[Drew Roscoe] Tuesday.
7:00am: Alarm goes off. Get up, shower, take Basil out.
9:00am: Astrology Class
10:00am: English 2010
1:00pm: Work
6:00pm: Get off, smell like roast lamb, head down to the studio for practice
Now, roughly three hours after arriving at the small one-story studio that she and her crew choreographed and practiced at, Drew Roscoe was walking home. She only lived a dozen blocks away from the studio, so to conserve gas and stretch her legs she’d walked there after work, and was now making the same trek back. She was dressed in a pair of sweatpants, bright green with a white line down either leg, rolled up to her calves, with a simple gray hoodie zipped up a few inches below her throat, hood pulled up against the growing windchill that came from the drop of the sun.
Not the best neighborhood to be walking home alone in, but when it came down to it, were there any good neighborhoods for that left anywhere?
[Sheridan] There are certain people in this city who are able to send the average person hurrying across the street so as not to have to share sidewalk space with them, people who seem like war waiting to break out when the moon is heavy enough and feel like homicidal maniacs the rest of the time, people who look outwardly normal but have this crawling sense of barely-contained anger that lends itself to explosions of violence at a moment’s notice.
One of those people is hauling a young man down the sidewalk by the back of his neck. This person is 6’2″ in four-inch black boots, looks like a typical street person in a tan corduroy skirt and antiquated gray sweater, blond hair wavy and at least a day since its last washing, and she’s cracking a joke as she’s hauling this shorter body into an alleyway, something about how she normally charges extra for this but he’s caught her on a good day. It’s hard to make out what she’s saying because her voice is a drawling alto, kept quiet as if what she’s saying is meant for her newfound friend’s ears and her newfound friend’s ears only, and once she’s got him in the alleyway she drops a beat-to-Hell knapsack and a brown paper bag on the ground and disappears from view.
She’s not gone long. She’s gone long enough for a wet thudding to emit from the alleyway, for a sharp yelp of emasculated pain to life toward the sky, for a few duller thumps to follow up, and then she’s reappearing on the sidewalk, wiping her hand back-palm-back-palm on the thigh of her skirt before looking around to see who saw that.
Stark blue eyes light on a pretty young thing in sweatpants and a hoodie, narrowing as she seems to be reading the threat level of a kinswoman who’s a full foot shorter than her, a foot shorter and about fifty pounds lighter. The wind pulls at the blonde’s hair, tossing it around as a groan dies down behind her, and then she’s ducking down to pick up her knapsack and bagged 40-ounce.
“Idiot,” she mutters, to herself it seems, as she slings her knapsack over her shoulder and reaches into the pocket of her skirt.
[Drew Roscoe] Dear Christ, that woman is an amazon.
Drew watched the other side of the street up ahead of her, watched as a woman taller than most men she knew hauled a considerably smaller man into an alleyway. Drew’s footsteps slowed just a little, and her ears strained in the quiet of the street to pick up on what was going on when the pair disappeared out of view. There’s a slick, sloppy ‘thud’ sound, a half-holler, half-scream of pain from a voice that was vaguely recognizable as male, and some softer, almost impossible to hear thumps to close up whatever the hell was happening.
Hey, Drew. Remember that time when you stopped and investigated strange noises in an alleyway? Remember how you met Thomas there? How he jumped you, dragged you away, nearly killed you, then Changed and lost his mind and almost crushed you/killed you/raped you? That was awesome fun, wasn’t it? Well, you’re lined up for something just like that right now. Quit gawking, start walking.
Her inner voice coached, but her feet decided against shuffling further. She stayed put on the sidewalk, kneeled down, untying and tightening her shoelaces with idle, auto-pilot fingers while her eyes stayed on the alley. The blonde woman reappeared, but the man that had been with her did not. Drew’s eyebrows lifted, her eyes widened a little, but did not shout or approach. She just ducked her head, kept an eye on the woman in stupid-tall boots across the street from her from around the edge of her hood, and groaned quiet curses of luck to herself.
