[Charlie] Anyone approaching the Brotherhood through the Penumbra will notice that there are some new additions to the spiritual structure of the building. Anyone approaching the Brotherhood through the streets or back alleyway would be hard-pressed to see the building as anything other than a refurbished warehouse, as a quietly-sitting building with cars in the parking lot and the backdoor wedged open to allow the unhindered passage of bodies in and out of the kitchen.
Yesterday was a brutal reminder of the fact that this city does not give a shit about them, that they need to be ready for battle even on nice days in the park. It’s easy to forget this lesson when too much time has passed between close calls and Gatherings; but the Sept’s Philodox elder and Master of the Challenge had just fallen four days ago, two of his tribemates in staggered succession before him. There have been four deaths this month already. There would have been five last night if the metis living in Room 3 hadn’t shown a fierce determination to live.
He’d last seen Joss climbing into an awakened van. He’d walked her kinswoman back to her apartment for reasons that would take some thought to accurately puzzle out, and then he’d gone back to the place where he showers and sleeps and spent the night patching and stitching up his jeans. The t-shirt had been a lost cause. It’s been bleached and relegated to the second drawer to be used as scraps.
Charlie is up on the roof right now, barefoot and wearing corduroys and a zip-up sweatshirt. He’s sitting on the ledge, cross-legged, staring out over the water and sipping from a pipe. The smoke surrounding him is dank and heady, marijuana rather than tobacco, occasionally scattered by the breeze. He’s physically alone, and his stomach hurts.
Smoking weed is less draining than ignoring his injuries, and so here he is.
[Joss] She can’t remember the last time she’s eaten. Or slept.
Outwardly, things are much the same: dreads, sweater, skirts, flats, Godi bag. What’s missing in her smile. What’s missing is that bounce in her step. What’s missing is something so vitally a part of her, that it’s jarring, shocking to those who have seen her in full form. Her eyes are redrimmed, and circled dark. She’s not sleeping well, that much is clear. She’s taking the death of her packmate, and the responsibility for it, far deeper than most expected, too, which is also clear.
She hurts.
And so, it is without her normal boisterousness that she comes to the broho today, to check on Charlie. He fought at her side, again, without complaint, and she almost lost another friend in battle. She was there when Art died, having failed to get to him in time. She was there with Evan, and failed him completely. The same battle had taken Ylva, one barely into the city, so new she was wet behind the ears. And yesterday – had it not been for Charlie’s tenacity and desire to live, she would have failed another. She cannot bear the thought of another Gathering so soon.
She came through yesterdays skirmish uninjured, thanks to the touch of the Metis Fury. Her touch in return had not been nearly so strong, but enough that he merely hurts, instead of bleeds to death. Even so, she makes her way up the stairs, then past the common room and up to the roof, following the directions of those in the know. She scuffs her foot against the floor of the roof so that he knows she has arrived and isn’t startled when she speaks.
“Hey, Charlie.”
[Kyle Velenar] (Kyle Nightmare test)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Charlie] There are few in the Nation who, if put in Gossamer Wing’s position during the fight against the pack of Black Spiral Dancers last night, would have pulled away from combat long enough to heal a fallen mule. It doesn’t matter that he is a powerful healer even without Bear’s assistance, that he’s a ruthless fighter and an intelligent strategist even under pressure. He shouldn’t even be alive right now, should have been pushed face-down into the mud when he left his mother’s womb, and the longer he stays on this earth, the longer he prolongs his inevitable return to the homelands, the harder he has to fight to prove that he’s got some semblance of worth.
It wasn’t so hard when he was younger. Twelve years later, he’s still alive, and he’s still having to claw his way towards being recognized not as a wise shaman, not as a capable healer or a gifted summoner but as one of Gaia’s children. It still surprises him, even four months after his arrival in the city, when he hears that someone respects him, or he hears that someone cares about him, or he hears someone refer to him as an equal and not a liability. It shouldn’t surprise him, but if we’re saying he shouldn’t do anything we’re having to ignore what the first twenty years of his life were like.
Given how he feels about physical contact, given how he seems hesitant to open his mouth in groups of three or more, given the reverence with which he acts around females, it wouldn’t take a natural empath to figure out that the road this young man has been walking has been rough, treacherous, cold. Yet he’s come out on the other side with a relatively sweet disposition and a patience that does not betray his upbringing. Most people don’t even assume the kid is metis the first several times they meet him.
