[Marrick Fisher] [how is she today?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Marrick Fisher] Strangely enough, she had a sort of resolve that came from a talk with a certain Galliard.
Once she was done seething, her mind went somewhere else. She looked at the people in a particularly popular little coffee shop in Lakeview. It wasn’t quite what Sinclair had said that tipped her off, but rather, something her alpha had said. Something that had the blonde looking at people in coffee shops idly and trying to figure out, precisely, what was up with them.
She thought that the blonde at the counter was having an affair. Marrick wasn’t sure.
She wondered where the ring went.
[Joss Lehrer] The godi? Is weird. There’s no doubt about it, and she even claims it, herself. She just, quite simply, doesn’t care. Take now, for instance – through Lake view, where she’s currently moving – no, dancing. She has her ipod in her hand, and one earbud in her ear, the other dangling around her neck with her scarf. She doesn’t care that she has poor whitebaby moves, she simply… moves. Her steps have their own beat, her smile is warm and soft, between the words she’s mouthing (Not singing – because even THAT is too weird for her. She knows she can’t sing…), humming the parts she doesn’t know…
She doesn’t care who watches.
She dances like nobody does.
[Marrick Fisher] Peoplewatching was briefly interrupted by-
“Joss Leeeeeehreeeeeeeer!” it was the battle cry of the blonde one.
Tinged with genuine joy and the like.
[Joss Lehrer] She snaps her head around as the name is called – a battle cry for sure – and the smile that comes easily across her lips is one of warmth and genuine delight. “Maaaaaaaaaarrick FIIIIIIISHERRRRRR!”
She tugs her ear bud from her ear, thumbs the ipod off, and makes her way over to her friend. “Heya. What’s up?”
[Marrick Fisher] “People watching,” she said with a bright grin on her face. Her mood, strangely enough was elevated. Bright and surprisingly pleased to see someone who was familiar.
She tipped her coffee mug- something large and undoubtedly filled with NotCoffee, and gestured for her to come over. They were both young, both battle-hardened and scarred and sacred in some way or another.
“It’s weird. I ain’t too good at this.”
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs and nudges Marrick with her hip. “People are weird. What are you trying to decipher?”
Not that you have to learn anything from watching people, but sometimes it helps. She settles to sit next to her friend, adjusting her scarf – her one bow to the frigid weather – around her neck more comfortably.
[Marrick Fisher] “I need t’figure out what people do when they lie,” she tells Joss. It’s a matter-of-fact sort of thing. She holds her coffee mug with both hands and is content to pause and reflect over this.
The Fury tapped on the side of her glass, and the sound was one that seemed to amuse her. Pleasant enough that brows rose and something like quiet pleasure. Little things, little joys we take in life and what-have-you.
[Joss Lehrer] She arches a brow, slightly, and studies Marrick for a long moment, before she turns her gaze to the other people they’re watching. “That’s no easy task – it’s different for every person, I’m sure. Though there’s likely some consistency somewhere.”
She tips her head, slightly, pushing her dreads back over her shoulder. “Any particular reason why?”
[Imogen Slaughter] A coffee shop.
Sounds right up Imogen’s alley.
She hits all the stereotypical vices one might imagine for a (former) Fianna kinfolk, for a workaholic. For a woman who works in a man’s world.
Alcohol. Cigarettes. Coffee.
She ashes the second as she reaches the doror, stepping marginally aside to let another precede her inside as she takes a final drag of her cigarete, filling her lungs and letting the smoke pass through the barrier of her lungs and into her blood stream. She turns her head, exhaling her smoke-laced breath into the wind.
She drops the cigarette and crushes it beneath the toe of her boot. The temperature’s dropped sharply over the last few days and winter is in full blast. She wears a heavy woollen coat, a scarf, her skin pale with the chill. The warmth of the coffee shop hits her like a wall as she steps inside.
If Imogen were aware of the subject of conversation between the two Garou, she would find her entrance ironic.
Instead, she sees them both – both young, female, sitting where they are. The touch of her eyes counts as greeting, perhaps, the faint incline of her head, something more. She turns away and walks toward the counter, lifting her hands to remove her leather gloves, finger by finger.
[Marrick Fisher] “‘cus it’s been brought t’my attention that a gibbous moon’s a great an’ wonderful thing. They’re teachers, storytellers, historians, warriors… and, as I’ve kinda found out now? They sometimes have a tendency t’poke, prod, maneuver, an’ manipulate t’teach people lessons.”
She snorts.
“I prefer work sheets.”
Then, slightly more somber, “I’m in a weird place, Joss…. found out I’m a bit too trusting an’ I don’t like it.”
Imogen walks in, and the young, blonde creature looks at her. She gives her a a tip of her mug and she is openly pleased.
[Joss Lehrer] A second brow joins the first, arched as she studies Marrick, and then she leans back in her chair, chuckling. Imogen looks their way, greets them subtly, and Marrick returns in kind. Joss? Waves. There’s very little that’s subtle about the Godi.
She nods slightly though. “There are many that take advantage of their ability to.. stretch the truth, to work their way around a lie. Unfortunately, those who are good at it, are usually the most difficult to catch.” Marrick is too trusting, and doesn’t like it. “…and the alternative is?”
[Imogen Slaughter] Marrick tips her mug and Joss waves. The latter is more outgoing than the former, and both are more outgoing than the kinswoman. None of their greetings have anywhere near the same jubilence with which they had greeted each other, only a few minutes ago.
She moves up to the till, laying a hand on the counter as she leans forward to make her order. It is one of the coffee shops in the city which makes tea from leaves and manages the heat of the water for steeping; therefore, it is one of the places that Imogen orders tea.
She turns away while the girl gets her order. Her eyes move over the patrons; people watching much like Marrick had been, but far more abstract and aimless about it.
[Marrick Fisher] “Being less trusting, and… well.. whatever comes with that.”
A beat.
“Joss, I’m so damned far up in the air it ain’t even funny. An’ I ain’t sure if whatever folks are ‘teaching me’ in a literal sense, or in the whole ‘you need t’be taken down a peg’ sense and- I mean… jesus what’s so hard ’bout being straightforward.”
She shrugged and watched as Imogen ordered. Her attention from people watching was lost for the time being.
“Just because y’have disdain fer somethin’, doesn’t mean y’shouldn’t safeguard against it. So! Peoplewatching.”
[Joss Lehrer] She chuckles softly and nods. “It’s hard for some, I guess, to just say it like it is. Or they find themselves above it, for whatever reason, enjoying the manipulation rather than honesty. Not to mention, often times those who seek to ‘teach us a lesson’ have need of learning many lesson’s themselves, but refuse to see that. They feel superior – and prove it by attacking those they deem to be beneath them.”
A beat, and she rolls her eyes. “It’s petty, and pathetic. But yeah, safeguarding is the way to go, if it’s even something that can be safeguarded against compeltely.”
[Imogen Slaughter] She pockets her gloves and lifts bare hands to her scarf, unwinding it from her throat, and letting it hang loosely from her arm as she pulls her billfold from her purse and pays for her tea. The billfold returns to her purse. Her purse she pulls up over her arm. She picks up a small tray adorned with its pot and mug, a milker.
Had the two not been there, she might have sat on her own. Perhaps watched people, or read a book. More likely, her tea would have gone into a to-go cup, and she would have left, headed for another destination.