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: Room for another?)
[Drew Roscoe] [I’d say so. :)]
to Rory O’Bryne, Sheridan
[Sheridan] The kingirl’s sense of self-preservation speaks up, tries to coach her away from the alleyway and on the rest of the way home, but she seems to be having trouble listening to it, or else she has decided the matter of her shoelaces needs to be seen to before she can do anything else, for she’s dropping to a crouch across the street as the tall blonde smoothes her skirt and pulls a battered hand-rolled cigarette out of her pocket and pops it between her lips.
If the man has any friends, they’ve all intelligently decided that it is not worth the time or the trouble to attempt to collect him from the clutches of his abductor. The sidewalk on her side of the street is decidedly empty, and the convenience store she’d dragged the young man away from stands just as lit-up and devoid of life as it typically is at nine o’clock on a weeknight.
A disposable lighter is pulled out of her pocket, and the woman bows her head to flick it to life, to coax a flame to the tip of her cigarette as a Ford Tempo comes thumping down the street, bass pushing at the very air around them and lyrics and melody completely drowned out by the heaviness of it. As soon as it’s rolled on the blonde drops her lighter back into her pocket and starts across the street.
Looks like Drew should have listened to her inner voice.
[Rory O’Bryne] Alleyways are interesting places. The Amazon takes care of a problem in one, and in the one across the way, there’s another ruckus going on. Nothing like the neighboring area, but instead, near the mouth of the ally there are feet sticking out of a Dumpster, while the upper half is hidden by virtue of the Dive.
The legs and feet are unremarkable, really – boots and dark wash denim, and the muttering inside is unintelligible – right up until the grunt that sounds like triumph. A slender figure wriggles free of the dumpster, and soon those boots hit the ground, and a girl who is certainly NOT an amazon stands with prize in hand.
One thing stands out on the smallish woman of just 5’4″ – an tamed mop of bright red curls. Her face is hidden as nimble fingers work over the object she’d been searching for, but there’s no denying the heritage that sings through her veins, though otherwise she is curiously unscented. She’s also not paying attention.
[Drew Roscoe] Drew sniffed some, lifted a hand to rub at her nose with the cuff of her hoodie sleeve, and then tucked the sheet of dark chestnut-brown hair back up under the hood, behind her ear. When she finished with the shoelaces, she looked up again only to see the woman with the curly blonde hair strolling across the street, skirt-a’swishing, cigarette pressed between lips and expression impossible to disect.
Ohhhh shit. Oh shit oh shit.
The petite, lightweight Kinwoman rose to her feet, and made no effort now to hide that she had noticed Sheridan. Playing dumb would just be stupid at this point, because a woman like Sheridan is impossible to ignore. However, she didn’t cower either. Didn’t tuck her head, hunch her shoulders up, try to make herself smaller or less threatening. She stood facing the woman, chin level, lips steady, shoulders and feet squared, hands jammed into the front pockets of her hoodie sweater. Her eyes were bright with self-preserving worry, though, that couldn’t be masked.
[Sheridan] Some of them get off on frightening the shit out of Kinfolk. It’s easy to frighten the shit out of normal people, has to be the reasoning; it’s a lot harder to strike fear into the heart of someone who was born into this society, who knows what they are and what they’re capable of, someone who tries to keep a brave face on regardless of what comes at her.
The tall blonde was not at the bonfire that Drew attended last month, or if she was she arrived sometime after the incident with the Jarl of the Fenrir in Chicago. She had not seen the girl stand her ground and be reduced to tears as a result, had not been one of the dozen or so who stood by and watched her be brutalized by one of the most terrifying Garou currently inhabiting the city limits. She does not even know what tribe claims this tiny young woman until she gets close enough that she can flare her nostrils and take in her scent.