That’s neither here nor there. The metal door glides on its hinges, and Joss triggers Charlie’s awareness of his surroundings by scraping the sole of her shoe against the composite roofing. He turns his head but does not turn at the waist. His eyes find her as she speaks, and then he brings his arm across his body to wave to her. His heart doesn’t appear to be in it.
“Hey,” he says.
[Kyle Velenar] He hadn’t been around for a week or so. It was easy to miss someone who didn’t make a lot of noise. He needed a shave which didn’t work with the dark brooding goth look he always has. His leather jacket looked like it had seen better days thanks to the massive chunks that had recently been torn out of it. His face was a little banged up too. Some bruises slowly fading to that odd yellowish tinge but still noticable against his pale skin. A slight limp as he makes his way up the stairs showing he’s not entirely okay at the moment.
Groaning softly as he walks into the railing at the top of the stairs he looks at the offending rail and looks ready to punch it. After all it should know better than to be in his way. Shuffling his feet he makes his way to his room. The small back pack held in his hand almost dragging on the ground as he walks. He needed a shower and then he’d probably be more alive.
[Joss] The heart is a fragile thing, even in Garou. Born and bred to war and fight, it is often thought that the heart is only a reflection of their fierceness in battle. The stories are told of those who fight until their dying breath, only to come back and fight again.
There are few stories of love.
There are no stories of broken hearts.
There is only war.
But this ignores the fact that there is some measure of humanity in them, though it varies to the degree. It ignores the fact that a young 18 year old teenage girl, who’s given her every breath to the Nation and the War since she the day she was born, fosters friend ships, genuine care for those she fights beside. It ignores the fact that she IS a teenage girl, and see her only as a warrior, a shaman, Godi.
Today she is more girl than Godi.
He waves, and she crosses over to him, and settles to sit by his side and look out over the water. She pulls her knees up, and hugs them close to her chest, and rests her chin atop them. The silence lingers, until she decides to break it. “How are you healing up?”
[Charlie] He doesn’t look like much, physically. He’s tall, sure, but not in the way most of the male Garou in this city are tall; he’s got some muscle on his bones, sure, but he’s painfully thin, looks as though he spends a lot of his time depriving himself of nutrients in a quest for spiritual clarity; he’s got tired eyes and cow-licked hair and occupies a strange territory between cute and goofy-looking. Most of his appeal, it seems, comes from his personality rather than his appearance.
He can be a charming little bastard at times.
Now doesn’t appear to be one of those times.
He holds the pipe and lighter in his lap as Joss crosses the roof, and blows out the lungful of smoke he had been holding as she settles down next to him. When she sits, she sits like she did in the park: holding onto herself. Charlie watches her in heavy silence for a few heartbeats, then turns away and looks out over the water, squinting as if in thought.
Joss is the first one to speak after that, and her voice pulls his attention back from the darkening lake, has his brows knitting together and his teeth briefly gritting together. She knows the shape he was in before she laid her hands on him. He is going to have a nasty scar where his leg was torn off; he’s going to have a scar when the spot where his intestines escaped finishes returning itself to normal. He already has a scar on his throat and two more on his torso, one between his shoulder blades. Last night wasn’t the first time that he was cut down by an agent of chaos.
“Alright,” he supposes. “I’m not that hurt anymore.”
[Joss] “Good.” The reply is simple. She’d offer to finish her healing job, but truth be told, he can do that on his own in another day or so. He’s walking, talking, and not that hurt anymore, so she just continues watching out over the lake.
There was only one time, in her past, that she can remember feeling like this, when her heart was torn in two, when she wonders briefly – very briefly – if it is worth it. She always comes to the conclusion that it is, that faith will overcome her frailty, that she will reclaim her smile once again. Evan would want that. He’d also kick her ass for feeling that it is all her fault, for letting it hold her down. She won’t let it for much longer. The fierceness with which she fought the day before proves it – she’ll come back, one painful step at a time.
“Thanks.” She says, though it’s not clear what she means, until she continues. “For walking Drew home. I lost my temper, and she frustrates the holy hell out of me.”
