[Kristiana Coleman] The kin girl is still wandering around in the bitter cold, clutching a cup of take out coffee in her hands now, choosing to suffer a possible slow death by hypothermia over another night of room service and limited television access.
[Rory] Last night, Patrick suggested that he and his brother could teach her more on Ruarc’s guitar. Then he suggested that they should form a band, the three of them, and play at the next moot. This, understandably, sent the poor Redheaded Rage Machine into a panic. Which leads us to this, right now:
There is a bench, and on that bench is one redheaded Full Moon. The heat of her rage keeps most folks at bay, scurrying around her without even knowing why. It also keeps her warm, which is good, as she is dressed in tattered jeans, a beat up jacket, and fingerless gloves -fingerless, because she has those fingers resting on a guitar, who’s strings she’s been practicing on all day.
Fortunately, she’s not exactly awful, either, and what comes out is a perfectly passable rendition of Danny Boy. She’s clearly a novice, but she’s learning. And willing to practice till her fingers bleed…
[Kristiana Coleman] She isn’t deterred by the rage. Not that she doesn’t notice, but she doesn’t have that instinctive flight reaction that regular people do. Teeth chattering, she makes her way toward the bench in the course of her walk.
[Rory] She is watching her hands, her lower lip pulled between her teeth, her brow furrowed in concentration as she works those five chords that Ruarc taught her for all their worth. With those five, he told her, she could not only play Danny Boy, but When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, and hundreds of other songs.
She has headphones around her neck, connecting to a little MP3 player that she was using earlier, which confirms this through lessons, and melodies. Ruarc would never know what this gift meant to her…
She doesn’t sing while she plays – that would ruin whatever success marginal success she has achieved.
[Kristiana Coleman] Her steps slow as she nears the woman, hands wrapped around the hot cup as she listens to her play.
[Rory] Now, an Ahroun should be aware at all times of her surroundings, and perhaps Rory is, on some level. Enough to know that someone is paying attention to her, which is not exactly a comfortable feeling for one who desires to hide the majority of the time.
Which is, of course, at direct odds to her sitting in the streets playing a guitar – but whatever.
Something, as she strums the last note, pulls her gaze up and finds Kristiana standing nearby, watching. Rory does something wholy at odds with the press of rage that surrounds her – she blushes, and ducks her head to hide it behind her curls.
[Kristiana Coleman] She sips at the coffee, willing herself to break her usual self imposed rule and speak to a Garou without being spoken to first. “That was pretty.”
[Rory] She blushes brighter, lifting her hand to rub her fingers absently against the side of her nose. Her voice, when it comes, is surprisingly soft, shy. “Thanks.”
She wrinkles her nose though, and shakes her head with a sigh. “Lill stearning.” she doesn’t seem to notice her words are mixed up, as she doesn’t strive to correct them. It’s as if she hears what she intended to say, instead of what she did.
[Kristiana Coleman] Her head tilts as she puzzles out what the woman meant to say. “Oh. Well, it was nice.”
[Rory] Rory tucks her hair behind her ear, blushing brighter. The curls cannot be contained, though, and they fall back over her face, a curtain to hide her shyness. She rubs her hands together to warm them further, and then arches her back into a stress. Then, she idly practices the chords she knows again – without melody, just practice.
“You play?” Curious, the tilt of her head, toward the other woman.
[Kristiana Coleman] She finds the idea of a shy Garou fascinating. There certainly aren’t any that she’s aware of back home.
“Me? Gaia, no. I’m not musical at all.”
[Rory] [she have PB or anything/]
to Kristiana Coleman
[Kristiana Coleman] PB 3!
to Rory
[Rory] Thanks!
to Kristiana Coleman
[Rory] She peeks up at Kristiana through her lashes, then ducks her head again. There’s no denying the girl is kin, it fairly sings through the scent of her blood, the beat of her heart, the flush of her skin. Rory hides that little smile again, and shrugs. “I wasn’t either.”
Musical, she means.
Then, she asks a more direct question. “You fave hamily here?”
[Kristiana Coleman] “Not directly. I know that I have some relatives of sorts, though.” There’s a slight pause as she contemplates, then sits on the edge of the bench. “I have only met a couple of people so far though.”
