World Domination

Posted on March 31, 2009 by Lessa
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden]
With the weather becoming warmer and warmer with new spring and the ever-approaching summer months, more and more people were coming out of doors to bask in the sunlight rather than huddle indoors before their heaters. One such years gone in these northern climes would have remained before a fire basking in it’s warmth rather than the rays of Helios.

Not so any longer, as one man in particular was out and about walking through the formerly snow-covered park. While it was still a bit chilly out, the man’s long black suade coat that whispered against mid-calf was left unbuttoned for the most part to display a crisp white button-down shirt with a stiff collar. It was tucked into a pair of dark denim pants, which was kept to one spot on his waist by a belt with an oval stainless steel belt-buckle. Boots that laced to the knee stepped along quietly.

Here and there birds were chirping, and the sun was shining. A fine day indeed for Chicago, as few seemed to come with ever-present threats looming overhead. Today Caleb could afford a little leisure.
[Maija]
It was a fine day for Chicago – though it’s not as if she could tell the difference. The days run into one another here, just as they do in other places, and she would know. She’s been around the block a few times, for sure.

While Caleb walks and enjoys the sun, she sits, and does her best to seem invisible, as always. There, on a park bench a bit removed from the general passers by, she’s a rather undefined, huddled mass. Beat to hell hiking boots are hooked on the edge of the seat, with denim clad knees pressed to her chest. An oversized hoodie – 2-3 sizes too big on her painfully thin frame – obscures the rest of her, the dark gray and slightly damp from early morning rain hood pulled low over her face, leaving her features mostly in shadow. Her chin – the line of her jaw sharp, strong – rests on a knee, as she looks down at the journal held in front of her calves. Quick and sure penstrokes doodle along the page, marking the pristine white paper with a growing picture of something…

…no, of some one. Drawing from memory, she seems lost in the task, as well as trying to keep warm in the not exactly warm Chicago wind.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden]
As he walked along, that particular huddled mass caught his eye. Odd that someone would look as though they wished no particular association with the populace of Chicago. By and large it was a much safer bet than any, but at the moment it occurred to him that the small frame of the woman, as he now realized that shape to be, might very well be as alone in the city as he was when first arriving.

“Why hello,” he said as he neared, hands loosely clasped behind his back as he walked with a confident air of one used to doing exactly as they intended. “What have we here?” His accent may or may not be familiar to her, his cajun’s drawl not as thick as it once was since coming north.

When Maija looked up to the man speaking to her, she was presented by perhaps one of the prettiest men she had ever seen. Not pretty in the sense of using expensive products or the like that many men used to make themselves more attractive, and for lack of a better term, metrosexual, but more.. Regal. A king amongst commoners. (Appearance 4: Enchanting Gaze).
[Maija]
The man approaches, and it wasn’t without notice. She learned very young to be well aware of her surroundings, even when seemingly lost in a task. As he drew near, under that hoodie her shoulders stiffened, muscles tensed, and her thin frame went into flight or fight mode. Intensified by the prickle of rage that pressed against her when he got closer, though certainly not as bad as some. Like that Decker guy. But it’s there, none the less.

She snaps her journal closed when he speaks, though likely he caught a glimpse of the man she was sketching – cowboy hat, youngish kid, behind a steering wheel big enough to belong to a 18 wheeler. She pulls the journal back to her chest, remaining huddled as she glances up at him once…

then twice.

Then away again, down at the ground in front of her. “Nuthin.” Her accent is one of nowhere and everywhere – she’s been around enough to pick up a conglomeration, all worked into a speech pattern filled with broken and bad grammar. Nothing to give away where she’s from, unless it speaks that she’s from all over.

And she still looks ready to bolt, like a startled -but not frightened! Folks like her learn to hide that well, if indeed they actually feel it – deer. A year or more not seeing anyone with this prickly feeling, and they’re crawling all over the streets of Chicago. Figured.
[Caleb Delacourt-Alden]
Caleb did indeed catch a glimpse of her sketch, but he said nothing of it. Instead his eyes remained on her, flicking up and down as if in scrutiny. A small smile played about his lips, and unlike Decker his Rage was not something to be feared. Present, certainly, but kept restrained with the strongest hand that Caleb could wield. No, there was no threat at all wafting off from the theurge. He seemed as easy-going as his voice and accent sounded, if a bit… staunch in his ways.

“I see,” he said gently after a few moments. Skittish as a deer, this girl seemed to be. A good thing that the Silver Fang was a fairly decent woodsman in such a case. “My name is Caleb,” he offered.
[Maija]
She keeps her head down, her eyes searching. She doesn’t look in one place long, and keeps that hoodie pulled low. In the glance up there may have been the glimpse of other then her dark eyes – the suggestion of a bruise no longer vivid and purple, but fading to blues greens and yellow, to the point where pain is no longer an issue, its just the annoyance of waiting for it to fade all together. This along her cheekbone, under her eye, where a fist found purchase in some unnamed, unmentioned way. The shadows of the hoodie make it hard to see, however, as when she does glance up, it’s carefully, and the gaze falls oh so quickly away once more.

He speaks gently, and if anything that ratchets her tension higher. Gentle is not to be trusted. Anger speaks better truth.

“Yeah, and?” Mouthy, this one, when she’s of a mind to be.
[William D’Aubigne]
William hated his job. There really wasn’t much that he really liked about his job. He was, however, very good at it. And he was more than willing to suck it up and deal. What William Did like, however, was his lunch break.

And that was where William D’Aubigne took his entrance. Stage right, off the corner, and then he started to head on down the path. Funny, because if someone had asked him tne years ago what he thought he would be doing, he never would have imagined, in his wildest of dreams, that he would be spending ninety percent of his life in a suit.

Not just that, but he never would have thought that he would be glad that he would be in a suit. William was cold. It was sun-shiny. It was a nice enough day, but it was chilly. He started to loosen his tie and made his way around the bend. Attire was mostly greyscale. Grey suit, black shirt, silver tie.
[Maija]
She’d been left hanging, as Caleb didn’t reply – instead stepping away to take a phone call. Not that she cared, really, as she ain’t one who’s big on small talk. Or rescue missions by self-envisioned white knights. When it seemed he wasn’t coming back anytime soon, the thin girl settled back onto the bench, folding her legs into ‘criss cross apple sauce’ as her mama used to call it way back in the day, and setting her journal on her lap.

She flips again to the page she had been drawing on, and studies it. It ain’t a bad representation, really, though it’s little off. Workin from memory does that. She uncaps her pen, and once again sets blue ink to white paper, working on filling in the details, to hopefully make it less ‘off’.

Her thin fingers are pale, and cold, but the grip on the pen is firm. The rest of her is much as he’d remember. Dressed the same, the backpack settled by a hip, and her head covered by the hood of her oversized gray sweatshirt.
[William D’Aubigne]
He had an interesting relationship with his tribe. Not quite a love/hate relationship. Something that wasn’t so easily defined; so, seeing Caleb on the phone nearby made him hesitant. Made William curious as to whether or not he should approach the small-ish gathering or if he should turn around.

He did, however, end up looking at the small-ish waif on the bench. She was drawing, that semeed to be what caught his attention and like a gnat to a lightbulb, William decided it was in his best interest to head on over.

Maija didn’t change much. Same hooded sweatshirt, same backpack- the only difference was that today she wasn’t drenched and pushing a car. He cleared his throat as an indication of his arrival; no need to be stealthy. No need to come from seemingly nowhere. “Mind if I sit here?”
[Maija]
Her gaze snaps up as he clears his throat, and there’s that familiar line of tension that settles across her shoulders again. This time it is brief, and she relaxes into her slouch again almost immediately as she recognizes the wannabe curator. She lifts a hand, and uses the pen to scratch idly at her jaw, before letting it fall to her lap again. A thin shoulder lifts and falls once.

“Free country.” that’s what she says in reply to his question. It’s said without irritation though, different than the way she had spoken to the unknown garou a while before. Will, she’s already met. And even she can’t be completely pissy with someone who bought her dinner.

Well, she could, but she won’t.

“Ain’t got ya car yet?” she asks, in her token bad grammar and conglomeration accent. Last they parted ways, his car was being towed, and she was walking away with a full belly. He’s still walking. It seems the easiest assumption to make.
[William D’Aubigne]
“I royally messed it up,” he said. The young(ish) man sat himself down next to Maija and let his posture relax. “But it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be repaired.”

The last time they had parted, his car had been a pain. It had been deader than dead, and it was all because… well, let’s not talk about how he had managed to kill the engine. William D’Aubigne was not kind to his vehicle. We ignore the abuse and move on.

He looked over at her for a moment, or rather, looking from the pen to the page and then back again. Curiousity settled over the would-be curator [not attorney. The devil was in the details here] “What are you working on today?”
[Maija]
There’s an expression that flits across her face, that might be amusement if it were ever allowed to fully come to life. Instead, it is there and gone so quickly, that it is likely missed all together – conveniently helped by the shadows of the hood, and the fact that no one in Chicago as seen her without it. Who knows what she’ll do in the heat of the summer – will the hoodie finally be shed? Only time will tell.

Right now, though, it’s on for warmth as much as anything else. She glances over at Will, then back to the paper under her pen. “Just doodling.”

It’s not exactly true. While it’s clear her style is her own, unrefined and raw, it’s also clear that she has some natural talent with her pen. Underneath the ball point, a man has come to life, with careful details that make him recognizable to any who have met the big-rig driving kid.

“Eyes ain’t quite right his time. Ain’t seen him in a long time.” that’s what she says, as she tips the page so he can see it. A moment later, she flips back to the begining of the book, and shows a better portrait of the same kid – dated almost a year ago. That one, she’d drawn while sitting next to him. The differences are clear – drawing from memory is that much harder.
[William D’Aubigne]
Having met her twice, William still wasn’t entirely certain what Maija looked like. He knew that her features were sharp. He remembered bruises, and if he focused long enogh he could probably recall the exact shape of her jawline and the lines, or lack thereof, that might be on her face. He didn’t remember her eye color, he didn’t remember her hair color. William D’Aubigne knew of Maija by the sound of her voice and her general silhouette in a hoodie.

