[Park] People are beginning to consider whether or not their homes are really something to be kept away from. It’s gotten too warm in here, and those two young people sitting together in the corner feel too conspiratorial, feel too much like they’re planning on robbing the place, like they’re going to pull guns and attempt to empty out wallets and the register. Neither of them is particularly well-dressed, and there is an electric intensity in both of their bodies that is only made worse by the fattening of the moon overhead.
None of the humans currently sharing the space with these two has any idea that they aren’t just dangerous ex-convicts whose malcontent triggers previously unforeseen sixth senses, that they are actually warriors charged with protecting the very earth that humanity is helping the Wyrm and the Weaver to destroy. All they know is that having their backs to the two at the table is uncomfortable, and that neither of them is paying any attention to the rest of the bar.
That isn’t entirely true. They’re paying enough attention that they know they can’t speak freely. They’re aware of the fact that they are not shut in at the Brotherhood, or at the Loft, that there may be hunters or Pentex operatives lurking nearby. They have to veil their speech. It takes Keith a moment to realize what it is the Philodox is saying.
“Labatt,” she answers to the second question, illustratively hoisting her beer, causing the half-full contents to lightly slosh before she sets it back down on the table. Her brow briefly kinks as she considers the first part of his question. “I was in New Orleans last. What about you; you from here?”
[Keith] Keith blinks. Por que? Moi? Then he smiles, crooked. “New York,” he says. “And Maine. Upstate.” And if she listened hard enough, if she was familiar with the accent, she might hear some of it there: in his consonants, in his vowels. He doesn’t speak particularly quickly, but there’s blueblooded languor, and it sneaks through, and doesn’t have much to do with his tribe. It has more to do with his upbringing. (Aren’t those the same?) He blinks again, a scowl working its way across his expression — offhand. “I’d never left before.” He drums his fingers against the table, as if he just can’t help it. Too much energy, gotta release the pressure somehow.
Change of mood. “What happened in New Orleans? You don’t look as if you’ve come here for blood and glory.” They should watch their tongues, but this is just the kind of jackass thing some tipsy young man might say, isn’t it? He isn’t eyeballing her in a way that says he wants to eat her up, that says the next thing he says to her is going to be some kind of come-on. Maybe that’s different. Maybe he’s actually just a nice guy. (Maybe they’re from a species that can’t mate, and the thought doesn’t even cross his mind now that he knows, because that’s just gross. Maybe it’s not ALWAYS about sex.)
He doesn’t expect anything to have really happened in New Orleans. Anything special, that is. He’s no Galliard, no Talespinner, reaching across the Nation to whip it into story.
“Are you planning on drinking any more?” He probably means any more than she’s already got. He probably means is she near her limit or is she leaving this place soon. He probably doesn’t mean it as a prelude to let’s you and me get outta here kid, because, for all the coiling violence [(barely) contained] underneath his skin, seething in the hardness of his musculature, burning at the base of his spine and behind his lungs, his posture is one of relax. Of ease. You wouldn’t call it calm, but you’d maybe call it — steady. For now, anyway. You’d maybe call it carelessness, too, or flippancy.
[Park] Keith is not brimming with anger like some young Full Moons are, or if he is there is a poise and grace about him that manages to have him simply seeming full of restless energy rather than champing at the bit for something to destroy. He sits without hunching over his drink or glowering out at the world around him. He does not stare at the woman across from him as though she is something to be conquered, as though he is going to try his damnedest to get her back to his place tonight. No one in here would blame him. She looks like a bruiser, like a street-tough bitch with toned arms and an imperviousness to the chill of the evening. There is no goose flesh on her bare arms. She does not shiver. The temperature in here is not even worth mentioning but the warmth of her Rage is enough to keep it at bay.
He asks what happened in New Orleans, says that she doesn’t look as though she’s here for blood and glory, and the Philodox just folds her lips into a thin line, shakes her head to indicate that no, indeed, that is not her purpose in this city.
“I heard the sacred place is very young,” she says, “yet the graveyard is filled already. I want to know why.”
The conversation carries on, Park raising her beer for a swallow. Is she planning on drinking more?
“You buying?” she asks, in a tone that might be mistaken for flirtatious by someone who wasn’t aware of the rules their lot follows.