[Charlie] For a moment, he has to be wondering if she’s thanking him for the healing work he did on her yesterday. He could have very well just left her lying on the ground and kept fighting with Walks the Line and the two kinswoman, but he didn’t. They all may be warriors, but he is a son of Pegasus, a follower of Bear: he is a healer first, always, and the life of his elder was more important than whatever glory he might have gained slaying Black Spiral Dancers. They needed her strength then, and Charlie had been cut down because he chose to mend rather than fight.
He almost didn’t come back last night. He’s not afraid of dying, knows that he has to go sometime, but the thought of what another packmate’s death would do to Buried Hatchet, or what his death would do to Face of Death, is what had him fighting so hard. If it weren’t for those two, he might have gone quietly, without complaint.
That’s not why Joss is thanking him, though. She’s thanking him for walking her Kinfolk home. Charlie scratches the side of his nose with the base of his Bic, then sniffs and lifts the pipe to his lips, lighting the weed in the bowl and taking a long hit off of the stem. He holds it in for several seconds, then holds it out to her, brow knit in questioning, a Want some? without words.
Whether or not she takes it, Charlie blows out his breath and says, “She doesn’t know a lot about us. I don’t think she’s got a lot of commons sense, neither. She’s young, though. She’ll learn. You just gotta be patient with her.”
[Charlie] [Uh, how about “common sense,” singular?]
[Kyle Velenar] Grabbing some stuff from his room he makes his way to the bathroom. After checking to see if the place was empty he heads into one of the showers stalls. The sound of running water and the soft coppery scent of blood mixing with hot water the only sign that he’s in there. No idle singing or humming or even the odd curse when the water goes too cold or hot for a few seconds here and there. Finally the water is turned off and a few minutes later, Kyle limps back to his room. Wearing a long sleve shirt and his familiar collar he looks almost normal again except for the shorts that he’s wearing. Around his leg he’s wrapped his towel and the limp is a little more pronounced now than it was before. Stopping in his room he gets a few things and then makes his way into the common room were there’s more light.
Sitting down he lets out a soft sigh as he removes the towel to reveal a gash along the outside of his calf. The stitching neat and professionally done meaning when it heals there won’t be much of a scar. The red wound seeming to almost glow against his pale skin. Opening up his first aid kit he sets to work cleaning and dressing his leg.
[Joss] She thanked him for healing her the night before, or so she intended. They’ve passed the favor back and forth now more than once, so it may be another she remembers. In either case, the gratitude for that certainly exists as well.
He offers her the pipe, and there’s only a moment’s hesitation before she reaches and takes it. She’s no novice – though that’s not what she’d tell her father, the Adren Godi, should he ever ask. There are some things Papa does not need to know, and her escapades in the finer arts of smoking marijuana is one of them. Especially the first time they decided to awaken it first…
So it’s with a practiced flair that she fills her lungs with the pungent smoke, and holds it, while handing the pipe back to him. She rests her chin on her arms that she crosses over her knees, and exhales slowly.
“She has a lot of excuses, instead of a willingness to learn. And this week, I find my patience in low supply.” there’s a brief huff of amusement at that understatement, as she tucks her head to rest her forehead against her arms, her eyes closing. “S’just frustrating when all it’d take is a phone call, no excuses. And she lied. She had my number. So I snapped. I don’t snap often, so I feel sorta bad? But…” and here she shrugs. Not bad enough to be really sorry. Maybe it’ll get through. Maybe Drew will hate her forever. Maybe she’ll care one way or the other. But under it all – she’s Fenrir, and better Drew be shaken by the Godi than by Silence, or worse.
She sums it all up in a few words. “Been a messed up week. How’re you guys holding up?”
[Charlie] That seems to be all the advice that Charlie has for the Fostern. He has one kinswoman currently under his protection, and she was born into the Nation in a way that the young woman in question was not. She knows her place, she knows what she needs to do to carry out her duty, and for the most part, she stays out of trouble. At least, the trouble that she gets into doesn’t tend to involve gunshots and messy cleanup.
He seems to be listening as Joss unloads, as she talks about excuses and her thin patience and details of the situation that Charlie had gathered from passively listening to the conversation amongst the Fenrir. He does not hit the pipe again until Joss shrugs, until silence settles over them a second time, and when she asks how ‘you guys’ are holding up, the Fury frowns. His eyes glance down to his lap, and he blows smoke out his nostrils as he considers how to answer, whether to answer.
He’s not quite as open about his difficulties and his trials as the Godi is.