[Rory] She nods, slightly, curls bouncing with the movement.
“Kate?” Just to make sure she knows of the right people, and all.
[Kristiana Coleman] “I. No. Not yet. Cordelia, and…. ” She licks her bottom lip, uncomfortable suddenly. “Ivan. Last night at a club.”
[Rory] She tips her head, just a little, curiosity glinting in the green of her eyes, but she doesn’t ask who the others are. It is, after all, none of her business.
“Oh.” she nods, then. “could shall Kate.”
[Kristiana Coleman] (Sorry, it didn’t update!)
[Kristiana Coleman] “Yes. Ivan was going to…” She scowls for a half second. “I don’t have her number.”
[Rory] Rory scritches her nails along the line of her jaw, lightly, and nods. “You know Be Throtherhood?”
[Kristiana Coleman] Her head shakes, and she glances around as if she’s going to get in trouble.
[Rory] Her brow furrows, then she nods again. “Find that. Kate’s Alpha thives lere. He’ll get you ho ter..”
[Kristiana Coleman] “Are you alright?”
[Ivers] [Athletics+Dexterity: LOL I like to roll dice for no fucking reason. +2 diff because it’s slushy out and shit.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 7, 7 (Botch x 1 at target 8)
[Rory] Rory blinks. It is not a question she’s asked very often, as so few people care about the answer. She is under no delusions that this girl cares, either, but is curious just the same to see why it was asked at all.
“….yes?”
[Kristiana Coleman] (And that’s what you get for rolling dice for no reason)
[Kristiana Coleman] “Oh. Alright. You just… ” She takes another sip of her coffee, then shakes her head and smiles. “Nothing. Nevermind.”
[Ivers] [Sidewalk: EAT IT HIPSTER] [B]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Ivers] [OW!!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Rory] Rory tips her head again, and then offers shyly. “falk tunny?”
[Ivers] It isn’t nowhere, exactly, that Howard comes flying out of, but he does appear several blocks away, skidding around a slushy corner as if he’s ten years old and sliding across a newly waxed floor in his socks and underwear. Arms are outstretched, his stance like that of a surfer, and he nearly negotiates the turn before he overshoots and ends up crashing into a mailbox, bouncing off, and hitting the sidewalk with a riotous crumpling noise.
“OWFUCK!” he announces.
And this is why we don’t roll dice for no fucking reason.
[Kristiana Coleman] “Just mixed up. It’s fine. I’m sorry. It was rude of me to say anything.” Old habits die hard, and she starts to feel a creeping panic at calling the woman’s flaw out. Before she can apologize again, the crash of man vs. mailbox caches her attention.
[Rory] Rory sighs, softly, sadly. She tries so hard, but can never get anything out right. Mostly because she never knows when she’s making the mistakes, but there it is. She waves away the apology, and offers a brief, shy, smile before it’s hidden away behind the duck of her head, again.
“Questions fine. You didn’t fake mun.” which is what she usually gets.
Then her head jerks up in time to see Howards spectacular crumple into the sidewalk, and she lifts a hand to cover her mouth, to hide the little huff of laughter that she can’t hold back.
[Kristiana Coleman] “Do you think he’s alright?” She sets down the coffee and stands, taking a few steps toward Howard.
[Rory] She nods, her curls bouncing, and then looks down to Ruarc’s guitar, where it sits on her lap, where she’s been practicing for hours already, and manages to make a very passable..
Dun dun DUUUUUUUN
…from it, to herald Howard’s arrival.
[Ivers] The other night his brother had thrown him into an oak coffee table hard enough he’d received a very minor concussion and a goose egg for his troubles. Wiping out on an icy sidewalk doesn’t appear to even stun him, yet at the time that he falls he isn’t aware that he has an audience. There is one person waiting for a bus at a nearby shelter, but he is bundled up and trying valiantly to smoke and is not paying even a minor bit of attention to the asshole running around like it’s July instead of nearly January.
Stiffly, his pride bruised more than anything else, Howard gets his chicken legs underneath him, then propels himself standing, spinning around to peer back the way he’d come. When sober he walks like a demented rock star, swaying and craning his neck to peer around the corner, but the peek reveals that the coast is clear.