If she changed clothes and didn’t talk, William would be none the wiser.

His eyes weren’t quite the same this time. William looked at the picture for a moment and refused to think of it simply as doodling. He observed, and with a quiet sort of curiosity he watched what she was working on. “Who is he?”

A pause. “You’re pretty good.”

An understatement.
[Maija]
Its a matter of survival, the way she hides while remaining right in front of him. She’s been on he run a long time, and it’s force of habit. Perhaps even she doesn’t remember exactly what she looks like without the familiar weight of the sweatshirt over her thin frame. Her hair is always tucked inside, and each tendril that escapes is swept back into place quickly enough that the color (…dirty blond, for the record…) is forgotten easily.

He looks it over, does he comparison, and she studies the first for a few moments before going back to the current drawing. A few strokes her and there, and the eyes are closer to the original. Still not quite right – but she draws in pen. To perfect it, she’d have to start again. And she will – but not right now.

Who is he? “Trucker who gave me a lift a year or so ago. Ain’t seen him since he dropped me in Florida, leastwise not until a month ago. Caught sight of him in a truckstop ain’t too far from here. Followed the familiar face. Ain’t seen him though. Mighta just been someone what looked like him.”

A shrug. She ain’t even sure why she followed. Cept that he was nice to her when he ain’t had to be, and even she sometimes aches to see something familiar.

She pauses at the compliment, and glances over at him again. There’s a glint of sunlight caught in her eyes, though they are still dark – very dark, like the Chicago night sky. Then she shrugs it off. “Not really. Ain’t nothin’ like you’d seen in ya fancy curatin’.”

He told her his dream. She still sees him as that – dreams are what drive you. Maybe she figures he’ll someday succeed in finding his. Or maybe she just finds it wasier to deal with than his actual occupation.
[William D’Aubigne]
“If he’s a trucker,” Will started, “Then maybe he passed through the city. There’s a chance you might have seen him in passing.”

A thought, yes, because people do tend to pass through. it was the nature of the job, or… well… at least he thought it was. William wasn’t too savvy about truckers. Or trucking. We digress.

On to the picture.

“The only thing that’s separating you from the works in some museums is the fact that you aren’t a dead, egotistical white male from the Renniassance,” he stated. As thought this was fact, the thing that separated someone from being a great master was the simple: they either didn’t have the talent or they just weren’t cocky enough for it. Either way…

At any rate, we digress, because he was instead taking some time to look at the picture and appraise. It wasn’t like anything he saw in his fancy curatin’. It made him grin a little- the look suited him. It was something relaxed, that wasn’t nearly as formal as his breeding dictated. He made disheveled look dignified, which was odd because it didn’t quite seem possible.

His fancy curatin’. It seemed to be a thought both of them preferred over his current occupation.
[Maija]
There’s a jerk of her head, a nod, that agrees. He might have been just passing through. “Ain’t have anywhere else to go at the time, anyway.” So she’s here. at least for now.

Then on to the picture, and she actually chuckles at his comment. She is not dead – or male. The other two are possible, if not very probable from the way she talks. She glances up again in time to catch that little grin. It definitely suits him. It even almost – almost – brings an answering one to her own lips. Not quite, but the thought brushes over her features briefly.

Instead, she offers him the journal. “You kin look at th’rest if ya want.” If he takes it, and flips through – words are rare – in fact, there’s only he address of the brotherhood scrawled in Decker Rohl’s hand, and directions to a couple of other places. All the other pages are filled with ink, various portraits, and a few scenes – like a replica of the one she drew the other night of his car in the parking lot, translated from the napkin original to a more detailed paper version. There’s a few of Ryan – the trucker – and other people, nameless in the crowds, dating back to a little over a year ago – though the first five pages are missing. In fact, it starts with the original one of Ryan.
[William D’Aubigne]
He looked over the pages, pale green eyes taking in the pages for the time being and going over them again. It was interesting, the young(ish) man seemed very content to study them. Fingertips traveled down the binding of the page. There was some indication that some pages were missing.

His eyes fell on the address briefly, “… you’re staying there?”

Curious, yes, but at the same time… hesitant. Why was he hesitant? Well, it was a simple matter of the clientele. If she was staying there, on the second level, with all those other garou wandering about and what-have-you, it said a lot about her. It said a lot more about her than one would think, actually, but for sake of preservation of barriers, he kept it to himself. “I have an acquaintance… well, friend of a family member, really, that’s staying there.”

He looked back at the page for a moment, looking at the rendering of the car. He grinned some and shook his head. His ex-wife hated that care. Then again, Loraine hated driving anyway. Moot point. But, the fact was this: she hated that car. Looking at it on paper made him shake his head some, and then he turned the page, settling on the page with Ryan on it. The first rendering, where her subject matter sat still.

“You really should consider pursuing this.”
[Maija]
She’s oddly nervous about letting him see, though it only manifests by the way she twists her pen around her fingers. It’s more figeting than she normally does, but it’s soon channeled into a doodle – a true doodle, just shape and line – on her denim covered thigh. She doesn’t look far from her journal though, from him, as he pages through the manifestation of what captures her thoughts.

When he pauses at the address, she nods – a sharp, brief movement. “Yeah.” The admission says a lot, to those in the know – as he obviously is. There’s no tingle of suppressed rage around him, so he must be family. Cousin. Of some sort. She doesn’t offer more confirmation though.While she answers his questions, it should be noted that she doesn’t offer much more then what he asks for. Careful, always. Sometimes too careful. A lot of the times, as he’d have gathered by that fading bruise, not careful enough.

He fingers where the pages are missing, and she almost holds her breath. He doesn’t ask though, and she breathes again.

He thinks she should pursue ‘this’, and he studies him for a long moment, longer than she has before. Her gaze is sharp, direct, and misses very little, and when it settles instead of flitting away, the weight of it can be felt. Finally, she looks back at the journal. “Yeah, bet folks are just dyin for a homeless streetrat to draw pictures for’em…” Comfort in sarcasm.
[Nessa]
She is not alone, though the woman, very pale, possibly beyond the help of sunlight, might look it. Might be just another Chicagoan out to burn off a terribly unhealthy American diet, or any of many other things she isn’t. She’s a liar. She’s a thief, and worse, and a lot better besides, and a little too thin now.
She has a very good stride though, as she runs through the park towards William and the others.
[William D’Aubigne]
That was the thing about boys with privileges. They thought that people had options. That one could afford to pursue dreams instead of put bread on the table; they were lessons that were hard to learn, but learned none the less. Kept a man out of the museum, that’s for damned sure. And for Maija? Well, the harsh realities of life seemed content to keep her on the street.

Can’t really escape your birthright, now can you?

She calls herself a streetrat with oh so delicious sarcasm and his look is a little sharper than he thought. Eyes narrowed slightly, posture straighter briefly, and it was almost non-verbal reprimand. It was only there for a split second. The silence hung in the air, briefly, awkwardly. He didn’t press.

“You plan on staying in town?”
[William D’Aubigne]
(brb! relocation)
[Maija]
His gaze gets sharp at the use of the word street-rat, and she shoots him a curious glance. It’s not like she didn’t look exactly like that, a homeless kid just like hundreds, thousands of others. She doesn’t tell him that she only sleeps at the brotherhood, and refuses to take any of the free food offered unless she absolutely has too – she’s homeless and barely eats anything, but she ain’t a charity case, and hates being considered that. She spends most her days scrounging, while he spends his days in heated/air conditioned comfort doing a job he hates. Should they really compare notes, she might consider herself more free than him.

But free don’t pay for fancy schools, or meeting the right people, or getting to “pursue” anything. They really couldn’t possibly be any more different.

He doesn’t press, and moves to a different question. She lifts her hand to push back a tendril of hair that had escaped her hoodie, and tucks it behind her ear. There’s a brief flash of that bruising as she does so – it’s healing. Another couple of days and it’ll be a memory – before she pulls the hoodie low again, comfort in shadows. The people here who have actually seen her face are very few and far between. Finally, she shrugs. “For now. Ain’t no where in particular I gotta be.”

Until the it gets too heated, of course. Then she’ll be on the run. Again.
[Nessa]
Somehow, the various and sundry garou and kin manage to meet, over and over again, diners, coffee shops, random odd places, and the Park.

Parks were a great place to meet werewolves. Dating advice webpages never mention that fact. Probably, they should.

Nessa marks those standing off, or on, the path, marks them, files for later retrieval, pulls herself inwards to brace against the coming discomfort. It was speaking to people now, and none of them her little love. Hard, hard hard. Her arms were so empty.

Other people remind her of this.

She has many steps in which to cloak her bleeding heart before she is there, in hailing distance, speaking distance, closer. If Caleb is there, she doesnt’ acknowledge him in any way. A nod to the girl she doesn’t know, a small smile for William (Who REALLY needs to run more, jesus, man).
Nessa gleams from her run, glows with it, probably too much considering that she didn’t do much for a couple of weeks of isolation but manic grieving.
[Milo Maevsky]
The Shadow Lord’s constant companion and steed, an obsidian Lincoln Navigator, settles like some great beast into a parking space not too far from the park. He gets out, locking the door, clad in his usual jet-black and finely tailored Armani. He crosses into the open urban space on dimple-punched Italian leather shoes. His walk is slow as he looks around carefully until finally his eyes find his sister, whose running schedule he seems to have attuned his urban patrols to at some level.

