on what might be important. It could be a speck of dirt for all she would know, really – she’s not an anthropologist. She does, however, file the information just in case. One never knows what exact skills that will be needed in any investigation at any point in time. The more experts one knows, the more cases that get closed. Sometimes it’s as simple as that.
Many would, of course, consider Izzy an expert as well, though they’d be hard pressed to say how or why – she’s just simply that good at her job.
Lila, pointed out for Adrian, happily waves, and Izzy lifts her beer in return, before letting it complete it’s trip to her lips, so that she can swallow some of the amber liquid within.
[Aaron Yates] Aaron casts his brother a quick glance, smiles, and taps the back of his hand against Ethan’s chest in a yeah think I will sort of gesture. Lila is staring at him now, the way people always do stare at him, or his brother when they’re in the same place, at the same time. Only, as he strolls toward her, perhaps Lila is recalling that the last time she glimpsed this man [the younger version of him, anyway] he’d been shirtless and sweating, laying bricks beneath a warm summer sun when she’d traipsed down the road with bare feet.
He’s smiling at her now, the sort of smile you imagine a crocodile might possess, like the saying went — full of teeth and seduction. He’s still holding his beer, but he doesn’t seem to remember he’s holding on to it, he’s making for Lila like she’s a pot of honey and he’s about to stick a paw in it.
[Kora] “A trade then – ” the Fenrir pushes the winter ale over the warm wood towards Lila. A sip. This feels familiar, in a warm, rich way. Kora leans onto the barstool behind her, half resting there, half standing as she claims the pale ale, still frothy from what must objectively be considered a bad pour (too much lean on the glass?) anywhere outside of a beer commercial – where the glasses are meant to froth over, suggesting abundance. All this and more. She sips, tastes the head, then takes a deeper swig, the liquid underneath. She waits for Lila to have her taste of the winter ale (“Good, eh? I’m not usually for Sam Adams, but the winter ale is killer – ” is mouthed under the noise of the crowd) before reclaiming it.
Lila waves at Izzy over her shoulder; Kora turns, shoots a backward glance at the kinswoman. The Garou close to her might detech the subtle snap of tension in her jaw – not tension, perhaps, just awareness – but that awareness is not deep enough to change the rather open look on the Skald’s face. Izzy has raised her beer in response to Lila’s excited wave, and Kora in the confusion of the moment, Kora misreads this link in the chain of events, grants the kinswoman the first edge of a smile that curls like smoke at the corners of her mouth, and offers a tip of her own (reclaimed) glass in return.
“Yeah – ” this is to Lila, turning back to Lila, the half-smile filtering down from her mouth, leaving her expression shuttered for the moment. “I know her. One of ours.” Which means: of the north – blood on the snow.
[Adrian] There’s gesturing, raised eyebrows, invitation sought – asked of Izzy, who doesn’t answer it. Now (too late, attention gone, elsewhere), Adrian looks over, shrugs, nods. May as well – meet, be met, part. These things happen, and they’re seldom as much trouble as he anticipates, as the tension between his shoulder blades expects. The times they are, though? Those make up for the times that aren’t, as a general rule. Maybe more than.
And there’s Ethan, on the way back over; the bartender’s attention is gotten and he’s asked to take away the now lukewarm beer and replace it with a cold one, please and thank you, and a round for the two scary ladies when they’re ready, and Izzy too, and Adrian pays. No tab, not tonight. It’s easier to just leave when one doesn’t have to worry about settling a bill. And Kora, raising her drink in response to Izzy, while Adrian gives a nod of acknowledgment; he is there, two stools down from the detective, closer to Kora and Lila.
[Ethan] A hand thwaps against the muscle-and-bone comprising his chest, and Ethan absorbs the light blow with a knowing sort of smirk before he hefts away from the bar and makes his way back to the stool where he left his coat and his beer. There are no flitting touches to Adrian’s back as he passes by, no glances settling on his form either in the flesh or in the mirror. He simply passes by, settling himself down between Izzy and Adrian with a sigh.
“I can’t stay much longer,” he tells Adrian with another glance to the clock over the bar. “I’ve got to relieve the baby-sitter soon. Did my beer walk off?”
[Adrian] “Only with me, and only for a moment. But you’ve got a colder one anyway,” he says, indicating the fresh bottle. He’d known it would be short when they came, knew the responsibilities the older kin has. There’s no hint of having expected anything else.
There’s no hint of any expectation at all.