“We are,” is how he responds to the matter of how they’re holding up. “Don’t have much of a choice, it ain’t like we can change what happened. Joey’s taking Art’s death pretty hard, but I don’t think she’s lost too many people before.”
[Joss] She nods slightly. She understands that. “Me either.”
She’s not lost many people before, and she’s not used to feeling the burden of it being her fault, of having his mate’s voice screaming in her head everytime she closes her eyes, asking why she didn’t save him, how she could have failed her mate and the father of her children. Joss had already asked herself that a thousand times. She’d come to pack with the Eagles, not to let them fall.
She takes a slow breath, and nods again. “It sucks.” understatement of the year, there. “And he’d totally kick my ass for wallowing. And I’d let him.” Then she chuckles softly, a bare glimmer of what she normally is, how easily she usually laughs. “I turned his hair pink once. Pink and sparkly. Let him kick my ass for that one too – it was well worth it.”
[Charlie] A thin smile comes across Charlie’s lips, but he doesn’t join her in her laughter, soft though it may be. He glances down at the pipe, assessing how much weed is left in the bowl, then looks back over at the Godi and asks, “Why’d you turn his hair pink?”
[Abney] Up on the roof it’s loss, loss, loss and responsibility, responsibility, responsibility. Well, someone has to keep a positive outlook. That someone is going to hafta be Tiny Doom, sheerly by process of elimination. The last person picked for a team always gets the shit jobs, and staying positive … well. The point is, she has a positive outlook, or at least is pretending to have one today. She is aided in her pretense by the joy attendant on being a huge ol’ water hog.
Abney is towelling her hair, which water dampens to a sodden sort’ve dried cornhusk color instead of her usual ultrafair sunshine-in-frost-on-ice color. A tank top, a pair of boxers, because quite frankly, she’s not really long in the clothing department and who cares what the rest of the Brotherhood’s occupants think of her skivvies? They’re all kin or garou.
The bathroom isn’t too messy, either. Abney keeps her messes neat, and quiet. The first thing she does is wander the longest way possible — just wants to see what there is to see, right — into the common room, where there is a piano that she wanders over to, sort’ve chin up looking down her nose on her tiptoes just long enough to …
Look over her shoulder, look over her other shoulder. Oh yeah, she’s alone. She wiggles her fingers and takes a dramatic seat before it, dropping the towel on the floor in the process. A nod to the right. A nod to the left. Then: BAMBAMBAM BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM.
BAMBAM BAMBAMMMMMMMMMMMMM.
A thunderous — and only musical insofar as it is made with intention and luck plays a part — cacophony emerges, probably meant to be Beethovan. And Abney headbangs in time to the not-music almost fraaantically, and without much sense of rhythm. It’s helping her hair dry. Once she’s dizzy, she stops, watches the world with widewidewide eyes as it wheels and re-solidifies. She tries to poke a real song out of the piano, but doesn’t get very far through ‘all you need is love’ before she’s hitting wrong notes.
So, one more round of BAM BAM BAM BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM before she sighs and stretches up, hooking the towel underneath her foot, the intention is to kick the towel and catch it, get dressed, and explore sommore. Upstairs, maybe?
[Abney] ooc: oh, code. screw you!
[Charlie]
[Joss] She grins a little, and turns her head to the side to watch Charlie, and meet his eyes, see his smile. “He told me I could never prank him, I’d never be able to get him like I could Sandman.” Her lips quirk again into a wry, amused smile. She loves nothing more than such a blatant challenge.
“So I snuck in his house while they were gone, and rigged his shampoo bottle. By the time he came out of the shower and realized what happened, it was bright pink – and it took him a week to get all the sparkles off him. Just because he told me I couldn’t.”
[Charlie] Charlie’s smile doesn’t last very long, and it doesn’t appear as though he’s any more invested in its life than he was in the wave that he gave her a few minutes ago. He looks tired, although he doesn’t seem as though he’s feeling a great deal of the pain persisting in his midsection. The notion of the natural redhead walking around with bright pink hair doesn’t make him laugh. Maybe it’s because Judgement in Sterling Silver’s death was so recent, or because he doesn’t understand why oddly-colored hair would be humorous. It isn’t because he doesn’t understand why people pull pranks on each other. For weeks, he and his roommate and former brother were engaged in a prank war that escalated to the point of near violence.
