[Joss] Her duties are far from over, far from finished, but there comes a time where the Godi, Fostern and strong, can no longer stand what she must do – at least not for a couple hours. Not without some sort of release, some break, something to allow her to allow the weight of the nation break across her shoulders, and react the way any other 18 year old girl would in the face of tragedy.
[it hadn’t been enough, she hadn’t done enough]
Usually, when she needed someone to be there for her, since arriving in Chicago, it was Evan she turned too. He encouraged her, tested her, questioned her, counseled her. He was more than a packmate, he was her friend. And now, she feels alone in a way she hasn’t since she came to be here, since she became Eagle. Given her choices, it’s unsurprising that she shows up at Imogen’s door.
She is still covered in blood, though it is dried and soaked into her clothing, another layer added to the dark earth tones she usually wears. She had cleaned her face, her hands of most of it, though there is still some crimson flaked in her dreads, flecked across her jaw, her neck, her arms. Because of it – she bypasses the security guard and desk completely, and instead uses a janitor’s closet to arrive via the umbra on Imogen’s floor. She is careful, still, even now.
And so she arrives, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed, hiding the tearstains on her cheeks, the obvious anguish in her eyes, as she raps lightly on the door to Imogen’s apartment.
Little girl lost.
[ithadntbeenENOUGH]
[Imogen Slaughter] There is a brief silence on the other side of the door, then the sound of a deadbolt being thrown back and the door opening.
Imogen is dressed in jeans, a dark blue blouse in silk. On her feet are nylon stockings, her hair back from her face in a bun, strands coming down from her temples.
“What happened?”
There are few reasons a Garou of the Eagles would come to her door covered in blood with tear stains on her face. None of them good.
Then, before Joss can answer, Imogen adds, “Com’in out o’ the hallway,” her eyes glancing out past the girl for any inopportune neighbours.
[Joss] She’s trembling, and it’s visible. She’s holding on by a thread, though. There’s nothing left, nothing sense of rage that she normally holds, she is all but completely spent and it’s sheer tenacity that she is upright, that she is still moving, still performing, still….
She doesn’t answer, right away, as she’s urged to come inside, before the neighbors decide to look and see what’s going on, despite all her stealth. Joss pauses in the entry way, and slips from her shoes, as if the rest of her isn’t a complete mess. She does it automatically, without thought, and then forces the words past a throat raw and ragged, unable to even look up. Not now. Not yet.
“E…Evan.”
[holdonjustholdon]
[Imogen Slaughter] There is a long pause. Joss is not looking up at the redhaired kinfolk, but she can the Godi can still sense her gaze. Imogen regards Joss for several long seconds.
“He’s dead, then.” Quiet. Though phrased, partially as a question and there is a pause, clearly for her answer, Imogen has no lilt to her voice. The words are even, almost dead.
[Joss] He’s dead, then. Joss nods – and it’s barely a movement. She can’t quite get the words past her throat, can’t quite finish the statement that Imogen makes for her. She takes a shuddering breath, and closes her eyes, before opening them only to watch a spot somewhere on the floor near her feet.
“I…i tried…. it..” she stops, and the next three words fall with the heartbreak of an 18 year old girl. Not garou, not warrior, not member of the nation, but a young teenage girl. “…it wasn’t enough.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen regards Joss for several long seconds, silence filling the air. Her jaw draws taut as her teeth tighten together.
Somewhere, a clock ticks, rhythmic, charting time.
“C’mon,” she says quietly, her voice low. “I’ll get you a towel and you can ha’ a shower. Get cleaned up.”
[Joss] The clock ticks, marks the seconds, the minutes, charting time – time that’s stopped for the young Godi..
[she sees him fall, over and over, the spray of blood, and tastes the savagery with which she exacted revenge. she can still taste the blood, feel the coppery strings of muscle and sinew and bone as it snapped between her jaws, just… too late. Just seconds too late…]
Imogen offers a towel, a shower, and Joss nods, again, slightly. There’s a moments pause, and she lifts her head, to look at Imogen for just a moment. The pain is stark in her eyes, the feeling of failure, of letting them down, of not being enough – it’s all there, unhidden, unbidden, honest and raw. Then she drops her gaze, and wipes her eyes, her nose with the back of her hand, and clears her throat. “…ok.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Emotion and compassion are not words frequently applied to the redhaired kinwoman. Cold, calculating, ruthless are more appropriate. An emotional teenager, devastated over the death of her packmate is not particularly within her purview. It is not within her expertise.
She offers a shower. A chance for the girl to get clean. An opportunity to be alone with her emotion, the weight of it. A chance to get the blood off.
This is the closest to compassion she has on such short notice.
