Ornature

[Kora] The fight is brief and vicious. Humans watching would see - nothing more than a flurry of monstrous forms, something out of a horror movie, less than a handspan of heartbeats and then -

just blood, just the ozone of rage oozing in the air. The rat-faced man falls, not dead - not that, not yet - but nearly so, incapable of rising, unconscious - metis, he reverts to his breedform, the monstrous, misshapen crinos has dun-black fur covered in spiraling tattoos. Sorrow stands over him, flanks heaving, mouth peeled back from her teeth in a silent snarl.

But look: Simon tracked him here, and Sorrow gives him the grace of the last, killing blow.

[Simon Zahradnik] Simon was breathing heavily over the corpse a little grin on his face as he shifted down. Looking down, and smiling just a bit at the mess they've left behind. He reaches to his pocket and he draws out a knife before looking down at the carpet."We need to get this guy... And the carpet the hell outta here somewhere."He says with a slight chuckle. This would be a challenge but Simon was up to that challenge.

"If you want to take a trophy take whatever you want before we dispose of it. However I have an idea for the head."He says with a little grin before looking from the corpse on the ground and smiling up at her."As always fighting alongside you has been an honor. I've also been looking for a chance to get to speak to you. I suppose now is as good a time as any."

[Kora] In the aftermath of a battle, time seems to sparkle and slow. Sorrow had the good sense to take off her winter coat before shifting; it's against the wall leading toward the stairs, a few blood spatters on the nylon, but otherwise wearable. She's lost her hoodie to the shift, though, and a few other essentials - socks and the like. Without the coat to conceal it, the subtle signs of her pregnancy are easy for any to read - but they are busying themselves with the corpse, and she herself says nothing.

Instead, she sinks to her haunches close to the head, her hands blood spattered, her hair loose now, wild around her face. She's still breathing hard, and there's a brightness to her presence after battle. "I'll take the eyeballs for the Hrafn, and the claws for Fenris." - she tells him, leaving the rest as she too begins to assess how to break down and remove the body, the carpet, the furnishings, what remain of them.

Then, a subtle glance up, brief and winging. Her mouth half-curves. " - as good a time as any," she echoes, dark eyes fixed on him now, the look easy and goodnatured. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

[Simon Zahradnik] He looks down at the things face, kneeling before it and drawing his knife forward to poke it, though not enough to draw blood. He decided not to mention the swelling her body was doing but he had noticed. He was more attuned to his beast than most homids his age so these kinds of things tended to stand out. It wasn't his job to point out the obvious to others even if it occasionally put a little smile on his face. After all she was carrying around the next generation right? The future would go on even if he died tomorrow at least someone would send a little one on to fight another day.

"You would think Hrafn would want the liver too..."He says with a little laugh before peeking up at her."I was thinking about a few things actually... First of all what do you know about Harano?"He asks her softly before handing the knife up to her with a bit of a grin.

[Kora] "They like the eyeballs - " says Sorrow, easily settled onto her haunches, this animal pose, feral, her body well-balanced despite the subtle change in her center of gravity. " - and shiny, shiny things. Some say that the last minutes of someone's death are contained in the eyeballs, and the Hrafn eat them to remember, to carry the story back to Odin."

She cuts a lilting look upward at Simon, then, as he asks what she knows about Harano. The creature's sure, dark eyes fix on his young face and linger there, as if she were looking for answers to a question she never asked. Something hardens in her jaw before she tells him, quietly, "I've seen it in Garou. A weakness, assuredly. Why do you ask?"

[Simon Zahradnik] "Maybe I am looking too far into it... But Lets say you knew someone who you thought was slipping."He shrugs his shoulders as he pauses in thought."What I am saying is that we all occasionally get struck by the fear that everything we do is pointless. It just happens... Fear, doubt and all that shit right? But we realize it for what it is and move on right? But let's say someone honestly seems to have lost hope. Lost their faith in the whole damn war... As Wyrmfoe I think it's partly my job to remind the Garou of what they are right?"He shrugs."I am just being curious. I mean the Wyrm weasles it's way into peoples hearts right? Hopefully we catch it and we stop it and if not we do what we gotta to prevent them becoming an abomination unto themselves or whatever. But how the fuck do you fight something like Harano? I mean... I fight shit by killing it. I can't just go inside someone's brain and stab their doubt till it's dead. But I'm also not gonna sit back and let a Garou lose all hope right? I mean yeah I could be all "Fuck it" and ignore it or be all "Fuck you" and kill them. But it seems like either option I chose there the Wyrm wins right? And I fuckin' hate the Wyrm and as long as I am Wyrmfoe I am not going to lose any kind of battle to the wyrm so long as I can help it. So what I wanna know is... How do you remind someone that what we do is worth doing?"He asks her with a little smirk. It was likely the most confusing and indepth conversation he has... Ever had with anyone.

[Kora] "No," agrees Kora, her hands gloved in blood, her (mostly) lean frame poised over a bloodied corpse. "You cannot go inside someone's head and stab away all their doubt. You can't kill Harano, although I suppose some Garou have killed their way out of it.