Milo continues along the concrete and asphalt path, approaching her casually with long strides, a light smile on his face that breaks a bit at the loss that still lingers in her eyes. He leans in to put his cheek to hers, placing a hand gently on the back of her head as he rises back up to his 6’3″ height to plant a kiss on her forehead. He looks to the others with a nod, but his attention seems on hers, his front only turned slightly so that he can see and regard the others as social pleasantries dictate. “Sistra, I thought I’d find you here.”
[Kiska Maevsky]
Grant Park

It didn’t seem like such a bad place. Atleast she found somewhere relatively nice to enjoy a quiet afternoon. Her first shift at Cook County didn’t start til Friday. Lucky her, being new on the totem, she got the graveyard shifts, and weekends to look forward to.

Atleast the weather here was a bit better. Alittle warmer but not by much. She still had a few things left to unpack at her new place, maybe even find some furniture. Right now, the futon was enough. Worked as both bed and couch.

But right now, she needed to work on some things. Her dead mother dying wish. She found a bench, a quiet spot, and pulled the knapsack next to her. She pulled out one of her mother’s journals, seeming to be one from the year she was born, and starts reading through the scribbled Russian, looking for clues. Any names she found, she looked through a local telephone book to see if she might get lucky.
[William D’Aubigne]
They really, genuinely, couldn’t be any more different. And, all things considered, she had a great deal more freedom than William did. And, since William was given much more… wiggle room than most in his tribe, it was really a statement about the general condition of Silver Fang kin. [Just a commodity.]

All things aside, privilege had just as many perks as it did drawbacks.

She pushed some of her hair back- Maija was a blonde, he noted this, and then her face was obscured again. She would be staying in town, for now she would be anyway. His attention was on her briefly, but then he noticed running. The sound of foot steps, quick and focused. He looked up briefly and saw-

Nessa.

She got a nod and a bit of a wave. Something pleased, something that seemed to come second nature. An act of obvious, subconscious social grace. Nessa was jogging, running even-

And it made his body ache just thinking about it.

“.. I really need to start exercising.”
[Nessa]
She would have kept running if her brother hadn’t stopped her when he did, pauses only for him.
Her forehead is damp too. Apparently garou are not terribly fastidious about kissing sweaty kin sister foreheads.
“Privyet, Milobrat. Da, is easier to move than to stay still.” Can’t quite eat normally yet either, but that will keep. Not like he can’t tell from looking at her.
He had plans, must have had, for why he stopped her just here, just now. Nessa smiles in the way that can’t break through the shutters on her blue eyes, plain blue eyes, not sapphire, not brilliant, just blue. And waits, waits for his plan to unfurl.
Shadowlords were good at planning.
She fidgets. Kinda sucks lately at waiting. One leg, then the other, keeping them warmed up and limber.
“
[Milo Maevsky]
One he’s found the spot he will be standing in his arms, hanging at his sides, rise and fold over his chest. The look in her eyes, while it doesn’t seem to put him of, does seem to give him the need to assert his strength and dominance over his surroundings. Far from feeling ineffectual, the way she looks at him, but at the same time he is powerless to help her in this moment of time.

So he speaks. A plan is what she seems to expect, and he has ideas running through his head to pass along to her. “I have spoken with B,” only the first letter of the name given. “She wishes to be- well, a busy B. So I’ve spoken to her about starting a few companies to arrange for funds, getting back into some of her old habits should the contacts still be available to her. And I thought that the two of you could work together on it.”

And then, he turns his head as he questions her, “Did Z ever give you that list he spoke about? How are those odds and ends coming along?”
[Maija]
She glances up at the runner, but not enough to give her any indication, any real view of her face, of anything but the shadows under the hood of her over sized sweatshirt. She’s comfortable in her anonymous state – it’s the only thing that keeps her from bolting, several times a day. She has reasons for needing it, for going as she does, but few ask, and she never offers.

He waves to the girl, then says he needs to work out. She snorts – it’s as close to a laugh as he has heard from her, despite it’s briefness. “Yeah. Me too.” Of course, by the size of her, if she did, she’d disappear all together.

“Friend of yours?” It’s getting crowded. She’s getting nervous, as evidenced by the hands that take the journal back, so she as some place other then denim covered thighs to use her pen on. Focus is the name of the game, and she’d rather focus on the paper, the marks of her pen, and on Will then the group that seems to be converging on them.
[Kiska Maevsky]
Every so often she shook her head at some things. “Mama had to be on drugs.” Muttering lightly. She paused, looking around to the scenery for a brief break. She watched the runners a moment, making a mental note that she needs to start jogging again. Her attention then goes across the way to the jogger and the strange man all in black. Had to be friends, otherwise, that suit was not something you jogged in. She shrugged then her eyes went back to her reading.
[Nessa]
She nods, ouyt of breath, gulps air, then reaches down to unclip a bottle from her waist, and gulps water instead. That, she can handle. “I had thought something like that too. Is good idea, I will love to work with her on your idea, Milobrat. ”
Because its HIS idea, and she near worships him. Because it doesn’t really matter if she wants to or not. Just.. because.
“Still working on it.” And that is his answer. Her breath slows a little, for she was truly winded this time.
[William D’Aubigne]
“You need to eat a goddamned twinkie,” he said. Stated. As though this was a non-negotiable fact. The phrase ‘goddamned twinkie’ was also a phrase that didn’t seem to fit him. It was just a little too… well… common. that was a good word for it; truth be told, in his younger years William said things that would make sailor’s blush. Call it quiet rebellion.

The silver fang looked back at the groups of people forming. He paused briefly, loosening his tie again and taking the moment to look over the people. Dark and light, Nessa and a man in black. It made the Fang pause, briefly, and his stomach seemed a little off-settled. A little tension there. Something about him wasn’t quite normal.

The male screamed his breeding. it was in every line on his face, in the way he carried himself, in those pale green eyes of him. More peridot than poison [but the notion was there none the less]. William even made being relaxed look regal. That, however, was netiher here nor there.

“Nessa and I are business acquaintances. Common contacts,” he said.
[Milo Maevsky]
Milo now falls quiet as she drinks from the bottle, allowing her to catch her breath, content to look at her and appreciate her willingness to do what is asked. It is a mix of a dotting brother’s love and a recognition of value. He only nods to her answers, and then looks at the two near the bench- William and Maija. “Should I know them?” Though she’d told him of William’s part in the encounter with a small pack of bastards, he only recognizes the breeding inherent in him, and not the face he wears beneath those cultivated features. The other woman is lost in her hooded sweatshirt, so his gaze only flicks to her for a moment-

And then he speaks. He doesn’t look to Agnessa for an explanation. “Can I have that phone number I asked you for,” looking his eyes on her, as if to convey some other meaning, as he pulls a pad of paper from inside the distressed leather messenger’s bag that hangs over his backside, the strap over his shoulder and crossing his chest. He hands the paper to her, with a pen.

As he waits for whatever he seems to want her to write down, he catches the woman, also writing in a journal, or reading, neither quite strange in a park. He watches her, right back, even as he looks down. He examines her features. And whenever Agnessa looks back up, she can follow his gaze to the other woman.
[Kiska Maevsky]
Another shake of the head. She ruffled through the knapsack again and found a worn out Russian-English dictionary. She may have been fluent, but her mother didn’t teach her all the words. She examined the one she found once more, then started going through the dictionary to find it. When she did, she looked confused. She compared the latters once more. “Da, mama was definetly on drugs…or something.” She took a deep breathe, and flipped through the journal, searching out other entries.
[Maija]
“Stole one this morning.” she fires back, almost absently. It’s also untrue, and she doesn’t bother to try and hide that – she hates being a charity case almost as much as she hates being labeled a thief. She has a healthy amount of pride, this skinny ass street rat, misplaced though it may be. She scrounges for what she needs and is determined to pay her own way with the pennies she finds. She even hates the free room and board she’s been offered, and uses for lack of having anything else. But she’s the last one in and the first one gone, every night. The rest of the time, she’s on the street, scrounging.

They are so different – but little things connect them. There has likely never been an odd pair. Even the light and dark of milo and nessa are connected in their contrast. Will and Maija are simply too different. It’s astounding that they even speak, let alone converse casually as they do. It’s awkward, yet somehow comfortable at the same time.

She nods, slightly, at the information about the woman and their acquaintance. Where Will bleeds his purity, she as none. Zip. Zilch. Nada. There’s nothing at all about her that would beg a second look, unless it’s hidden under the sweatshirt, or buried in the backpack at her side. She is of little note – and knows it.

Her pen has found a new subject though – the contrast of light and dark in the runner and the suit wearer. Quick lines, simple lines, keeping her hands busy. “So.” she starts, though she doesn’t finish for a moment, and it seems like she won’t for a few moments before, inexplicably, she does. “who you know at the Brotherhood?”
[Nessa]
“William D’Aubigne, he was in park that one night. Sucky runner. Other woman, ahh I don’t recognize. ” Nessa scribbles down the number, then stops to draw a silly face on the paper too.
She isn’t sure why. Just does it. Stares at what she did, then hands the paper back a little slowly, shrugs at her brother.
He’s not looking at her anymore, though, is staring across the park at a woman instead. She follows his gaze, looks at his face, looks at the woman again, then back at Milo. He better be DAMNED glad his sister’s empathic, or she’d totally blackmail him by threatening to tell Bridget she caugh thim ogling women in the park.
Or something like that.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*The deep hood pulled over his head, the jacket tied up to cover much of the lower half of his face even. The man stepped lightly forward spotting Milo and his sister. He had been observing from afar, watching over Nessa as he has been asked. He had taken aim as possibly which was difficult enough….just in case. But with the appearance of Milo and so many others… the man had stepped down and had made his way toward them from his distant position.

He walked calmly forward, moving to stand behind Milo and Nessa, and said little…giving small sniffs to the air as he approached however.* (so who’s “Not” a garou? *grins*)
[William D’Aubigne]
“Lukas,” he replies. “He’s a friend of the Bellamonte’s and they’re family, so.” He shrugged.