“So drink it, and go when it’s time,” he adds, smiling – he can’t imagine that he wouldn’t want to be with his child, if he had one, either. And he likes that Ethan does – want to, that is. There’s nothing about seeing each other again; maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Maybe one will call the other, or maybe they’ll run into each other at random somewhere. It’s easy, this transient sort of nothing between them. It makes no demands on either of them, leaves them both free.
[Ethan] [That’s it for me! Thanks for the play, all!]
[Izzy Montoya] Ethan sits for a moment, finishes his beer and is off again, and for Izzy’s part, she simply watches the crowd – with a good deal of her attention keeping track of where the Fenrir is at all times.
Not such a good track record with her tribe at the moment, after all.
[Lila] Of course Lila remembers Aaron; she didn’t just choose Ethan for jumping the first time (and only other time) she met him randomly. Lila doesn’t forget people, even if she doesn’t bother to learn their names. “Go on, I’ll catch up,” she says, to Kora, with a smile (there’s that mischief, again), placing a hand on the other galliard’s shoulder. This is after she’s taken a sip of the winter ale and, because she is a sensualist, because she is a celebrant, because she is alive, and she is with Kora, someone she really likes [and respects], and this is a taste she hasn’t yet had. Her half-startled this is really different (do I like it?) expression after the sip speaks for itself. This is after she’s given Adrian a half-smile, still touched by mischief; after she’s raised her eyebrows at Ethan, a sort’ve, is-this (this being Aaron) who-you-wanted-me-to-meet? “I’m going to say hey,” to the guy-heading-straight-toward-her, apparently. “Tell Izzy I’m sorry I missed her at the Brotherhood.”
[Lila] ooc: and with that, I’m officially brbed! SORRY! (LES GUILT)
[Izzy Montoya] .
to Izzy Montoya
[Kora] This is the setting: they warm inside. Outside, it is cold, but not freezing. Cold enough, though – to feel like freezing when damp winds howl down through the city’s urban corridors from the frigid expanse of the lake on which they are situated. In the bar, in the midst of a half-hundred or more humans celebrating the weekend, the sharp break between work and play with darts and drinks specials, are a handful of wolves, and their kin. Three of them are born of the uncompromising northmen. Two of them are not so happy about that. Kora: is the third.
She grabs her beer and takes a good long drink, then slides off the barstool she had claimed and weaves her way down the bar, past the two or three empty barstools – with Ethan’s exit – to the place where the kinsman and kinswoman who bear her blood and her heritage, but did not have her choice, sit together, watching her. She moves like a wolf, brushes against the smaller Garou woman in a wolf’s physical acknowledgment of the other as she passes on to the guy heading straight toward her to whom she’s going to say, hey. There’s a hitch in her movement only when she rotates her hips to slide down from the barstool; healing wounds, hidden beneath her coat which swings open as she moves to reveal, her Edinburgh Fringe Festival t-shirt and thermal beneath.
“Lila says,” this to Izzy; Kora is as good as her (unspoken) work in this, and her voice is deceptively even. ” – that she’s sorry she missed you at the Brotherhood.” And then to Adrian, a measured look – a low voiced, “hello, Adrian.” He is lucky that they are in a crowded bar; she says nothing about the Jarl. Kora’s spine prickles with awareness, both of the place and of the stiffness of her tone and manner. She does not like the way it feels, this – tension, waiting for some whipcord backlash, some tinder for her rage.
[Aaron Yates] “Well, well,” he’s amused, he’s surprised. It’s not an altogether unpleasant one to run into Lila again, after all, the last time they’d been together had been mutually pleasurable to them both as he recalled — and Aaron Yates had a very good memory of affairs of the flesh — if not the heart. He stops when he’s quite near to her and smiles down from his six foot something height at her far slighter, and petiter frame.
“I am worn out with dreams; a weather-worn, marble triton among the streams; and all day long I look upon this lady’s beauty as though I had found in a book a pictured beauty,” He quotes with a lover’s surety and then takes a slow, measured sip from his half-consumed beer. “It’s been a while.”
[Izzy Montoya] Lila is sorry she missed her, and Izzy glances her way. There’s something there, something in her gaze, as she looks at the little Galliard. She had listened to her. She had questioned, as well, but mostly? She had really listened – in ways no one else really has.
Even Kora. She nods, though, as she returns her attention to the Fenrir now seated with her and Adrian. “I’m sure she had other more pressing matters to attend too.” There’s no bitterness there, just acknowledgment, really. Then. “I’m no longer incarcerated there. I’ll slip her my card before I leave.”