[Keith] “I’ll buy one round, you’ll buy the next,” he says (decrees), and so it will be, if there is a next. Park’s reason for being in Chicago sounds — rational; sounds thoughtful. Sounds worlds away from Keith’s reason for being in Chicago, and he leans back in his chair, sprawling one leg out, restlessness in repose. He spins his glass around, idle, idle, eying Park across the table. “Do you have any thoughts on the matter yet?”
[Park] “Deal.”
The jukebox goes briefly silent before the twanging first notes of a swamp rock staple fill the emptying barroom, and she’s asked her opinion. The Half Moon tips her head to one side in a lupine show of thought, her heavy hair sliding off her shoulder and behind her back, and she bobs her head in a nod as she takes another swallow of her disappearing lager.
“A few,” she admits. “I was there when Tiny Doom was cut down. The Corrupter isn’t held in check here. I’m not entirely sure why. I’ve a suspicion that it isn’t being sought out, or that it’s too numerous for the population to handle. But I’ve only been here a few days. All I have right now are thoughts.”
[Zeke] The Bar door is uncommonly busy tonight, patrons with better things to do, wives to go back home to and the drudge of a Christmas gone, have opted to find those things that they came ’round to escape from, once more. If only to get away from that effortlessly pervasive feeling of ‘Dread’ that comes with the Rage in confined quarters. The Bartender has made a few advances to some of his departing regulars, but to little avail. He himself isn’t the sort that would risk telling the pair to leave either.
Moreover, he is, but not those two.
So when a new face peeks in through the bar door, trimmed in a flat suit and long coat, black gloves and sunglasses perched upon a shaved head, he looks a little relieved, even offers a nod and a quirk of a smile while cleaning up a mug he’s been wiping down for fifteen minutes.
The newcomer’s gaze flicks toward the pair in the corner almost immediately, dismissing what few inebriates remain behind, while striding past the row of stools with carefully measured steps. A hand, doffed of glove, rises to flash three digits at the Bar man.
“Two more of whatever they’re having now and…” A glance at the bar back, then toward the Taps and finally ’round on the barman again, scrutinizing and frank.
“…And a pint of Stella.” The bill left on the bar was enough to cover the drinks and the second one, made it a generous tip. Something apologetic in that gesture, though it didn’t show in the man’s features or frame. Instead, he began to unwind the dark red scarf from ’round his neck, picking his way around tables and chairs toward the pair.
“…Preaching the line then, Park?” His smile is small. The sort of thing you earn from compromises and composure. Falsified to believability.
[Keith] “It only takes a few days,” Keith says, shrugging. It only takes a few days to get killed, he means, or maybe: It only takes a few days to hear about someone else getting killed. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks. But,” and hold the phones! HOLD THEM! Because it appears! Like the ahroun is trying to think. (He’s not stupid. He just acts that way, sometimes. It’s easier, people don’t expect as much. He’s never been very good at it.) His forehead wrinkles, and he stops spinning his glass around. “Hmm. Does seem to me like I haven’t heard a thing about finding it before it finds,” and he makes a small gesture, just his fingers off the table, no longer drumming — an aborted wave of the arm. He doesn’t seem to be big on moving much right now, except for that: the drumdrum of his fingers, the sprawl. He’s comfortable, he’s good, he’s watching Zeke approach with an air of aloof bafflement and/or amusement. The two conflicting emotions synchronize when good old Zeke greets Park. “Who’re you?” he says.
[Park] She hasn’t been paying particular attention to the door, if only because it has been opening and closing with increasing frequency the longer she and Keith have been talking to each other. It had started during their staredown, when they’d been daring each other to look away first from across the room, and it has only continued as the conversation has drawn on.
Yet when the solidly-built creature with the sunglasses atop his head strolls in, her head slightly turns, her eyes never leaving Keith’s side of the table but her attention clearly pulled. They share no bond, have not devoted what spiritual alms they have to a totem yet, and yet his presence is heavier than that of a human. It is an entrance, not an escape, and his voice carries when he reaches the bar.