Instead, she takes her tray toward the Garou. It is an unlucky trio – a pair of teenagers joined by a slight but proper woman clearly dressed in business attire beneath her winter wear.
[HtW] The door to the coffee shop opens, and a gangly figure slips in, closing it quickly behind him. A flash of a narrow face, long nose, and he’s turning around to stare out into the street, as if wary of being followed. Shoulder blades protrude angularly from his back, distinct beneath his skinny black leather jacket. Slender hips, fabulous arse, skinny legs with oiled jeans painted onto them. Hair black and curled and falling in greasy locks about his face.
Hunched, he stares out the glass panels in the door, and then finally turns with a sigh, runs his forearm across his nose with a sniff, and flashes a bleary smile at the cafe as a whole. He’s not wearing a shirt despite the weather, and a number of cheap tattoos are scrawled across his chest,from the face of a woman over his heart to what looks like a wolf running just below his clavicles (or maybe an angry looking cat?) to messages and mottos inked into his skin.
Rubbing his hands down his thighs, he pushes off the door with a buck of his hips, and strides into the coffee shop, turning his million watt smile on the ladies behind the counter who simply stare at him. He winks at the girl standing behind the till, and procedes right past them to the restroom door at the back, which he hip checks open, and then closes behind him, gone as quickly as he arrived.
Leaving only the unmistakeable tang of rage in the air, the only thing that probably kept the employees there from calling out and keeping him from disappearing into their restroom.
[Marrick Fisher] Mickey Perl was a train wreck, a terrifying, slender, trainwreck with possibly the nicest arse Marrick Fisher has ever seen.
Looking at his arse, however, gave one something to look at instead of looking at the rest of him- too thin, long nosed, and cheaply tattooed. Strangely enough, it was the cheap tattoos that kept her attention more than the fact that the Galliard had a jealousy-inspiring rear.
The Fury had a short attention span, and it was back to those she was with, “‘nother long night at work?”
May as well ask, because she asked these sorts of questions of Imogen.
“It’ll get better, though… I figure it can’t be too hard. There’s gotta be folks out here easier t’read than I am.”
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs softly. “Marrick, darlin, you’re very easy to read. That’s why people manipulate you – you wear your emotions on your sleeve. That’s not a bad thing. In fact I vastly prefer it over the closed type that relies on manipulation because they haven’t the balls to process a real feeling.”
Imogen joins, and she grins up at the redhead. “Hi, Imogen.”
Joss is in a better mental place than she had been immediately after Evan’s death. She’s processed it, talked to Ancient Godi’s and done her best to follow his advice. [Do better] She’s found her equilibrium once more – which is a good thing. A happy Joss is infinitely preferable to an unhappy one.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen’s attention, as well, had turned toward Mickey Perl, his entrance, his exit. Her brow furrows and she she turns her attention back to the Garou as she takes a seat without asking, casting a glance toward Joss as she greets her. “Joss,” stands for a greeting in return.
A glance toward Marrick, a faint twist of her mouth. “Night’s hardly begun,” she says, a little dryly. “I ha’ a few hours yet.”
[HtW] ((leaving work, will log back in shortly. assume mickey is having a lot of fun in the bathroom until then?))
to Imogen Slaughter, Joss Lehrer, Marrick Fisher
[Marrick Fisher] “What’re you workin’ on?” she asks as a point of curiosity. She perked up and cocked her head to the side. The blonde didn’t quite say much.
Whatever Joss said made her cheeks pink and somewhere between embarrassed and flattered.
[Joss Lehrer] Marrick has coffee. Imogen has tea. And suddenly Joss realizes she’d completely bypassed getting anything for herself. She grins at her friends and bounces up. “I need coffee. And one of those muffins that are as big as my head. Be right back!”
So declared, she heads toward the counter to put in her order.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen regards Marrick briefly, her eyes deviating as Joss declares her intention for food.
Her gaze returns. “Administrative work, mostly, and preparation work fer a case tha’ goes t’court this week.” The arch of her eyebrow is vaguely ironic, “Hardly anythin’ o’ interest to the Garou.”
[Marrick Fisher] “What’s it like to go to court? I always wondered if what you did was anything like th’stuff I’ve seen on TV… but, well, I figured it wasn’t.”
She took a drink of what could have very well been coffee and she finds herself regarding Imogen. She looks at the tea, the choice in these things, and back at Imogen again.
[Joss Lehrer] Joss once asked Imogen if her job was like CSI, and was told about as much as being Garou is like an American Werewolf in London. She didn’t ask again – but it still made her laugh to think about it. Which she’s not doing right now, because she is, instead, paying for the chocolate chocolate chip muffin and large mocha.
Once they’re delivered into her eager hands, she makes her way back over to join Imogen and Marrick, settling at the table once more.
[Imogen Slaughter] Hardly anything of interest to the Garou, Imogen had said, and apparently she was wrong. Or, at least, it was of interest to Marrick.
“I’ve not seen any of the television shows tha’ ha’ popularized the forensic profession.” she says, her mouth moving slightly. “Still, I ha’ doubts o’ their accuracy. I imagine tha’ th’gist is th’same. Yeh swear an oath t’God to tell the truth and nothin’ but the truth. Yeh sit in an uncomfortable chair in the witness’s podium, and are asked questions, first by whoever called you, and then by the other side. Sometimes yeh use props to make your point.”
[Marrick Fisher] “Wow,” she says, “that… really… sounds like givin’ a presentation fer school.”
She sounded a little crestfallen. She was concerned for a second, but not quite disappointed. Just, well, there. She shrugs.
“I would get bored.”
[Joss Lehrer] She starts to pluck the pieces of her muffin, and plops them into her mouth a bit at a time. It’s not QUITE as large as her head, but it is pretty big. She chuckles as Marrick says it’s like giving a school presentation.
“I once watched a live court thing. It wasn’t nuthin like the television shows. Not once did someone stand up and yell “you can’t HANDLE the truth!” – I was disappointed.”
[Imogen Slaughter] The cast glance Imogen gives Joss is wry. “I am fairly sure tha’ that’s not a phrase spoken once in a court outside o’ popular culture.”
Her tea has had sufficient time to steep. She picks up her pot and pours the Earl Grey into its mug, and picks up the milker to add in.
“S’not quite like a presentation,” she says. “Usually when you’re asked a question durin’ a presentation, it’s not by someone tryin’ t’lead you into makin’ their point for you.”
[Marrick Fisher] “Oh! That’s from… that’s from… A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson.”
She paused for a second, looking at Imogen and it was as though something had dawned on her. There was a quiet sort of glee in her eyes, something brief that flickered through, an idea born of quiet resolution. When you’re asked a question in a presentation…
“Guess lawyers are pretty good at readin’ people,” she says, then she lights up again, “is there some way t’go find video recordings of court cases?”
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs and shrugs. “I know, but still!”
And then the line of questioning comes around full circle and she gets why Marrick is asking her questions. She smiles, and reaches for her cup, and takes a sip before setting it down again.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen pauses. “I imagine yeh can get some o’ them from crimeTV. Law students, most likely, can get them from the University library. Why?”
[Marrick Fisher] “I’m too easy to read,” she announces, as though Imogen was unaware, “an’ I’m kinda.. well.. really easy t’fool. If I c’n figure out when someone’s trying to lead a person to a conclusion… well… it will work out a little better.”