Izzy still wears her coat, despite the warmth inside, though it is in order to keep her weapon concealed rather than any real need to keep warm. The bar is crowded, she’s armed, and it’s always better safe than sorry.
[Adrian] Adrian is not – exactly – unhappy with his heritage. In some measure, he’s very proud of who he is, and who he’s come from. Even his father, Godi, who set him aside as runt, as different, as less valuable than his stronger, younger twin gets pride in tone when he’s mentioned, unless it’s in a very specific sort of conversation. He is . . . confused, perhaps, that the tribe that bore him, that gave him away, wants him here and now.
(Though, when he thinks of it, he supposes they did in London, too. But there, he’d been in the charge of his foster father, and his foster father was a force to be reckoned with.)
“Hallo, Kora,” he says, and she knows where he’s from; she’s been there, can hear it in the Ws that aren’t quite Vs, the Vs that aren’t quite Fs, the exoticism of voice and accent and phrasing that are all decidedly Other. She doesn’t speak of the Jarl in a crowded bar, and of that, Adrian is grateful. He has not sought out this Jarl. He has, in fact, done more to find members of his adoptive family than he has to find those of his birth one. “It’s a pleasure to see you again – I hope you are well.”
[Kora] Words matter. The word incarcerated earns Izzy a flash of a look, the Skald’s dark eyes hot as the center of a flame. The young woman’s expressive mouth pulls a the corners, then flattens. She breathes out; there’s a reflection of her face, seen from below, in the light playing along the surface of her dark amber beer now that the head has dissipated. Kora looks down at that liquid reflection of herself and then looks back to Izzy.
“I was working on something for you.” She says this after a sort of living silence; it seems to arise from no where. ” – but then I realized, it wasn’t really for you.” Solve that riddle, detective. “I’m still working on it, though.”
Then her attention swings back to Adrian. It’s a pleasure he says, and she gives him a sharp little smile. Think of a fox: then make it wide. The humour curves her cheeks and sparks in her eyes. “I’m sure it is – ” a pleasure. Is that a detectable note of irony in her tone? If so, it is dismissed neatly, easily, by a casually little shrug. ” – and I’m well.” This is true: everything inside her is reknitting, and in any case, these broken bits of herself have little to do with how she is. “I trust you are, too.”
[Izzy Montoya] She gets a flash of a look, and Izzy meets it evenly, briefly. Perception is a tricky thing. When choices are taken away, when you are trapped in a space, when you are forced to remain and punished – you are incarcerated. It’s really that simple and the word she chose is exactly what she means, what she feels – because wordsdo matter.
Kora moves on into a riddle of sorts, and there’s a slight quirk of a brow on Izzy’s part. Something for her, that wasn’t for her at all, but she’s still working on it. Curiosity is brief, and soon replaces by another swig from her beer.
[Adrian] [Man + Sub]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kora] Per [observant] + Empathy
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Adrian] Adrian is tired, that much is clear – there are circles under his eyes, and he squints in the way that only those who are exhausted really do, the better to see, to keep irritants from their eyes. He is a college student, Kora knows – perhaps there is pressure at school. Perhaps it’s something else entirely. But that Adrian is tired is all that’s clear, and that’s only because of the physical markers. Were it not for those, the Galliard would not know even that. The Child of Gaia (not by blood, no, that sings of Fenris and the north) kin is very good at hiding what he doesn’t want others to see.
“I am, thank you,” he says, and it’s even with a smile.
Izzy was incarcerated. This gets a look first at the kinswoman, then at the True – this isn’t a thing Adrian knows about. He’s not completely certain he wants to.
“May I ask what it is?” That Kora’s working on, of course.
[Izzy Montoya] [Oh! I can see things too!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1
[Lila] [wantz to join da crowd]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Kora] “It’s a story about a woman who died,” Kora has claimed the barstool between Izzy and Adrian, as sure as you please. She claims the space around it, too, shoots a look at Izzy as she responds to Adrian. The dark plum coat, sits snug against the Garou’s shoulders, but flares out to end at her hips. On a smaller woman, or a shorter woman, the coat would end mid-thigh, perhaps. The detective, though, is quiet, drinking her beer, contemplating her meaning.