The human olfactory glands are not as well-equipped as the lupine’s to pick up the nuances of smell, but she can still sense the girl’s breeding when the wind picks it up and carries it to her. It’s not overwhelmingly powerful, does not ooze from her pores like some of the half-bloods’ in this city, but it can be picked up under the pungent aroma of her filterless cigarette, and as she approaches, boots thudding on the pavement and lungs pushing out a sullied breath, she does not glower or posture or try to make herself appear any larger than she already does.
This woman is not built like a linebacker, or a wrestler. She has a boyish figure, a flat chest and a flat ass to go with it, but there’s something about her that captures a body’s attention. Maybe it’s the fact that Drew just indirectly witnessed her beating the shit out of someone.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” she says, as if that were the question of the hour.
[Rory O’Bryne] Hidden under the hair, there’s a snort of satisfaction, before the smallish woman bends down to snag up the backpack left against the dumpster. She shrugs a shoulder though one strap, than the other, quickly, so that she can get her hands back on the little mechanical doodad in hand.
She turns, her attentions still not on where she’s going, but instead on what she’s doing, and moves to the mouth of the alleyway. A turn, a few steps and she stops just short of bumping into Sheridan and Drew. Her head snaps up, and green eyes widen slightly. “OH!” She scrambles back a step, and too the side as hands cradle the object protectively against her belly.
[Drew Roscoe] That was the preamble she wanted to hear. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you.’ It was assuring, considering what she was pretty sure she was being put up against. She knew the reigning policy on witnesses, and understood that her position in this event labeled her firmly as such. This impossibly tall woman said she wasn’t going to hurt her, and that was a hell of a lot more than what Thomas or Decker had ever done for her.
But that shimmer of well-placed fear didn’t disappear immediately. Words were only words, and a stranger’s promise couldn’t be trusted very far at all. She would take it at face value for now, but wouldn’t drop her guard. Instead she twisted her hands about in her pockets, straightened her arms so the hoodie was pushed out from her stomach, cleared her throat a little, and spoke in a voice that was forced not to be tremulous. “Well, that’s a start.”
She smelled not only of breeding, but of sweat and deodorant. Whatever she’d been doing up to this point, it had been straining and physical. Her hair was limp where it hung out of her hood, she needed a shower badly. She didn’t stink of fear just yet, though.
Then, on a street that was largely empty, a woman with flame red hair manifested and almost bowled her over. Drew reacted accordingly, taking a short step to the side and twisting about to put her attention on Rory, looking a little caught off-guard, but hardly outraged or angered. Instead she blinked once, then offered the woman a shaky, polite smile. “Ah, sorry.” As though she was the one that’d just almost plowed her over.
[Sheridan] By her own rights, the flame-haired Ahroun is of average height; as she comes barreling out of the nearby alleyway she nearly runs into a girl who’s several inches shorter, and her sudden appearance has the tall blonde looking over sharply, her spine straightening and her nostrils shooting twin plumes of thick cigarette smoke out into the night air. She tightens her grip on the bag-covered bottle of malt liquor, rolls her head on her spine until the vertebrae crackle, and pushes the tip of her tongue into the back of her left incisor as she regards the Cliath.
The kingirl had been shoring herself up so as not to appear as small as she has to seem to the nameless, towering blonde, and now her attention has been pulled away to focus on the Fiann who’d been previously digging through the trash.
“Nobody’s gonna take your stuff,” she tells the Full Moon, bringing her cigarette up to her lips to take a drag.
[Rory O’Bryne] She blinks, and then looks down at the little box in her hand, and up again. Her smile is slightly, shy, and she ducks her head to hide it. “Ok.” Her fingers tug at the exposed gears, as if itching to get at it and put it together, a spring misshapen and twisted poking her unnoticed in the palm.
“It’s broke. I’m fonna gix it.” Yes – she says it exactly like that, her words jumbled, and mixed up. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to notice it at all, hearing what she means rather than what she actually says.