Her eyes flicker over his face as he goes on - and on - trying to puzzle out whether the whole elaboration was a subtle sort of roman a clef, a story Simon is telling about himself. "Strictly speaking, I would say it's a Galliard's job to remind people of why we fight, to ensure that they remember both the past and the promise of the future, but every Garou carries his or her own stories with them, right? And this isn't a place where I would stand on ceremony.

"Is this someone you know well?"

[Simon Zahradnik] He shakes his head."That's the problem... I don't know him well at all. I don't even fuckin' like him... But I mean."He shrugs his shoulders."I couldn't do anything about Thirty Second Silence or about your Kin. I didn't know them but they died in battle and that is where I could have actually helped them. If I could have I would have been there in a heartbeat but I couldn't. This guy it seems like I dunno... Ignoring would be just as bad as letting another garou die when I could have actually done something to prevent it."He laughs a little and shakes his head."I'm not gonna let the Wyrm have a single fucking one of us period. No matter how much I dislike someone that is not a fate I would wish on my worst enemy. The only other option I can see is killing him and that doesn't help us but I don't think he's gone yet."He rolls his eyes.

"His name is Patrick. He is one of the two new Fianna. I was kinda thinking you might be able to talk to him... Not about what we talked to here but maybe find out about his past? Something meaningful or whatever and maybe surprise him at the next moot with something? He's a galliard to so you might be able to relate. Just don't let him know. I don't want him hiding away in shame. I just wanna see he and his pack mate up and ready to fight when the time comes. It's fuckin' triage, save the ones you can."He laughs softly.

"I wanna get this sept ready for war, and I'm not talking about piecemeal battles here and there. Sooner or later we're gonna have to take this fight to the hive..."He points at the corpse on the floor."I want assholes like this shaking in their boots and they're not gonna do that if we can't get our own boys and girls up and off their asses and ready to fight."

[Drew Roscoe] Drew didn't know what sort of greeting she was supposed to expect when she sought out one of the remaining people in Chicago that she knew, that she regarded as trustworthy and family. People had a tendency to die and vanish around here, she was pleasantly surprised to find Kora still intact-- pregnant even, she realized when the statuesque Skald turned around.

This was met with a pang that she chased away and didn't acknowledge, and the smile on her face didn't falter until Kora's did. It slipped from her mouth and was replaced with faint confusion and concern when Kora's reaction was to curse, grow serious, and seize her by the wrist to drag her up the apartment hall and into a bedroom. Drew went along willingly, easily, but with question written all over her face.

Once in the bedroom, Drew had the idea that whatever they were going to talk about was supposed to be private, she could only guess that it was going to be in regards to the Boys, so she closed the door behind them and settled to stand nearby it, unless gestured to sit or settle elsewhere by the Skald. She had a good idea of Wolves and Territory, so she wouldn't dispute with one in their own home, not over something so small as standing or sitting or leaning on a door.

The Kinswoman's arms would fold loosely over her stomach and she'd try that smile again, an easy and small thing that pulled one corner of her mouth a bit higher than the other the other. "You look well." Not avoiding the topic, just being friendly while waiting for it to come up. To be too serious was to damn herself just yet.

[Kora] The apartment is small enough that there's nothing down the hall except for a bathroom and a pair of bedrooms. The doors are both closed for privacy among the guests, but Kora opens the first bedroom door and gestures Drew inside. There's a bed, low, made, and a pair of bedside tables, a dresser - everything is neat and orderly, the the closet doors closed, the shoes neatly aligned, the colors muted earthtone, the possessions and extraneous toiletries mostly male, except for a few of her things scattered about.

That first impression, that quiet curse, is nothing more than a chasing surprise, the moment between seeing something and recognizing it when the creature's dark eyes narrow, her pupils contracting as Drew's familiar features swim into focus.

When the bedroom door clicks shut behind them, Kora turns, her generous mouth still, her dark eyes flickering over Drew - not impersonally, but observantly, her focus intense as it ever is.

"Where's Joe?" she asks, that faint frown of thought still framed on her expressive mouth, her hands coming to rest on her hips, her elbows out, her body language unconsciously animal.

[Drew Roscoe] If there was one thing you had to become used to if you were going to live your life around Werewolves, it was that while they may look human they never ever acted like it. She had grown used to being stared at with eyes that were too intense and honestly focused to belong to anything but a predator, better suited over a muzzle rather than set into the soft face of a human's. So when Kora squared her body, elbows out and hands on hips, posture ready and demanding both, Drew did not quaver. She was far too accustomed for that.

Of course that was the first question.

The smile on Drew's face faltered, the warmth and sparkling confidence in her eyes dulled like flames dashed with sand. She leaned more resolutely back against the door, moved her arms so they were crossed more snugly, higher up her stomach so they were under the modest swell of her chest. One corner of her mouth pulled back, the same that had lifted with the smile, but now it appeared uncomfortable.

"He's... not gonna make it tonight." True, but not nearly the entirety of it, and Drew didn't have the energy or motivation to put an effort into a lie.