“Wanker,” he concludes, as Rory plays him an entrance theme. He twirls around again, skinny arms flapping as if they’re not securely attached. It’s dark out but for the bright North Side street lamps, and he’s wearing his sunglasses. Combined with the beaming grin he shoots Rory, it gives his appearance a somewhat manic edge.
He twirls his right hand in a stylized flourish, bowing at the waist, then straightens and walks toward them.
[Kristiana Coleman] Her eyes dart around, and she holds her breath to keep from collapsing into giggles.
[Rory] He concludes that she’s a….wanker, and confusions passes over her face. Not all that unusual, of course, as she is confused a lot – especially about Howard. But he bows, and she finds her shy grin is firmly in place once more, as she ducks her head to strum another chord.
[Kristiana Coleman] “Do you know him?” She keeps her voice low, not wanting to be caught talking about someone.
[Ivers] His approach slows the closer he gets. He’s dressed about as well as he usually is, which is to say: as if he’s either blind or mentally deficient or simply doesn’t give a fuck he’ll wear what he wants thank you very much. The pants are the worst of it, a twill affair in an electric blue-green color the company tries to call “dark evergreen,” but the fact that he’s chosen to wear combat boots and a red Dr. Pepper t-shirt that’s older than he is doesn’t help. His jacket is black leather, and his hair is a goddamn mess, as usual. He wears fingerless gloves that are briefly visible as he plants his hands on his skinny hips and stops before the two females.
“You think that’s funny?” the Afrikaner asks, in an exaggerated deadpan, as if he’s trying to keep himself from laughing. Without giving Rory a chance to answer, he points back over his shoulder and says “I could have broken my goddamn neck, that post box came out of nowhere!”
[Kristiana Coleman] A tiny giggle escapes, and she claps a hand over her mouth to stifle it.
[Rory] Does she know him? Well, that’s a rather complicated question to answer, in reality. Fortunately Rory isn’t one to talk much to begin with, let alone try to answer such questions that delve far deeper into things she shouldn’t talk about anyway. She is too honest for her own good – balanced, fortunately, by being too shy to say anything at all.
Instead, she nods, slightly. She knows him.
Kristiana is giggling, and Howard is exaggerating, and the post box came from NOWHERE, and Rory? laughs. Sudden, and free, and she slaps her hand over her mouth to try to contain it, but it dances in her eyes as she peeks up at him, then down again to Ruarc’s guitar, in effort to hide it all.
[Kristiana Coleman] The giggle dies quickly as Rory starts to laugh, and she stares at the woman as if transfixed.
[Ivers] A groan accompanies him rolling his head on his neck, as though he’s disgusted with the two of them; he rubs his cervical spine as if to illustrate the severity of the situation as he continues ranting.
“Good to know the next time–”
The kinswoman stares at the Ahroun, and the sight of it cuts Howard off mid-sentence. They can’t see his eyes ticking back and forth, so it seems for a second as though he’s just zoned out. He is a Crescent Moon. They as an auspice have done stranger things.
“Oi,” he says, as if to grab Kristiana’s attention, “if you two are gonna make out, can I watch?”
[Kristiana Coleman] Her eyes widen as her attention is pulled back to Howard, and she blushes a deep red. “I don’t. You. I.” Blinking rapidly, her eyes dart around again before finally settling on him as she grasps at the last threads of her composure. “Are you alright?”
[Rory] And he thought he’d seen her blush and stammer and get confused and flustered before. Howard’s question causes her gaze to snap up at him, her eyes widen in something akin to fright and shock and terror all wrapped up in one. She shakes her head, violently, and her hair tumbles in a tangle of curls with the effort.
And for a moment she can only stare at him, mouth agape, until she snaps her lips closed, and hugs the guitar close to her chest, as if by doing so she could hide, thoroughly.
[Ivers] “Em…”
He crams his hands into the pockets of his jacket, pushing them together to draw the halves together rather than zipping it up. The wind tugs at their hair, his own dancing around as though it has something to celebrate, but his face and the rest of him is suddenly still.
“Yeah, you’re right, makin’ make-out jokes when a bird’s starin’ at another woman is up there with AIDS jokes. Won’t do it again.”