[Sheridan] Blue eyes flit to the small box being guarded by the curly-haired Fiann, the hardness that had been in them with her sudden flying appearance from out of nowhere dissipating somewhat. It’s her moon overhead tonight, and she’s got within her several competing urges and drives right now, the urge to fight and kill amongst other things all colliding and driving each other about the space behind her breastbone, but she does not turn on either of the smaller women. Not yet, anyway.
“You’re fonna, huh?” she asks, exhaling. “What is it?”
[Drew Roscoe] Drew appraises the woman with the bright red curls with a furrowed brow, one slightly higher than the other, and the expression on her face was a loud and clear ‘What the fuck?’. The woman smiled shyly and ducked her head, speech-impedimented that she was going to fix whatever the hell she had held against her stomach. Her tongue poked out to wet her lips, and she took two steps back, distancing herself from both women, not for fear, not because the Rage was choking her out or because she wanted to be out of striking distance, but because they were crowding her, plain and simple. She wanted a little more breathing room. Two strangers in such close proximity, each with that blazing brand that made them Wolf-Monsters, was just a little much to have in her breathing space.
Her eyes flicked from Rory to Sheridan. She had the feeling that the woman had something she’d wanted to say to her, that was why she’d crossed the street after all. She knew the number one rule was Don’t Run, so she didn’t. She just stood, waited for the one with the strange, almost child-like mannerisms to finish her business, and kept her lips pressed shut.
[Rory O’Bryne] You’re fonna, she asks, and Rory blinks, confused a moment, then just let’s it slide without questioning her.
She looks over at Drew as she steps away, and then back to Sheridan. She lifts the smallish box away from her form a little, and turns it over, her palms holding the mechanical bits inside as she lifts the lid. The ballerina inside is twisted on a broken spring, armless, and it makes no sound, only a clunk. The key is missing, as are some of the gears, and the felt long ago wore away.
Another man’s trash seems to be Rory’s treasure. “A busic mox. I don’t know what song it plays though.”
[Sheridan] The tall woman doesn’t carry herself like someone who is hoping to have all notice slide away from her, to exist outside of people’s attention and operate in the background like many of her tribe prefer. That isn’t to say that she is boisterous, or that she is vying for a spot in the limelight; she carries herself like someone assured of her place in the world, someone who isn’t ashamed of herself, someone who has accomplished deeds worthy of mention and remembrance. She carries herself like a leader, not like someone simply scraping by to survive, and she looks at the Fiann not like an annoyance but like a comrade.
Granted, she’s a comrade who came the great green fuck out of nowhere and is currently impeding her ability to talk to a kinswoman who just saw her beating the stuffing out of a mortal, but they’re fighting the same war, and she doesn’t do her damnedest to drive her away as quick as she possibly can. That’s got to count for something.
“Well,” she says, her voice a drawl without regional placement, “shouldn’t be too hard to fix up. It’s just been beat up, is all. Doesn’t mean it’s permanently broke.”
A glance is cast toward the kingirl, and she ashes her cigarette before speaking again.
“Do me a favor?”
[Rory O’Bryne] “Yeah. Easy.” And it will be. It’s what she does, after all.
Then Sheridan asks her for a favor, and she looks up at her, meeting her eyes, briefly, then dropping her gaze down and away. It’s a measure of respect, and an acknowledgement of strength.
Do her a favor? “Ok.”
[Rory O’Bryne] ((OOC: I need to pick up my SO – I’ll be back in a few!))
to cricket, Drew Roscoe, Sheridan
[Drew Roscoe] The red-head stepped back and expressed concern that she didn’t know what song the music box played, and Drew’s head tipped to one side. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then turned to glance over her shoulder, to scan the street. She was about five blocks from home, halfway through her trip, it’d take about another fifteen minutes for her to get to her apartment and lock her doors and windows if she were to leave now and make it a brisk walk.
Do me a favor?
“Sure?”
Reflexive response. She only realized two seconds later that she’d agreed to do a complete brute Amazon of a Monster stranger a favor that she didn’t even know about yet. Mentally, she facepalmed. Hadn’t she learned anything yet?