“It’s a story about a woman who died, fighting.” Kora leans forward, braces her forearm against the bar, curves her right hand around the glass. There are half-a-dozen or more braided, macramed, and otherwise knotted fiber and leather bracelets around her right wrist. They’re old, always there, tattooed into her skin when she changes forms, wet when she showers, dry later. “It’s a story about a woman who died fighting – for something rather than against it.”
They look like camp projects, some of them – knot demonstrations, braided from the remnants of raveled rope. Some are leather, dark strips of it twisted together and knotted closed – the flayed, cleansed, tanned skin, for example, of the first enemy of Gaia she hunted down.
That one is sentimental.
[Adrian] Adrian is not at all fine. But, he is very good at hiding this, and to know more would require prodding, or further observation.
to Izzy Montoya
[Adrian] “Might I hear it some day?” This is asked politely, but not out of politeness; he likes stories. Generally, he is more concerned with history, with sagas and epics, but that doesn’t stop him from being interested in this as well. It, too, will be history one day. The bracelets are noted, but not questioned – they look like camp projects, some of them. Some of them look sentimental. Adrian does not know that they are dedicated to the Galliard’s body, that they become a part of her when she shifts; to him, they are something that mean something to her, but nothing to him. “It would please me if I could.”
Such non-American phrasing.
[Lila] Kora joins the two kinfolk with Fenrir blood in their veins — who wear that ancestry rather obviously; a mantle, a scent, something to notice (and draw attention). Lila watches her go and manages a sip of the pale ale before Aaron is within arm’s distance. No: quite near is closer, and she doesn’t seem to mind at alllllllll. But it isn’t until he speaks that she realizes he is in fact the brother she met in England and not some other brother. Lila’s glad to see him; it’s uncomplicated. The poetry gets, for a moment, something approaching blankness.
Then: a flash of humor (brilliance) undoes it. Aaaam I gonna? Yeeeeeah: I’m gonna. She sets her ale down on the bartop, and says, cocking one eyebrow, “Pleased to have filled the eyes or the discerning ears. Delighted to be but wise:” A rake up-and-down sort’ve really look, suggestive (and happy) : “For men improve with the years.”
On another note: “Yeah. It has. I’m pretty damned surprised to see you. Are you good here?” A half-wince: “I thought your brother was you; I pounced him.”
[Izzy Montoya] Words are important, and perhaps it seems as if she’s not listening, but she is. She feels the look shot her way rather than meeting it again. She is watching the Mirror, searching the area behind her, pinpointing those who should be watched, those who can be ignored, and the positions of each. It’s automatic, something drilled into her for years and years spent on the force. The same drilling has those of her experience able to hide their fear, hide it until after the fact, when the adrenalin fades, when the body starts to shake, when the tremors cannot be controlled, when the breathing quickens, and then… only then do the tears come, do the emotions overwhelm. Her life is spent wearing a mask, and making sure the cracks are few and far between.
Understanding is few and far between also. Misunderstanding is so much easier, placing ones beliefs on another, taking short cuts, making assumptions. It’s easier to decide ahead of time, rather that to discover the truth, to believe the whole is so much more important than the individual, assuming each individual of the whole is the same as every other. Izzy’s job, Izzy’s entire being, is centered on finding the truth that no one else can. Fighting for it, ripping into it, demanding it. In that, she finds she is often alone.
Kora works on a story of a woman who died fighting for something, rather than against it. The jab is not missed, though there is little reaction to it, hidden by the swallow of her beer, by the search of the rooms reflection in the mirror. Her own reflection tells nothing.
[Aaron Yates] Aaron Yates has a pleasant laugh, its rich and throaty and it makes you want to grin, or blush, or just look at him while he does it. “Am I good here?” He’s pleased that she recognized the poet, that she knows her Yeats, somehow, to imagine a Galliard who didn’t would be a great tragedy. “When,” he reaches out, sets his beer on the bartop and leaves his palm there, bracing as he looks down at her with his brother’s same eyes — the same and yet different as could be — “have I ever been good? What fun is good?” He all but demands, and then he’s laughing again outright when she admits she pounced his brother.
“Don’t feel bad, that’s probably more excitement than Ethan’s had from a female in years.”
What a rogue, though his eyes are full of reasonably light-hearted amusement for once as they frequently were when he was making fun of Ethan. Aaron Yates clearly has no fear, or he has a death wish, or its both, since he lifts a hand secures back a strand or two of brilliant [gold can stay] hair behind an ear. “You look good,” he attests, his eyes rating her form, musingly, thoughtfully. “Though you looked good covered in grass without your shoes, too.”