As though the Bellamontes would ring any bells. William paused and clasped his hands in front of him. The two on the bench really couldn’t be any more different. And it was amazing, possibly, that they had anything at all in common. That they could sit there, with their strange stop-start conversation and continue their motions. It shouldn’t have been comfortable conversation at all.

But it was, and that would be explored at another date.

“If you see Lukas, you’d know him. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, built like a line backer,” speaking of which, he heard his name. Perked up and looked back at Nessa. He had heard his name, and curiosity dictated that he go investigate. Or, rather, his lack-of-reason dictated that he should probably go see what the fuss was about. And drag himself into a pile of dark haired, blue-eyed Shadow Lords.

“Just a moment,” he said.
[William D’Aubigne]
(wait, delete that last line, revising!)
[William D’Aubigne]
“Lukas,” he replies. “He’s a friend of the Bellamonte’s and they’re family, so.” He shrugged.

As though the Bellamontes would ring any bells. William paused and clasped his hands in front of him. The two on the bench really couldn’t be any more different. And it was amazing, possibly, that they had anything at all in common. That they could sit there, with their strange stop-start conversation and continue their motions. It shouldn’t have been comfortable conversation at all.

But it was, and that would be explored at another date.

“If you see Lukas, you’d know him. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, built like a line backer,” speaking of which, he heard his name. Perked up and looked back at Nessa. He had heard his name, and curiosity dictated that he go investigate. Or, rather, his lack-of-reason dictated that he should probably go see what the fuss was about. And drag himself into a pile of dark haired, blue-eyed Shadow Lords. However, something kept him in his seat, for now. But his attention was then split.

What an odd place to be.
[Maija]
to Vasily Zaitsev
OOC: *Raises hand* not garou. kin. No pb to speak of. :) nothing to make her stand out at all, cept she is hiding under that hoodie as always. :)
[Vasily Zaitsev]
to Maija
OOC: Thank you *grins* in these scenes, I swear that’s usually the shorter list it seems. ((Yay for the gift scent of true form. aka the insta garou spotter. *grins*))
[Milo Maevsky]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[ Intelligence + Investigation, difficulty 7, for Mindy. ]
[Nessa]
(not a garou. Just naturally wierd.)
[Kiska Maevsky]
((Kinfolk.))
[Maija]
She files away that description, as she does everything they talk about in their oddly comfortable conversations. He doesn’t even know how old she is, what she actually looks like, other then glimpses. She could pick him out at a distance, anywhere. He is open – sort of, and she is mor used to the shadows, to flitting behind, unnoticed. That’s where she prefers to be. Perhaps they get along because that is how he wishes to be, or vice versa. She doesn’t seek to define it. It simply is.

“Dark haired linebacker. Gotcha.”

His attention is split, and she glances at the siblings again. In fact, she’s actually looking at them often at this point, as their likenesses (defined by their differences) take shape under the ball point of her pen.

It’s getting crowded. She focuses on the drawing, but he can feel the tension ratcheting up a bit higher in her slight form. Her shoulders tense, her back straightens, she reaches to check her backpack’s position more than once. Flight or fight – inborn, and uncontrollable.
[Nessa]
Oh ick.
Vasily. Nessa’s eyes jerk away from any part of his ugly-face which is visible, and with very good reason. He has to be used to it.
“Privyet, Vasily.” Out of the corner of her eye, she studies the parts of his face sh is willing to look at, makes plans. He needs her plans. Seriously.
[Milo Maevsky]
He looks down at the paper and closes it, shaking his head a little with an amused smile, looking over at the two as Agnessa rattles off the man’s name. It and an examination of his face is enough to hold his attention. “D’Aubigne. From the night in the park,” repeating his haggard sister as he turns away from the two on the bench, a scowl on his face, but it’s not squarely on his sister, instead just barely missing being pointed at William as his head tosses toward him.

Vasily is given a quick nod as he approaches, and he waits until the other Shadow Lord is closer before he speaks. Milo is now between blocking Agnessa, and her reaction to his words, from William’s line of sight. “You know he’s kin of a fallen Silver Fang line, sistra? His brother fell to the Wyrm,” these words given in hushed but harsh Russian.

He glances, as discreetly as he can manage, back toward Kiska, almost as if to see that she hasn’t moved while he handles the situation that has cropped up.
[Nessa]
Well. That answers one question. Nessa switches to Russian. “… Oh. Always something wrong with them, da?” Her face turns suddenly cold, a certain cold she saves for someone who at the moment is on ice. “I guess he was not lucky as Some Persons. To have no one to care.”

Sibling dropping like flies, these days, apparently.
[Kiska Maevsky]
And Milo finds her still in the same place. She closed the journal she was looking at, replacing it in the knapsack to pull out another, even older looking journal she had found among her mother’s things. She started skimming through some till she found interesting parts, and read into it more deeply.

Then she jumped as her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her jacket and looked at the number. Her dark features turned pale. She glanced around quickly, then answered, in soft whispered tones.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*A nod given to Nessa, and he waits, saying little. Eyes narrow ever so slightly at the words spoken by the “Minister”.

Otherwise, for now his purpose is simple. He looks over those nearby, mentally recording things about them, which were garou, what hand or foot they seemed to favor in their stance and other small details, and keep such details locked away in his brain. It was, what he was meant to do after all.*
[William D’Aubigne]
What, precisely, did they know about each other? He had no clue how old she was, or where she was running to. He could put some things together, make some assumptions; Maija might have been high school aged, maybe a little older, but he wasn’t sure. She didn’t seem like she had finished school, and she was guarded. She was wise.

He was open. he wore it clearly and plainly as though he had nothing to hide- it was as much a matter of survival for him as her keeping to the shadows was. He couldn’t have secrets, he couldn’t afford to be anything less than perfect. Or anything less than unquestioned compliance.

That matter, however, was being discussed elsewhere.

“Anyway,” he said. “Hope you end up staying in town. It’s not so bad, here. I mean, the weather’s horrendous, but…”
[Maija]
She glances at him – this one is longer than most of her quick looks as she pushes a stray strand of hair back under her hood at the same time. In fact allows him uninterrupted view of the side of her jaw, the glitter of a dark eye under dusty lashes, the fact that she wears no makeup (who could afford it), the strength of features she usually hides. She even graces him with the flitter of amusement across her features – there, than gone. Guarded doesn’t even begin to cover it.

She pulls the hood back into place, and looks back at the journal in her lap, and the picture there. “If I ain’t know better, Will…” she begins then let’s it hang there between them as she turns the journal 90 degrees to add some cross hatch marks with quick strokes of her pen. She returns the page upright, and adds little details here and there before she finally continues.

“I’d think ya was wantin’ me to stay..” Again that pause, though he gets a subtle hint of humor – because she does have the sense of one, for all she hides it. “for your own nefarious purposes…”

Nefarious purposes. Now there’s a turn of phrase that doesn’t quite fit the streetrat, hm?
[Milo Maevsky]
“Where one is lost, another is found. Let’s stick to our own,” he says, looking across the park and at the bench where Kiska is sitting. “There’s something very familiar about that girl,” familial, though he doesn’t say it aloud just yet, as he continues in that same Russian.

He looks to Vasily, “Keep an eye on the man on the bench,” quickly and still in the Philodox’s native tongue. “Talk to them if you like.” He doesn’t indicate for Agnessa to follow except for with his earlier words, as he crosses the short area of park between them to advance on where Kiska remains talking on the phone.
[Kiska Maevsky]
She cursed at whoever was one the other end of the phone in Russian. Words to make some garou even blush. Then her tone went to Italian. “I don’t know how you got my number, but don’t call me again!” She slammed her phone shut and shoved it in her pocket. Kiska was shaking. Out of fear and anger from the smell of it. She settled back into the bench, something more comfortable she was hoping, but she was tense, turning her attention back to the journal.

The closer Milo got though, the more uneasy she felt. Yes, she was kin, but she was a lost kin, unfamiliar to what she truly was. Slowly she looked up and around, and as her eyes gazed around her, she saw Milo coming in her direction.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*There isn’t even a nod in response to Milo. Such actions are not necessary after all. He finds the nearest tree, and just leans up against it, merely observing the two on the bench. The one, he knows garou..the other.. he had no idea. Not garou, who knows if kinfolk or not. But she seemed comfortable in the presence of the garou… but he looked for more clues before he might approach*
[Nessa]
“Alright. ” Her breathing is back to normal now, her legs cooling from the hard run and the delay while she has stopped to chat with her brother.
And now she could stand and cool off further, and stand and speak with Vasily and maybe accidentally look at him again OR she can walk away..
Cool. Nessa smiles without any spreading of the expression to her eyes, moves with Milo towards the girl on the bench.
Anger… anger, fear, possibly more than that. Yes, more, as Milo approaches. The girl on the bench projects enough for nearly anyone to see, let alone a rather empathic person.
[Milo Maevsky]
He stops maybe two yards away from where Kiska sits, directly in front of her, looking over at his sister, and then back to her. As if he didn’t have a mirror to examine himself, so he seeks to find the resemblance between the two of them. His eyes, deep cobalt blue, stick on the stranger of a woman when he looks back. “What’s your name?” The worlds come coolly, his face screwed up in a curious scowl.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
to Maija, William D’Aubigne
((ignore the garou part…just definate kinfolk with that pb *grins*))
[Vasily Zaitsev]
to Maija, William D’Aubigne
oops, sorry, was half caught in deciding to roll per+investigation to find any sort of garou link…and finding out that William wasn’t garou but kinfolk))
[Kiska Maevsky]
Her eyes were mirrors of Milo’s, the same cobalt blue. Which was easy to see now that they were wide looking upon Milo. That mixture of fear and anger from her call quickly shifted to just plain fear. She didn’t know a sole in Chicago, and now here was this man in all black standing here asking a question.