[Kristiana Coleman] “Maybe I should just go…”
[Rory] Her blush deepens, as she shakes her head, and lifts trembling fingers to the guitar strings again, and carefully strums out her learned chords.
After a moment, she murmurs “Is ok.” She nods, slightly. “I wust jouldn’t…”
Make out with another girl, or a bird, or whatever he’s dreaming of at the moment.
[Llewelyn] If two Garou could make more different entrances, it’s never been known.
Howard flies around the corner, trips and takes a skid on an ice patch or whatever happened. Patrick appears, wandering down the street at a leisurely pace with his hands stowed in the pockets of a black leather jacket; a scarf of mottled gray and black around his neck and a slightly reddened nose for the chill factor. He doesn’t seem perturbed to discover Howard chatting to the two females he does; he rather raises his eyebrows and moves toward the bench they’ve collected around.
The closer he gets, the easier it is to see, and smell; that he’s chewing gum.
Peppermint, to be precise.
“Hey,” he greets easily, and nudges against the Theurge with his shoulder; rocking back on his heels. Kristiana receives the benefit of very bright, very blue eyes regarding her a moment. “Hey,” he echoes as an aside to her and then catches sight of Rory’s guitar. “This yours, Red?”
[Kristiana Coleman] She gnaws at her bottom lip, rooted to the spot now that she’s been addressed again. “Hello.”
[Ivers] “No, no, you’re fine.”
This, to Kristiana, as though she needs to be assured of the fact that her behavior is perfectly acceptable. He draws a deep breath that’s nearly audible under the wind, and then he says, as though he’s about to have a tooth pulled with no anesthesia, “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t–”
At which point Patrick saves his Alpha, or saves the females from his Alpha, and Howard steps back without further commentary, turning to move down the sidewalk. His own cheeks are only flushed because the wind is relentless, because it’s hitting all of them like a moving vehicle. He can’t weigh more than 165 soaking wet, most of it stretched out over well over six feet of height, and either it’s the next stiff breeze that comes by or he just can’t walk to save his life, but he hits a slick patch of sidewalk and wipes out.
Again.
He clambers to his feet without the theatrics that occurred when he’d arrived a minute ago, but does grumble something to the effect of “Fuckin’ movin’ to Florida” and keeps walking.
[Rory] Patrick arrives, and she ducks her head, again. She’s something in awe of the Songster since hearing him play his guitar, which has directly led to her being out here, practicing so hard. He mentioned a band and playing together and she’ll be damned if it’s her that drags them all down.
assuming Howard can manage not to kill himself sliding on the ice before the next moot, of course.
She watches Howard as he walks away, and she moves as if to follow him, but Patrick asks her a question, and though she wants to follow Ivers, she answers his question instead, her gaze locked on the retreating Theurge’s back.
“Ruarc’s.” Not hers to her way of thinking.
[Llewelyn] Howard turns and moves off down the sidewalk without further commentary; except that he wipes out again and his pack-mate turns from the pair of ladies; murmurs — “‘Scuse me a second,” — and takes a few steps after him; raising his hands to his mouth to shout.
“Howard, where the hell are you going?”
Then, raising a hand to the back of his head, he throws it in the air and resorts to big boy moves. That being, totemphone.
Mind explaining why you’re storming off? What’d I get in the way of your moves or something?
[Ivers] “I gotta take a piss!” he shouts back, as if that explains everything. “Jesus!”
[And: HA HA TAKING TOTEMPHONE TO PMs!]
[Kristiana Coleman] She looks mortified all over again, eyes on the snowy ground.
“I should go. I have. I should go. It was nice to meet you.” It seems to be her default for awkward situations. So nice to meet them. Fighting against her urges again, she doesn’t wait to be dismissed and instead picks her way down the icy sidewalk as quickly as is safe.
[Rory] She nods, as Kristiana says she should go – and as Patrick moves after his brother, and…
..she does what she does best. Remains forgotten on the bench, and turns her attention back to Ruarc’s guitar.
[Just for fun… let’s flash that shiny new performance dot….]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Rory] ….but can’t concentrate, and makes a sound of frustration, settling back to the bench with a sigh of disappointment.