[Joss Lehrer] Marrick announces it, and Joss chuckles. Joss isn’t a very hard person to read either, truth be told. She’s happy, most of the time. Occasionally she’s sad. Sometimes she’s angry – and everyone knows it when it happens. And if they’re smart, they get the hell out of her way.
But all too soon she’s smiling once more.
“That’s a good idea, actually.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Compared to these two – Imogen is inscrutable. Very little by way of smiles, and even her smirks and humour are faded. Even her displeasure can be little more than a ripple across the planes of her face.
She studies Marrick for several seconds.
“Take up poker,” she suggests, picking up her tea mug and lifting it to her mouth.
[Marrick Fisher] “That could be fun,” she offers in response. The Fury seems to mull over this thought, the one of playing poker, that is, and is pleased with it. She nods, solid and unrelenting, and she takes a drink of her cocoa.
[HtW] Whistling jauntily, Mickey emerges from the bathroom, backing out through door, bum extended to knock it open, a huge wad of toilet paper in his hands which he’s using to dry them. He passes back beyond the scope of the door, which begins to swing shut, but just before it does so he pot shots the wad of paper back within, letting his hands hang high above his head like an imitation basketball player. He winces as he sees where his shot landed, and then turns, wiping his palms on the seat of his pant as he does so, dirtying them all over again.
Mickey’s slender, svelte, lean and skinny and yet strangely vital all in one. He thrums with the kind of energy particular to high strung teenagers, meth addicts and Garou, and his eyes gleam with a light that’s both cruel and playful. Smiling widely at anybody and everybody, he straightens the black jacket around his frame, and steps forward, sliding into the body of the cafe shop like an elegant schooner into a bay.
[Joss Lehrer] “Just don’t play for money until you’re good at it.” a beat. “Or clothing.”
And there’s her smile again. Imogen and the teenagers are an unlikely grouping at best. Od how some things just work. Mickey reappears, and she watches him idly.
[Imogen Slaughter] “It will teach you to lie,” she says, directly. “And t’distrust others and see their tells. I’m not sure if it will be fun or not, but it will likely assist yeh with yer perceived deficiencies.”
Mickey re-enters, and Imogen’s head turns again. A pause, a stillness touching her expression.
“Know him?”
[Marrick Fisher] “Well,” she said, “it’s a real toss up… but… it’ll get the job done.”
She finds herself looking at Mickey, and she is taking in his details, and is trying her damnedest to place him. The blonde takes her time, muses over these thoughts and finally seems to have something to offer.
“Told a story ’bout thunderwyrms an’ tequilla.”
[Joss Lehrer] Does she know him? Joss shakes her head slightly. “I don’t think so. He’s not wearing a shirt… ”
Even as one who’s only added a scarf and gloves to her usual ensemble, it seems odd to her to go completely without a shirt.
[Imogen Slaughter] The kinswoman takes another sip of tea, her eyebrow lifting slightly in Marrick’s direction.
“I presume that’s a ‘yes’?”
[Marrick Fisher] “Know of him.”
[HtW] Mickey gets in line at the till, hands in pockets, rocking back and forth from the balls of his feet to the heels. He’s waiting his turn to get a coffee, whistling still and seeming completely at home in this up scale joint.
[HtW] (Sorry, still a bit busy irl, will jump into things fully soon)
to Imogen Slaughter, Joss Lehrer, Marrick Fisher
[Joss Lehrer] “thunderwyrms and tequilla? Sounds like a bad sitcom in the making. A really bad one”
She grins and sets the remaining half of her muffin on the table, only to fill her grip with her coffee cup and settle back into her chair.
[Imogen Slaughter] “At least has a theme of ‘worms’,” she observes.
A pause. Another sip of her tea. “I don’t ask because I want to know his name,” she says to Marrick, her voice deliberately calm. “I ask because I want t’be sure he’s on yer side. I can tell he’s Garou,” a skill not particularly common among the kinfolk, “but not that his temperment.”
[Joss Lehrer] (am I not refreshing? *tests*)
to Joss Lehrer
[Marrick Fisher] (skip me, loves, I’m really sorry, I just hit a hitch offline)
to HtW, Imogen Slaughter, Joss Lehrer
[HtW] Leaning forward, hands still in pockets, bending at the hip, Mickey puts in his order, and then adds a final comment which has the young woman’s face flush and then harden. She turns and pours him the largest cup of coffee possible, and he digs up a couple of rumpled dollar bills which he sprinkles on the counter before him without much interest. Taking the coffee, steaming hot and black, he rotates on one heel, and surveys the cafe.
It’s a small place. The two Garou and kinfolk stand out like a sore thumb. With a grin that seems to relish both the improbable and improper, he lifts his mug of coffee to the three ladies, and begins to make his way over, smiling and serene.
[Joss Lehrer] She glances at Marrick, and then turns back to Mickey as he decides to head in their direction. “Looks like we’re about to find out, one way or the other.”
They stand out – the teenage garou, monsters of rage, tooth and claw, and the once Fianna kinfolk, of breeding and class. An odd trio, for sure.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen sips her tea while the unfamiliar Garou approaches. It does not do for them all to stare. It can draw attention from the sheep. She looks up only when the distance has closed. Her gaze flicks down the rake-thin beast, dark eyes scraping over musculature and skin, then up again.
“Hello.”
Mild enough.
[Marrick Fisher] “Where’d you get th’ tattoos?”
Ever the upfront little creature, this one. Bright, intense, and full of too-sharp, too white smiles.
[HtW] Mickey sways around intervening tables and chairs as if his hips were liquid, glorious cup of coffee held aloft like a chalice, and he some supplicant come before their throne (mother maiden crone) to proffer it up unto them.
He doesn’t, though. Upon reaching them, he reaches out and adroitly spins a chair around from another table, spinning it on one chair leg so that it stops, back facing the three women, and accomodates his body as he lowers himself into it. That accomplished, he places the cup of coffee on the table next to theirs, and leans back, grabbing his leather jacket carefully with both hands and snapping it into place, collar tight about the neck.
“Good evening,” he says to Imogen, his smile a trifle too wide. He turns this greeting to include the other three, and then leans back, placing one forearm along the chairback top, and propping his other elbow on that wrist, chin sinking into the palm of his hand.
“What was that, precious?” he asks Marrick, turning to look at her. “My tattoos?” He looks down, considering them. “Here and there, you know, picking them up as some men collect panties from delicious conquests. You know how it goes.” A sharp inhalation. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember half of them. Woke up one morning in some gutter or other, and voila. New adornment.”
[Joss Lehrer] (Joss is gonna be quiet for a bit – gotta take the kid to work)
[Marrick Fisher] “That sucks,” she says, “those’re… well… I dunno, I can’t say anything. I’ve got a coupe scars that I ain’t got a damned clue how they got there.”
She shrugged. The Fury took her cup in her hands, both of them, and with a sort of quiet care, she took a drink. Finally, she does come up with something to say.
“I’m Marrick.”
Ever the articulate Fury.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen’s interest in the converstaion is – well, non-existent, to be precise. At least on the surface. She attends the words that are said, the gestures which either make, Mickey leaning on the back of the chair, Marrick sipping her drink. She sets down her mug and reaches for her tea pot, picking it up and filling her cup.
Her pure breeding is clear and stark. In a breath, the smell of her ancestry lingers in the air. At a glance, it wreathes the air around her, touching her every gesture and movement.