She tilts her head back toward the hallway and steps away. She leads Joss to the guest bedroom, stepping in to crouch down in front of the sink, opening the cupboard to retrieve a towel. Rather than handing it to the girl, she hangs it on the towel bar, casting a glance at her.
“I’ll get some clothin’ tha’ll fit you,” a glance over the girl’s height. “More or less, anyway. There’s soap and shampoo in th’basket there,” a tilt of her head toward the basket hanging from the shower head.
A beat.
“I ha’ scotch, vodka and rum. D’yeh ha’ a preference?”
[Joss] She offers what she can, and in the offer is found… if not comfort, something to hold on to, something to keep her standing, to keep her moving. Her night is far from over, and these may be the only moments she has to collect herself, to find some measure of strength she is generally known for, said to possess.
She steps into the bathroom, and notes where Imogen says things are, and where she places the towel. Then she offers something stronger, and if she has a preference. She scrubs her hands over her face, and then softly. “Vodka.”
Though perhaps tempted to ask for whichever bottle is fullest, if only for a moment.
She turns then, and begins to peel the clothing from her slender frame, her sweater lifted to reveal the scar she received just a week ago, whens another coggie fell when she couldn’t get to him in time either. That one wore on her, where this one, Evan, has devastated her. The scar, however, looks as if she were gored, straight through the center of her torso, just below her heart, a blow that would kill any human, a blow that DID kill her, if only for a few seconds, before she returned to fight again.
Evan hadn’t returned.
itwasntenough
The only other scars are those across her thighs, though perfectly and deliberately placed, and another thing all together. She is not modest, all told, and whether Imogen is there, or gone, she simply disrobes, laying her clothing on the counter, and steps into the shower, under water so hot the steam begins to fill the room quickly.
[Imogen Slaughter] There is a distinct disparity between Imogen’s height and Joss’s. Joss is taller; her proportions are different. Still, Imogen finds clothing – a pair of cotton drawstring pants, a black tank top. She leaves them at the door, the smell of steam and soap coming through the door and jamb. She does not lock or say anything, merely leaving them where they are.
From there, she heads to the kitchen, to her liquor cabinet. She retrieves the scotch first and pours herself a glass. Drains it half-way before going to find her cell phone and dial a familiar number.
Joss is still in the shower, the water running while Imogen leaves a message on Rohl’s voicemail, then drops the cellphone back on the coffee table with something resembling irritation.
By the time Joss is leaving the shower, Imogen has retrieved the vodka from the freezer, a shot glass. She drains her scotch, before pouring out the shot and leaving it on the table for Joss to take or leave as she chooses.
[Joss] She takes her time. She lets the water beat at her body, pounding the blood from her frame, burning the shame from her skin as lets the water rain over her form. It smells of steam and soap and once the water runs clear, she sinks to sit in the tub, and let go.
Let it all go.
Under the pound of the shower, her tears go unheard, her shoulders shaking with the force of her mourning, her shame. She cries until she can’t cry any longer, until she’s found some measure of solace in the complete and total exhaustion of her emotion. And then she sits some more, until the chill of the water forces her to move to get up, to get out, to get dressed.
It’s weird wearing pants. She can’t remember the last time she’s done that, certainly not since achieving fostern, since she was gifted her spirit drum.
When she finally steps from the bathroom, the towel hung neatly, her bloodied clothing folded and gathered, and dressed in what Imogen had found for her, she is reasonably in control again, though it’s obvious it had been lost completely in the short amount of time – and when she moves to the table and the shot glass – she takes it without hesitation, and tosses it back.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen merely watches Joss toss back her drink, having not poured herself another. The warmth of scotch heats her stomach, runs through her veins, loosening her joints, but leaving her mind clear, her words completely without a slur.
If Joss wants another drink, she can pour it herself. Though Imogen has offered a Fianna solution, she makes no moves to actually inebriate the Garou.
“It’s odd t’see you in trousers,” she remarks, mildly. It’s a placeholder, a series of words to fill the air. It’s not the last thing she says.
“It’s not your fault.”
[Joss] She does, indeed, pour herself another, with hands that tremble slightly, still. It may be a Fianna solution, but it’s familiar and real and something normal to hold on to, to help keep herself together. She has so much more to do tonight, still, and over the next couple of days. It’s a slim thread she holds on to, and she’s clinging with all her strength to that frail measure of control.
It’s odd to see her in trousers, and the comment causes her a huff of breath to fall free. Any other time it would have made her laugh. At least it gets a reaction. She runs her hands over her thighs, and looks down at herself before she admits. “Weirder to wear’em. Haven’t since I gained Rank.”
When Imogen tells her it’s not her fault, that’s when she lifts the second shot, and tosses it back, closing her eyes tight and resting the back of her hand against her mouth for a moment as the liquid burns it’s way down to her belly, and settles there to work it’s warming way through her slender frame.
