The trip has been long, the absense preceding it longer still. The beat up Chevy Nova motors along the streets of Riverfront, aimlessly it would seem, though not without purpose. A spot is chosen, the piece of shit car is parked, and the engine turned off. When it finally stops chugging with a loud boom of a backfire in protest, only then does the door open.
Boots hit the ground first – leather, high heeled, perfectly formed to the slender legs above, disappearing under perfectly pressed slacks, the crease defined and straight and recently ironed. The woman exits the rest of the way, and a long leather coat falls around her lean form. She belts it over the silken blouse with practiced ease. Her neck is slender, the line of her jaw strong, her features plain, her makeup flawless. Her hair is boyishly short, however, though it doesn’t detract from the fierce beauty.
If the Nova were a beast, this is certainly Beauty.
Strong strides carry her to the walk, and to the rail beyond where she looks out over the river. Only then does the long ignored, distance taxed Totemphone crackle to life. A woman of few words, her first comments are no different, across the wings of Mighty Eagle.
I heard help was needed. I am home.
AnneMarie ‘Ruhiger’ Hoch – Modi, Eagle – once more patrols the streets of Chicago.
[Hyde]
A reply is almost instant. Coming across the totemic link from Hyde.
Good… You can start feedin’ that god damned turtle of yours. Fucker bites off peices of me once.. twice a week. Son of a bitch.
We’re all round up at the Kinhouse. Give ya details when you get here.
[AnneMarie]
There is a flicker of a smile – though few would even notice the change. It is brief, and barely more of a quirk of the corner of her lips before it is gone.
Good. He has not forgotten his training. I will be there soon.
[Kemp]
High on the roof of the Kinpackhouse, a single dark brow rose with the totem speak. And a reply flickered back across.
~Heh, welcome back. Ya know, we gotta have one of the weirdess assfucked packs around. Come, go away to who knows where for months, come back. Leave for a few weeks, come back. Heh.~
A mental snicker coming across.
~We’re Motel Six. We’ll leave the light on.~
[AnneMarie]
Speak for yourself. The mental reply comes, sounding close to bemused. I have never been assfucked.
The more things change….
Finally, however, she pulls from her contemplation of the river and what lay beyond, and returns to her vehicle. A visit to the Caern first and formost, then to the Kinhouse and whatever lay within.
–At the Caern–
Umbral, the tall, lean form of the Modi can be seen standing atop the hill at the edge of the great whirlpool. Umbral winds slide around her form, the tails of her calf-length leather coat whipping about her legs, dancing about her as she stands still, unmoving.
Sacrifice to Maelsrtom is something that must be done, re-earning the favor of the totem she already shed blood for in the past. Unseen, beneathe her clothing, a tattoo snakes around her arm, sliding down toward her hand, the intricate carved staff solidifying in her grasp. It is not the one she uses, but one like it – lighter, and carved all over with the story of it’s pervious owner. Only that owner, and AnneMarie herself could possibly know what a sacrifice this is. In silence, she hefts the ironwood until it rests against both palms. Fingers curl around the strong wood, feeling the weight of more then the staff she holds.
After a long moment, she takes a breath, lifts her chin…
..and pauses. Gisele’s staff – one made by her own hand, handled with a fierceness that few kin every could have managed, and retrieved from the home sept that was to have been a haven while AnneMariee trained. She knows not whether she lived through the attack or died fighting, or the whereabouts of her body in either case. So. Here. Where it all began, it is her final physical link to the Fenrir kin that she offers the Sept’s Spirit, letting the staff roll off her fingertips, and watching as it disappears within the depths of Maelstrom’s endless whirlpool.
Closure.
Her strength and spirit pledged to Maelstrom once more, she slides her hands into the pockets of her coat, and remains standing. Impassive. Strong.
Steadfast.
Until finally, she turns on a heel, and long strides carry her through the bawn, through the gauntlet, back to her car, and she travels the final leg in a long journey home.
[Kemp]
~It was a figure of speech. But ya know what? Just forget it.~
Snorting to himself as he sent the reply over the link again with a shake of his head.
“I give the hell up.”
Muttered under his breath as he shifted back to the deeper shadows of the night clothed roof. Form blending, changing until he sat there in Lupus to listen to the night.
[AnneMarie]
A slim brow arches, and the chuckle that flows along the wings of Eagle is definitely amused. Has our resident jokester forgotten his laughter? I understood, Kemp.
But then she too, is silent. She remembers well how he hated the ‘sound’ of her voice in his head.