[Kora] The room is dark. There's just the soft glow from the lamp on the bedside table, the gleam of the city's light through the filter of wooden blinds to illuminate them. There's Drew - the sparkle in her eyes dying abruptly - and there's Kora, her nostrils flaring as if she could somehow scent the truth from the air between them, even in her soft, utterly human skin.

She's pregnant; four and a half, maybe five months, and athletic enough that she did not show early. Some women seem softer, somehow, billowy - but there is nothing soft about her, and the animal inside is somehow brighter in the discs of her keen dark eyes.

Outside the door, down the hall, the murmur of voices, of music in the background, something low on the stereo, the echo of voices as the radio announcer inserts himself for the top of the hour news. Kora's attention is entirely fixed on Drew. The wide neck of her argent-white tee revealings the solid architecture of her shoulders. The downslope of her trapezius, the hard, jut of her clavicle against her pale skin. The muscles are taut underneath her skin, with a sort of tension that seems both - liminal and electric, that could be read about her as a halo energy for all that the young woman is unmoving.

Some other night the dimming of Drew's brightness might make her soften. Or, not soften, but shift to accommodate what she might read as grief or sorrow. Tonight, the generous line of her mouth just - hardens. Minutely, but it hardens.

"What does that mean?" - low-voiced, even. Without quarter.

[Drew Roscoe] "Means...."

A hand twitched where it rested, uncertain, then both hands moved up to pull the plait of hair over her shoulder and onto her chest. Fingers pulled and smoothed the dark strands of hair, and her eyes fell from Kora's-- but not for fear. She could look Thomas and Joe in the eyes even on their worst days, not because she was tough and resolute (if you asked her why, anyways), but because of trust. She trusted them not to attack, not to betray. She trusted Kora similarly, she had no fear of holding her gaze for any length of time.

It was the emotion that had her eyes dropping, sadly settling at the stomach of Kora's shirt without her really realizing what she was staring at. She swept her tongue over her upper lip, took a deep breath and shook her head. "It means he's not making it tonight or any other night at all." Her mouth was grim, set hard to prevent her lower lip from quivering. The last thing she wanted a grip of new family members to see when they first met her was wet, red eyes and a weak faltering smile when she left this bedroom. "He's gone."

[Kora] Something in the tension evidence in the Skald breaks; or shifts rather. She does not slump, but her dark eyes sharpen against Drew's features, the direct gaze, the grim set of her mouth, the way her eyes fall to settle without thinking on the curve of Kora's stomach. She breathes out once, audibly, and though some of that evident tension in her shoulders and arms eases, a span of tendon joining her jaw spasms as she swallows back - more questions, most of them.

"And Thomas?"

[Drew Roscoe] "I don't know."

Fingers work through the hair further, and when they stop a stray strand comes away with them. This Drew shakes off her hand thoughtlessly, lets it float toward the floor. Her breathing is irregular without being erratic. It feels better to take a deep breath and hold it in, like the air could cool the burn of grief in her chest. When she exhales it's a tired sigh that she breathes out almost each time. Her hands stuff into the back pockets of her pants, causing her elbows to point outward, not unlike how Kora's did, but with shoulders rolled back rather than squared strong.

"He was supposed to meet us... He was in the Umbra from what I understood. He just.. never showed up. I haven't seen him since last summer."

It was an odd thing, a curious realization. Since Drew learned about Garou and Kin and what they were to one another she'd always been supporting and supported by either Joe or Thomas, telling stories of them or fondly smiling when either name was brought up. To have both of them removed from the picture, hopelessly so, it made her seem older somehow. More worn out, tired by the day, like trying to get past their absence was a monumental task for her.

One day she would be okay, though, Kora knew that certainly. Drew had a track record in Chicago for strength and glory, enough to be given a Name and revered with Renown. She's sent bullets between the eyes of more than one spawn of the Wyrm, she's suffered through the losses of loved ones on numerous occasions. She would hold the memories dear, but she wouldn't mourn forever. This must have been a recent occurrence, no doubt the entire reason for returning home.

[Kora] "Okay."

At first, that is Kora's only acknowledgment of the news. That the remains of the pack did not survive even move out west, that Thomas never showed and Joe found his end, glorious or otherwise. Her voice is pitched low - if she ever sang, she would be a contralto - but she doesn't make human music, now, not Sorrow. She does not sing human songs.

The creature's hands slip from her hips, until she has wedged her fingers into the front pockets of her jeans. They're new enough that the denim is dark still, that she has not worn the hems to shrews on the streets of Chicago.

"And you're back to stay?" - this is quiet, easy. Made easier, in any case, because Kora has shifted her gaze just away from Drew, so that the kinfolk isn't subject to the full-on, dark-eyed stare. She waits a beat, long enough for Drew to acknowledge with a flicker of a look, with a quiet murmur that she is indeed back to stay.

"I'm still Jarl of the Fenrir." Kora looks back then, begins to move. It's subtle, the intimation of pacing - animal in a cage - "I'm pretty sure you know what that means. You are my responsibility in the eyes of the nation. I have the right to discipline you, and no one else. I will see to your protection, and I'll require your cooperation in that. If anyone - even a son of Fenris - wishes to claim you, he has to challenge me for the right. You understand that, don't you?"