She glances up as the No Moon comes up behind her, slim fingers tracing the edge of her glass, and a humorless smirk flits across her lips. It disappears when Keith asks who he is. She pushes her hair back off of her other shoulder. Zeke will note that she’s dressed no differently than she was when they first met several months ago: those hiking boots, those rugged jeans, that black A-shirt are all the same. There is a stitched-up barn coat slung over the back of her chair, and her knapsack is nowhere to be seen. She must have found a place to sleep, to rest her possessions.
Her alto is pitched so low that it cannot be heard over the sound of swamp rock, over the hum of conversation struggling to carry on despite the danger in the room. She’s used to carrying on sensitive conversations out in the open, prefer not to though she may.
“This is Host of Traitors, No Moon of Grandfather, called Zeke. We met in New Orleans. Host of Traitors, this is Savage Dawn, Voice of Carnage, Full Moon of Falcon, called Keith. Siddown, Keith and I are just getting acquainted.”
[Zeke] “Huh.”
It is a non-committed sound, the Ragabash listening almost half-heartedly as the young Philodox offers her voice and introductions of the Fang and himself, claiming one of the chairs a half-second after Park has offered it, gloves slapped onto the table without much ceremony or regard for courteous design. His jacket remains on, one leg lifting to cross the other, ankle to knee and finally leaning back in the chair, which creaks lightly under his weight, a smile to match Park’s own genuine mirth creeping onto his features.
“Of course you are.”
The drinks arrive, the pint of Stella set infront of Zeke by the suddenly timid barkeep, whilst Park and Keith’s own are set beside their current glasses. Zeke pays the man no mind or mention, waiting for him to depart before reaching for his glass.
“Last I heard Falcon had taste in a lot of places but Chicago was something of a lost cause for your Tribe. Always nice to be corrected, of course.” Sipping at the beer.
[Keith] Host of Traitors. Covered Sky. They have sneaky names, thief-names; they have names that don’t draw to the forefront of the mind gossip and honor. Host of Traitors: why would anybody host a traitor, unless it was to kill ’em? Unless they had some sort’ve boon to fulfill? How could one host a traitor and afterwards allow oneself to be named for — and Covered Sky. Maybe the sky is covered with doom: that’d be fine. Or maybe —
Keith takes in the introduction, and he takes in the (not) man, and he nods, courteous enough. His fingers drum, he taps his thumb against the side of his glass, and when a new glass is set beside it, he gives the barkeep a sudden glance — jump of the eyes to the side, flickerflash quick, something there. Maybe. Wait, no. Nothing there. “A pleasure, Zeke.” His forehead furrows again. Not a scowl. This smooths out when Zeke says how it’s always nice to be corrected — eases into something mellow, something self-mocking. “There aren’t any lost causes,” he says. Then amends: “Well, very few. Have you been around for a while?”
[Mary] {Location?}
to Keith, Park, Zeke
[Mary] She’s been there, for quite some time. She isn’t loud, she isn’t brash, she doesn’t say much, she has kept to herself at the corner of the bar. She does, however, keep a quiet conversation with the bartender, as she asks him the time, repeatedly. When he answers her this time, there is a sigh, deep and heartfelt, as shoulders slump.
“He’s not coming.”
Her voice, if heard, is soft and melodic, music on a summer breeze, ice crystals tinkling in a glass, seductive and winsome all at once. Unlike many others, she dares wear white after labor day, her dress long and flowing, covering a shape many would covet, the satin clinging to her form, yet retaining it’s modesty at the same time. Her hair is her crowning glory though, long and blond and shimmering in the low light of the dive bar…
Her upset is easy to see, the seat next to her, a glass filled and waiting on the bar before it, remains empty. She’s been stood up – and on Christmas too. It’s no wonder she’s fighting back tears.
[Zeke] “Mmmmm” is his only real response to the line about it being a pleasure, Zeke putting his lips to the glass of Stella Artois and sipping away gently as the Silver Fang continues to drift off words and scrutinies with casual arrogance. Zeke for the most part, doesn’t seem to mind or measure it, keeping his eyes averted from Keith or simply on something else at the table or nearby. At once point, his attention drifts across his shoulder slightly, ears plucking at the small commotion near the bar, before setting his gaze back to the conversation (a brief stop over on Park, as if to check something) and ’round on Keith once more as the Silver Fang offers a polite question.