He lifts the pipe to his mouth again, and lights the last of the weed to fill his lungs. Pocketing the lighter, Charlie lets the smoke leak out of his nostrils before forcibly blowing it out his mouth. He can hear someone downstairs pounding on the piano with Liam’s name on it; he flinches a few times, grits his teeth, and glances over his shoulder towards the door before unfolding his legs and letting his feet dangle over the edge of the building.
“Remind me to never tell you you can’t do nothing,” he says.
[Joss] She turns her eyes to the water again, her chin on her hands, hands on her knees, as she sighs softly. “Was always a soft spot. I can be a little determined and stubborn.”
There’s that understatement again. It’s part of what makes her such a good Godi. She refuses to fail. If given a task, she’ll find a way to complete it, though it’s often through unconventional means. If told it can’t be done, she’ll do her damnedest to do it anyway. It’s why she fosters her relationship with the spirits with such abandon, it’s why she works as hard as she does.
She doesn’t fail.
[shefailedevan]
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t turn your hair pink.” A beat. “blue maybe, but not pink.”
There’s a pounding downstairs, but she doesn’t turn.
[Kyle Velenar] The sudden noise jolts him awake and he’s sitting up looking around the common room. The clattering of the first aid kit as it hits the floor is ignored as Kyle tries to figure out if he’s awake or still asleep. Catching a glimpse of Abney he lets out a sigh and rubs at the base of his skull were his collar had dug into it. Teach him to fall asleep on the couch. Shaking the sleep from his head he moves slowly to pick up the first aid kit.
[Imogen] Imogen climbs the stairs through the back entrance – she has yet to ever visit the restaurant and has no interest in doing so.
The sound of clashing chords and pounding keys makes her wince slightly, a minor lack of appreciation for Abney’s style of music. She is relieved as the music stops by the time she reaches the top step, and pushes the door open, stepping out into the common room.
The fully dressed kinwoman eyes the semi-undressed Garou without much in the way of modesty or discomfort. Merely a blink out of place – unexpected, perhaps to see someone in their boxers and tank top.
She steps further into the room – Imogen is dressed in jeans, a pale blue camisole beneath a pale blue sweater. Her hair is vibrant red, her skin pale, her eyes dark – like twilight, like midnight lit by stars.
She keeps a hand in her coat as she casts a glance around the common room.
“I don’t suppose yeh know if Joss Lehrer is here, do you?” she enquires mildly. Her accent is foreign – British, though it is frequently mistaken for something else.
The faint sound of (rather oddly) happy-sounding sirens are out of place – tinny, like they might be made from a child’s toy.
[Charlie] “Joke would be on you,” he says. He’s looking out over the water as he says this, sounds as though he’s thinking about something else as he’s speaking. “I’d look badass with blue hair.” Beat. “And I’d punch you in the spleen.”
[Joss] And for the first time in days, the Godi laughs. It’s not the full-throated delight that one is used to hearing from her, but it is a laugh none-the-less. “Point taken. I’m pretty fond of my spleen remaining un-punched.”
By a friend anyway.
Most of the time.
[Abney] The clatter of the first aid kit — an invention that’s always bemused Abney, even before she knew she was garou and what that entailed: the first aid kit at her mother’s work had band aids and an instruction pamphlet and that was it — does get Abney’s attention, as does the lovely Fianna with hair as red as poem reds.
Oh, bad child of Gaia, bad. A wounded person asleep, bloody-towelled, on the couch and you didn’t notice, and instead made a racket? Deduction of coggie points. Ah well.
Abney blinks at Imogen, fair lashes blurring together, and the squint narrows even further at the injured guy on the couch. Then she says, “I haven’t seen her, but I was in the shower. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a room here,” and Abney’s already managed to cotton on to the fact that, usually, conversations do not happen in the dorms, “so if she wasn’t in the restaurant, you might try going up.”
[Kyle Velenar] Picking up the last of the contents he sits back up and looks around. A casual smile and wave given to both Abney and Imogen. Looking at the dressing on his wound he nods absently as he sets to work repacking the first aid kit.
[Imogen] I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have a room here. “She doesn’t,” Imogen says, a little absently, her eyes moving away to cast over the room once more. Kyle there draws her glance, her eyes dropping to the stitched wound on his thigh.
“What happened?”