[Drew Roscoe] The pacing, again, wasn't anything new, subtle and in-place or full-functioning and carrying about the room. The sheer amount of beast in her people did not cause her to shy away or fret, as she was Kin and as much theirs as they were hers. Family stuck together, did not harm one another, sought only to teach and strengthen and protect one another. The news is accepted with a simple 'Okay', a question, and then business.

The question is answered with a nod, simple and quiet.

The business is met with a flat stare at first, but it softens into a grin that didn't chase the sorrow away completely. "I do. It's unnecessary to say out loud, but I get the reason behind the disclaimer." The points of her canine teeth nipped at the skin inside her cheek for a second, and she shook her head after a second. "Won't be any claiming for a long time, though. Joe's....," and it's hard here, for a moment, because she hasn't spoken of him in past tense outside of raging and throwing fists at the culprit's head before now. "He's a tough act to follow."

[Kora] When Drew pauses, when her throat closes, so minutely because she means to speak in present tense, not past, because grief is a thing not of stages but moments. The first hour. The first day. The first sunrise. The first snowfall. The first - past tense - Kora acknowledges this with no more than a flicker of her eyes. She does not manage even a neutral acknowledgment of Drew's comment that Joe would be a tough act to follow except for a flicker of her eyes.

They had not parted on good terms, War-Handed and Sorrow, but she will not impugn the dead. Would not have done so in front of Drew even were he living, no matter the names she called him when she founds herself alone - tending their Alpha's grave, walking their just-claimed territory, keeping their compact with the scab-birds scrubbing the damn bell in the watchtower with brillo every Sunday afternoon, the tips of her fingers abraded to shreds - wounds she healed thoughtlessly moments after.

Finally, Kora makes a noise in the back of her throat.

"Are you pregnant?"

Kora does not soften the question; does not try to shape it into something else.

[Drew Roscoe] Kora asks questions unabashedly, drops them like bombs, like a hand in a game of cards, and dares people to protest the fact. She doesn't cushion blows, she doesn't try and cut corners or be delicate or polite. They were Fenrir, the both of them, they didn't need to be coddled with softness, to do so would be a disrespect to either party.

The question is met with a laugh that sounds surprised and just a tiny, worrying bit sardonic.

"Pregnant? No, no, no. Could you imagine?" There's a shake of her head, the question of what Kora was to imagine easy to answer without saying aloud-- Joe Holst, the seventeen year old death machine, a creature of hate and zealous belief, fathering a child. Drew fit the concept of a mother much easier, but Joe was the furthest thing from family-ready. Despite that, and though she'd never say so now that it was impossible, the couple had been on the threshold of trying for a child. Had Joe parted three or four months later, perhaps the answer would be different.

That wasn't the case, though, and Drew waved a hand dismissively of the very thought. "Naw. You look healthy, though. Due... what, in April? March?"

[Kora] The surprised laugh brings Kora's eyes right back to Drew's. The Skald does not join in the laughter, does not make it ring in the dark bedroom. There's a scent in the room of - cleaning products, some natural brand infused with oils. Sandalwood, attar of roses - those sorts of scents, and a strange stillness here juxtaposed against the murmur of the overlarge crowd in Trent's small living/dining rooms. Kora's attention lingers, she reads - well, the skepticism there, that they might have tried for a child - and the hint of wistfulness that must attach near the end, before she waves it off with an efficiently dismissive hand.

"Me?" - the Skald's turn for surprise, etched in her fine, pale brows above her fine, dark eyes. On a human, these might be attractive features, played up with make-up - a smokey eye, mascara to darken the flaxen lashes and frame her eyes. Kora is not human, however - and it is impossible to read something so facile as prettiness in the regularity of her eyes, in the quickened curve of her mobile mouth as she drops her gaze from Drew's dark brown eyes to the sure, subtle curve of her pregnancy against the t-shirt she wears.

That surprise - or maybe just the look, the way her eyes fall half-closed, pale lashes a pale shadow over her pale cheeks, her focus drawn inward - makes her seem - softer, somehow, more vulnerable, though nothing like that imprints itself in her tone of voice. Or even the laugh she breathes out before continue with the answer, quiet and nearly voiceless, as if she were holding it back in her body, swallowing it down.

" - no, I don't know. Haven't been to a doctor for obvious reasons, and don't know any midwives in the city." Kinfolk midwives, she means. "So we're not sure."

Then, a moment later, with something like resolve - "Drew," relentless, but still quiet, as if there was space for both strength and sorrow, grief and stoicism. "I'll ask you for the story of his death, and soon, but you needn't tell it tonight. And I want you to know that we did not - " a pause, her mouth thins around it as she reaches for the appropriate euphemism. " - end things well, Joe and I, but I will not hold that against you."

[Drew Roscoe] "Understandable. It'll come when it comes." This is Drew's answer to what Kora has to say about not knowing her due date. Her shoulders lift and fall in a shrug, and a hand moves to tug the warm red fabric of her sweater back up her shoulder, then settles into her pocket once more. She had no medical skills aside from basic knowledge, CPR and tourniquets and the like, and even if she did have any idea about child birth it was a deeply personal thing to volunteer to help someone through. She'd help how she could, in any way asked, but she wouldn't offer up skills she didn't have.