[Sheridan] The Full Moon speaks up, and the Fostern frowns slightly but does not correct her in any way other than angling her body towards the kingirl and looking her in the eye, narrowing down who exactly it is that she’s asking to perform this favor.
The Fenrir girl doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know what it is she wants, but she responds almost without thinking. If there’s anything to be made of this, the tall blonde doesn’t take the opportunity. She just takes another drag off of her cigarette, then gestures across the street with the dwindling stick of tobacco and ashes it again.
“Go run across the street and see if Mister Man there’s still breathing?”
There’s reason enough for the able-bodied woman not to do it herself, but she doesn’t offer up an explanation as to why she doesn’t want to insert herself in the vicinity of a man who had caused her temper to flare up so badly she’d beaten him unconscious to begin with.
[Drew Roscoe] Drew screwed her face up at the request, but didn’t argue. Just nodded, faintly, and murmered a vague “Sure,” before turning and crossing the street, hugging her hoodie more snugly around her and trotting to the other sidewalk on the rubber soles of her loose-fitted sneakers, best described as ‘skater shoes’ by her own generation.
This wasn’t so bad. She just had to check and see if someone was okay. It was a dozen times better than what Thomas had called her to do in the middle of the night. No, a hundred-dozen times better. This wasn’t bad at all. She just had to hope that the guy was breathing and not much else, hope that he wasn’t going to try and seek retribution and take out his humiliation and rage on the next person that came along– her.
So she would, cautiously mind you, step into the alley and walk down it, peering around, hunting the floors and corners against the walls for the body of ‘Mister Man’ to make sure he was going to be alright. Her hands slid out of her hoodie pockets though, just in case she had to protect herself.
[Rory O’Bryne] (OOC: I’m so sorry! she insisted on getting food too!)
to cricket, Drew Roscoe, Sheridan
[Rory O’Bryne] Oh. Whoops. She meant Drew. Rory ducks her head, embarrassed for her mistake, shifting her weight to the side, slightly away from Sheridan as if she expects a blow to come for her impertinence, her assumption. She doesn’t cringe, exactly, she just waits.
If it comes, she’ll take it.
She’s taken her lumps many times before.
[Arthur Morgan] “He ain’t dead.”
The voice speaks from one corner of the alleyway way, propped against it with hands dug deep in loose, worn jeans. The voice is Southern, it carries a twang to it that speaks of other places, distant and strange to one in this city. The face is masked by the shadows, but it sounds young, younger maybe even than Drew Roscoe but that’s hard to distinguish in the shadowy depths of the alleyway.
It reeks of garbage and old decay down here, wet to step on and dripping coming off the fire escapes above. Had it rained recently? If not, best not to ponder too long what made the sounds.
There’s the flare of a match struck against the brick suddenly, and the aura of the tiny flame illuminates the face and upper body of the speaker. He’s young, with finely chiseled features better belonging on the runway than down here late at night. Dark, dark hair hang over his eyes, and partially concealed their pale blue colour. Rage hung off him, so he was blatantly not human — but his voice didn’t ring true of hostility — more plain fact, detached and sincere.
“But he ain’t moving anytime soon, either.”
[Drew Roscoe] What the hell was with these Werewolves? Did they get their kicks from scaring the living bajeezes out of her? Did they all lurk in corners and shadows, fingers to their mouths to stifle their giggles, tittering and shushing one another with ‘here she comes!’, just waiting until she walked by so that they could jump out and call a ‘boo!’ at her?
Sure as hell seemed that way.
Arthur spoke up, and Drew startled like any normal person would. Her heartbeat slammed against her chest and up into her throat, adrenaline spiked through her veins, made her body flush warm, made sweat prickle her skin anew, made the air stink with the burst of primal-response chemical. Her body jerked, her muscles tightened, and she hopped a step backward, arms flying up to clutch against her chest in some effort to hold her heart in, otherwise it might leap out and run away. Wide brown eyes hunted the shadows, searched the corners of her field of vision for shapes that would manifest until she found Arthur’s shadowed form.
