Maija | Olaf [Wendy/Alex/Matthias]

She still is, however, hiding under that overly large gray sweatshirt, now stained with something suspiciously the color of dried blood [so much of it her own]. The hood is pulled up, and tugged low over her face, her hands shoved into the ‘roo pocket, her steps slow and even as she wanders the park. She’s not so much out for some sun – as that’s in short supply the past few days – but the exercise and getting out of the apt? sorely needed.

Random passersby give the imposing figure a wide birth, as much for the Rage that seemed to flow from his every pore as the dark expression on the hulking figure.

His clothing was simple, as always it seemed, dark denim jeans and a black tee shirt, though today a light plaid button up of green and blue is rolled to the man’s sleeves. Before him, the Crown fountain loomed in the dying light of evening…

Alexander is neither a child nor playing in the shallows. He’s sitting on a bench a little ways away from the fountain, a twenty-something fellow, dark-haired, tanned as though he’d come from some southern clime. He has two hot dogs, chicago-style, naturally. He’s eating one; the other is cooling on its tray, which is set somewhat precariously on the bench beside him.

Some young couple, laughing, paying far more attention to one another than their surroundings, plunks down on the bench and narrowly avoids toppling Alexander’s hot dog to the ground. The response is instantaneous and sharp. “Hey!” he barks, loud enough to turn heads fifteen feet around. “Watch it, assholes!”

She should have taken a cab.

That was over a week ago, though, closer to two, and she’s moving easier, and the remaining bruises are easily hidden under her baggy clothing – clothing she swims in. At 5’6″, if she weighs 105, it’s because she’s carrying a brick in both back pockets. She’s waif-ish thin, despite the fact she’s eating regularly now, something she didn’t have for almost two years. No telling where she puts it, as the food certainly doesn’t cling to her frame, doesn’t add to the barely there curves.

She can’t resist, however, as she moves past Alex and his hot dogs and his commentary… “Nice language. There’s fuckin kids here, you know.” You can almost hear the smirk.

As he approaches, the giant’s deep bass voice drifts to them both.

“Wise advice is often well taken even by the one from whom it was given.”

And then Maija decides to remind him of the presence of children. Alex pauses mid-bite. It’s not a sunny day, but there’s enough light in the sky to make him squint up at Maija for a moment. Then he straightens up, bites off his mouthful of hot dog, and politely tells Maija to:

“Go fuck yourself.” His eyes flicker to the giant. Matthias is used to people flinching at his rage by now, and he’ll recognize the way Alex’s shoulders tense. “Were we talking to you, Olaf?”

Alex tells her to go fuck herself – and clearly, this group missed the joke. This is why she avoids most folks, truth be told. Matthias chides her, confirming the theory, and she walks on. And right into Wendy…

whoops.

She mutters a “sorry…” then can’t help but do a double take – remembering. It’s the guilty look that does it. A briefly amused look flickers across her hidden features, and she adds. “We’re even now, ya can quit lookin’ so guilty.”

Maija’s CLEARLY doing better than the last time they met.

“Perhaps I was talking to you… boy.”

Swinging back to Alexander, the hulking Fenrir simply stares at him, the stern expression made perhaps harsher by the semblance of dark amusement clear upon his features.

Heh.

Matthias goes all up in Alex’s space, and that seems to be a cue to move a few feet away. To Wendy. “Gettin a dog – want one?” presumably she means a hot dog from that vender over there.

He has to look up at the other. Way up.

When they’re facing off like this, Alexander has to either look up at Matthias from under his eyebrows, or raise his chin. It’s perhaps noteworthy that he chooses to do the former. Despite that the latter offers a more confident, arrogant pose, Alex keeps his chin tucked as if out of instinct to avoid baring his throat. His hands are clenched very tight at his sides, the knuckles white.

“Mind,” he says to Matthias, slowly and clearly, “your own, fucking, business. Olaf.“

Alex goes into fight mode, which is not the method of posture Maija herself ever chooses, and she shoots him a second glance. Then, idly, to Wendy. “I’m Maija, by the way.” Mi-yah, she says, and her voice is unmarked by any single accent – but rather a mixture of everywhere mingled with bad grammar.

Rage suffused the growled whisper, as Matthias’ grin dies quietly upon his lips… His expression turned to one of purest fury.

His weight had rolled to the balls of his feet, even as the Fenrir’s face pushes down still closer to Alexander.

“Olaf.“

Protective mode, 101. Even as she does her best to hide herself, to keep herself out of harms way, apparently when someone seems weaker then her, she puts herself in the way. No wonder she got so busted up. “Jus’ ignore’em.”

Alexander doesn’t even get the opportunity to finish the word. As soon as the sound of the eff leaves his lips, Matthias’ meaty appendage moves to Alexander’s throat, the giant’s fist closing around his windpipe as the digits flex closed. Drawing Alexander’s face closer to his own, even while beginning to choke the life from him, Matthias speaks from clenched teeth.

“Courage is foolishness without wisdom to guide it… boy.”