“…Not long again. I came through with my old pack not too long ago. Stayed for a while. Decided to leave again and explore the sights and wonders of America.” Another Sip of his beer, eying the interior sceptically afterward. “…The fact I’m back again says something about how wonderful it all was, really.” Flicking eyes up at the Silver Fang’s chin and left cheek.
“You?”
[Park] A fresh set of drinks arrives to replace the ones the two of them have been moving through for the last several minutes. Park doesn’t do so much as look up at the nervous bartender as he drops off their beers, her gaze being firmly planted on the metis beside her as he speaks of lost causes and the niceness of being corrected on occasion. Her eyes do not blink frequently, and were not for the fact that there is some light in them it would be just shy of a stare.
It’s worth mentioning that the Philodox seems more luminous on the last true night of the half, seems more balanced and approachable than she tends to any other night of the month. She practically glows, her skin seeming lighter and healthier than it had the last time their paths crossed. This woman is very much in tune with her moon, and as it waxes overhead, fattening towards full, she feels it acutely. There is nothing ominous or sharp about her tonight, no darkness to her demeanor or actions. That will come when Luna wanes.
The two males converse, the female’s dark eyes ticking between them as if she’s watching a tennis match. Whatever is going on at the bar behind her fails to draw her attention. She’d noticed the lone woman, dressed far too nicely to be occupying this dive bar on one of the drunkest nights of the year, when she came in. That was the last mind she’d paid to her.
Park, for now, is silent. She tosses back the last of her first beer, slides the empty to the no man’s land in the middle of the table, and picks up her second, wordlessly hefting it in cheers before taking a long swallow. Her eyes are back on the Silver Fang.
[Mary] Her drink also goes largely untouched. They had planned to meet here, than move on to other things, better places, more excitement on this, the holiest of Holidays. Part of her wonders if something bad happened, part of her worries – but mostly she is just.. devastated.
She lifts her hand, pale and slender, lift to wipe the moisture from her eyes. The bartender hands her a napkin, which she takes between delicate fingers with a murmured “Thank you.”
She sighs, deeply, then straightens her shoulders, and looks about the dingy bar for the first time really, since she arrived. The patrons are few and far between, and all dressed far less formally than she. It doesn’t seem to bother her, however, and her eyes – a pale blue that shimmers like glass with unshed tears – fall at last on the trio at the table, and there it stays. She makes no attempt to hide her observation, no attempt to sheild her gaze.
She simply watches.
(…for now…)
[Keith] He notices the commotion at the bar, too. Because he’s jumpy; because it happens out of the corner of his eye. Because it happens around an attractive woman all dressed in white satin, and if he’s noticed one thing about the women of Chicago, it’s that they’re insane. (That’s not fair, Keith. They’re not all women ‘of’ Chicago. They’re just women who happen to be in Chicago at the same time you’re in Chicago. What’s that say?) There’s a hot lady. What else? But he’s invested in the conversation he’s having right now, with two of Grandfathers ilk. “What was it like here back in the day?”
Maybe Zeke hasn’t been gone for so long that ‘back in the day’ is the appropriate way to term his previous tenure at Maelstrom’s caern. Then again: how many faces does he recognize? And how many will never be seen again? Again, he looks surprised that his question was turned back on him. “A couple of weeks, maybe add a few days.”
This is about when Mary starts to stare at the trio, all unshed tears in her eyes, glassy, luminous, lovely, and she’s just looking, looking, looking.
[Zeke] …Zeke’s answer might well have come on the wings of a touch of sarcasm. Something about Thunder doing their part to make the world a safer place to die in and the Silver Fangs mucking it all up in the end. Then, Zeke’s cellphone goes off with some unknown hip hop track of some sort. He plucks it from inside his pocket and climbs to his feet, eyeing the number with a frown.
“Excuse me…” Before picking up his gloves and heading toward the door to take the call outside.
[Mary] Her eyes track Zeke as he walks past, and lips part, the tip of her tongue moistening them before she takes a breath to speak…
…but he’s already gone, and she lets loose the breath into a soft sigh instead.
She folds her hands in her lap, fingers wringing together briefly, before falling still, as her eyes return to the two that remain at the table.