When she speaks, it is the echo of her forefathers in her voice. When she offers her own introduction, it is only after Mickey has offered his own.
“Imogen.” Concise, her introduction, even shorter than Marrick’s.
[HtW] Mickey busies himself with digging a small bottle out of his jacket’s pocket, untangling it from the inner lining, and then sets it down on the table next to his mug. It’s a slender bottle of whiskey, and even as the ladies make their introductions, he nods affably, and unscrews the lid.
“Marrick, Imogne, mystery babe,” he says to quiet and contemplative Joss, “Please to meet you guys. And Marrick, love the freckles. Never lose the freckles, ok? Hmmhmm.”
He takes the bottle and pours a liberal dose into the coffee, and then for good measure doubles it. Screws it back up briskly, taking the opportunity to eye the women before him as he does so.
“Imogen. Funky name. And great accent. Want some whisky? Sounds like you need it.” He doesn’t wait for her to answer though before putting it away.
“So, thanks for hosting me here. Great to meet you guys. You sure look local. Actually, you three look spectacular. The local talent has got game, if you ask me. Which you didn’t, but no one does, forcing me to repeatedly put forth my opinion in an unsolicited manner.”
There’s a certain wildness to his flair, as if at any time he could fly off the handle and knock over the table, could start singing and pull one of them up to dance, could turn and throw his coffee at the closest table. But it’s contained in his dark, perhaps slightly too small eyes, given outlet in his smile that seems charged and duplicitously sincere all at the same time.
“Say, Marrick,” he says, picking up his coffee and sipping it meditatively. “Any chance you want to go into the bathroom and show me those scars? I’ll show you my ink in return. Fairs fair.”
[Joss Lehrer] She just arches her brow, and belatedly adds.
“Joss.”
Then waits to see what he says next.
((taking peppermist to dance class – still outa it. Heh.))
[Marrick Fisher] He was, all at once, appalling and endearing. She regarded him, looked and tried to make what was going on around her make some sense. She grinned for a second.
She mused.
She looked at Imogen with raised brows, and back at Mickey for a minute. There was a sort of absurd glee in being able to show off her scars.
“All’s fair, right? I might be down with that. Jus’ showin’ you the good ones, though.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Mickey’s rapid fire conversation reminds her of a speed addict, or a particularly unsocialized, centre-of-the-world child. He offers her the whisky, but does not give her a chance to respond – as she’d been about to refuse, she does not bother to say anything. The effect is the same.
Imogen’s eyebrow arches back at Marrick, her attention wry, her expression telling, something akin to washing her hands of it. She wants to offer no opinion on the subject.
“Have fun,” is all she says.
[HtW] Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up when Marrick agrees, and his grin lights up even wider. He half stands, stooping down as he does so to slurp up a ridiculous amount of searing hot coffee, grimacing as he does so, and then steps off his chair as if dismounting from a horse, and grins at Marrick.
“Right on, pookie, right on. Now that’s the attitude.” Turns his gaze to Imogen. “Want in? I bet you can boast about some fantabulous inner scars, the kinda shit that shut me up and turn me green. No? Ah well. Here, I’ll leave you the whisky bottle. Change your mind, just come a knockin’.”
And with that, he extends his hand to Marrick, which he gives a tight squeeze should she give it, and leads her to the back of the cafe and the restroom door.
[HtW] He doesn’t, however, leave the whiskey bottle behind.
[Marrick Fisher] “‘ey, you said you’d leave the whiskey,” she tells him. Matter of fact.
Again, this is the third instance of a flurry of words kind of blowing her mind. The Fury takes a second, is taking her sweet time to process information that was being thrown at her. He called her pookie, brows raise, and the Fury starts to stand up. She looks at Imogen, mouth set as though she’s unsure of how to really process this.
“Mister, Ah don’t think there’s much’ve anythin’ that’d shut you up,” she says, “ain’t sure if that’s a bad thing, though.”
[Imogen Slaughter] A moment’s pause and then Imogen gets up as well.
“Guard the door, shall I?” in case either misunderstood that Imogen had the intension of either sharing her scars, inner or outer, if she even had them, or her tattoos.
“Keep yeh both from gettin’ kicked out o’ the cafe.”
She follows them back.
[HtW] Clearly the whiskey bottle isn’t an issue. Mickey leaves his mug of coffee on the table, sneaking in one last gulp before they go, and then follows Imogen as she threads her way, raking his fingers through his thick hair, pulling it back from his vulpine features, winking at anybody who looks their way. In a matter of moments, they’re in the small hallway that contains the restroom door and terminates in the kitchen entrance not too far beyond it. A board of pinned up notices stands sentry across from the restroom door, advertising guitar lessons and ballet classes in garish yellows and blues, while the sounds from within the little kitchen beyond filter through the door in the form of clinks and subdued conversation.
Mickey rubs his face, blinks rapidly once or twice, and then turns a serious gaze upon the two women. “Now, Imogen, if you see somebody coming, just say very loudly that you’re trying to find the way to the carnival. That will confuse them, and give us time to slip out in a natural and easy fashion. Remember, it’ll help if you sound mildly retarded when you call this out. Get you the sympathy vote, which, as we all know, is what got George Bush elected. What I’m saying is, it works. Clear?”
He turns to Marrick. “Ready?” He then pulls off his leather jacket, pulls open the door, and steps inside.
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen casts Mickey a wry glance, simple as that. “I must certainly will not,” she informs him as she leans her back against the wall near the doorway, crossing her arms absently. She’s brought her tea with her, and she lifts her mug, sipping the cooling liquid – tasting strongly of bergamot and orange.
[HtW] (Ha!)
[Marrick Fisher] “Can’t it just be “You dumbasses, put yer clothes back on”? We could jus’ lock th’ door.”
She looks at Imogen, brows raised and surprise still on her features. This, ladies and gentlemen, counted among the dumb things she will do from time to time. You live once, and that’s that. There are times that Marrick realizes she’s never going to be nineteen again, and that there are stories to be had.
Furthermore, there was nothing to be ashamed of.
IT was off to the bathroom, though, “Imogen, I’m a fuckin’ loon…”
[Imogen Slaughter] (“I most certainly will not,” that is.)
[HtW] As soon as Marrick slips into the tiny bathroom, Mickey closes the door and locks it. The bathroom is really quite small. There’s enough room for a sink and a toilet seat, along with a mirror covered in band stickers, and a copy of the ubiquitous poster from 19th century France, ‘Le Chat Noir’.
Mickey, jacket already removed, drops it on the floor, and kicks off his hitch hiking boots. “Now, the first one I’m gonna show you is the first one I ever got. Back before my first Change, even, when I was in this foster home down in Georgia.” He unbuckles his belt. “Bunch of guys take a fancy to my good looks, and stripped me down, nude as the day I was born, and held me squirming and wiggling on me tummy in the dorm room. I hollered and hollered, but nobody came. Bastards had timed it well.”
He winks at her, and drops his pants, revealing simultaneously that he was going commando, and that his all to solid flesh is reacting admirably to the intensity of the moment. “Now, if you look close here,” he says, pointing at his upper inner thigh, “You can read the words, ‘cock sucker’, though woefully mis-spelled as ‘kok suka’.”
And indeed, in pointillist handwriting, barely legible and greatly faded, are the seven offending letters, the last ‘a’ almost completely obscured by the bush of hair around the base of his manhood.