She breathed deep, tried to calm herself, while he lit a match and illuminated himself.
Wow, that is a beautiful man.
Her tongue worked against the roof of her mouth for a couple of seconds, then she cleared her throat to get her voice working again, shifting her gaze away from that retardedly perfect face and body to hunt for the person that supposedly wasn’t going to move for a while. “Well, ah…. thanks, um, for that. Appreciate it, stranger.” She glanced back toward him, caught herself, and stared sternly away. “Where is he?”
[Sheridan] [Guys, my brain has officially stopped working. I’m gonna have Sheridan continue on her merry way here. Thanks for the play!]
[Rory O’Bryne] Sheridan moves on, and Rory watches her, with brow creased in confusion. She chews on her lower lip, and then gives herself a mental shake. The other girl went into the ally and hasn’t come back out yet.
Decision time.
She hesitates a moment longer, and then crosses the street to the other alley, and peers inside. Voices. So she isn’t dead. Ok then. Rory doesn’t eavesdrop, just makes sure the voice doesn’t raise in need of help, and settles to sit against the building at the mouth of the alley way. She pulls her pack into her lap, digging for her set of small tools, and soon is happily pulling the broken music box apart to see what she’ll need to get it working again.
[Arthur Morgan] Well, in his defense, the Ahroun hadn’t actually been actively trying to startle the girl. He’d simply come across the prone form of a man, slumped down and bleeding heavily in an alleyway and set his fingers to the human’s pulse to check for signs of life. The newly formed pack-member of Aquae Sulis had not deliberately eaves-dropped, but rather been located in close quarters at precisely the right time. Pale eyes watched her as she took him in, and for a beat Drew must have been afraid — really afraid — that he was about to snap at her, with that steady concentration he levels her way.
But then, quite unexpectedly, he pushes his weight off the wall and walks forward, the shadows cutting away across the plains of his face to reveal that he was, in fact, smiling at her. “Oh, he’s down a ways. I moved him so when he wakes up he’ll be covered in newspapers with an empty bottle by his hand, thinkin’ he got taken for a real time with Jack Daniels.”
The cigarette is replaced between his lips, and the boy takes a minute to regard Drew. He can detect the traces of breeding on her, and it wasn’t his own. At a little over six foot, Arthur Morgan was a tall, rangy kid with a mop of untended to black hair and the sort of build taken on by bowmen in times gone past. He sticks out a hand after that regarding minute, his palm warm and calloused.
“I’m Arthur, by the way ma’am. Arthur Morgan but you can just call me Art.” He continued to smile, smoke seeping out from around the corners of his mouth.
[Drew Roscoe] Arthur stepped forward, and her eyes followed his face as it came into light, studied it, appreciated it. How could they not? He was the handsomest thing she’d seen in Chicago since–
No, Drew, don’t go there. We’re not doing this to ourself anymore, remember? Moving on, moving on.
She swallowed hard and shifted her eyes past him, up the alley when he mentioned that the man was down a ways. Her lips pressed into an expression of displeasure and concern, and her hands, still pressed to her chest, wrung almost anxiously, like she wanted to do something but felt like she wasn’t allowed, or if she did she’d be put in a corner.
A Child of Gaia would recognize this in particular, though anyone should be able to. She wasn’t too hard to read, didn’t hide her emotions or make any effort to delude or make them obscure. She wanted to go help the man, she was concerned about what the giant blonde woman had done to him. She wasn’t sure if he’d deserved what he had coming or not, and considering that he was left alive he was probably just some normal guy, not a villain or a monster. She wanted to check on him, shake him awake, take him to get some water and a bed to rest in rather than leave him on the hard alley floor where he would be picked at by scavengers of all kinds and awake in terrible conditions.