[Park] It isn’t until Zeke rises from the table and walks out of the bar, taking Park’s attention with him, that the Philodox is able to feel a set of eyes on her back, that she connects that with the direction of Keith’s eyes and thinks to look over her shoulder. When she does, she finds that ignored blonde still sitting there, the barstool beside her empty, the drink beside it untouched.
The track changes from one warning about the malevolence of the moon overhead sung by males to a power rock ballad whose singers reveal themselves to be female several bars in.
Park stares back at the woman for several seconds, then scowls.
“What?” she asks, sharply, the edge in her voice enough to cause most humans to avert their gazes without so much as a mumble of explanation.
[Fons Van Der Noot] He was not one for going out to the bars or lounges. The normal mortals did not seem to be very comfortable around him. His rage seemed to displease them to be around. Then again after the incident with the strider kin and her ward…. he has been left…
It did not matter as it seemed that many of the local hang outs around this part of the city were either closed or did not hold any type of clients that would be worthwhile to keep him company. It seemed that his efforts would go in vain tonight. But he would try another, one more place.
And as Zeke departed from the scene, it seemed that the young Silver fang Galliard would appear in the doorway. His large Armani overcoat covering his designer suit and hiding him from the elements. Tonight he actually dressed the part he wanted to play, the expensive gold Swiss watch on his right wrist. He was making sure that the mortals would take note of him. Especially in this part of town.
[Mary] What, the woman asks sharply, with an edge, and though Mary does not avert her gaze so much as to turn away as a mere human would, she does lower her lashes, demurely. She is unafraid, and the edge does not cut and slice the way it does the nervous bartender, or the patrons that had already been forced to clear out from the force of rage around a single table.
“Pardon me, for my impertinence, ma’am. It.. You all simply have a lovely… Aura.”
And the door opens to allow Fons entrance, and once more her gaze lifts – liquid with the unshed tears of one stood up on Christmas Night – to rest unabashed on the face of royalty. Her smile is a tremulous thing, of one being strong in the face of uncertainty. Demure, vulnerable, and quite simply – lovely.
[Keith] Zeke’s phone stopped something sarcastic about Shadow Lords and Silver Fangs from leaving his mouth; that was fine. That was good. Keith marks Zeke’s departure and he finishes off the first half of his second beer. He grimaces, because the taste hits him in the back of his throat, because for a second, the pisspoor American beer he was drinking just doesn’t taste good to him any longer. There’s been a disconnect, folks. And there’s that woman, and she’s staring, and staring, and staring, and she’s unafraid.
The young Ahroun does not react well to this. He doesn’t. The intensity of his (stay controlled, stay controlled) Rage ratchets up a notch and he resettles against the table, so instead of being sprawled lazily back in his chair, sitting straight-backed and aristocratic, he’s sprawled over the edge, nursing his beer like an oldschool drunk, beating his thumbs against the table. He stares at the (hot) woman in the (white) satin dress who is apparently crazy or of something that’s no good, and he half-cocks an eyebrow, half-looks at Park, doesn’t quite. The door opens, and Fons is standing framed there, a fish out of water, but blood calls to blood, and Keith takes a slow breath, exhales it harshly.
“If you want to be pardoned, quit your impertinence,” he says, warns, warily, although his mouth is starting to curve into a rueful (sincere) smile. Lovely aura. Hah. “Don’t stare.”
Aww, he was mean to her, and she’s so pretty. He’ll probably feel bad.
[Park] He half-looks at Park, who half-looks back. The two of them have an almost disconcertingly similar reaction in the face of the woman sitting at the end of the bar. They have to be wondering why it is that she is not reacting the way that the barkeep had, the way that dozens of humans in the bar have, the way the rest of humanity has; why it is she isn’t quavering in her seat at the thought of having any more of the attention of these two people on her than she already has when she seems almost devastated by whoever it is that has left her sitting by herself tonight.
She doesn’t stammer as she addresses them, even as she does lower her gaze. There is far more tact and diplomacy in the way that the Full Moon addresses the young woman speaking of pardon and lovely auras than likely would have come out of Park’s mouth; never mind that she seems placid tonight, that she seems as evenly balanced as the moon was the last three nights.