[Imogen Slaughter] A glance at Marrick, a sweep of her gaze up and down the teenager, then up to her face again. “Rather.” The door shuts behind them and Imogen lifts her eyes skyward briefly before returning to drinking her tea.
[Joss Lehrer] She was left at the table, seemingly staring into space. All of them, like as not, would recognize the look of someone conversing over the bond of pack and Totem, something important enough that she’d simply fall quiet, close her eyes and listen.
When she looks up again, Imogen’s guarding the door, and heaven knows what’s going on in the bathroom. For her part, she simply remains where she is, and drinks her coffee while dealing with pack politics via Totemphone.
[Marrick Fisher] She was unashamed of nudity. She was unashamed of her body or any way ashamed of someone else’s. The Fury stood in the tiny bathroom, with little things and accouterments there that made hte place seem more posh than it needed to be.
She folded her arms across her chest, mouth set in a firm, small line. Young. Idealistic. Displeased.
The Fury nodded, and took a second to grab her shirt from the bottom and pull it up over her head. She’s nienteen years old, not too far into it, and her torso looks like someone has had a field day. Something large and vicious across her left side where it looks like someone or something tried to crack her open like a crab, a jagged slash across her right, and something small that started right below where her ribs ended. There’s the beginning of a bluish black something at the top of her left hip.
She doesn’t point to those.
She points to a two inch, faded line across her clavicle. It started halfway into her sports bra, and ended soon enough.
“That’s… one Hell of a story, man,” she tells him. She remembered his name, or rather, she remembered part of his name from the moot. She knew who he was.
She motions to her clavicle, “my brother pushed me through a coffee table when I was twelve. Mom was outta town an’ he was supposed t’babysit an’ we got in a fight. He freaked out, an thought he’d really hurt me. It wasn’t that bad, but… I remember we freaked out enough that I might need stitches, so I remember, in my infinite fourteen year old wisdom, that he’d taken home ec, so… well… I figured if he could sew, he could give someone stitches, right?”
She half laughed at that, “that lasted pretty good until dad got home. That hurt like a sonofabitch, but he did a good job tryin’ to patch me up… healed really fast, though.”
[Marrick Fisher] (*when I was fourteen, not twelve. *headdesk* sorry!)
[HtW] Mickey leans in with professional curiousity, and nods as she speaks, almost reaching out to touch the scar, to trace its pale length, but keeps his hand a good couple of inches clear. When she finishes the tale, he shoots her a quick glance, lucidly and probing, and then he nods, sensuous mouth pulled into a line.
“Well, lessee. Here,” he says, pointing at his chest, where a woman’s head the size of a soccer ball covers his heart. This one has been done with greater care than the others, though it’s all in shades of blue, and the woman depicted has some charm to her crudely sketched cheek bones, her full lips, her luxurious mane of her. “This here is Consuela. Met her down in Tijuana a few years back, near stole my heart. Stole my wallet twice. She wasn’t kin or anything, but she was the only girl crazy enough to run with me no matter what time of the moon it was.”
He looks down fondly at the face. “She was crazy too. Kept cutting me up when I’d get drunk and get aggressive. She knew she could though, cause she’d seen me heal too many times to care. One night she got pushy though, and kept stabbing. I was real drunk, couldn’t see the moon for all the lamps hanging from the tree branches, and was just staggering around the courtyard singing as she followed me, stabbing as much as she could. I was in glabro by then, so I didn’t care too much, I mean, it hurt, but fuck, it’d been a lot of tequila, and it would have turned out fine if some guys hadn’t come running to see what was the problem.”
He sighs, and rubs his hand over her face. “Course, they freaked out, rounded up some more fellas and came back with pitchforks in hand. Consuela, well, she stabbed me in the neck and said I was dead, and they all buried me a few hours later. But then she dug me up herself, I dunno if it was to finish the job, but the same dudes caught her at it and hung her by the neck till she died.”
He looks up, face sad. “Crazy bitch. Only woman who gave as good she got, and she got a lot, if you know what I mean. Ah me.”
[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen’s tea cup is empty and her commitment to guarding the door only goes so far. It is, after all, locked.
And so, she returns to the table, pausing there to pick up her tea pot and refill her cup. Joss’s expression is familiar to her. She does not initiate conversation.
[Marrick Fisher] “Why’d you go to Tijuana?” she asks. It’s a point of concern there, and a point of curiosity.
She’s not sure what to believe, because these were stories. Just stories. Maybe more, maybe less. He had reasons for these things, though. Mickey seemed fond though, he seemed sincere enough, and the work was done with more care than the others.
“Do you miss her often?”
The questions came because she wanted to know. Because she was young and naive, and Elder or not, wanted to ask these sorts of questions. To her, they mattered. After she got whatever answers she got, she leaned forward slightly. She parted her hair in the back to reveal a jagged scar on the back of her head.
“I. Pissed. Off. Another full moon once,” she said, “I honestly don’t even remember what I did, I just remember snapping at him in OKC, and it went to blows. I remember he got one really good shot in, and just pounded. And pounded. And pounded my head into the concrete.”
A pause. A half grin once she flipped back up.
“Don’t remember what happened after that, but I woke up at home.”
[HtW] “Do I miss her?” He takes a breath, leans back, his erection starting to fade. It’s cold in here, cold tile beneath his feet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “These days mostly when I’m drunk. You get so that something good from the past starts to belong there, and no longer seems like it should be following you quite the way it used to. Doesn’t some so immediate. Pain turns to ache turns to… fondness, I guess. You remember it and smile and take another shot.”
Then he’s too busy leaning forward and examining the wound and letting out a low whistle. “Hot damn. He must of broke the pavement with your head. And your head while he was at it. I’m surprised you weren’t left cross eyed.”
He grins, and whisks his finger past her chin. “Though you’d sure look cute staring at the world all cross eyed over them freckles, pookie, I tell you straight.”
He frowns down at his body, and then focuses on a pair of dice inked into the crook of his left elbow. “See these? They’re there to remind me of a pair of fetish dice I borrowed from this Elder back in Delaware. He swore that they’d only roll true for the pure of heart, and that if you were, you’d always roll whatever numbers you wished for. So anyways, I tried to clean up my act shortly before then, and wanted to see if I’d done it right. So I borrowed the die, and rolled up, and hell if they didn’t roll wrong.”
He grins. “Guess I wasn’t pure enough, or if I had been, borrowing the die had been my undoing of all the pure doings I’d been doing up till then. So I threw the die away and went on a three month drinking binge to catch up. By the time they grabbed hold of me, they near busted me down to cub and removed my lower jaw.”
[Marrick Fisher] “What c’n I say? I’m fuckin’ adorable, Schnookums,” she tells him with half a grin, “used t’call a Fianna philodox, Pookie… Fury blood in that one, but Fianna through an’ through. Honorable male. Funny as Hell, too.”
a beat.
“An’ he did. I went back, later, there was a dent. Pretty sure I got a bit of home floatin’ around in the back of my skull forever an’ always. I bleed red dirt as it is.”
She looks at his dice, rubbing the back of her head idly and looking them over. Mickey Perl had lived an interesting life, it seemed, and aparently stealing someone’s dice was “-guess that wasn’t too wise,” she tells him. Matter of factly at that.
She doesn’t allude to the big names she has, to the little black feathered wings on her back when she’d flipped her hair over, or to the hand print on her hip.
“Least you kept the jaw, though,” she tells him.
