Joss | Fangirl and Prospective Eagle [Imogen/Evan]

Imogen’s shoes are quiet on the pavement, one hand carrying a burning cigarette, the other in her coat pocket. Her pale skin is nearly luminescent in the grey day, her hair a burning fire.

She never quite belongs anywhere – but less so here, even dressed in her worst attire – which is unfrayed jeans, a corduroy coat that skims her hips. The shirt beneath is soft cotton, too fine for this area. All in all, any single item of her clothing likely costs more than an entire outfit of a denizen of this buildings, squat brown beasts, windows as often broken as whole.

Her hands are tucked in her pockets, her steps even an lazy. An entirely average girl out on an average stroll. (…she is far from average…)

She is not alone on this stroll, either, as there can be no denying the redhead who walks this way, and now that she knows for certain who she is, Joss has a sudden attack of nerves when faced with a hello. But she has never been one to shy away from confrontation, and a simple introduction should be child’s play. Should be. Rarely is.

Once the distance is closed enough, Joss smiles. That alone sets her apart from so many Fenrir, who’s blood she shares, whose fierceness is bred into her very bones. But none the less, she does, and it reaches her eyes and sparkles there in the depths of blue. “Hello, Dr. Slaughter, ma’am.”

Polite too.
She really is an oddity.

Still, she recognizes Joss for what she is – or at least remembers her from the night before. The kinwoman slows as the distance closes, lifting her cigarette to her mouth, sliding her lips around it and drawing the smoke in.

The Godi can see the whisper of a smirk cross the Kin’s mouth, then she turns away, exhaling her cigarette smoke away from the Garou.

“S’not really necessary t’call me both doctor ‘nd ma’am,” she says, a little wryly as she turns back. Her eyebrow lifts slightly. “Jess, is it?”

But she does, and she pushes her dreads back over her shoulder as she chuckles softly at herself. “Sorry ma’am – I’ve just heard so much.. I mean.” She stops and wrinkles her nose as she silently chastises herself for blabbering on like an idiot. Despite all she is, all she can and will be – she’s still an 18 year old girl meeting the mate of a man of Story and Song – a mate who’s had story and song sung about her as well.

A breath, steady as she goes. “Close – it’s Joss, actually. Joss Lehrer.”

Instead, “A pleasure,” to her introduction.

“Was James able t’help you out?” she enquires, her hand lifting her cigarette back to her mouth.

There is a quiet pride when she speaks of getting to meet with Silence. It is, after all, what she has prepared for all these years.

She’d see that brow lift, and laughs lightly. “I came from Minnesota – Storm Hammer. I assure you what I’ve heard was nothing bad. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you all. James was the only one of the Eagles I’ve had any real contact with during their visits home.”

She takes another drag from her cigarette, turning her head aside once more to exhale the smoke away from the Garou. The wind catches at her hair, unruly and barely bound by its clip. Strands have come loose to brush against her cheek and temple, and she lifts her hand to brush them back, the cigarette still caught between her middle finger and index.

“Yeh came t’meet him, then?” the question is mild, though it’s a true question, as if it were her impression but did not seem quite likely.

“Yes ma’am. Word made it back that the Eagles were in need of a Godi once more. I came to offer my services, should I be proven acceptable.”

And tonight was no different.

Evan seemed to be watching the pair of them. Not from down the block or from some storefront, but from one of the old, rusty fire escapes that dotted the area. Moving down to the final fight before tripping the ladder downward to give him access to the street. He had watched as the Godi picked at the mind of Imogen. Something he found interesting.

Until he finally decided to join them. And after he heads down the last steps of the ladder, with ease he hoists it back up. Rusty Metal clanging until it final came to a stop back in place. Moving out of the alleyway towards the pair.

She taps ash from her cigarette, lowering her hand toward the ground and allowing grey to fall toward the concrete at their feet, disappearing grey against a grey backdrop.

The creaking of the fire-escape alerts her to Evan and she turns her head looking up and watching as the Child of Gaia descends the ladder then drops to the ground. “Evan,” she greets him, her voice low, melodic. Very little of Imogen’s personality reveals her ancestry – her breeding and heritage must do it for her. Her voice, though – it marks her as musical.

“Hello Evan.” She learned recently that he is beta, that he bested James, and it gave her means to rib the Fianna for a good long while – that alone qualifies Evan as one of her new favorite people.

Joss came across him when he finished disposing of the bodies. He was exausted at the moment, not his normal self.

“Good evening ladies.”

He had eyed Joss a bit longer now. Maybe he was still tired, maybe he was delusional… but that hat did seem familiar.

“You look like hell,” observes the Briton, an eyebrow arching. She has a cigarette in hand, and the wind shifts, blowing the smoke toward the Philodox. Imogen moves, stepping around him to accommodate the change, even as she lifts the cancer stick to her mouth.