And yet her suspicions are raised. This woman does not seem possessed by the Wyrm, does not seem as though she is a drone or a hunter, and yet. Yet Park files away her face, files away her dress, files away her demeanor.
And then she turns around, halves her beer in several long swallows, and plunks it down with a thump.
“Come on,” she says, reaching back to slide into her barn coat before pushing back with a clatter of wooden legs on a wooden floor. “I know a place where the walls don’t have ears.”
[Fons Van Der Noot] The large Belgian man does not seem to impressed with the bar, like many of the places that dotted this part of Chicago. It was a dive bar that seemed to have nothing but watered down alcohol and the same run down individuals that made the place look worse than it was, if that was even possible.
Except blood does indeed sing to blood. His eyes fall upon the pair sitting at the table, one whose blood was just as potent as his own. Keith seemed to stand out as a beacon in the bleakness. The woman he was sitting with was seemingly just as strong in the rage that stemmed from her. The pair seemed to be scaring off anyone around.
Except for the exceptional lovely looking woman who was brazen enough to stand the blaze that burned within those two warriors. The woman who seemed to stand out just as much as he did in this place. Part of him wished to speak with his tribal mate, but this woman had peeked his interests. He moves to the bar, just at the end away from the group to get the attention of the bartender.
“Give me a grey goose and cranberry.”
[Mary] He was mean to her, and she turns to watch him again, lashes falling to kiss pale cheeks as she lowers her head in acceptance of his words. They are harsh, but no more so than what she has already encountered tonight. “Yes, sir.”
Her hair is a long and blond and falls heavily about her shoulders, down to the small of her back, and with the lowering of her head it slides across her cheek, her shoulder in silken caress. It shines even here in the dingy bar, giving her a sort of aura herself, one of purity and modesty, of demure delights held in fragile skin.
“I… I apologize, once again. I was merely gathering my courage…” And then her gaze returns to Fons, watching as he orders, and letting her gaze rest on his splendid personage as she finishes her sentence “…as I seem to find myself in need of a ride home.”
[Keith] Aw. And he does feel bad.
Maybe it’s because she just sounds so damned lovely; maybe it’s because of the way the light catches in her hair. Maybe it’s because he expected her ribs to sudden distend, for her head to pop back, for something with teeth to crawl gibbering out of her throat, extending its talons, its claws, dripping gore and venom toward Park and himself — and when that doesn’t happen, he’s sorry. (That it didn’t?) Helpless whores or brides or whatever shouldn’t get yelled at just because they’re all helpless. IF SHE TRULY IS.
Still. She lowers her gaze, and he relaxes slightly. Park makes a suggestion, and Keith, after a moment’s reflection, decides that it is good. His arrogance is the most casual kind. Sometimes it doesn’t even seem like arrogance. He stands up, scrubbing his fingers through his hair rapidly, and he says: “Take a cab, ma’am. Safter than picking up some random schmuck.” And Keith, perhaps to atone, takes a twenty out of his pocket (he doesn’t bother with a wallet, really; they’re not as useful as one might think) and drops it on the bartop.
He’d like to talk to Fons. He would. In fact, he can’t leave without saying something to him. Which is why he says, to Park, “I’ll meet you outside. You,” he’s hailing the other Silver Fang. “Are you that woman’s cousin?” He doesn’t mean Mary’s. “I’m at Kate’s later. We should talk.”
And that’ll just about do it.
[Park] [And I’m out here! Alarm’s going off in six hours! Thanks for the play, y’all!]
[Fons Van Der Noot] He looks towards the man that started off with the rage filled woman It seemed that they had business to discuss, but he did address him for a moment before leaving. How he spoke about his cousin and that they should meet at Kate’s some time soon. He just nodded in return.
“I will speak with you soon.”
Maybe his cousin finally did something right and found herself a proper Silver Fang to possibly mate to.
When the bartender returns with his drink, he drops the money on the bar, not even thinking about any change. Just letting the man skitter away as he picks up the drink.
[Mary] Keith drops a twenty on the bar, and the young woman looks at it, yet does not pick it up, not straight away – not while he remains in the bar itself. She does, however, steal one last look at him through her lashes, sensual lips curled into the slightest of smiles. She is the picture of perfection, of a well trained future mate to the Nation, and he tells her to take a cab.