As for how Kora and Joe parted...

"I know." The answer seemed a little bit short, but not clipped with anger or impatience. She was being matter-of-fact on the topic, in a sense. She already had a pretty good idea when Joe told her they'd be leaving. She thought of Kora, losing Kemp only to have the rest of her pack leave so soon after, content to let her stay behind while they went forth to pursue other cities and adventures.

As for the story of how Joe went... Drew might not have heard it at all for how little she reacted to it. More than likely she pretended she didn't, didn't acknowledge because she didn't want to share the tale, recounting it too soon would be too hard. Tonight she needed composure, to shake hands and drink beer and make new friends, to congratulate some and ask questions of others. But she wouldn't, couldn't do that with tears on her face.

There's a moment of quiet, and Drew reaches back and lets her hand rest on the doorknob, eyebrows lifting in question, a faint smile on her face that looks soft and warm and sweet as honey, but Kora can be pretty sure that there's an effort to put it there and it didn't manifest naturally as it ought to. "Should we go back, then?"

[Kora] Some sharpening of that animal attention, quickening to the resolve, to the effort put into that smile. They've not been gone long. Five minutes, maybe ten at most, their voices low. Maybe no one's noticed that they've gone.

"Let's do - " the Skald says, reaching for the door as Drew pulls it open, holding it for the kinswoman as she goes ahead, then pulling it firmly closed behind them. The hallway is dark, the door to the bathroom half-open, the living/dining room at the end of the hall blazing with light and full of people, strangers mostly.

"Drew," says the Skald, quietly as they walk back down the hallway. Oh, she is what she is, and her voice is soft but pitched to carry with the skill of a storyteller, the surety of someone in full control of her greatest instrument. "Welcome home."

[Paul] His hands clasp together in a single clap. Leaving that guitar to rest and linger in his lap. "Cordelia, you are the world to me. How that you know me best and can explain me so quick is beyond words. Bridget...hold your knickers...I'd fuck you simply just to make you quiver. But we're not talking about how shallow I am or how undeposed to decorum I should be. The simple truth...dear Kristiana... As Paul now looked to her "Im the bad guy..simple and true..I realish the part that I play..its my role and mine alone...Though I love the compainionship it brings. Im Paul, the Cad as your sister of flock so says...known to the nation at the moment as Thats Great...but Im sure it'll be Cad shortly...Bound to Coyote and really a horn dawg. I poach kin, I love women..and Im just a simple tom of Unicorn..It's truly a pleasure to meet you"

[Kristiana Coleman] "I didn't do anything with him. I don't know what he's told everyone, but I didn't." She levels Paul with as cool a gaze as she can muster, which unfortunately isn't much.

[Bridget] "Well at least he is honest," she mumbles, trying to look to Kristiana's obviously horrified face. She may faint. Bridget braces herself to catch the fragile swanling.

"That's Great," she repeats.

Kristiana says something completely confusing. "What's this?"

[Paul] "Oooo, who's he? And what dear fille did you nawt do?"

[Kristiana Coleman] "Whatever you heard, I didn't do" She's regained her composure, adding a hair toss to her words for good measure, eyes flickering to Cordelia.

[Ivers] Without a churning cauldron of Rage inside of him, when the darkening of the moon has brought with it a darkening of his mood, Howard is capable of entering a social gathering without drawing every single pair of eyes in the vicinity to him with his outbursts. Last night he had done it by simply arriving quietly; that was enough of an anomaly to quirk Bridget's eyebrow and have her climb over the back of the couch to investigate.

When he shows up tonight, it isn't as though he's stepped out of the Umbra or emerged from a shadow. He walks down the shore, dressed in the same--comparatively--boring black outfit he'd had on last night, Guns N Roses swapped out for a black t-shirt with a silver impression of Debbie Harry emblazoned across his lower left quadrant. Sunglasses are clipped to his neckline rather than clapped onto his face, leaving his green eyes visible.

The first thing out of his mouth is directed at Bridget and Kristiana: "See, I fuckin' told you."

[Cordelia] "Paul," she says, and her voice is infinitely patient, "it's probably for the best you don't press right now. You ease into these questions. She's probably just shaken up over last night. Kristiana's a good kid."

Her gaze flickers over to her briefly, but goes back to Paul without much fanfare.

[Kristiana Coleman] "What did you tell me?" The composure crumples like newspaper when she sees, then hears Howard. Gaia, what else did she forget?

[Paul] His hand thrusted out in gesture towards her. "For you fine fille..." Obviously he were addressing Cordelia "...I'll mind m'manners, staple m'mouth shut and think only of me you and five other possibles if that only makes you happy...I am, and shall be your slave...tonight at least" Chuckling before unclasping his hands with a nod of understanding and wink casted to the Fang. His gaze swept then upon all those now seemingly gathered.

[Bridget] The Canadian nods her head and gives a suspicious, "Mmmmkay."