Part of her knows, though right now it’s a small part, swallowed by a greater whole. She takes a breath, and exhales, setting the shot class down on the table. She doesn’t refill it again.
“Yeah.” It’s not agreement, or even denial. It’s acknowledges that the words were spoken though – she’s still a lot to process before she can absolve herself of responsibility. “S’just the second time in as many weeks that I was…” too slow, inadequate, not enough. She nods, again, slightly, and then settles again on… “Yeah.”
[Imogen Slaughter] She takes a seat. The drinks are at the dining room table – or at least the vodka is, the shot glass and Imogen’s empty tumbler. She had no intention of drinking more – the scotch has been returned to its cabinet.
She crosses her legs at the knee, watching Joss as she trails off.
S’just the second time in as many weeks that I was… “Not enough?” Imogen finishes the sentence with an arched eyebrow.
A pause, Imogen looks away, her gaze falling on the empty scotch glass. She picks it up, turning it slightly in the light that comes from the lamp above the dining room table. There is a bead of scotch left. She watches it as it slides along the side of the glass, leaving a trail of sheen along it.
She sets the glass down.
“Rohl tries to protect me,” she says it bluntly, abruptly as if she has meant to speak for a while, and only just now decided how to do it. The words are unfamiliar, uneasy. She speaks them unhesitatingly, though, now committed to her path. “I tell him – ” a pause. Not so committed, then. “That he cannot be everywhere at once. Tha’ no one is ever truly safe, not living th’way tha’ we do.” Joss perhaps does not know Imogen quite well enough to recognize the rarity. The “we” as opposed to “you” or “them”.
“What I mean to say – and what he doesn’t want to hear – is that we all die. And most of us will die violently.”
A beat.
“You can’t be everywhere at once. No one is ever safe, not the way yer kind lives. And everyone has their turn to die like Evan did.” She doesn’t know, truthfully. She can’t possibly. But she can guess. Violently, Abruptly. Painfully.
She draws a sharp breath, and her tone changes slightly. Becomes firmer. Gains an edge of finality.
“And everyone else needs t’go on. Live a little better because o’ them. Fight a little harder because of them.”
[Joss] Imogen takes a seat, though joss doesn’t at first, not until she finishes her statement for her. Then it’s a matter of sitting down before falling down, as the strength simply desserts her. She takes a shuddering sigh, and nods, again. She blames herself, that much is clear. Even if there was nothing she could do.
When Imogen continues, and talks about Rohl, she lifts her head to watch her, to meet her eyes as she speaks unfamiliar words and absorbs them, like a sponge. She lets them sink in, listens in a way that she might not with others, to words she’s likely heard before, will hear and even say herself again. She has see loss before, but never this close, never someone she’d really admired, learned to care for, befriended.
In the end she lets the silence linger, watching as her fingers pluck at her clothing bundled in her lap. She sighs, softly. “Yeah.”
A frustrated sound, and then she sums it all up. “This sucks.”
[Imogen Slaughter] The comment provokes a faint sound of amusment, though truly, little of it shows in Imogen’s face.
“I should say so.”
[Joss] She lifts a hand and pushes back her dreads. In the process, her shoulders square, and she leans back into the chair. It sucks, and Imogen agrees, and she just stares at nothing, quietly, for a long moment.
“I have t’tell Randi, too. An’ do the rite.”
Then she swallows. “Two rites. Another Godi – only been in town a couple days.” She closes her eyes again, briefly, and then she nods, as if confirming it to herself, or simply trying to find her courage again. It’s a lot for the young to bear.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen regards the Godi for several seconds. Then lifts her chin toward the vodka, “Yeh want t’take it fer the wake?”
[Joss] She looks at the bottle, and then takes a breath, and nods. “He would want flavor of the Fang too.” She reaches for the bottle, and makes sure it is closed all the way, before she lifts the sweater in her lap, and tucks it into her bag.
She stands, then, and slips the strap of the bag over her head, settling it to her shoulder where it dissects her torso diagonally. She wraps her arms around her clothing, and then finally fully meets Imogen’s gaze. “Thanks. You know, for…” letting her in. talking. the pants. the shower. the vodka. “…everything. I’d best get to it, then. I’ll return your cloths after I wash’em.”
[Imogen Slaughter] She shakes her head slightly, getting to her feet herself.
“Don’t mention it.”
She follows Joss as far as the door, watching as she gets on her shoes, crossing her arms loosely at her ribcage, leaning a shoulder against the foyer wall.
“Goodnight,” she says, as Joss reaches for the . It holds the place of what should be more solemn, more compassionate. An I’m sorry for your loss, or call me if you need anything.