Perhaps she will.
Once he has gone, she wets her lips with the tip of her tongue, and then reaches for the twenty – her fingers hesitate just above it, and Fons finds himself the object of her attention once more. Her voice, though soft, carries to him easily enough. “I have heard stories, that it is unsafe for a woman to ride the cabs alone in this area of town. Do you know if this is true?”
As she asks, her eyes, the window to her soul, are wide, guileless, with the palest of blues showing just how worried she is. It has been a difficult night, and a ride home alone has the potential to end very badly. She is fearful, and a sweet, innocent vulnerability all but pours from her pale skin…
[Fons Van Der Noot] He finishes off the drink in little more than a couple of pulls from the glass, one that probably was filled with more germs than it was alcohol, before his eyes look over the young woman once more. She seemed to be the epitome of everything that was sweet and innocent in this world. Everything the garou were fighting so hard to try and preserve from the onslaught of the wyrm.
Fons’ deep brown eyes seem to ponder this woman, staring through her very soul for a moment with eyes that could pierce armor. He rubs at his chin a little bit before speaking, thick germanic accent overtaking his english.
“I cannot say for certain, but I would image so. This city is…. rough.”
[Mary] She pulls her lower lip between her teeth to bite back the softest of sounds. It is a sound of worry, that borders almost on fear, that could very well grow into it should she give it enough time. She looks to the money on the bar, and then to Fons once more.
“It’s a rather long ride… I suppose anything could happen, or nothing at all. I hesitate to burden you with my request, but do you think..”
She pauses, and lowers her eyes, respectful and demure. “…would you accompany me at least part of the way?”
[Fons Van Der Noot] He watches her for several moments as she eyes the money on the bar. It was not up to him if he should take it or leave it. It was offered up to her after all, it was her choice.
However the way she acted, her demeanor, her very being seemed to ask for a protector. The submissive nature of this woman seemed to peek his interest even more. This was a proper woman, if only she was a kin.
“What type of gentleman would I be if I said no.”
[Mary] The relief floods through her in an almost visible wave, as she reaches forward to touch his arm, lightly. “Thank you, sir. I would be ready whenever you are.”
There’s a breath, and she sits up and the hand lifts from his arm to touch her lips as her eyes widen. “Oh forgive me, I fear I have forgotten my manners entirely, in the face of my emotional evening.” She slides from the stool, her dress falling in satin waves about her slender form, until she gathers a fold, and drops into a formal curtsy, head bowed, one foot crossed behind the other, not even daring to look up through her lashes until she stands again, her voice a soft silken chime filled with the innocents of bells at Christmas.. “I am Mary. Might I inquire the name of my protector?”
[Mary] (innocents=innocence)
[Fons Van Der Noot] He watches her as she touches his arm, the relief that seems to flood through her seemed to make him smirk slightly. This woman was a unique individual, something about her drew more and more out of him. As if she was too good to be true.
And then she forgives herself for forgetting herself. She actually gets up and curtsy, a custom that seems all but lost on many of those that inhabit this city, let alone this country. He could not hold back a smile as he leans over, taking her hand in his, as if old customs must be upheld.
“Forgive me it I seem so informal, but if it pleases you, you may call me Fons.”
He leans over, kissing her hand as one would greet royalty, as nobility should act.
“Et c’est mon honneur cher, que je mai jouer le rôle favorable de votre protecteur pour ce soir, mademoiselle.”
Charming, deep brown eyes look up from the slight bow and kiss of a hand to the woman that had intrigued him.
[Mary] He takes her hand, and finds her fingers chilled to the touch, but solid enough – proof perhaps that she is real, that she is here, though her actions prove her too good to be true. He speaks in French as he kisses her hand, and the pleasure of the touch across her cool skin is clear in her gaze, in the little shiver of delight that dances along her spine.
“I have no idea what you just said, Sir, but it certainly sounded lovely. I have always wished to learn a foreign language, yet have not had the opportunity. Perhaps you could point me in the way of a proper professor for such an undertaking… since you speak so beautifully.”