Her tribesman emerges from nowhere like some distant echo from Punk Nights Past. The Canadian's eyes light up. She abandons Kristiana with Cordelia. They're pretty girls. They can handle it. She migrates to the Afrikaan (or whatever nationality he claims) and does exactly what she told Cordelia about Quebecois and The Cold: they cuddle. Bridget links an arm around her tribesman, then looks back towards the others.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, also being oblivious as Kristiana to Howard's topic of conversation.

Her pouty bottom lip that met his last night has a nice fresh cut on it. It doesn't look like teeth marks, doesn't look like it is chapped. It is definitely a scratch from something sharp. The blood is fresh, but dry. Not a greivous injury, but a curious one indeed.

[Kristiana Coleman] She leans into Cordelia a little, linking her arm with the other Fang's when Bridget abandons her.

[Hatchet] The chain link fence at the edge of the bawn creaks, cold metal curling, and it leaves a soft shriek on the air that goes easily ignored, pressed like a flower into the background noises of the area. Someone climbs through, at first just a mass of shadow

and rage

that unfolds into the figure of a man, broad-shouldered and tall, carrying a rucksack over one shoulder. He starts to walk, and that walk takes him along the water's edge, til he comes towards the docks. There are people standing there, and the people just drip with breeding, enough to make you lightheaded, but the man doesn't faint. He just keeps walking, and then his booted feet fall with surprising lightness to each step on the boards of the dock.

He's wearing a thick black hoodie, and even if it's lined with fur or shearling it wouldn't be enough to keep a human being warm on a night like tonight, this close to the water. His hood is up, covering his hair, but the light beard on his jawline is a reddish-gold, more the latter than the former. His eyes are concrete, but not quite as cold as rock like that.

Two women with breeding of silver, cold and pristine and mad. One of stag's, snuggling up to the scrawny fellow that just sauntered his way over. The new one, the tall man with the gray eyes, tips his head. "'Scuse me," he says, his voice a baritone that's warmer than the weather and smoother than he looks, "either of you know if Reuben and Jenny Coltrane still run The Brotherhood of Thieves?"

[Asha Singh] The fence surrounding the Caern rattles sharply in the cold air. Warm enough even tonight that some of the snow is beginning to melt, leaving behind little piles of garbage, stones, cigarette butts in its wake like the moraine of some moving glacier. This slight creature emerges from underneath the fence. There's a spot or two of blood on the otherwise crisp cuffs of her white blouse - bright against the rich black wool of her finely tailored military-style coat, crisp rows of buttons gleaming up and down the both sides of the double-breasted coat like some Napoleonic officer's dress uniform. Standing, the dark-skinned, sloe-eyed little thing - takes the time to tug neatly at the cuffs of her blouse, pulling them into some order before she gives over her full attention to her kinswomen and the -

Hmmph. Asha gives Paul - who appears to be flirting with her blood the stink eye, then glances around. She wants to interrupt, but thinks that for the greater dignity of all, she really should be announced.

[Kristiana Coleman] Kristiana looks at the large man with wide eyes, clearly and obviously working her way in quick leaps from being slightly unnerved to being outright terrified.

[Ivers] "Course you don't," Howard says, after he's wound an arm around her shoulders. As far as bodies go, the Theurge's doesn't afford others much warmth; his Rage is not hot enough to burn through his flesh, to radiate outward from his clothing, and his mass is only worth mentioning due to how much of it there isn't. Paul, several inches shorter and a No Moon, could beat his ass without breaking a sweat.

His eyes are cast over her head, back towards the group, his interest not so much waning as simply bottoming out. When he looks back at the shorter woman, it isn't the vibrant red that catches his attention but the darkness of it against the pale of her lips. A frown creases his brow, and his free hand comes up to grasp Bridget's chin between his thumb and kinked index finger.

"That blood?" he asks, a second before a press of Rage comes out of the distance.

Neither Fiann has the purity of blood, the shock-red of hair, or the lilting brogue of accent, to identify them to each other. The Philodox's bearing, his carriage, his presence speaks of a rank that Howard will likely die before attaining, but the Cliath doesn't quaver. He does release Bridget from his dissecting attention and turn towards the newcomer.

Either of them know if Reuben and Jenny Coltrane still run the Brotherhood of Thieves.

"They were last night," he says, as though it's entirely possible that's changed in the last twenty-four hours. His accent, while not dripping green with Ireland's influence, could not be mistaken for North American unless he put forth effort.

[Paul] Paul rose his hand, almost dropped it. Yet his finger folded out in gesture. Towards Hatchet. "Hey buddy...I haven't seen you in awhile...tink last tiame I saw you was when you, me, Joey and oh hell what was that Gee Dubuwa bitches' name was? Doesnt matter..anyways..we got all a shit faced and were riaghtfully fucked. Howya doin and no good Monsuier..I can't answer that query cause I really have no diea who runs the place..Since Im seldom there..but niace to see ya again Bon'cade"

[Kristiana Coleman] Her hotel room isn't looking so bad suddenly. Her lonely hotel room. But her lonely, quiet, safe hotel room. She presses into Cordelia a bit more without even realizing it, trying to keep everyone in sight without moving too much.