While Kyle answers, Imogen pulls her hand from her pocket, retrieving a small police car, complete with flashing lights, whirring wheels, a faintly audible, tinny siren.
“Find Joss, will yeh?” Speaking to what should be an inanimate object is perhaps one of the more ridiculous things she can ever say she’s done. She puts the car on the floor, presumably to “find Joss.”
Until now, someone might think this car is Imogen’s little tool. Certainly by the order she gave it, it could be so.
However, it is more readily identified as stalker as it simply turns around and whirs back toward the redhaired Kinfolk, smacking into the toe of her expensive black pump.
Imogen glances down with a small measure of irritation and leans down to pick it up again – before the tiny vehicle can scuff the patent leather.
[Kyle Velenar] Looks to Imogen and shrugs as he looks right at her. His voice no louder than a whisper.
“Motorbikes and trees….don’t mix…..Been healed…..just a few…..odds and ends…..to heal myself…..”
Smirks as he shows he’s used to unusual situations. All part of his job and this latest one wasn’t much different. Rubbing at the collar he adjusts it a little so it sits more comfortably around his neck.
[Abney] The garou folds her arms across her chest and her eyebrows beetle as Kyle whispers his answer. Maybe a cold’s going around, because — and it’s possible that her latent sense-of-conscience stirs, at this — after the ruckus she made it’s unlikely anybody’s really still asleep in any of the dorms. Unless they were seriously, seriously out-of-it.
Then out comes the toy, and the sunshine-wet-haired-straggle-blond looks perplexed or suspicious. The suspicion smooths away to be replaced by wonder. “What in the hell is that thing? And why in the hell does it keep going for you?”
Yes. Conscience. “Sorry for waking you,” she tells Kyle.
[Imogen] “It is a car designed fer the protection o’ the Eagle packhouse,” Imogen informs Abney with irony.
“And it likes me.”
The tone of the car’s sirens become pleased again as it finds itself in Imogen’s palm, repeated horn honks expressing its pure joy. Imogen pockets it again, casting a glance toward Kyle.
“Well. They are called ‘donorcycles’ fer a reason,” she observes, not particularly with sympathy.
[Charlie] That settled, Charlie upends his pipe and sends the charred contents of the bowl scattering on the wind, their remains drifting down to the ground in particles rather than a single unified clump. The marijuana has settled over the older Theurge like a protective blanket, buffering the pain in his midsection and preparing him to return to bed and close his eyes for a few more hours; Joss may very well feel pleasantly fuzzy even after only one hit, may recognize an awakened spirit when she feels one. There would be no way for the metis to enjoy the medicinal effects of marijuana if he didn’t coax the spirit of the weed awake.
After he’s cleared out his pipe, the instrument and his hands are each plunged into a pocket; he rolls his shoulders, vertebrae crackling, and briefly glances at Joss before he speaks again.
“Did you come all the way over here just to see how I’m healing?”
[Kyle Velenar] Looks to Abney and gives a thumbs up.
“It’s all good.”
In fact he was glad she woke him up. His dreams were threatening to devolve into yet another tormenting rollercoaster ride. A soft chuckle escapes as he nods to Imogen.
“Yeah and playing…..bait isn’t…..much fun either……But all is well….”
Says the guy who’s complection resembles a corpse. Sits up on the couch so he can see everyone better
[Joss] She is feeling pleasantly fuzzy, her lashes lowered half mast over her brilliant blue eyes. She nods, slightly at his question, and that might be the end of it for a few moments – but for the fact that her belly grumbles and complains it’s empty state.
“…and for a sandwich. Best Roast Beef sandwiches in the city downstairs.”
She stretches, slowly and stands, turn toward the door that leads downstairs to the common room once again. “Want one?”
[Charlie] Joss unfolds herself from the ledge, but Charlie doesn’t seem as though he’s in any hurry to come down from off the roof. The temperature is dropping and the wind carries with it the threat of rain, but he is not paying much mind to what the weather is doing around him. His eyes lift as Joss stands, and he slowly shakes his head when she asks if he wants a sandwich.
“I’m not hungry,” he says. “Thanks, though.”
[Abney] “Yeah,” the wide-eyed no-moon says, eyeballing Imogen’s pocket. “I guess it can make it up stairs and that’s why you don’t just chuck it down into somebody’s basement?” And as Kyle qualifies what’s less fun than a ride called donorcycle, and Abney picks her towel up off the floor. “Sounds like all’s well,” she comments, sort’ve sardonic, but not personally, just by happenstance. “Well. Nice to meet you both, but I’m gonna get dressed. What were your names?”