There’s hesitance there, and for a second she is concerned. She is unsure, she starts with a moment of silence, and points to the puncture wound that seems to run all the way through her, “I got run through with a rapier. S’the first time I’d ever fallen in battle in Chicago, an’ it was over some stupid little piddly ass fomor. Happened with my pack brother in front of a Lord an’ a Coggie. Pride took such a beatin’ I wasn’t sure I’d live it down.”
“One’s dead an’ can’t tell tales, an’ the other don’t say a damned thing about it, but probably holds judgment in ‘is heart, still. Can’t live that kind of embarrassment down.”
[HtW] Mickey cocks her a curious glance, hair falling across his face. “Can’t live that kind of embarrassment down?” he asks, repeating her words. “Wait, what? Being run through by a sword in battle? How is that embarrassing? You got stabbed. Seems pretty normal thing to happen in battle.”
He pauses, rakes the hair out of his eyes. He’s so narrow chested he seems the antithesis of a Garou warrior, so skinny he seems unable to even get in a fight.
[Marrick Fisher] “I got stabbed by a five an’ a half foot tall, underfed, grumpy fomor with a learner’s permit. That’s like gettin’ shanked by the guy behind the counter at McDonald’s.”
[HtW] “Ha!” snorts Mickey, reaching down to fumble through his jacket for the whiskey, which he extricates victoriously and proceeds to take a swig from.
“Sounds like you got too much pride to begin with. Shit happens in battle. You can’t control diddly squat, and luck runs out when you need it most. I’ve had tons of embarrassing crap happen to me in a fight, but you know what? I’ve just come to expect it, and when shit hits the fan I’ve learned to duck.”
He takes a good, long, solid pull of the whisky, and lowers the bottle with a sigh. “Seriously, pookie, you’re, what, a Cliath? Fostern at best? That kind of shit should be embarrassing to an Adren. Us sweet lil’ young ‘uns? It’s just the way the world turns sometimes.”
[Marrick Fisher] “Well, how much pride’s too much an’ how much ain’t enough?” She perches herself on the sink counter. The fury crosses her legs at the ankle and is looking at the male from her rather precarious position.
“An’ yeah, I’m a cliath,” she said, “y’know, there ain’t been a moot in this town that hasn’t had, at one point, me bleeding profusely?”
She learned a new word, recently, and she said it with quiet pride. She looks at him for a second, and then nods. She shrugs, and finally she takes it for what it is: wisdom from a Galliard. because they were as much teachers as they were talesingers.
“What else ya got, Schnookums?”
[Joss Lehrer] She comes back to herself with a soft groan, and rubs her temples. She smiles up at Imogen, and lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Sorry about that. The boys were bitchin.”
A beat.
“Are they still comparing?!”
[Imogen Slaughter] “Charming.” The boys were bitching.
She has retaken her seat, her cup of tea refilled, duly dressed with milk. “They’ve not come out, so I imagine so. They must ha’ a lot.”
[HtW] Mickey surveys his body. There’s a list of names running down the inside of his right forearm, each carefully written in fancy lettering.
“These here are names of fallen packmates of mine from back in St. Louis,” he says, running his fingers over them. “We were a good group. Fuckin’ foul as all hell, but tough like old shoe leather, you know? Rumblin’ Tummy was our Alpha, a Gnawer Ahroun who just couldn’t fill his belly. He kept eating and eating and you could hear him even while he slept, just growling away in that big ol’ belly of his. Sure could fight. And sweet little Sugar Tits,” he says, voice turning nostalgic, “You never say a prettier pair of knockers. Or eyes, for that matter. Ragabash like the day was long, and then some into the night. She could charm a pair of grizzlies into lying on the floor of a log cabin and pretending they’d been skinned the night before.”
He takes a breath, sighs again. “Black Thunder was a prick. But whatever, there’s one in each pack, and anyways, he kissed like a queen when you got him drunk enough. Eventide was… well. Philodox. Miss him the most, I guess. Fucker.”
He gives her a wry smile, and and passes his hand once more over the list of names. “They died bad. Don’t want to talk about it, but having their names there keeps them in my mind, even when I’m not thinking about them.”
[Joss Lehrer] She chuckles softly. “Yeah, sometimes I wonder why I had to go and win Beta – but most the time.” She grins that same happy grin she had when she first became Eagle, before she shrugs a shoulder and takes up her cup of coffee again, warming her fingers around it.
“Must have. I have a couple good ones – but well, not one to show off like that. Savin it for someone special and all.”
[Imogen Slaughter] One imagines it is a mindset Imogen cannot understand. If she has scars, they were poorly won, either by wyrm, fighting when she should have run, or even a Garou, reacting with violence against her more fragile, pale skin.
Any marks on her body are not tales to tell.
She merely tilts her head slightly as Joss speaks, her mouth twisting slightly. “I’m sure whoever they are, they’ll be grateful t’be yer ‘first’.” Irony, there. The story of scars as a stand-in for virginity.
[Joss Lehrer] Although, in her case, it’s not a stand in at all, and the color that suddenly splashes across her cheeks likely gives way to that little truth. She is an incorrigible flirt, with the right person – the safe ones like Curata, Sandman – but that doesn’t mean that she’s taken the time for anything else in her short years. It takes time and dedication and a single minded determination to make Fostern at 17. Joss has that, and then some.
“Any Fenrir would be.” It’s said with quiet confidence – battle scars mark glory, the ability to not only fight, but to die and fight the way back once again and fight some more.
But then she shrugs it off with a slight grin. “Not that there’s any prospects for that kinda thing around here.”
[Imogen Slaughter] The kinwoman’s eyebrow stirs slightly. “I wouldn’t know,” she observes, her mouth twisting. “Hardly my area o’ expertise, is it?”
[Joss Lehrer] She chuckles. “Only Kin that I’ve met that would be acceptable is John, and ya know, he’s.. well. Old…” a beat “…er than me. And I don’t much want a mate that I have to babysit to make sure they don’t drink themselves to death. So.. well. I’ll just keep waiting.”
Someday someone will show up. Or she’ll die. There’s really very little in between for the little Godi, and she knows it – understands and even accepts it. Some things simply can’t be helped. “With my luck papa will decide he wants me mated and send someone from home.” She rolls her eyes at that – clearly doubting her father’s choice of someone ‘acceptable’.
[Imogen Slaughter] Her breath exhales, a little sharply. “Best o’ luck with that.”
As she’s said – not her area of expertise. She lifts her hand, turning her wrist slightly to glance at the face on her watch.
“I need t’go,” she says, getting up from her chair and draining her tea cup, and setting it down. She picks up her coat from the back of her chair, slipping into it, picking up her coat to wrap around her neck. Outside, the weather’s gotten colder, the sun is fully set.
[Marrick Fisher] She takes a second, and nods at the list of names.
She is silent for a long time before she hops off the counter. she takes her belt loops and pulls her pants down enough that the top of a pair of painfully girlie underwear are visible. She moves that down as well,. Underneith the blue-black inked handprint is a date.
Five seventeen, two-thousand nine.
“That,” she starts, “is when I got this.”
She stops and gestures to the rather prominent scar on her side. The one that was genuinely horrific, the one that looked painful, the one that looked like it should have killed her, that she should have stayed dead. It’s claw marks, but more than that. Something and pulled something had, essentially, cracked her open. It’s more than claw marks, it’s puncture wounds, where ribs broke through fur.