[Hatchet] The man that is currently terrifying Kristiana does, in fact, have that effect on several people. If one had to guess -- and guessing is about all most of them can do -- he feels like an Ahroun. A Galliard at best, at most pleasant. To the gathered Garou he gives off a sense of authority, even without his name or rank given yet. You can almost smell it on him -- not just the strength, but the history. The ability to lead. The utter lack of need to prove it.

His rage does, in fact, radiate. It warms him. It warms those who get close enough, but no one is. He flicks his eyes over at Kristiana and Cordelia, sniffing the air once, then swivels his head back around to the Blondie fan and the girl whose breeding crawls up the back of his neck and grabs him by the hair.

He keeps his eyes on Howard. "Good enough for me," he says dryly, and gives him a nod. "Merci," he adds, and moves to head that direction. Paul goes off on a blue streak and Hatchet does pause, looking over at the single face he sort of remembers. Stares for a second, as though trying to place him, then gives a small upward nod. "Her name was Echo. Still is, if we're lucky. You wouldn't know if Joey's still in Chicago, would you?"

[Cordelia] She had a whole host of things she could have said in reply. A whole slew of things. There's a list, an absolute laundry list of things she could hae said, and she oepened her mouth and was ready to fire when, at right about that time she noticed a man who was tall, scarred, and had a nice voice coming up. He's polite enough. Makes her shut her mouth and smile something with closed lips.

"They do," she replies, "and they still have the best food on this side of town."

She casts a look around. Surveys. Kristiana is pressing into her, so she stands taller and a little more confident. She presses back, and notes... Asha. Who she hasn't met before. Who looks very nice and very, very, very intense with a mighty powerful stink eye that Cordelia didn't want to be on the receiving end of.

"I'm Cordelia, and this is Kristiana, it's a pleasure to meet you both," making her introductions (their introductions), with a distinctly not-from-'round-these-parts voice.

[Kristiana Coleman] Smile, Krist. Where are your manners? She manages a nearly full smile, nodding to Cordelia's words. "Yes. A pleasure."

[Paul] "Shit man I wish...If she is..that woman has my claws, breast, heart n soul...to follow in whatever massacre she liakes. She is my Evagalien..." With a snicker as his hand fell over his heart. But unlike many of the other garou, and much to his own chargin. Paul were perceptive. But only in moments he cared to reveal to others. "I tink we're scaring the young new fille's...nawt a good thang I assure ya. Cordelia" As he turned his attention towards her..probably to her dismay even. With a snigger. "Ya'll fine cheri's are safe despite the angst ya miaght feel from the liakes of he" With a definate point towards Hatchet, even unapologetically. "So don't be squirmin off just yet..we'ze got ample tiame and festivities to make any n all relax on such a blissful niaght of our mother Gaia's tranquility...meaning I got some E if that helps"

[Bridget] A man and woman full of rage come through the fence of an area she's never been allowed to traverse. But for now her eyes lock with her kinsman, whose rage echoes a recognition of her slight injury. She makes a small noise that might be a confirmation, or simply a natural response to the sudden flux of rage all around her.

She speaks with a very slight Quebecois accent on occasion. Only in summer when she's gotten too much sunlight does her hair ever reveal any slight reddish tone. But she certainly knows how to fry like a fair-skinned Fianna. The Welsh heritage is almost completely dominated by her father's side, who migrated as fur traders. It is very possible she may have very, very distant Algonquin cousins, which is likely why her breeding doesn't shine nearly so clearly as a majority of Silver Fangs. But it is still dizzying.

Bridget gets a good look at either of the other Garou that none of them have met yet. Bridget recognizes the woman from the cafe. She doesn't offer her hand, but pushes her hair to one side and lowers her gaze. Probably the most respectful gesture the part-feral moonbrain could give.

"Bridget Geroux... of the Red Deer sept," she offers. Identifying with her father's sept is a wise choice when you are a lone female kinfolk of significant breeding.

[Ivers] "All I got out of that was 'E,'" he says, quite possibly to himself. He gestures to Kristiana with a lazy finger that quickly decides remaining raised isn't worth the effort, his left arm still wound about Bridget's shoulders, "Which I would keep very, very far away from her."

[Kristiana Coleman] She's so obviously, painfully clueless, and doesn't appear to be following the conversation at all. "What? Keeping what away from me?"

[Paul] Paul quickly swung around, pointing his finger at Ivers. "Oh so you want some?"

[Asha Singh] Asha's eyes remain fixed on Cordelia and Kristiana. There's something about the way she does it, the way her black eyes are staring straight ahead as if some sort of invisible anchor kept her attention glued to the pair of them while she moves as she does not, with a soft, unerring sort of grace that offers absolutely no quarter.

"If you give my kinswomen drugs, I will see you hung from the bridge of the Hestia," Asha, quick and sure and soft - with this sharp winging glance at Paul, naming one of the larger hulks in the Caern full of abandoned ships. " - by your small intestines, with the large intestines stuffed into your mouth to ensure that you don't starve to death."

It is a relief, at least, for Kristiana and Cordelia from the intensity of Asha's dark-eyed stare.