Imogen tells him he looks like hell, and Joss laughs softly. “She’s right, you know. How’s your kin – Lonna, was that her name?”

((*L* the Green is a neighborhood. We’re standing on a random street. :) ))

It would probably have been easier if he could have shifted to a more suitable form to fight. However they were in the middle of the street, in the middle of Bronzeville. He couldn’t very well just shift to war form and dispatch of the thing.

“Lonna is fine, a little shaken from being bit, but otherwise okay.”

He had spoke with her the other night when it rained. Speaking about the incident among other things. His eyes moving to form of Marcus moving across the street toward them. He had met him the other night in the Brotherhood.

Her gaze moves, following Evan’s to Marcus, the slight redhead regarding the stranger with dark eyes.

She turns to see who they’re looking at and raises a hand to wave at Marcus as he walks to join them. When she turns back around, she adds to Imogen. “That’s Marcus. Foresti – half moon.” She remembered this time.

But it’s clear that she’s teasing him, despite the truth of the matter.

His eyes move over to Joss as she offers her assistance in the next coming times. And if she did become an Eagle, then there were going to be a hell of a lot of coming times. Hopefully not in such proximity to his kin.

“Yes I will definately take you up on that. However that may seem to take up a lot of your time.”

Then over to Marcus as he comes over, address them. Taking his offered hand.

“Evening.”

Her pure breeding marks her well. She is Fianna and of some family with history, some family with glory or honour or wisdom or all three.

“Hullo,” she says, her accent clear and unAmerican.

She drops her cigarette to the ground, crushing it out beneath her foot. She exhales a final breath of cancer and smoke, her head turned away from the group and then turns her attention toward her wrist, flicking it once to push down the cuff of her coat, revealing the delicate stainless steel watch with an analogue face.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she says without really expecting to be excused, “I need t’get on.” A glance to Marcus, “A pleasure to meet you,” she says, perhaps a little ironically as she has not offered him her name.

With that, she starts down the street in the direction she’d been headed before meeting Joss.

She doesn’t add that the pleasure of the meeting is all hers, that she’s almost giddy with the thought of getting to call her mom and tell her she’d met THE mate of THE man everyone speaks of so very often. It’s a wonder Joss didn’t ask the poor woman for her autograph, truth be told.

She returns her attention to Evan with that easy soft laughter that sparkles in her eyes. “I fully expect the Eagles to take up the majority of my time very soon.” Quiet confidence.

And after she is down the street he turns back to the two other garou that had gathered on the streets so close to the Eagle’s turf.

“Yes, well I hope you are ready for that.”

He smirked slightly to her before turning back to the other half-moon.

“Thank you for your offer, but I am fine for now.”

Evan says he hopes she’s ready, and she lifts her chin slightly, and arches a brow. “To tell the truth, Evan, I’ve trained my whole life to be ready.” She smiles, then, the look soft and eager. “I may be small, and young but I am well trained.”

She’s going to be The Eagle Beck And Call Godi, just want and see.

“Well that is good to hear. Because of this moment, you are a prospective member of the Eagles. However whatever you have heard of us, the glorious stories of never losing to the wyrm. For we lost one of our own. A full-moon known as Rugiher. She was a close friend and good pack mate. Her shoes will be hard to fill I assure you.”

As of this moment, she is perspective Eagle.

She is…

Her eyes widen slightly – she had expected to have to meet with Silence first, but it is with pleased shine in blue eyes that she accepts his word as true. “I will do my best to serve Eagle, and you all, to the best of my ability.” Perspective Eagle. Has a nice ring to it – almost as nice as “Eagle” but all things come in time.

She nods, her smile slipping to something far more somber. “James mentioned the lose of Ruhiger. I know that I cannot fill the shoes of your lost Modi, but I will prove myself to you in my own way. I am sorry for your loss.”

He motions for her to follow him, moving from the green that was outside their direct protection. Deeping into the skids and the dirty scab. Looking around to see some of the marking that made up the turf of the Eagles.

“I am going to show you some of our area tonight. Our pair of pack houses and some of the more known points that mark our land. As of this moment the territory is closed to anyone who is not Eagle or invited in by Eagle.”

He walked a little in silence when Joss spoke about AM. He looked down a little thinking about her and the loss they had suffered.

“She was a good full-moon, a strong Fernir and even though I hold the title of Beta, in my mind it was rightfully hers if she so wished to challenge for it. She is the reason I was able to become Eagle.”

He falls silent, remembering the fallen, and she nods, slightly. “Tell me of her, of how she helped you become Eagle? I am no Songster, but I am a good listener. The fallen aught be remembered by the tales and thoughts shared by those who knew them best.”

He had continued through the streets, the dark streets that seemed to get worse as they walked deeper into the scab. The graffiti seemed to become more and more aggressive, covering more and more walls. The streets were worse off, more worn. They had been in the shit now.