“I came from a place called Winds’ Meeting,” she tells the Galliard, and he’s the first person she’s told since she arrived in Chicago with her brother/Alpha, “rural sept out in Oklahoma. Old Sept. Bone Gnawer sept. There was a well out there of Wyld energies, an’ ever since it existed there was a Fury there to protect it. Betty, my mentor, an’ before her, my grandma, and before her… it went back for generations. I was supposed t’guard that well after Betty died. Never got that chance.
“The well surged one day. Ripped through the caern, energies went insane and the Wyld did what it does. The Wyld ain’t light. It ain’t yer friend, but it ain’t yer enemy. It is what it is.
“That energy ripped through the caern, twisted Betty an’ Edwin an’ the Ritesmistress so badly it was hard to tell who they had been. It killed them. Two elders and an’ Adren dead.
“The wyrm saw an opportunity, ‘cus you strike when folks are mourning. You strike then they’re offguard an’ injured an’ unaware. And they attacked en masse. Day after I’d graduated high school. They swarmed th’ place, an’ it was pandemonium. Spirals went after kin, did whatever they could, cut through garou, tried to claim th’ caern.
“That Fianna I told you ’bout died. Th’ Grand Elder’s pack died, ‘cept him, half the flies died, most of the warder’s pack died…
“My packmate Emily died with me. Emily was a Galliard. Emily was a Strider. We weren’t far off our Rite of Passage, not too long anyway… Emily laughed like the world was a joke, could point out a fault, she listened, and she remembered. She remembered everything like it was important, she could talk me outta any dumb idea I had. Could build you up as well as break you down.
“Emily died like it was art.”
It wasn’t a story she told often, or to anyone at all, really, but it was only halfway done. She was only part of the way there, and she knew it. There was resolve in her voice today, she didn’t look haunted like she normally does.
She had to tell someone, so why not tell a tattooed stranger in a bathroom?
“I got this learning what it meant to be an ahroun. I remember standing with her, I remember this bein’ the first time I’d actually stared at a Spiral, much less tried t’stare one down. I still taste blood, every now and then… an’ sometimes I can’t tell if it’s mine or his, cus corrupt or not, we all bleed. I remember that craws went in, and I didn’t move in time, didn’t dodge, didn’t deflect, and I remember hearing ribs crack.
“All I saw was red after that. Y’know, figurative sense, I’m pretty sure I didn’t see much at all. Emily was already dead by the time I fell with her.”
She is silent.
“Our theurge went crazy tryin’ to hold the totem down. Kyle Anne wasn’t ever th’ same… by the time the battle was over, we won… we’d held down th’ caern… ritesmistress was dead, so many of ours has died. Boy’s family was gone, they sent Danny off t’go be with some glass walkers in OKC, Kyle was gone, Emily was dead… wasn’t another Fury left at the sept ‘cept me… we’re supposed t’pick up the pieces, but fer me an’ Boy, there wasn’t anything left t’pick up.”
She inhales.
“I woulda died for them. All of them. Winds’ Meeting was my home, an’ even if the fight got won… Winds’ Meeting could never be home again.”
She shrugged, “me an’ Boy hit the mother road at that point and hit Chicago. Ended up pushing my trust into Maelstrom. When home isn’t home anymore, you gotta make a house somewhere else.”
[Joss Lehrer] She smiles and shrugs a shoulder. “It’ll happen or it won’t. No use worrying about it, right?”
Imogen gathers her things, and she nods. “Alright. Have a good one, Imogen.”
[Imogen Slaughter] She glances at Joss while she does up her coat. “Goodnight,” she says. A brief glance is cast toward the still shut bathroom door and then Imogen leaves, stepping out into the cold.
(thanks for the RP, guys!)
[HtW] At some point during Marrick’s tale, Mickey presses his back against the wall and slides down into a crouch, knees high about his chest, arms wrapped loosely about his shins, manhood lolling obscenely between his thighs. There’s something bestial in his manner, feral, such that his nudity is ignored much as Marrick ignores it too. He listens, nodding at certain points, his Galliard soul getting caught up in the tale, even to the point of silently repeating certain aspects of it, mouthing it to himself as she speaks, as if setting it to his own memory.
Occasionally he takes a swig from the whisky, and after awhile he sets it aside, bottle empty, but he himself seems none the worse for wear. Finally, when she’s finished, he simply stares at her, and then rises to his feet, heaving himself up with perhaps more grace than one would credit him.
The room is small, so just in standing he’s close to her. He reaches out then, his arrogance from before gone, his brazen mockery gone, his flippant attitude a thing of the past. Reaches out with a calm surety, and takes her by one shoulder, gently turning her so that her side is clearly visible. With the same gentle confidence he lifts her arm up and out of the way, and simply looks at the wound.
It’s truly horrific. Flesh has healed in white waves of foam, curled and knotted like old lace, sprayed over her skin and ridged over the worst of it. Puncture wounds, deep gauges, the kind of battle scar that few could rage back from. Mickey examines it carefully, studying it, and then, without thinking, presses his hand to it, the base of his palm rough, the calluses of his fingers abrasive against her own abrasive flesh.
Stands there, simply pressing his hand against her scar. She standing with her side to him, him naked beside her, but nothing of humanity here, nothing human. Two Garou stand here instead, one paying witness to pain and loss, one being brave enough to open an old wound in the simple act of describing a literal one. Mickey closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then steps back, relinquishing his touch, allowing her to lower her arm, giving her, if not much, at least a hands span of space.
Perhaps most Galliards at this point would offer a wise homily about home, pain, the heart, loss and love. Would offer advice, or seek to couch her story in some sort of philosophical point of view that would ameliorate her pain. Instead, Mickey simply meets her eyes, his own infinitely expressive, deeper now than before, darker, the flickering light of his own mad energies paying testament to that which resides within her own gaze, that pain and wrenching dislocation that she has summoned to the surface, here in this small space they share.
So he doesn’t speak. Or at least, offers no opinion, imposes no interpretation. Rather, he acknowledges, nods once, and then takes a deep breath and shakes his head, almost as if awakening from some deep place that her tale had taken him.
“Emily, Kyle Anne, Danny, Boy.” He offers her names back to her, and then simply holds his forearm out for her to see the names of his own fallen packmates. They’re standing in that place where scars and tattoos become one, where minds meet, where spirits can share pain, and perhaps, through that sharing, begin to let go.
[Marrick Fisher] she delivers it as a ale, and words don’t come easily to her. She’s not elegant, she’s not graceful, she wasn’t born to tell stories like he was. If she imparted words, they were to be ones of leadership and tactics and inspiration.
Maybe she wasn’t so bad at this, afterall. It’s the raw honesty that comes with it that makes it easy. Or, rather, easier.
There is no arrogance, not anymore. There is no pride, but there is no shame, either. There is longing, and that is far more complex than she had realized. She turns when moved, and lifts her arm enough that he can see where her ribs had cracked and where scar tissue told stories of the impossible.
She should never have been able to get back up.
She barely feels the texture of his fingertips. Other Galiards would offer wisdom. Offer something, give words and a message to the tale she had shared. Instead, she just looks back at him. when her eyes meet his, it’s clear how young she actually is. Marrick Fisher, ninetee years old, and proud, had died more times than she liked to remember. Bore scars that wold fall an Adren, outlived those who were her betters by sheer tenacity.