“Kiska.”
[William D’Aubigne]
“You’ve become an integral part of my plan to take over the world,” he said. “I wasn’t going to say anything at first, but you’ve forced my hand, Maija.”

He said it with a shrug, as though he was just stating the facts. That, yes, he was going ot take over the world, starting with Europe, and then after losing confidence in Asia minor, withdrawing troops and heading torwards the rest of the western world.

He couldn’t keep a straight face for long, and he let that too comfortale grin cross his face. William looked more natural when he grinned. He didn’t seem that sort of innate holier-than-thou that seemed to come with his tribe.

“Should I start with Canada?”
[Milo Maevsky]
He sighs. When he speaks again, it’s in the same Russian he’d heard snippets of when approaching her, when she’d been on the phone. “I’m sorry. I’m not picking you up at a bar. I didn’t ask if I could get you a drink first,” not as harsh as it could have been delivered, an eyebrow rising with her first answer. A faint smile finally breaks the look on his face. He’s no longer as pressing. “I asked for your name, not what your friends call you,” continuing to illustrate what he wants from her.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*The hooded figure continued to observe the two on the bench, while leaning on his tree, and slightly covered by the shadows. He glanced over toward Milo when he heard russian, but quickly glanced byack to those at the bench*
[Maija]
“Ahh.” she says, as if this is the most natural course of events. After all, she’s exactly what he needs for such plans – uneducated, hiding, on the run street rat. It’s the perfect combination to go with his Curator wanna be lawyer ways. It makes perfect sense, right? Ha!

Should he start with Canada? She considers this for moment, as if it were a logical question. All the while her eyes remain firmly on the paper, and the quick sketch of Milo and Nessa – they were far enough away that the details are lacking, but each would recognize themselves in the differences, he all in black, she pale and light, under a streetlamp, on the path. No one would recognize them had they not seen them there, however, as it is more of the overall feel of the setting, verses any identifying portrait.

“Seems logical,” she states at last. “close, lack of a true army, and ya’ll know they secretly desire t’be part of a world order – to play with th’ big dogs, so t’speak.” She pauses, and there’s that little smirk briefly born across her lips again. “An’ wouldn’t ya look smashin’ in a Mounties uniform…”
[Kiska Maevsky]
She closed the journal, shoving it in the knapsack as she stood. Her tone a bit defensive but her russian was as perfect as one native born. ~”And I gave you my name. Now if you want what my friends call me, that would be Dr. Kiska Maevsky.” ~ Her hand slipped into her jacket as she held her place.
[Nessa]
Cobalt blue in her brother and this stranger, but a little more faded color in Nessa’s eyes.
She is, after all, a bastard. Like her son.
Probably a long, familial line of them.

Milo smiles, trying to put the girl at ease, and so Nessa shifts her stance a little, sliding into a non-threatening way of placing her self, her body, tilts her head a little to the side and twirls a lock of raven-black hair in her fingers. Crazed killers aren’t known for twirling their hair. Its a gesture which this Kiska could watch, could distract herself for a moment from the intensity of Milo’s rage-filled presence.
Russian accent. Nessa listens to it, to the cadence, to place her origin.
[Nessa]
Wait.
Ahem. Nessa blinks at the girl’s last name.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*From his place observing, even he glanced back over at the name spoken….and then looked back to those on the bench again*
[Milo Maevsky]
Milo’s own reaction is a blink, as Agnessa’s. In the moment they look more like family, however distant and removed. “That is an interesting thing,” he returns without hesitation, “because my name is Milo Maevsky, good doctor,” the last two words given in English, with the lilt of the allusion.
[Kiska Maevsky]
She looked him over, then at Nessa. Her english was just as perfect, with a Boston twang to it. “Prove it. Let me see some ID or something.” Yes, her mother said she did have family here. Yes, that’s why she came here.

But there was something else. This girl was scared. And not necessarily from two strangers standing in front of her looking freaked cause of her name. It was something more.
[William D’Aubigne]
“That’s exactly what I though,” he said. “You keep this up and we should have a good portion of the Western hemisphere by the time you’re thirty.”

Of course it made sense! It made perfect sense that they would take over the world, no one would expect it. Well, no one would expect it from her. And they contemplate conquering Canada, and he seemed content to nod of that fact. Yes, it said. They had a plan. They probably would have time tables by the end of the evening.

And wouldn’t he look smashing in a Mounties uniform?

“…”

And with that, the Silver Fang laughed. An actual laugh, one that was unmitigated and unreserved. And all that being said, it wasn’t an abrasive sound either.
[Mackenzie Walsh]
to Breeze, Caleb Delacourt-Alden, Kiska Maevsky, Maija, Milo Maevsky, Nessa, snail, Vasily Zaitsev, William D’Aubigne
(Hiiiii all, can I be REALLY annoying and ask where everyone’s characters are located? :’) )
[Milo Maevsky]
“Identification?” He smiles, and then actually gives a chuckle, looking at Agnessa with raised eyebrows. “You’d be surprised how easy those are to fake,” reaching into his back pocket to remove his wallet, folding it open as he grips half and sliding a New York driver’s license out of it. He holds it up, framed by the tips of his long, knobby-knuckled fingers, covered in callouses and scars like a auto mechanic’s might be, though there’s no grease under his fingernails. “But this would take some foresight, wouldn’t it,” a younger version of his face and the suited man’s name all on the card he shows to her.

His own accent is Northeastern, but that’s all most can tell from the dilution of a bilingual rearing, the maker’s mark of any particular city filed away by an upbringing in an insular ethnic community. He looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps his early thirties, wrinkles lightly here and there, crow’s feet at his eyes, lines on his forehead, and smile lines around his mouth that fade as the laughter stops. He isn’t particularly attractive or ugly, though certainly Russian of ancestry, pale skin, a large nose and Adam’s apple and large satellite ears. If he weren’t so muscular and wiry, sure in his movements, he might be reminiscent of the folktale protagonist Ichabod Crane.
[Maija]
He laughs – and the sound is unreserved and free, and it somehow fits him. Just as the easy grin does, both sliding years from him, and easing the stress of his day job. Some girls might even find it sexy, or adding to his allure. He’s certainly not an ugly man, and when relaxed, it’s clear that somewhere, someone will find him quite appealing on all levels. It’s a wonder he’s not married – unless, of course, he is. She’s never asked.

Another girl might tell him that he as a nice laugh, might compliment his smile. But that girl ain’t her – not directly anyway. There’s a sound of shared amusement, as his laughter washes over her. It’s been some time since she’s made anyone laugh in a way that was more with her than at her. She does, however, flip to a new page, abandoning the Maevskys for the subject at her side. She takes her time though, glancing at him occasionally to catch the details. After all, the devil is in them, right?

“Better’n’me. Th’ hats ain’t do nuthin if ya tryin to hide. Red ain’t my color neither. Of course, when we conquer Scotland, I’ll expect ya t’wear a kilt.” Because that’s logical too. There’s a pause. Then a glance and that tiny little quirk at the corner of her lips that suggests an amused smirk. “traditionally.”
[Maija]
to Mackenzie Walsh, William D’Aubigne
(Sitting on a bench, out of the way a bit, with Will. Vasily is watching them from nearby.)
[Kiska Maevsky]
Her legs felt weak, hell her whole body did. She literally fell back into the bench to sit again. The shaking resumed. Her voice was soft, surprised, as she spoke in russian. ~”My mother was right. I do have a brother.”~
[Nessa]
The twirling pauses.
Maevsky asks for … ID?
Nessa peers over to where Vasily is, double checks he’s still in Rescue Range in case THIS person is also one of the suspected ones…
As to familial connections, the Russian kin holds her knowledge close, waits for Milo’s decision to allow more knowledge or not.
[Milo Maevsky]
“A brother?” Milo had long ago assumed he probably had at least a dozen- and that’s only male sibling- but he’d never been interested in tracking all of them down. That also tells Milo a little about Kiska, as he looks down at her, where she is now sitting shocked. “What do you know about our family? What did your mother tell you?”
[Kiska Maevsky]
She pulled her hand out of her pocket, having let go of whatever it was she had in there. She closed her arms about herself, and slowly looked up at Milo. ~”I am the bastard daughter of the Devil.”~ She reached over and pulled out the first journal she was reading, and flipped through til she found her mother’s entry. She turned to show Milo and Nessa the scribbled Russian detailing her mother’s meeting with Pavel. How wasted her mother was, and waking the next morning with little memory, a huge hangover, bruises, achy, and scratches.
[William D’Aubigne]
“Of course,” he said. “Far be it from me to break tradition.”

A solid nod. Yes, far be it from him to break the traditions of Scotland and… well… kilts. Though, then he shot Maija a vaguely playful, almost conspiratorial glance. The grin on his face didn’t leave this time. William was, well, relaxed. It was a wonder why he wasn’t married. It was a wonder why he wasn’t a lot of things. That was neither here nor there.

“Though, I’m wondering if you’re not trying to get me into a kilt for your own nefarious purposes,” with a degree of mock hesitation.
[Milo Maevsky]
“Ah, yes, that does sound like dear old dad,” said before he even leans forward to read from the journal. The Devil, though, it sticks in his head. This girl has no idea what she is. Either that, or she was a very good liar. Either that, or her mother was. Because she has his same last name, the same as Pavel and his progenitors. He look over at Agnessa, another quick glance, and then back to the newly found kin. “What are you doing in Chicago?”
[Maija]
“Now why would I wanna do that, here in the windy city…” She glances up at him and that little smirk stays just a fraction longer. She ain’t talked to no one like this since… well, it’s been a long damn time.

“Ya caught me.” she says without hesitation, yet with the sense that under that hoodie their might actually be a ghost of a smile. “I’ve a whole series of portraits planned – you in various native costumes, that will make me millions as you conquer the world. It’ll pay for all th’ shit we’ll need to conquer the world. I’ll make ya an international sex symbol. Like..” there’s a pause as she searches for the name, then smirks. “Zoolander or somethin’.”

