[Elliot] These days it’s cold in the Windy City. The wind blusters and bites and howls as fiercely as any of the city’s more supernatural inhabitants, nipping at exposed skin. It’s been snowing fitfully since yesterday.
And yet none of that seems to bother the tall red-haired woman strolling aimlessly down the street, hands shoved into the pockets of her coat. Elliot is wearing layers of clothing, not out of a necessity for warmth, but in a way that suggests everything she owns is currently on her person. Her bulbous, oversized sunglasses are pushed up on top of her head, holding the tangled mess of her hair back from her face.
She walks without purpose or direction, just going where her shoes take her. North, east, west, but not back south, not back to the house The Forgotten have claimed as their own. Just out, and away, looking for solitude in a city that rarely sleeps.
[Joss Lehrer] Unlike Elliot, Joss doesn’t walk without purpose. No, she’s actually spinning in circles. Not for any real reason other than it’s fun, and sometimes she acts like a child, instead of the 18 year old young woman she really is – let alone a Fostern of the Nation…
There are a smattering of small parks throughout the green, and this one is no better or worse than the others – it simply is. And near the side where Elliot will pass is a merrygoround, that Joss has gotten up to a dizzying spin, only to hop on, and lay in the middle of it, and let it spin her until she’s dizzy – and it stops on it’s own.
And she’s laughing.
Why wouldn’t she be?
[Elliot] Ordinarily, the aloof and taciturn metis would continue past the spinning Godi with little more than a flick of her eyes in the younger woman’s direction.
But when the merry-go-round slows to a stop, Elliot’s gaze flicks in that direction, and she stops. Because she recognizes the Fostern from the moot. She who summoned Uktena during the so-called trial of Wahya Many Tongues. The Godi is laughing at her own antics. The Philodox just watches for a minute, maybe two, in silence. Her expression remains as implacable as ever.
And she starts her slow ambling stroll once again, her feet leading her away.
[Joss Lehrer] She sits up, because it’s more fun that way, to watch the world spin, and tilt crazily. Her head tips to the side as the movement nearby attracts her attention, and she shakes her head vigorously to clear it. She searches for a name, and then smiles as it comes to her.
“Hello, Elliot. It is Elliot right?” She furrows her brow, trying to remember, to make sure she got it right.
“What brings you out this way?” Idle curiosity.
[Elliot] The one called stops. When Elliot turns to face Joss, it starts with a turn of her head, then a turn of her shoulders, a twist of her waist. Her pale face is as impassive, as immovable as stone.
“Gossamer Wing-rhya,” she greets simply. At the moot, there were times when Elliot fairly vomited words, the same as any other of her moon. Tonight, with the moon beginning to darken, Elliot is quieter, more introverted. Perhaps more herself.
Silence stretches between them. Elliot stares at Joss. At last she says, “Exploring.”
[Joss Lehrer] She gestures with a grin. “Just Joss is fine. Nothing formal here.”
She’s dressed similarly as she was at the Moot – as she is just about every day. Earth tones, skirts and a warm sweater, tonight with the addition of gloves and a scarf. She even has sock on under her flats – will wonders never cease…
She smiles and scoots to the edge of the merrygoround, her shoulder resting on the bar as she idly moves the giant toy back and forth. “I do that a lot. Find anything interesting?”
[Elliot] Elliot blinks, slowly, as if the act of lowering and raising the lids over her pale eyes will help her absorb information. In this case, calling Joss by her given name rather than her deed name.
“No,” she replies after another long pause. Someone must have used up all of her words at the moot last week.
[Joss Lehrer] “Bummer.” She grins. And lifts a shoulder into a shrug as she gives the Merrygoround a single spin, bringing her around to face Elliot once again, and just rocking it back and forth.
She’s quiet, and Joss is rarely that. If she’s no one to speak too, she talk to the spirits – or to herself. The Godi is a lot of things. She’s also weird.
“You lead The Forgotten, right? Chloe’s one of yours, I think…” It’s simply idle conversation, really.
[Elliot] Elliot is quiet. She’s solitary. For a long time, years, she was alone. And yet as soon as she came to Chicago she felt the pull to stay, to find a pack, to belong again. She still prefers solitude to the idle chatter of her packmates, still seeks out the quiet places of an otherwise loud, noisy, bright city.
She is still…adjusting.
Part of that adjustment is coming to terms with dealing with people again. Joss is not quiet. She’s trying to strike up a conversation with the metis, but it’s difficult. It’s not something Elliot means to do.
When Chloe is brought up, the ghost of a frown shadows her brow. Her head tilts a fraction of an inch to the side before righting again.
“She is.” A faint note of concern, a questioning lift of a red brow, and Elliot finall takes a few steps forward, bringing her closer to the Godi. “Has she done something?”
[Joss Lehrer] Elliot assumes that her packmate has done something in order to bring the attention of the Godi her way, and Joss laughs softly. “No, no, nothing like that! I met her the first night she came to town.”
She crosses her arms on top of the cross bar, and rests her chin on it. “I’m glad she found a pack, a place to belong.” A beat, and knowing that Elliot is relatively new herself, she continues. “You too, of course. It’s always good to see new packs forming, growing stronger.”
[Elliot] When Elliot stops, she’s well out of the reach of Joss. The moot had been her first true experience among this new sept, and while no one struck out at her for speaking up, no one hunted her down afterward to beat her into the pavement, she is metis. Unlike most of her breed, Elliot doesn’t tread carefully around other Garou, head bowed and hoping to go unnoticed, to avoid punishment for the sin of parents she never knew. That doesn’t mean she thinks the smiling Godi won’t attack her without provocation.
She shifts her stance, weight moving from one foot to the other. Her face smooths back to pale impassiveness.
“We were not designed to travel alone for long. I should return to my pack. Good night, Joss.”
Elliot dips her chin once, faintly, a sign of respect, before turning back in the direction from whence she came.
[Joss Lehrer] She watches Elliot go, still sliding the Merrygoround side to side. Something filters through her gaze, but it is undefined, and missed by the Metis that has already turned her back, and started away.
She sighs softly, and then just lays back against the base of the toy, watching the sky as she spins around lazily, now.
Sometimes, even when you’re not alone…
…you can’t help being lonely.