But Arthur had a plan, and Arthur was a Monster, so she didn’t argue. Instead, when he stuck out his hand, she looked down at it, then nodded and took his hand in her rather petite one to accept the greeting. She was distracted, though, in many ways, so she forgot to smile politely.
“Drew.”
[Arthur Morgan] His moon was dissipating by this point, so the handshake doesn’t startle as much as it might have a few nights prior. Or hell, maybe it doesn’t startle because there’s something a little unusual about this particular Ahroun. Sure, he had that cloak of barely reigned in feeling about him and Drew could feel that little tingle way down in her belly like a fish hook had just tugged on her insides when he wraps her little hand in his bigger one, but —
On the whole he seemed far too relaxed for a Full Moon. Too calm, too pleasant.
Perhaps that was the boon of his tribe, of all the Monsters born to serve Gaia, his was perhaps the one closest to their humanity. They had not forgotten what it was to suffer with their Kinfolk, to recognize that to win the battle, they needed to support the entire team — not just the ones that sprouted fur and claws.
Drew, she says while looking none-too-pleased about the state of the unknown man down the alleyway. Strikes with Valor notices her preoccupation, and his voice quiets, turns comforting. “Don’t worry, he’s not worth your time. He’ll be just fine I promise you and back to insultin’ ladies and gettin’ beat for a smart mouth in no time.”
The boy rocks on his heels a little, peering down at his laced sneakers. “You live in this area, Drew? You want me to walk you home?” There was something very gentlemanly about the offer, as if Arthur Morgan believed he were required to speak the words.
[Rory O’Bryne] She sets the pack to the side, against her hip, and get to work. Soon, the concrete between her thighs is littered with little pieces here and there as she tinkers with the busted box. Her fingers are nimble, and seem to seek out the imperfections with ease. It’s as if she was born to find and to fix, rather than to maim and kill, fight and war as her Rage demands.
The small set of tools is put to use, as she grabs what she needs from the small packet by instinct – if she were asked to explain what she’s doing and how – she couldn’t.
The voices in the alley continue, and there does not seem to be any cause for alarm, so she pays them little mind other than to note their continued existence.
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 8 (Failure at target 4)
[Rory O’Bryne] (Oh dear. Once more with feeling.)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Drew Roscoe] Arthur’s been around long enough to hear whispers from ear to ear, to catch bits of rumors, especially since he resided in The Brotherhood. He’ll have heard the name Drew before. This was the Long Shot, the one that just turned up out of nowhere, killed a Fomor and a couple of BSD Kinfolk and shot a monster that took several Garou working together to bring down right between the eyes. But then, it’s also been said that she can’t hold herself together when confronted by Decker Rohl, that she’d panicked and tried to shoot Joe Holst, who apparently had some kind of guardianship over her. She was supposedly unstable, jittery, a troublemaker.
But right now she just seemed worried about some poor soul up the alley bleeding from the face.
Arthur’s hand wrapped hers up, she felt a curious tug in her stomach for mingled reasons that she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to explore. His Rage didn’t stun her into submission, though, even if the moon was wobbling so close to his. She kicked it with the likes of Gut-Song and War-Handed, after all, and those were two of the most unstable people that Chicago had to offer.
“Alright,” she said almost reluctantly when he told her not to waste her time on the guy up the alley, and she shifted her gaze back to his. He rocked backward, glanced at his shoes, and she let her head fall to one side a little, dark chestnut hair spilling out from under the hood that was slipping off her head to hang onto what chest was left bare by how far her hoodie had been zipped up.
You’re staring again.
She licked her lips and nodded, gestured by jerking a thumb over her shoulder to the alley mouth. “Yeah, about five blocks… ah… east. And all things considered tonight? I think I might take you up on that.” Pause. “Please.”
[Arthur Morgan] Sure, he’s heard people talking about Drew Roscoe.