Now there’s something to aspire too.
[Mackenzie Walsh]
The Globe Pub was a soccer enthusiasts’ dream.

It also housed an open mic evening every Wednesday after 9PM as the young woman crossing the street into the park’s outskirts had just learned. She was one evening early to sit herself on a small stage under unflattering lighting and pick at her guitar; strumming the chords to a self written song. She was no true musician, Mackenzie Walsh, yet she was quite capable of keeping in tune and her voice, while not perfect, could harmonize effectively enough and carried a gentle, husky appeal that suited her lyrics.

Folk music, she could agree with what most labelled it. After all, not everyone’s cup of tea was hearing the dreamtime stories of native Australian tribes or the suffering set to music of the Zambian women.

It was cold tonight, Chicago was overcast and brooding with strong gusts of wind shaking the trees overhead, loosening fat droplets of rain that splattered and hit the passing figure as she approached the less obscure footing of an actual footpath, navigating her way across the expanse of one of the city’s more appealing natural reserves. She was wearing a pale coat, twisted at the waist where she had hastily knotted the sashes and ill-equipped to entirely keep out the cooler american weather.

Perhaps that explained why her skin looked so pale, her dark hair unloosened by the breeze danced around a delicate, heart-shaped face. The jaw was small, the chin pointed and the face altogether not unappealing, if appearing almost translucent in the dark. It was a foreigner’s face without question, maybe she was European with her dark coloring.

Her footsteps were quiet, and her fingers loose around a worn guitar case bearing various faded, peeling stickers.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*The figure finally stopped leaning against the tree, and started to walk toward the other shadow lords.

He stopped just short of Nessa, and turned to keep his gaze upon those at the bench. Although now he began to look around the area a bit more as well. Looking very much the bodyguard trying to keep his client safe….well he would have if it wasn’t for the fact that he wasn’t remotely the typical bulky size of bodyguards…*
[Kiska Maevsky]
Her voice was still soft. “Hiding. Running. Trying to live I guess.” She slowly put the journal away. “My mama’s last wish was to come here and find my brother.” She took a few deep breathes to finally calm down. “I…did some rather immoral considering I’m in medical school. And now….I’m just trying to stay alive.”
[Nessa]
Devil.
Yeah someone knows Pavel. Nessa’s brows shoot up at the word, but she is still silent. When the girl– no, doctor, a woman– hands the paper over, Nessa reads, then frowns, a shiver running over her.
Vasickly is come closer. This time, his presence is better than his absence. It’s cold of her, cruel perahps and horribly shallow of her. The exterior of the man is hard to accept. Perhaps in time, perhaps in a few more days, when she is stronger htan now, Nessa will resist appearances and look deeper.
Er. With her eyes closed.

“How did your mother know this Pavel? Did they meet after that night’s… encounter?” The hard questions have begun, with Milo’s first, continues with Kiska’s secret sister, will get worse before they get better,
and that’s only the beginning.
[Kiska Maevsky]
She shrugged lightly to Nessa. “From what I read, that was there only real meeting save for a couple of hello’s here and there. That was the only time they were together. Everything after that night is my mother cursing his existance and finding her.” She pulled out a different journal. The one she was reading just before they came over. “But these entries, from my mother’s youth, I think she was on drugs or something. She keeps talking about something called Shadow Lords, and werewolves and kin. If they weren’t so delusional sounding, they might make for nice fictional reading. But she never talked to me about these things.” Basically answering Milo’s question on what she knows.
[Kiska Maevsky]
((answering Milo’s earlier question about the family on what she knows)) (OOC> My brain faster than fingers)
[Vasily Zaitsev]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)
((truth of gaia roll not sure of diff.))
[Nessa]
“How did she know that there were more family around? Here, for example?” There are gaping holes in the tale which need closing. With the Philodox nearby, the truth of the girls words can be verified, and if she flunks, well.
Well.
Well, the problem with being Quite so empathic is that one’s heart gets involved quite easily. She blinks. Um. Poor clueless girl.
Woman.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*The voice harsh, and low in tone, hinted with a russian accent is finally heard…coming form the hood of the jacket*
“There is no lie in her tongue.”
[Milo Maevsky]
“Immoral?” He repeats the word in Russian, continuing the veritable inquisition, staring her down now.

He wears a suit and very nice shoes. He is clean shaven and his hair is recently cut and short, a field of tiny pitch black stalagmites that run on top of his head. He maybe shouldn’t seem as intimidating as he does, even for a career criminal. Not as terrifying, his eyes hinting at threats that can be fulfilled at any moment. All of this flares to a head as she begins to speak of the things in the other journal out loud.

“I need those journals. You haven’t told anyone about what you’ve read in them, have you? Might think you wrote them. Might end up in a mental institution,” might end up getting someone killed, his words measured and convincing, that of a man with the ability to steer conversations and events with little effort.
[William D’Aubigne]
(okay, sorry! posting now, I swear!)
[William D’Aubigne]
An international sex symbol.
Like Zoolander.

He had to laugh at that, namely because he was amused, and that was because of whatever lovely little thought process was running through that well-bred little brain of his. William let his grin widen slightly, shaking his head some while he imagined walk offs and tight pants and Scandinavian little people and sherpas at wild parties.

Oh, to be an international sex symbol.

“Seems, then, that it would be beneficial should you stay in Chicago as long as possible. It’s settled.”
[Kiska Maevsky]
She gave a light shake of her head. “I’m not sure, miss. I haven’t finished….I haven’t finished reading her journals. The last few years, once I was old enough, I was on my own. I hadn’t seen my mother for a couple of years til the night she came in the emergency room where I was working.” She rubbed her hands, trying to remain as calm as possible. She looked up to Milo and instantly switched to russian. ~”My mother was the mistress of some mobster for several years. Like 22 years really. He would ignore me mostly. Or beat me. Either way, my mother saw him murder a D.A. or someone. She ran to the police. They promised protection in exchange for testimony. But he found her. He shot her. The cops got there, they shot him. So when he laid on my ER table, instead of saving him….I gave him the wrong medicine on purpose to kill him. But his right hand saw me. Now he’s after me.”
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*Another small nod of his head given, but no other movement as he listened*
[Maija]
It’s settled. She doesn’t argue with him – they’re taking over the world together, after all – she simply nods. She’s started to relax a bit again, with the conversation and the fact that the shadowlords (not that she knows them as that just yet) have diverted their attention elsewhere. They’re effectively alone, even in the midst of the crowd.

His portrait is coming to life under her pen, little details like the way his eyes crinkle at the corners with his laughter, the way they squint as he smiles, the curve of his lips, the strength of his chin… she’s carefully adding each line, because ink is unforgiving. Her touch is light, her strokes driven by an innate talent – raw and undefined.

“I suppose it is.” Settled, of course. “I suppose there will have to be more meetings too. not all involving pushing ya car..”
[Milo Maevsky]
“Are you sure you didn’t talk him to death?” The scowl deeper as he looks down at Kiska, obviously amazed at how much information she was willing to share so quickly. “Your mother wanted you to find your brother. Trust me, she wanted me to have those journals,” glancing at the one she holds and then at the other. He holds out his hand, palm up, a moment after the non-request.
[Nessa]
“What is name of this right handed mobster?” She is right handed herself. Good thing, too, for she’s missing a couple fingers on her left hand. There’s no ring on her ring finger for a reason. No place to put it.

When she has the name, Nessa excuses herself, moves away to step out of sight, and makes a phone call. Likely, she doesnt really return, not visibly at least.
[Kiska Maevsky]
She looked down at the journal and then the bag. “I would like to finish them first, if that’s ok. Look, she thinks you can help me. That’s why I’m here.” Then Nessa asks and Kiska answers. “Antonio Giovanni.”
[Mackenzie Walsh]
The small figure does not lift her head as she crosses into the more populous regions of the park. Somewhere nearby the fountain bubbles away invitingly and the wind picks up enough to send leaves skirting around the booted footsteps of one Mackenzie Walsh as she shivers and turns her collar up, ducking her chin beneath it for warmth.

Voices draw her attention, the turn of a countenance toward them from behind dark, dark hair and her footsteps slow in reaction but she does nothing more but run her eyes over the seated form of a woman, the hovering bulk of two men. The tiny hairs on her nape rise, and her lips firm in response.

She hefts her guitar case up, and picks up her pace.
[Nessa]
(Ok night all! thanks for sceen!)
[Kiska Maevsky]
((Night!))
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*He glances back to the bench, and then toward Nessa as she leaves. Another word is heard from the covered figure* “Minister?” *He asks, the unspoken question if he should stay with him… or follow Nessa to guard her*
[Milo Maevsky]
His answer to Vasily is a toss of his head toward Agnessa’s retreating form, “Meet up later, at Point A,” not looking away from Kiska.

“Then finish them,” Milo finally answers her, arms over his chest, looking down at her as if he’s going to stand there while she does so. “Then we need to talk. In private. I’m not sure if you’re the dive right in, or the slow dip-your-toe-first type, though. How did you do in medical school?”
[William D’Aubigne]
“Well, then, I suppose I should get to it,” he said. “I’m a much better conversationalist when I’m not attempting to shove a Prius down the street.”

With that, he nodded and started to stand himself up. The man hesitated for a moment, eyes going to the portrait before smiling a little. Pleased. Infinitely pleased, really. He’d made it to the notebook, which must have meant something because the younger woman seemed to be so protective of it.
[Vasily Zaitsev]
*The figure simply begins to walk quietly away at Milo’s words. Following in the direction of Nessa, he says nothing further and soon he’s gone from sight*

((g’night all, thanks for the play!))
[Kiska Maevsky]
She nodded slowly. “I’m in my 3rd year residency right now. I was lucky enough to get an open slot at Cook County. One more year, then I can try for an attending slot. As for how I do? I make all A’s. Top 5 in my class. I worked very hard to get here. what did you mean by the dive right in thing?”
[Maija]
“So I see…” there’s that flicker of amusement again, as she looks up at him. He starts to stand, then hesitates as he looks at the portrait. He’s captured her interest, for sure, as has each of the people in her notebook. Those that are the most detailed, the most carefully penned. These are the ones recognizable by others that know them, and the ones she is most protective of. He’s made the notebook.