[Fons Van Der Noot] It was not odd that her hand was chilled under his touch. He was a walking inferno of rage, that spit fire along his veins and kept him ready to fight. But the winter has indeed set in along the city and this bar did not seem to be as… well kept as some other places. Not to mention that she was dressed in clothes that were not so protective of the weather.
“Forgive me, but french is just as native to me as dutch or english. My home land almost demands it of me. I do not know of any proper professors of the language.”
[Mary] She smiles, and it lightens her eyes, eyes that had been filled with tears when he first entered the bar, eyes that now look into his, only to lower once more, in completely submission to his word.
“Then perhaps you will teach me a word or two during our ride. I think I should like that very much.”
She moistens her lips with the tip of her tongue, and then looks toward the door, as she lifts her hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear. She does not insist they go now, or soon. She simply waits for him to direct her when it is time.
[Fons Van Der Noot] Part of him may have actually found a slight bit of joy out of the fact that she was not so inclined to cry as she might have when he first came to the bar. And her demeanor seemed to only make him smirk internally with each docile movement and agreeable word. She would be perfect….
“I believe that can be arranged…”
He looks to the bartender again with a nod, every bar had some car service they relied on to get their drunks home in one piece.
“Shall we get you home mademoiselle, before it gets too late and you turn into pumpkin.”
[Mary] She smiles, and once again her hand finds his arm, so cool against the heat and press of his rage, under the brunt of his purity, his bearing. The Bartender calls for the service, and it arrives quickly enough. Still, she does not pick up the $20 on the bar – it is left for the bartender to take in payment for her drinks that were never touched.
She has no coat, though she does not seem bothered by the chill, as she presses close to the warmth of him in the short walk to the car, where he – as all gentlemen should – opens her car door and hands her inside like a fine piece of china, like something precious and valuable. She is submissive, allowing his handling of her as if it is expect, and her due. Her guileless, demure presence is as a balm to this poor soul who has been transplanted into a city that is – according to his own admission – rough.
Once he joins her in the car, and she gives the address to the driver. “Archer Avenue, please. Just past Resurrection.”
Afterwards, her hands fold in her lap, fingers laced loosely together, and under her skirt her knees are primly pressed together, her ankles crossed under her. She is, first and foremost, a lady, and a well-mannered one at that. She allows him to direct he conversation, teaching her a few basic words in French, to the sound of her tinkling laughter (glass on marble, singing bells) as she does her best to pronounce the words correctly. She accepts his guidance throughout, with shy looks from beneath her lashes and the occasional reach of her hand to touch his arm as she makes some subtle point or another.
It’s a thoroughly delightful ride, truth be told, but all things must come to an end. For Fons and Mary, it does so before the cab even reaches it’s destination, for one minute they are having a lovely conversation – and then she touches his hand, and points out the window to a beautiful building they are passing, just as they turn down Archer Avenue, drawing his attention that way. The pressure of her arm is there, the chill lingering even as it fades away, and when Fons looks back toward the woman he’s spent the last hours with…
…she is gone.
There is nothing left, no scent, no sense of presence, not even the scent of her perfume.. it has all disappeared…
…all but for the lingering chill, remembered pressure, the tingle of delight of a conversation well enjoyed where she’d last touched his hand – the sole reminder that she existed at all…
[Fons Van Der Noot] It seemed that this woman was far too good to be true. Her shy glances away from him, proper due respect to his stature and prowess as a superior being. Demure and pure in a way that one have trouble ever finding in this day and age. The feel of her presence, the slight touch of her slender fingers, the very essence of her being.
It was indeed a pleasant ride, her soft laughter at her missed words in a language she does not know. The simple mistakes that he almost seems to forget ever exist in a language that is practically his primary one.
And then in an instant she is gone. In that moment he looks around, looks out the window to search down the woman who was no where to be seen. He looks to the driver, looking to check to see if he noticed her too. And when the driver stammers about where did she go, Fons just sits back and look towards the front, through the windshield and out into the night.
“Take me to my home. I have had enough fun for one evening.”
If the driver starts to back talk or anything, a stern look and a sneer would be all that would greet him. As for this Mary woman…. this was something he would have to consult a theurge about…. or… maybe a Utkena.
[Mary] (And that’s a fade! Thanks for being my first victi…er… involved player! *Shining grin*)