He’s heard about the things she’s been rumored to have done and the things he’s been told she had done and while the talk had piqued his curiosity about the girl, he’d never actually laid eyes on her before which made this something of a kick for Strikes with Valor. After all, he was eighteen and Drew was cute. Let’s not forget that tiny nugget of gold there.
Not that he was ruled by his hormones or anything.
He’d been brought up by a good woman, and a soft-hearted man. He’d lived most of his life in a Sept of one tribe only — his own. He was also used to be stared at, because the fact of it was he was worth staring at. The boy was a Creole from down Louisiana way, his mother had been from an old french family and his father from a Spanish ancestry. Mingled together they had born a boy with the aristocratic bone structure of one bloodline, and the coloring of another. For all his beauty however — the boy was unhappy a great deal of the time.
It was hard to remain upbeat when you had a monster’s thirst for violence brimming just beneath your skin.
So he tried, he tried hard not to be the monster he knew he really was. He clung to his upbringing, and his knowledge about the other gender. Girls were nice, girls were pretty and Drew Roscoe bore more than a passing resemblance to the love of Arthur Morgan’s life. When she stares at him, Art does his best not to notice it, flicking away his cigarette instead toward a dumpster and gesturing that she should lead the way out of the alley.
Similarly attired to Drew, Art was wearing his dedicated outfit of scruffy jeans and a gray hoodie. He drew it up as they began to walk so that she could only glimpse the edges of his face; the curve of his cheek, his nose, the strands of dark hair that fell into his vision. He’s quiet for a bit while they walk, his hands burying far into his pockets again. “I heard about some of the things you’ve done at the Brotherhood,” he eventually says, turning to view the girl’s face.
“I think it’s real amazing.” It’s a compliment, whatever the it is he’s referring to.
[Rory O’Bryne] A gear snaps. She growls in frustration, and starts to paw through her backpack again. Finding a little jar of odds and ends and miniature screws and bits and pieces, she digs through, hopefully – and successfully.
A grunt of satisfaction, and she replaces the small gear, and continues to work. She can do nothing about the look of the box, not yet, not here – that stuff is all at the Brotherhood, in a small box by her bed. But what she can do, she does well enough, that when she winds the little box from the inside, turns it over and opens the lid – the song plays. Tinny and slow, but it plays.
Somewhere over the Rainbow – and her curiosity is satisfied.
[Drew Roscoe] Arthur gestured that she should lead the way, and so she did. He wore a gray hoodie like she did, but he had jeans on and she instead wore bright green sweatpants whose leggings had been rolled up to her calves to let her skin breathe some. She smelled like sweat, fresh and a couple hours old, like she’d been working out. It wasn’t a rank smell, it mingled with deodorant to make something of a part-natural part-powdery clean smell that hung to her clothes and the air around her.
Together the pair stepped out of the alley, and Drew glanced down at Rory where she was set up against the wall, blinked once, then simply shook her head and looked forward, did her best not to look at Arthur’s profile too much. Staring was creepy, after all, and she still didn’t know the policies of Garou. She knew that there were Fenrir and there were Others, and she had a feeling that this guy was an Other. He sure didn’t act like the martial, bloodthirsty boys that she found herself calling family.
When he spoke up after about a block of quiet footsteps, Drew looked a little taken aback, and turned her head to look at him as well. She appeared surprised that people talked about her at all.
“Oh? Humor me,” she grinned now. “What’d you hear?”
[Arthur Morgan] He laughed at her expression, and kicked out with a sneakered-toe at a loose pebble lying on the pavement before their feet. It shot across the street and clattered down a drainpipe. “Oh, I heard you’re a real pro shot, that you took down a monster single-handed — ” He dropped his voice to a theatrical hush, and turned to gently touch the girl’s forehead, right above her brows before continuing on.
“That took a whole bunch-a us to take down.”
He grinned, a charming, half-crooked boyish gleam. “Don’t know if I wanna be investing in that story too much though, might make me second guess escortin’ you home for fear of your might.”