She doesn’t move to join him, not yet, if she will at all. That remains to be seen. Mostly, since he hasn’t asked.
[Milo Maevsky]
“We’re going to go for a drive. You’re going to finish those books. You’re going to learn about your mother. And then I’m going to tell you about the rest of your family,” never a question, taking his keys out of his pocket with the words. “Realize my time is very valuable. And this may take a while. But I’m willing to give it as long as it takes.”
[Kiska Maevsky]
She seemed a bit worried now. Pulling the knapsack close to her, she kept her eyes on Milo. “Why don’t you just tell me now?” Yes, right here, in a nice open public spot.
[William D’Aubigne]
“You want to go get something to eat with me? I was supposed to grab lunch and I believe that I might have failed in that endeavor,” he said. The man slipped his hands into his pockets, leaving his tie eschew and shirt partially unbuttoned. He looked damned nice in a suit, but it didn’t seem to fit his personality. Not now that Maija had seen so much of it.

And yet, both had barely scratched the surface.
[Milo Maevsky]
“If you want someone in your life that can protect you from the men that are after you,” his Russian turning a bit harsher, “like your mother obviously intended, then you’ll come with me. If not, your life will get a lot more difficulty before it gets a lot easier.”
[Kiska Maevsky]
She took a deep breathe, gathering up the bag and standing. “I’m not sure why I am doing this. But alright. And you don’t need to be so rude. I’m scared enough as it is.”
[Milo Maevsky]
“Let’s begins with your first lesson,” said as he holds out his arm for the woman to take, strolling away from the bench with here and toward his car. “Fear can be both a strength and a weakness, but it is never both…”
[Maija]
She looks up at him, his easy stance, and back to her notebook. She is fiercely proud, and he has seen that more than once. It’s not easy for her to say yes, despite how she has grown comfortable with his presence. She has, however, scrounged together a couple of bucks today. (Sometimes it’s better not to ask how) That’s what decides her. She can contribute… even if it’s only a little bit.

“Yeah, ok.”

She closes the notebook, and tucks it into her backpack, before standing to join him. He’s tall and smiling and comfortable in a suit even if it doesn’t quite fit him. She’s small, painfully thing, 110 if she has a brick in both pocket and hiding under oversized fleece. HOw they’ve managed to find common ground is the question of the ages.

She slings her pack over shoulder, makes a check of her pockets, and then nods. “Lead on, Mr. ISS.” International Sex Symbol, of course.
[William D’Aubigne]
“And you’re already trusting me to lead the way, I think I’ll make a good global dictator,” he said with a slight smile. With that, he started on to lead the way. He didn’t reach out, he didn’t touch, he didn’t offer his arm. And, oddly enough, he didn’t walk in front of her.

She had scrounged up a couple of bucks; William was more than comfortable in regards to funds. That much was understood. With his suit, his tie, all those things just served as an indication of status. And, if nothing more Silver Fangs were all about status. He was tall, she was petite, thin, and hiding in clothing that seemed more likely to eat her alive than much else.

“Chinese?”
[Maija]
“For now.” She nods, then adds with a hint of that smirk once again. “but as your second in command, I reserve the right t’kick your ass anytime I see fit.” Now that? That would be a sight to behold. She weighs nothing at all, and he’s certainly bigger and stronger. She’s scrappy, and fights dirty though, so perhaps that’d give her an edge. The street has to be good for something, right?

He doesn’t touch her, doesn’t offer his arm, but walks beside her. It’s the little things like that, the little understandings of how she works… that’s why he made the notebook. That’s why he is so memorable to her.

“Oh hell yeah.. I ain’t had Chinese in forever…” Suffice it to say she could probably eat her weight in chow mein and go back for more…
[William D’Aubigne]
The journey to getting Chinese food had been an interesting one, and one that revealed a great deal of things about the Silver Fang.

The first being this: he listened to his music entirely too loud when he thought no one was looking. When the turned the car on, there was some alternative rock station blazing songs. He turned the radio off quickly, looking a little embarrassed when his taste in music [Today? Puddle of mud. Tomorrow? Who knows what it could be.] was blasted out for his second-in-command to hear.

they didn’t know each other that well, after all.

The drive had been relatively quiet; the Silver Fang was comfortable in the silence for the time being. They were probably mentioning the occasional bit of information here and there. All in all, he seemed relaxed. And then?

“Where are you from?”
[Maija]
The music blasts, and he gets another of her quick, amused, glances. Puddle of Mudd. She doesn’t comment though, because he looked a little embarrassed, and that made it all the funnier in her mind. Instead, she props a foot on the edge of the seat, refuses to put on a seat belt, and drops an arm around her pack where it’s settled against her hip.

The drive is quiet, he’s relaxed, as is she now that they’re alone. It’s better then with strange rage machines wandering around, staring at them. It’s better than being under a microscope, and oddly enough – she trusts him. He hasn’t done anything to violate that, and she doesn’t think he will. Her gut is usually right. Hopefully this is one of those times.

Then he pops the question. (No, not THAT one!) She doesn’t answer right away. There’s an internal debate – does she give her typical usual answer, or be completely honest? A mixture of the two? Finally, she decides. “Seattle, originally. All over for the past year, year and a half.”

honesty.
[William D’Aubigne]
There was the strange hitch in conversation. The idea that somewhere might be home, somewhere else that wasn’t Chicago or where her voice indicated… but her voice indicated that she had been everywhere. That she had seen Texas and coasts and oceans and plains and all that laid between.

“Do you ever miss it?” And that… that was a sincere question. It shouldn’t have been. It should have been a pleasantry, but… it wasn’t.

He paused and then looked towards the road again. William could drive and talk at the same time. And he let it stay where it was. Open, no need to confirm or deny or what-have-you. No pressure. She trusted him, and he would not violate that trust.
[Maija]
She’s seen everything, and not always by choice. It’s not been easy since she left, and she doesn’t know if she’s still searched for, if she’s given up for dead. She doesn’t know how safe she’ll ever be – how long he’ll look, how far he’ll come. It’s the unease of not knowing that eats at her, that makes it so difficult to trust anyone. Her friends would tell her she was insane for coming here, and more so for trusting this man she’s barely met. She’s always gone with her gut and her instincts has been refined through trial. She can only pray that it’s still in working order.

Does she ever miss it?

“Seattle?” she confirms, and then hesitates again. It should be an easy question. It’s not – it’s far more complicated than that. She lifts a hand to her face, under the hoodie, where fingertips trace her cheekbone, where the bruising fades. It is not the current injury she thinks of, but the ones painted there before – many times before. There are scars that cannot be seen, though she remembers well the ghosts of their agony.

Finally, she answers. “Sort of. Places, yes, a couple of people yes. Mostly, no.”
[William D’Aubigne]
Mostly, she didn’t miss it.

She hesitated though. It was something that made him pause, made his stomach turn and made the would-be curator [not attorney. Not with Maija] suddenly felt a sense of dread wash over him. He shouldn’t have asked, but he did anyway. And it wasn’t her response that made that feeling come over him, but rather, the hesitation that did it.

And he knew that there was something that was making her hesitate.

Maybe she was insane for trusting a man she’s barely met. She was kin. He was kin. If she knew about him, she might not trust him so easily… then again, William could count his blessings in this regard. There were things that both he and Maija hadn’t brought up. They didn’t know each other well enough for it yet.

“It’s about how I feel about New York, I suppose it’s understandable,” then again, he wasn’t form New York.
[Maija]
She realizes that she’s still touching the bruises, and pulls her hand down quickly, tugging the hood back into place. It’s not the bruises she hides, so much as the face. When she left – everywhere she looked there were posters, numbers, ‘have you seen her?’s and she got used to sticking in the shadows, staying unnoticed. The closest to relaxed she’s been has been with this man she knows nothing about, not really.

They tread carefully around the truth, asking questions that won’t burst their constructed bubble built of world domination plans and pushing cars. Its as if they are afraid to actually find out, to discover what really happened – to discover what her face really looks like, what it might take to feel her gaze direct, without the shadows to buffer the weight of her stare… to discover if she can really relax enough to smile…

He feels about New York as she does about Seattle and once again they are polar opposites. He isn’t from New York, but she doesn’t know that exactly, does she? “That’s one place I ain’t been yet, New York.”

Back on common ground. Even ground. Comfortable ground. Just like that. “Is it true if ya spit off the Empire state building it kin kill someone down below?”
[William D’Aubigne]
And there they were, back on comfortable ground as quickly as they had set themselves away from it. Because, one would ask, one would get close to skirting the topic as they could and neither one of them seemed willing to jump there. Self-disclosure was awkward at best. Guards stayed where they were, and he didn’t push. And she, in turn, didn’t reveal.

He still had no clue how old she was, or even what her face looked like.
The statement still applied; he she kept her mouth shut and changed clothes, he would have no idea how to find her. Except, possibly, that she was the only non-Garou at the brotherhood.

Which was another question that William wasn’t asking.

And just like that, they were back to comfortable territory. “You know, I don’t know. I’d been and I’d never tried it. I feel like, the whole time I lived there, I never really did the things you were supposed to do in New York… never went to a Yankees game, either.”
[Maija]
William wasn’t asking questions that would push too far – it’s as if they were both afraid to take that little jump, to get to something more real then this world domination plot that has them both relaxed, in he unusual company of someone that doesn’t push too far, too fast. She doesn’t know his past, his history. He doesn’t know hers. There’s a world to discover – if only they find the courage for that first step.