She shifts her position slightly, to watch Matthias give Alex a lesson in manners, still keeping herself between Wendy and them. “They ain’t the worst things that could happen.” experience talking there.

Courage, Matthias calls it, but the flash of panic in Alexander’s eyes is plain to see when the Modi’s big hand shoots forward. Alex sways backwards, not fast enough — Matthias’s fist clamps around his throat. Alex grabs Matthias’s forearm as much in a futile attempt to get free and as in pure reflex, scrabbling at the other’s arm, his hands about as effective as they would be on a wood banister. When Matthias drags him closer, eye to eye, the shorter man’s feet nearly leave the ground.

This is a pretty busy part of Grant Park. People are gawking; some woman lets out a shriek. Matthias says something — Alexander clutches and claws at the gripping hand for another second, and then — in a feat of possibly epic stupidity — flails wildly at Matthia’s face with his fists.

And what a show it is, as Alex suddenly starts flailing wildly. “What a dumbass.”

People are watching, someone shrieks, and she just eats her hot dog, doing her best to keep her face hidden while she does so. Old habits die hard, and all that.

Then, only after whatever internal clock tells Matthias he has indeed come to the verge of killing Alexander… Only then does the grip release… Leaving Alexander to stand or fall in an unceremonious heap upon the ground. Towering over the figure a few moments more, a low growl escapes the hulking Fenrir’s throat.

With that, Matthias turns toward a less densely packed portion of Grant Park, ostensibly to make his escape from the all too public scene.

She stands again and offers them back to Wendy as Matthias heads off. “See, he ain’t killt him. S’alright, really. Here.”

Well. he ain’t kilt ’em YET, anyway.

So’s the sense of anticipation. The hope that maybe this time…
(…he’ll become something more.)

Only, he doesn’t. Matthias lets go. Matthias is angry, but let’s be honest: Matthias was in control of the situation. Alexander drops in an inglorious, wheezing, heap, and his throat will be sore for hours, and he’ll have an oxygen-dep headache, but nothing’s broken. He’s not even bleeding. If Matthias was not in control, Alexander would be a smear on the sidewalk by now.

Which, one might argue, is exactly where he’s headed, full speed ahead.

The modi turns to go, leaving the gaping pedestrians and the shocked onlookers swiftly behind. Alexander wheezes and gasps on all fours for a while, and then, as soon as he has his breath back, pushes himself up onto his knees and shouts hoarsely after the other: “Oh yeah, that was smart! Right in the middle of Grant Park, you fuckin’ sociopath! What’s your name? I’m pressing charges!“

It’s about then that Alex get shis breath, and wheezes out his threat, and she just shakes her head, a slight movement under the hood. She takes another bite of her hot dog as she moves, eventually sitting right on the bench where Alex was to begin with, where it all started.

Of all the things she says – she offers this as a conversation starter, since he’s demanding the mans name. “I know’im.”

Some random good samaritan asks if he needs help or wants to call an ambulance. Alexander tells them to fuck the fuck off, while the good samaritan promptly, and huffily, does.

Then Maija’s standing over him, tell him Alex she knows him. One of Alexander’s eyes pops open. Oh, it’s the scrawny brat again. He eyes her for a moment, and then shuts it again.

“Good for you. I’m not really pressing charges.”

“My friend was worried. So said I’d make sure you ain’t dead. Ya clearly ain’t, so..” a pause as she digs through her pockets again. “Got a lighter?”

Alexander stares at Wendy like she might’ve recently sprouted a second head. Or four ears. Or nineteen eyes. His eyes go from the hot dog to the mousy librarian, and back.

“Are you shitting me? You saw me getting killed, so you decided to get me a hot dog?“

That of the boy on the ground, breathing and clutching at his neck and the giant figure hulking away in the safety of the tree-line.

One of the observers, lightly pressing a hip against the lip of the fountain is a young woman of no extraordinary beauty. She has the face that blends into a thousand crowds for its pleasant blandness; what it lacked for it open appeal was perhaps the intelligence in her dark eyes; the pleasing line of her slender build as she watches with her hands tucked in her pockets; and the edges of her collar drawn up against the breeze coming off the fountain beside her.

She does not speak to the crowds about her, slowly dispersing as they realize there will be no more violence with some ingrained sense of disappointment that every cop show has taught them to expect.

She — it seems — is at her leisure to observe them.

She finally locates her own lighter, since he ain’t got one, and promptly lights a joint and inhales deeply. She’d offer him a hit – but ya know, it’ll kill him.

“Lemme have it.”

Wendy might consider it a peace offering, but Alex mostly considers it a replacement for the two hotdogs he was going to eat before all hell broke loose. He winces when he swallows the first bite, one hand going to his throat where bruises have begun to surface, before he catches himself and drops his hand back down.

“Who the fuck are you?” he shoots back at Maija. “Besides the little twit that had to go and attract Olaf’s attention and get my ass handed to me.”

“Ya did that shit all by yourself. I was merely making a joke. Not my fault ya took it so fuckin serious. An’ i told ya. I’m Maija.”