[Kora] If the Skald’s words were meant as a jab, it can’t be seen on her face. Not even on her face, reflected in the mirror behind the bar. There’s something still about her, when she says it – a sort of interiority writ onto her exterior, the memories she has unsurfaced, visceral and true, lingering and false. Adrian wants to hear the story; Kora looks up from the surface of her drink, her shoulders curved over the body, her long hair swinging loose down over her shoulder.
“Sure,” she says, in her low voice, which is still subdued with memory or something like it. ” – sure you can. When it’s done. I have to – ” she pauses here, frowning, thoughtful. ” – I have to tell it to someone who knew her first. Make sure it’s right. Make sure it’s true.” Kora takes another drink; maybe she’s contemplating the nature of truth as she reaches the bottom of the glass. She’s surprised, then, when the bartender replaces her drained glass almost immediately, with another, indicates Adrian as the source of her good fortune.
“Hey – thanks,” her brows draw together, puzzled, passingly, then shrugs it off. “How’s school?”
That’s a normal topic, right? It’s enough to make her feel like a person.
[Izzy Montoya] When this beer is finished, she accepts another, but she does not drink it. She’s a meeting to go too, and other than keeping her belly warm and buzz at a comfortable low level to prepare for it, she’ll save the heavy drinking for the first night in her own home in weeks.
She listens to the others talk, but remains quiet herself. For now.
[Adrian] “Hectic,” he says, truthfully – and it is true. He’s not hiding that. School, at his level, is always hectic. There are always deadlines looming, and research to be done. “I had to find a new study group.” He doesn’t like them as much. This is, in part, because he isn’t allowing himself to like them as much. But then, “I think I’m going to Israel this summer. Or perhaps Morocco.”
Both are significantly closer to the place he left behind, both are not places most people would want to spend a summer.
“Either should be interesting.”
[Kora] “Never been to Israel – ” the Skald replies, staring consideringly into her beer. “Morocco, though,” a rueful sort of grin flashes wide across her mouth, as the place-memories filter up from whereever she’s stored them since one night in St. Mary’s Close a handful of years ago. ” – that place was a trip. I went to Marrakesh, Casablanca and Fez – and spent a few days in the desert, too. You better be ready to bargain – it helps to be able to claim poverty and mean it – and be glad you’re not a chick. And you can get some – ”
Kora pulls up short there. Maybe a Get of Fenris Skald should not tell her kinfolk where to buy hash in Marrakesh, Morocco. “Well, that was before all this, you know?” Which means: before I became a monster. “I’d avoid the hostels, though – and go for a traditional guest house. They’re almost as cheap as the hostels, nicer accommodations, and a more – authentic experience.”
[Izzy Montoya] She stands, finally, her coat flaring about her legs as she does so, falling into place as she tugs one side, before dipping her hand into a pocket and finding her business cards. She plucks one free, and then with a nod toward Kora and Adrien, she says simply. “Time to pay the piper. Have a good one.”
And with that, she turns and detours only to move past Lila and Aaron, giving the first her card and number since they’d missed the last meeting. A soft goodnight then, and she’s heading for the door.
[Adrian] “I may ask more advice when I find out for sure where I’m going – if it is Morocco, and you wouldn’t mind giving it.”
This is with a smile, genuine – the minute it hadn’t turned into a discussion about how he should meet the Jarl, Adrian’d relaxed significantly. Now, he takes up his bottle, swigs a good portion of it down, then pulls a pen and a piece of paper (a sticky note that lists some tome of a book and a page number) from his pocket, checks if it’s important, then writes down his name (Adrian Sandenberg, and if she spent time in Johannesburg as she is now, she knows that surname, knows of the Godi attached to it) and number and hands it over.
“I have a test tomorrow – should go home and study. But if you should need to reach me, that’s my mobile.” And Izzy is leaving too. Hmm. “I’d like to hear more about where you’ve been, if you have time to tell. Perhaps dinner or drinks another time?”
[Kora] “That sounds brill – ” the word would sound sharper in Imogen’s clipped tones, but the lilt in Kora’s voice carries only the suggestion of foreign origin, hidden somewhere between the vowels, a neat little lie. The more time she spends back in the States, the more American she sounds. “I’ll hit you up.”
[And! late. My exit is: Kora continues drinking. Leaves, eventually! Surely, there are evil things somewhere that she needs to kill. :) ]