Or maybe if they do, it will all fall apart, fall away.
It’s too much to risk, just yet.

“Well then.” she starts, after his confession. “When our plot for world domination lands in times square, we’ll have to let our minions handle business while we sight see.” Logical enough. “Yankees games, Empire state building, statue of liberty, carriage ride through the park. The works.”

That settles that. She glances at him again, watching as he drives, as if trying to discover what he’s really thinking. She chews on her lower lip for a moment, thinking herself, and finally – she steps over that carefully tended line. “None of that – it ain’t what you wanna ask me though, is it? G’on. I ain’t gonna disappear if ya ask something I ain’t like. Ya promised me Chinese – ain’t gonna bolt before that.” the last is said with that little smirk, that flits across her lips, and disappears again as fast as it arrives. She looks over at him for a moment, than back out the window again. The balls in his court.
[William D’Aubigne]
William stopped the car. He stopped the car, found somewhere to park [that was well lit. It seemed to be a conscious decision to do so. Location and lighting was everything]

There was a pause. Silence in the air. He had parked outside of a gas station. The kind that sold slurpees and twelve packs all night. Signs littered the store front about what they sold inside and the Awesome Dealz they could offer for the week. A carton of Marlboro Reds cost twenty bucks here.

“What color are your eyes?” he asked. What he said was, May I see?

There was a pause. A longer one. It wasn’t lost on him that he had no clue about her more obvious details, and still he asked about the less specific ones. The more personal ones. She knew he would want to ask.

“Neither one of us seem to have any intention of going back to Seattle or New York, respectively,” he said. “Tell me your reasons and I’ll tell you mine.”

As though it was an offer. An opening of the flood gates- she might not have been too honest with him, it was a matter of self defense. They didn’t know each other, but realistically, one didn’t get to know someone unless they opened up a little. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
[Maija]
What color are your eyes he says, May I see is what he means, and it startles her. That’s not what she expected him to ask first – it almost never is the first question. It actually makes her smile, briefly, and hidden. It’s the first trace of something warmer than the occasional flitter of a smirk, even if it’s hidden in the depths of that hoodie.

He continues, as she listens, her gaze somewhere in the parking lot outside, well lit, and safe – as safe as anything is these days. He chose here to make her comfortable, to make it seem less then a trap, to put it forth as it is – questions, curiosity.

A leap of faith.
And he still leaves her a way out, an avenue of escape. She doesn’t have to answer if she doesn’t want too.

And at first, she doesn’t. At first she remains still, and quiet, as she weighs the pros and cons. He may be just about to give up, just about to put the car into gear again, when she moves. It’s not fast, nor slow. In fact, for someone who’s hidden her face his entire time – it’s surprisingly casual when she lifts her hands and pulls the hood back, letting it fall to her shoulders in a dingy gray mass. She self consciously runs her hands over her hair, attempting to smooth the tangles. It’s dirty blond, what some would call dishwater blond, and longish – once it was almost down to her ass, back in the day, but on the road it was too much, so shoulder length it is. She tucks it behind her ears, which bares that bruise for him in all it’s fading glory – it had to have hurt like a bitch when it landed. She’s likely lucky there was no permanent damage.

She finally turns to look at him, to let him decipher her eye color. They’re dark, very dark brown, so dark they’re almost as black as the night outside. She’s not ugly by any means, her features strong, even if she is too thin, and as he said, needs to eat a goddamn twinkie or ten. Her lips curve into something of a smirk, again, as she lifts a shoulder in a shrug, as if to apologize for not hiding some stunning beauty underneath the depths of her hood. Her eyes though – they are striking, and see deeper than most. They’ve seen more than most, and in their depths are the clues to his other questions.

And surprisingly, she’s still honest. “I’ve been on the run since I left there. He hit me one too many times, put me in the hospital. As soon as I could walk, I ran. He spent months looking for me – still might be. I don’t know if I’m on the books here, so I keep a low profile, just in case. I ain’t goin back. Ever. It’s easier to hide in the cities. Came here like I told ya, because I saw the cowboy again. Kinda wanted to see somethin’, someone familiar for a change, for a little while. Instead, I’m planning world domination with a curator.”

This time he can see how the amusement ripples across her features, chasing her typical expression away for something amused, warmer… and very, very brief. “So. Now ya know.”
[snail]
(BITCHES! *LOL*)
[Maija]
(*LMAO* what?!)
[snail]
(wait, how long have you been here?)
[William D’Aubigne]
(*snickers* Lessa and I are fast approaching the twelve hour mark on this scene)
[William D’Aubigne]
You keep your hood up as often as she does, and it was a given that your hair was going to be tangled. It was simple science.

And when he noticed the bruise- fading into purples and greens and finally nothing- he would wince. But it wasn’t what he’d noticed at first, because it wasn’t the answer he was seeking. William D’Aubigne wanted to know what color Maija’s eyes were. They were dark, very dark. And pale green eyes fell onto hers and he studied them quietly. They were brown. Dark brown. And it brought a smile to his face- something subconscious and warm.

William wasn’t the type to forget much; all his answers just left him with more questions.

And those other questions were the ones that were a little heavier though. That held a little more weight than eye color, but oddly enough, no less meaning. He knew why she was running now. He knew what she might be hiding from, and a year and a half was a long… long time to run. That ‘he’ could be anyone from a father to a lover to a husband or a mate.

And avoiding Garou? Well, that’s an interesting prospect, indeed.

So, now he knew. And he nodded.

“Well, you gave your part, I guess I should get to mine…”
[Maija]
He miles, and she relaxes again. His smile fits him, it lightens his eyes, which are uniquely green and pale – like she’s never seen before. It softens his face, brings a warmth that is easy to respond too, if not with a smile of her own, than with a relaxation, and ease that she’s not felt with anyone here in Chicago just yet.

‘He’ could be anyone, but he doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t clarify. What she’s given is a brief sketch of what life as in Seattle, drawn in purple bruises and blood, painful to the touch even in memory. She’s given him the truth, as dangerous as that may be.

Now it’s his turn.

“If ya like. I ain’t expect nuthin, Will. Cept maybe expect ya ain’t gonna call th’cops and turn me in or somethin’. Anythin’ more that that and chow mien is up to you. No pushin, no worries.”
[Maija]
(he SMILES, even.)
[snail]
to Maija, William D’Aubigne
(bedtime, night!)
[William D’Aubigne]
“I got married in Central Park,” he said. This, however, seemed to come out of nowhere. As though that would make why he couldn’t go back to New York make sense. As though this was… no, no, this wasn’t the whole story. “To put it bluntly, things weren’t going to well back home, there was something of a family crisis and now… well… because of the fall out of aforementioned family crisis I’m divorced, indebted to my former in-laws, and my ex-wife is now mated to a half-brained half moon.”

Mated. Not married. Big difference.

“Which, while there is more, another time for another day,” he said. A little bit of a smile there, but there was… something. A little bit of a tinge of sadness there, but the wound wasn’t in the divorce, but rather, the circumstance and reality. He shrugged some, then his stomach made an unhappy sound.

With that, William started his car.

“Chow mein, has suddenly become a priority.”
[Maija]
Mated.

She had thought maybe, since he knew of the brotherhood and the patronage there. Family there, he said – or friends of the family. There are some words that erase all doubt, and Mated is certainly one of them – especially followed by ‘half-moon’.

His mile is sad, the wound deep – perhaps even deeper than hers, deeper than she’d admit to hers being, at least. She reaches out her hand, fingers thin and bony, and chilled and touches his hand when he reaches to put the car into gear. It’s a featherlight touch – and the first one between them. She says nothing, but the understanding is there, even as she pulls back again and her belly answers his.

“And sesame chicken.” Priorities.

Except for one little thing. “So. This family. Belemonte was it? Sounds distinctly… Fangish.” A slight arch of her brow, practically a stab in the dark, but fitting for all the differences between them.
[William D’Aubigne]
They would both, likely, not admit to how deep the wounds ran. They would both, likely, downplay it and cover it up with either sarcasm or beautiful words. People didn’t want to ask too many questions of William, namely because quite a few people had already heard the rumors and made up their own mind.

He reached to put the car into gear, and the first thing that he noticed was that her hands were cold. It was, truth be told, the first time that they had made any kind of physical contact at all. A lot could be said and conveyed with touch, and comfort was one of them. It made it all right that she had initiated contact.

“They’re a family, but they aren’t my family,” he clarified. “More… exceedingly distant cousins with a similar patron. D’Aubigne, not Bellamonte.” For final clarification, he added. “And yes. Very distinctly Fang-ish.”

Which brought up the next question: what was wrong with him? For all the regal bearing and nobility, there was always something that was off about Silver Fangs. They were born leaders, yes, and years of antiquated practices left the whole tribe a little… cracked. So what, praytell, was William D’Aubigne’s malfunction?

Well, that was part of the rumormill, wasn’t it?
[Maija]
“Ah.” she says, as he clarifies, and places a last name with the first that she already knew. He’s still just Will to her, though, the wanna-be curator, her first in command for world domination. The rumors always say there’s something wrong with the Fangs, that all of them are distinctly damaged in some way.

But here’s where being who she is comes into play – there are none so damaged, and so accepting, as the Gnawers. They are all flawed, the bottom rung of the figurative Totem pole, the gutter children spawned by rat. She’s the epitome of them all, yet uniquely herself at the same time. Damaged or not, he’ll find no condemnation here.

“Fancy.” she says about his name, though her’s is no less so. At least the name he knows her by. “In case it isn’t obvious by the perpetually empty belly, and stunning and fashionable attire – I’m distinctly BeeGee. Which officially makes us the oddest dinner companions and world dictators that ever was.” It’s said with that touch of amusement that colors her voice now and again, the hint of warmth beneath the sullen smirk she usually wears.
[William D’Aubigne]
(le fade!)
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