She looks down at his forearm, and traces the names with her fingertips. In her world, there was no diference between scars and tattoos, because they all stood as reminders of momentus occasions. Some big, some small, something marked you.
Forever and always. Sometimes they faded away into nothing. sometimes, they stayed forever, but their memories and lessons remain.
Scars, tattoos, all marks of reference.
The Fury offers no words.
[Callie] *Passing by, whatever the time or place, she’s walking past the back door . . the kitchen door maybe, past the bins and sacks of coffee grounds and potato peelings, soiled napkins and bacon rinds that spill across the alley, when she feels the pull of the pack bond . . someone is here, not far away. She glances up, at the narrow slit of a window with the peculiar frosted glass filmed with dirt and orange glow behind it that signalls a bathroom of some sort . . and from the crack between window and frame, issues a familiar voice.
“That Fianna I told you ’bout died. Th’ Grand Elder’s pack died, ‘cept him, half the flies died, most of the warder’s pack died…
Callie stops, and hauls herself up onto the nearest trash can to peer through the window*
[HtW] Mickey holds her gaze for a longer beat, and then shakes his head once more. The moment may be passing, but in some manner, like a bell tolling in the silent expanses of infinity, it’s going to resonate between them even after its gone. So, finally breaking the gaze, Mickey begins to pull on his pants, sliding one leg into each and then buckling his belt about his narrow waist.
[Marrick Fisher] She goes to pull on her shirt again, and nods, “yer alright.”
It’s the best announcement she should give.
“Coffee’s prob’ly cold by now.”
[HtW] “It’s not the coffee that matters, pookie,” he says as he shrugs into the jacket. A yawn racks his face, and tears come to his eyes, which he rubs away on his forearm. “It’s the sharing of a warm cuppa with treasured friends and loved ones. That and the whisky that’s innit.”
His grin has lost that predatory edge from before, but the wildness is still there. “And what I said about those freckles from before?”
He leans down and socks his feet one after the other into a boot. Straightens, gives her wry smile. “Meant it.”
[Callie] *The window slides open up high on the wall behind them, opening into one of the stalls and Callie eases herself through, dropping down to the ground as silently as possible. When she steps out of the stall she’s grinning* hi Marrick!
[Marrick Fisher] She was pulling her shirt down, having valuable wisdom relayed to her by a Galliard, when she finds herself face to almost face with a packmate. The Fury tenses, or almost tenses. She shoves her shirt down immediately and turns to look at Callie. She looked half embarrassed
“Jeezus, yer like a ferret!”
[HtW] Two women one bathroom = excellent times or times to take a quick side exit. Rather than become embroiled in this new arrival, Mickey opts to unlock the bathroom door and simply step back out into the cafe, leaving Marrick to her new friend.
[Callie] *still grinning, she shrugs, and with a little giggle announces* I figured you were probably done since you were both getting dressed . . . *and then, with mocked up horror and realisation* do I need to run?
[Marrick Fisher] She half grinned and took a second to drag her packmate out of the bathroom and, hopefully, back to Joss, “c’mon, you ain’t met Joss yet, have you?”
[HtW] (guys, i’m fading fast, so gonna log out. thanks for the scene!)
[Callie] Joss? . . *she asks . . It’s warm in the cafe, very warm from the steam and the cooking, and outside it’s certainly getting colder as they approach the shortest day. Callie unzips the front of her old khaki jacket and drops the hood to her shoulders where the fur edging sits like a ruff* maybe . . oh wait! . . yeah, I’ve seen her around I know that and I think I’ve met her but not really been properly introduced
[Marrick Fisher] “Joss Leeeeehreeeeeeer,” she offers. The call to arms is immediate, and she is grinning triumphant. She emerged from the bathroom with someone she did not go in with.
“Meet Callie.”
[Joss Lehrer] There’s no telling what she’s been doing since Imogen left. Her muffin is gone, her coffee too, and for all anyone can tell, she’s been simply staring out the window and talking to herself for the past minutes, hours, days. She’s not paying attention to anyone, it seems, but for something completely unseen.
She jumps when her name is called, wrenched back almost painfully from whatever she was doing, wherever she had been, her eyes clearing, her head whipping around so quickly it sends her dreads flying – she looks crazed for half a moment… long enough for there to be no doubt at all why there’s a nice clear area around her table.
She blinks, once. Twice. and pushes her dreads back over her shoulders as her lips settle into a comfortably warm smile. “Hi.”
[Callie] *Callie follows, just behind Marrick . . moving out to stand beside her packmate as soon as there is space in the small cafe to accomodate them both. Not that she takes up a lot of it, even in her old army surplus parka. She’s smiling, her green eyes sparkle with a private joke* hi Joss . .
[Marrick Fisher] “Joss is my partner in crime,” she announces, “an’ it’s for the best that we stay as such.”
She nods solid and sits herself down to take a drink of her probably-coffee-but-not-really-coffee beverage.
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs softly and nods. “Exactly.”
She smooths her skirts across her thighs, and blinks again, a few more times to clear her thoughts, and root herself once more in the here and now, not the there and then where she spent the last few seconds, minutes, hours days.
[Callie] any particular kind of crime or are you just freelance opportunists? *she gives them both a look in turn, wondering whether this is some obscure way of referring to the reason why Marrick was in the bathroom with a semi-naked man, or some kind of oblique garou reference, or just a throwaway comment* because, y’know, crime absolutely doesn’t pay!
[Marrick Fisher] “We’re robin hoodin’ it,” she informs the ragabash. The blonde crosses her legs and grins to herself.
She looks at Joss for a second, taking in her friend and trying to make sense of the details ofher face. She lets her expression seem knit for a second. Joss was miles away for a second, Marrick didn’t know where she’d gone.
Neither here nor there.
“Crime don’t pay, though. Guess I’ll stick t’my modelin’.”
[Joss Lehrer] She winks at Marrick. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Because her friend really does wear her expressions, her feelings out in the open where anyone can read them.
She settles into her seat and studies Callie for a moment, then just shrugs and grins. “I was actually supposed to model once, but she never called. I’d be frightened that the camera would steal my soul or something…”
[Callie] well, if the camera doesn’t then the business certainly will! *Callie says, fiddling with the zip on her jacket, trying and failing to get the ancient thing to fit together properly again* I was asked to model once, but I told them straight up . . it’d take a lot more than $40k for me to compromise my principles!
[Marrick Fisher] “Exactly, Callie, you should hold out for at least forty five,” she says with half a grin.
The Fury finishes off her coffee and offers Joss a little smile. “Good,” she says. She is such an open creature and it’s hard to compromise otherwise.
She starts to head out.
“we should get going, though, Wendy’s gettin’ all weird ‘cus of the baby.”
[Joss Lehrer] She grabs her scarf and wraps it around her neck again – it’s colder outside, but she still doesn’t have a coat, just her sweater and skirts. She’s from Storm Hammer. This is nothing.
“Yeah, I gotta run patrols. You guys have a good one, huh?”
And she nudges Marrick with her hip, and waves to Callie. “Night!” and then, she’s slipping outside, and headed to Althea, and home.
[Callie] I was just about to say the same . . *She finally gets the zip sorted and does up her jacket again, leaving the hood down she gives Marrick a straight look over the same grin. They may make light of it but some things are serious* bye Joss . . . come on . .
[Marrick Fisher] (and fade, thanks loves! I had fun!)