[Joss] She nods, slightly. “Alright. If ya change your mind…”
She lifts a hand, and then turns to head down the stairs. As she goes through downstairs door, and she hears voices, and then she hears it.
The telltale whir and spin and tinny siren. She actually claps her palm to her forehead and groans. “…oh no.”
And her steps quicken. Time to face the music. (…again…)
[Imogen] Imogen’s mouth twists slightly. “It appears to manage stairs, though I do not know how.” Her name is requested. The kinfolk pauses, then offers, “Imogen.”
A glance toward Kyle as he speaks, an eyebrow arching to what he says. “Yes. I imagine so.”
Joss appears at the stairs from the rooftop. Imogen regards her, more than a little narrowly, her eyebrow arching as she reaches into her pocket to retrieve the small car once again.
“Look what I found,” she remarks. “Or more accurately: what found me.”
[Kyle Velenar] “Kyle.”
Nods as he stands up and gathers his stuff.
“Back in a moment.”
Then he limps out of the room to get rid of the first aid kit and towel he’d been using
(BRB – Grabbing lunch :) )
[Joss]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5) [WP]
[Joss] It appears to manage stairs, she says, and Joss just groans again. She knows well how it handles stairs. Usually in her pocket. And she usually remembers to lock it back upstairs in the attic before she leaves.
Apparently she forgot.
“I’m so sorry, Imogen. I…” she is properly mortified, as she closes the distance and plucks the car from Imogen’s palm and looks at it right in it’s little swirling lights and mutters. “What am I gonna DO with you? Now SHUSH.”
And it does with a little siren squeak that sounds suspiciously like an ‘eep!’, and falls still in her hand.
[Imogen] The Godi’s apologies is met with the shake of his head, “No harm done. This time, at any rate.”
Imogen regards the police car with some irony as Joss orders it to shush and it silences immediately. “Pity it doesn’t do that when I ask it to,” she remarks.
A lift of her chin indicates the little vehicle, “It ever tell yeh why it follows me like tha’?”
[Abney] “Seeya,” she’d said to Kyle, and she’d nodded at Imogen’s name, put them both in the bank of memory wot is Abney’s mind. “Hi, Joss,” Abney says, when the Godi bops down the stairs and beholds her creation’s troublesome nature. The truth is, her eyes light up a little, gleeful. And she lingers long enough to watch (hello, floor show) the car be silenced, although she’s started scrubbing her hair again with the towel. She totally wants to hear this, too. Nosy, well. It’s in the job description.
[Joss] She shakes her head, and actually chuckles. It’s not something that’s been heard often over the past few days, and it’s actually a good thing that it’s returning – if only briefly. “It’s a gift.” she says, not at all ironically, about Imogen’s not being able to silence it effectively. “Though he could do that of his own free will if he wanted not to upset you.”
It’s very much like scolding a child, though it’s said with exasperated affection – and there’s a little squeak in reply. “I know. It’s my fault I left the door open.”
“Hi Abney.” She says, as she wraps her hand around the little car. “Electric elemental with a mind of his own…” it’s the only explanation she offers the ragabash.
Then Imogen asks her question, and Joss nods, wrinkling her nose a little. “…yeah. Um. He likes your hair – says it’s red like his lights and i THINK he figures that means you’re a perfect match for him.” A helpless shrug of her shoulders. “Basically, he’s got a crush.”
…and there’s the tiniest indignant squawk from the car. “…sorry. He says it’s love and NOT a crush.”
[Kyle Velenar] (sorry all. Got to bail and get back into doing work. Thanks all :) )
to Abney, Imogen, Joss
[Imogen] Imogen’s eyes shut briefly, her lips moving in a faint murmur. “Heaven help me.”
She hardly appears to be a religious person. The words are likely more an expression than a genuine plea.
“Perhaps you can explain to him that a love like ours cannot survive in the cold light of the world.” Imogen’s sense of irony is not diminished. Her sense of humour is the type that can cut. It is borne of wryness rather than mirth. Sharp, like a blade.
[Abney] “Aww, poor thing. Just like that movie. With the car that loved so much it killed! Well,” here, a covert glance at the Fianna kin. “Maybe not just like that.”