“Don’t tell me he didn’t look like an Olaf to you.” He clears his throat again, bites into his hot dog. “I should’ve called him a knuckle-dragging troglodyte instead. Might as well get my rocks off if he’s going to strangle me.”

And finally, “Alexander.” Which one supposes is his name.

Her eyes return every few moments to recollect in detail the anger in the boy, the fear of the small quivering girl and the other – she wasn’t certain if she’d call her emotion anger – or well learned survivalist gruffness.

Wendy glances in her direction, and Mackenzie meets her gaze openly with no modest reaction. She does, however, return her notebook to her pocket and quietly leave off from her observation point to begin down a marked path, zig-zagging away from the scene at an angle that takes her past their small group.

She’s clearly hiding from something/one

“He did.” she admits. “He’s really a Matthias.” which when one thinks about it, could be just as bad.

“Can I help you with something?”

Perfectly calm, and perfectly un-American in voice. Perhaps English, or even south African. The softness with which she spoke made it difficult to pin-point.

(…never hoping. never that…)

She hopes.

“Wanna sit?” This to Wendy, as she waves to the bench beside her.

He already got his ass handed to him once today. There’s something about the way he jabs a finger at Mackenzie’s notepad that says he’s out to prove something back to himself. By picking on girls. That’s nice.

“What the hell’s that?”

At exactly 5’3 the woman he jabs at finger toward is in fact quite the opposite of Wendy, that being said she is slight as well as small and gives the impression that were a strong current to pick up she might have trouble keeping her feet firmly planted on the ground. Her dark hair is close enough to black to pass for it in the moonlight, close-cropped to layer her cheeks and the longer ends pulled away in a hair-tie, tucked beneath her collar.

Her face, as mentioned, is not by modern terms ‘pretty’. Her nose is perhaps a touch too long, her mouth too thin, or crooked to be fond of smiling. Though she is, perhaps to make up for this, entirely unafraid by Alexander’s attitude and intention to intimidate.

“A notepad.”

She defines without a pause, and takes it from her pocket to show him as if concerned for his ability to recognize one.

“Hm? oh.” Pause, swallow. “m’fine. why ya ask?”

simple enough. “you alright?”

The notepad itself is most likely hard to understand, written as most of it is in shorthand. More a collection of strange squiggled lines and roughly drawn sketches of the Chicago streets. Intermittent throughout is a lot of legal talk about families and abuse cases, trial dates and on the inside cover the potential name to go with the woman — taped on a card.

M. Walsh
Lawyer

She watches him greedily flipping through it with a composed expression, her hands returned to her pockets, waiting.

“Don’t stare at strangers while you scribble in notepads,” he says, and then offers her a rather jagged smile. “Looks like you’re spying or something.”

“I was spying,” she supplies without a waver of hesitation.

Her eyes are on Mack and Alex. Watching. Suspiciously.

“Ain’t no need t’apologize.”

She points out mildly at the exclamation, with raised eyebrows. Her gaze moves over to the watching pair close by and she meets Maija’s suspicion-filled glare with that same quiet air of confidence. As though she knew well enough she was not in any immediate danger.

“Enraging him in public.” It doesn’t sound so much a reprimand as a bleak fact.

She glances at Wendy, but her focus is on the others. “Jus’ Maija s’fine. An’ no. From all over, really. been here couple months. You?”

Idle conversation, as she tries to keep Wendy calm. ish.

“Mind your own business, lady,” he snaps at Mackenzie, mouth full. “God, this city’s just full of people who can’t keep their noses out of other people’s affairs, isn’t it.”

Alexander starts walking off. When he passes Wendy, he hoists the half-eaten hotdog in a small salute. “Thanks for the ‘dog, Mouse.”

She watches Alex head back by, and smirks as he ignores her. It’s the way she prefers it, truth be told. Another glance for Mack, then back to Wendy again.

Oh the truth of those words… despite the fact that she genuinely likes the guy too. His books are a close second.

“As you wish.”

Turning her back to him, she begins where she left off before being halted, following a path through the park’s main vein of traffic.

She’s amused. Still hiding under that hoodie, but very very amused.

OR wrong with getting into a library. Using sexual favors. Just don’t ask what happens when she wants to go out for dinner….

“Yeah. Only thing I like more’n reading is sketchin. And sex, of course.”

Just because she can’t resist.

(ok, almost always.)

She had watched the books that were pulled out,noting the titles before looks at the one in her hand and flips through the pages with interest. “Is it?” interest piqued.

She saw Wendy in the Brotherhood – but that doesn’t mean anything exactly for sure 100% – thus, this kin is cautious, despite keeping the conversation going.

“Thanks.”

Sincere, that.

Maybe she wasn’t kidding earlier.

“Yeah. We kin meet at the Brotherhood for dinner or somethin, sometime.”

Blunt, Maija.

“I’m a pretty good cook, too. Get ya fed up good an’ ya can browse his books.”

She doesn’t debate the word boyfriend, but she doesn’t say it’s accurate either. They really haven’t defined anything. Who knows, it might be true that she fucks him for his books. Only time will tell.