“She killed my former alpha and I had taken the issue up with a Adren Half-moon known as Blood Debt~rhya. She advised me on where I was at fault and what I should do. Blood Debt~rhya also advised Decker, as to make amends, he would take on the rest of the pack as wards for the time being. I was the only one who went. I felt fate had drawn me to it. So I followed. This was at the time of the Eagle’s leaving the caern. She lost much renown and was once again forced into cub-ship because of it.”

“You were clearly close at the time of her passing – how did those first days go?” She is genuinely a curious creature, learning the stories from inside the pack is something she simply cannot resist. To learn of those she has heard songs of, to see them as they are, to face the reality… it is a dream come true, and not so disappointing as one might thing. It simply makes her all the more proud that the fates have chosen this path for her. “I can imagine you were angry to lose your Alpha to her. How did you overcome it?”

“It was painful indeed… to lose your alpha and be apart of a pack that didn’t really recognize you as apart of them. I had to work very hard to be accepted. A coggie within a war pack made only of Fernir at the time. A difficult task. I took this as more a challenge as well. To help Decker once again reunite with the Sept he had help birth.”

“I understand the challenge it must have been for you. It is a difficult task to prove yourself worthy to Fenrir. I am from Storm Hammer. I remember seeing you the first time you came with the Eagles, and how you stood apart. Every Moot thereafter, you moved closer, you slowly became one of the Pack. When you stood proud by Ruhiger, I knew something had switched, somehow you two had made peace, and discovered trust.”

She pauses, then, and after a moment… “I have not requested to see Maelstrom, as I did not know of the standing with the Eagles, and knew my path was to tread where they have chosen to walk.”

He knew well that they both came to a mutual agreement early on, after that creature he had brought down. The one that was so close to killing him before he was able to prove himself.

“Yes, we are still not apart of the Sept. But that is being debated. We have been looking into joining once more. I am in the believe we must. We are an elder pack in such a young sept. Decker is an Adren, almost Athro to not have a sept close by to call his own is a shame really. And for all he comes to understand of the Storm Hammer, he raised this caern and still defends it in his own way. His heart is here. One can feel it if they watch him carefully.”

If this is her corralling her curiosity…

She listens to the way he speak of Maelstrom, of rejoining the Sept, and his reasons he councils for it. “I am sure you will council him well. What were the reasons he left? Are the problems the same? Will you… we.” she pauses, and grins up at him. “…walk into the same situation you left before should we return?”

“The sept had degenerated into bickering and childlike activity. Instead of fighting the wrym, the sept faught itself. Kin stealing and whining was all that happened at Moots. No tales of glory, songs of loss, regalia of renown. No reports of the wyrm or the effect. No unity. It was like watching children fight over a gust of wind.”

He turned left down one more block as The Eagle’s western pack house came into view. The old office building that housed them now was just within range.

“But that seems to have been slowed with the new guard, the new packs that make up the sept. The sept is still young, but they seem to be more focused on the war them fighting each other.”

The last is said softly, and with genuine pain for the spirit of the Caern she has not even met yet. Her hand is pressed against her heart, as if physically pained by the thought. The only, only regret that came coupled with her desire to be Eagle was that it may mean she would not ever see Maelstrom.

“And this is your home for the time being, as long as you live under Eagle. This is one of the pack houses we have. Our kin also call this their own house so please be careful. It has everything you could want. Food, water, heat, shelter. And close enough to as much wyrm and bane as you can destroy. Comfy eh?”

He looked at her as it seemed that her pain was somewhat visible. Maelstrom was a powerful totem of change and it had been fed much of late. The face of chicago and those that called it home had changed a great deal. The world had changed.. everything.

Except Eagle. They were steadfast. Even after losing one, they still fought on.

“That is part of the reason why we need to go back to Maelstrom, why we will probably go back. To ensure that Maelstrom does not suffer again.”

She takes a breath. one step at a time. The packhouse first. Maelstrom when she is given the chance.

He nodded as he moved towards the front door.

“There are also some other points of interest that I will show you one day. Three points on our boarders have three markings, three post of tainted fimbul wolves that were killed. They are permanent and I have kept vigil over them. But that is a story for another time.”

He opens the door and motioned her inside.

“Time for you to get settled. Patrol will start in an hour.”

Until then, it is time to move in.

“In an hour. I will be ready.”

She reaches into the bag at her hip and pulls out two small vials of clear water. and shows them to him with a smile. Never come to a new place empty handed, after all.

He almost smirked at that, laughed almost. Decker and healing talons were… unique combo. Of course he had his Bloody bandages. But once he got scars, he didn’t heal them. That was not what he did. Even if his intestines were hanging on his knees.

“Hold on to them for now. Better to keep them on you just in case. You can give them to Decker when you met him first hand.”

He wanted to laugh, but did his damned hardest to hold it back.

Ah. For all her youth, there is a Fostern there. But she puts them aay, and heads inside to look around with a soft chuckle afterwards.