“Nice to see you, Joss,” she says, perfectly politely — not at all like a brat who’d just been banging away at the piano keys. Why? Well, she has her reasons, and they don’t actually include car sidekicks. “Hope to see ya soon. Nice meeting you, Imogen,” and she means it, judging by the way her mouth curves into a smirk. She appreciates Imogen’s sense of humor, anyway.
And with that, the half-nekkid ragabash vacates the common room but quick. Need clothes, don’tcha know.
[Imogen] Imogen fixes Abney with a gimlet eye, an eyebrow arching. “You mean Christine?” she asks, her tone dry enough to evaporate a pond, if not a lake.
[Joss] Oh dear. Imogen said ‘a love like ours’ and the car WHRILS around in Joss’s hand to ‘peek’ at Imogen through her fingers, which causes the most curious reaction in the Godi.
Joss presses her lips together in an attempt to hold back her laughter – not just the chuckle she graced charlie with earlier, or any of the brief expressions of something other than the overwhelming sadness (andguilt) she’s felt since Evan died, but a real, full, delighted laughter. She lifts her free hand, pressing the back of it against her mouth, her eyes betraying the mirth that is threatening to break free.
Sometimes, laughter really is the best medicine.
She manages to hold it down to only a couple freed giggles, and clears her throat. “I will certainly try. Again. But you know, true love and all that…” And she near loses it to giggles again.
[Abney] A shrug, “Before my time, so maybe, whatever,” was Abney’s response, before: hallway, room. Clothes, yep.
[Imogen] Abney’s response is heard, but there’s little else for Imogen to say in response, so she doesn’t. The Child of Gaia is free to finally depart for her room for clothing.
Joss giggles, and covers her mouth, the car whirring in response to Imogen’s wry unmeant words. Imogen narrows her eyes the Godi’s way.
“You enjoy this too much,” she observes.
[Joss] She presses her lips together again, clearly trying to contain the laughter, even as she tucks the little car into her pocket, and gives it a little pat to remind him to be still. She clears her throat again, and tries to school her expression into something a little less… gleeful.
It’s not working. A for effort?
“Sorry.” Not really. “But it’s really kinda cute. And mortifying. But, you know, can you blame him?” She manages to get the giggling under control, before she shakes her head. “I’ll try to convince him behave. I tried to release him… he wouldn’t go.”
[Imogen] Imogen’s eyebrow arches slightly. “I’m rather sure there are quite a few who can,” she says, entirely without bitterness. She simply states a fact: she is not universally loved or even liked. There are several aspects of her personality that make it so.
She tried to release him, he wouldn’t go.
A pause.
“Better he’s in the car, anyway. I don’t imagine he’d be so limited as a spirit, would he?”
[Joss] She nods, agreeing with a chuckle. “Yeah. I tried only the once, after our contract ended, but then decided to let him stay. Better this little car and random escapes, than say – the volvo, or some other vehicle, or anything with electric connections, really. He’d pretty much have the run of the city if not here. So I won’t try to release him again.”
She arches a brow, slightly, and that little grin remains. “Though now, if you ever get yourself kidnapped or lost, and send a 911, we have an easy way to find you.”
That cough was not to hide a chuckle.
Honest.
(…not)
[Imogen] A sound of amusement, faint in the back of her throat.
“How reassuring.”
[Joss] That does it – she cracks up again, this time not even trying to hold it back as she leans against the wall and practically doubles over. It doesn’t last long, but long enough, until she’s able to catch her breath and wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Oh hell, I needed that.” Another moment, and she straightens up, and pushes her dreads back over her shoulder. “Anyway, I was headed to get a sandwich in the kitchen, want one?”
[Imogen] Imogen watches Joss as she falls back against the wall, holding her sides with laughter. Her amusement barely holds a candle to the Godi’s. It’s a smirk. Just barely there.
She’s invited for a sandwich. She tilts her head slightly toward the backstairs. “I should head back. Ha’ work t’do.”
She steps back, heading toward door.
“Ha’ a good night.”
[Joss] She nods, slightly, and smiles. A genuine one, one that says there is a way to come back from grief – if only for moments at a time. Life is laughter to the Godi, and it feels good to have tasted it once again.
“G’night, Imogen.”
[Imogen] (thanks for the scene!)