Then she resumes her advance on the linked pair. "He's very common," she tells them, quiet-like, her dark eyes flashing. "If he offends you tell me and I will flay his skin from his bones and make you a purse of it." This makes her smile, sudden and savage - this fine-boned, fine-handed, fine-featured girl - full on to both kinswomen. "I'm - " a frown creases her brow. " - well, we should be properly introduced. I'll have to find Thomas first, though - he's much better at it than I am." - and so saying she will soon disappear blithely into the dark, absurdly looking for her herald in the ruins of the old docks so that he may announce her nineteen names and teeming ancestors to strangers in the middle of the night.

[Asha Singh] (Otherwise known as the: LIST HAS TO GO TO BED post. :) )

[Asha Singh] (LIZ CAN SPELL HER OWN NAME POST.)

[Kristiana Coleman] She makes a tiny squeaking sound, standing absolutely still under Asha's gaze.... is she holding her breath?

[Kristiana Coleman] (Which just proves you need sleep!)

[Hatchet] A gesture comes his way, apologies made by a Unicorn to two of Falcon's for one of Stag's. Hatchet doesn't so much as blink. He just stares at Paul for a few seconds longer until about halfway through the Ragabash's tear he turns and gives his attention back to those of his blood. Which is when he meets Bridget's eyes, at least for a moment. He is paying attention. It is not easy, being the focus -- however momentary -- of his attention.

"I've been there," is all Hatchet says to that, to the name of her father's sept. There's a beat of consideration before he adds: "I've met your father."

His eyes leave her then, though, perhaps a bit mercifully, as Paul and Ivers face off. E! Keep it away from her! Want some! Hatchet watches the two of them for a moment, then Asha's speaking up and he seems vaguely relieved and vaguely wary and entirely exhausted for a moment. He hangs back, as though waiting for someone to throw down a glove or some such, and then... Asha turns around and goes to look for her 'Thomas'.

Hatchet blinks.

"It is too fucking cold for this shit," he mutters, and starts walking off the docks. "I'm getting a beer."

[Bridget] "Le sacrament qui était en calvaire a calissé dehors l'ostie en tabarnac."

The Albertan has a potty mouth. It doesn't quite translate to the pristine French the girls are used to, nor the murky Creole influence of Paul's French. There's some reference to sacred items of a church.

[Kora] Early some winter's morning, the sun low on the horizon, half-hidden by a bank of clouds. The air is cold enough to freeze one's sinuses, and every exhaled breath produces a visible cloud of steam. The city is quiet, wrapped up in human holidays. Skeleton crews man the city's office parks. The rich retreat to their faux-traditional mansions and their faux-traditional holidays while the poor are left to scrape together what they can. On the coldest days, that's sometimes no more than the heat radiating from a burning trashcan, the steam from a building's boiler, billowing out onto an otherwise ice-wrapped sidewalk.

The waning moon is just visible in the sky, sinking into the west as the sun rises in the east. Grant Park is empty, the fountains shuttered, the fields lost in drifts of slowly compacting snow. The city keeps the main paths shoveled, and where they are not shoveled, the city's residents have trampled the snow into a compact layer of glazed ice.

There is just a blond woman sitting on a brick piling flanking the entrance to a long, narrow pier that juts out sharply into the dark waters of the lake, giving a fine view of the city's tourist attractions, the perfect vantage point for a panoramic shot of the city's skyline.
She's by herself, hands tucked into the pockets of her down jacket, her shoulders forward, huddling to conserve body heat. The pale blue hood of a secondary layer - a cotton jacket, maybe - skins the back of her head, moves when she turns to follow the course of a line of dark-winged birds across the horizon. Now and then she looks back toward the city, dark eyes alert, searching out the familiar landmarks for the dark shadow of a broad-shouldered man.

"I know it's early." - she told him a half-hour ago, her fine, low voice vibrant, intimate over the cell phone. Mouth to ear, ear to mouth. "I want to see you. In the sunlight. Meet me - " here, by this brick piling, by the brown pier over the dark, still lake, in the first light of morning.

[Trent Brumby] No stranger to early mornings, he hadn't complained. Having taken a few days off, unless it's an absolute emergency and for only his most valued and beloved customers, he's let himself unwind before the start of the new year. The new year that, hopefully, will see him become a father. He's looking forward to that; having his own family. The day he can hold his child in his arms and protect it from danger. He'd never say this to Kora, but the day he can keep their child at home and not see it in harms way, just because his or her mother has to fight, will be a very happy, relieved day for him. It's not that he doesn't worry for Kora, or feel sympathy for the plight she's been given by the Gods in this lifetime - she had no choice in it, like the child, but somehow it's different. With children it's always different.

Car parked over yonder, he had walked the street in a pair of jeans, hiking boots, and several layers of clothing, from his under shirt, to his sweater, and his scarf tucked into his wool jacket. A dark cap fit over his black hair, covering the tops of his ears and drawn down low across his brow. His hands are in his pockets, where a set of gloves await to be put on. He hadn't got to that yet, preferring to drive with naked fingers even if it meant the tips got red in the cold and became partially numb until the heater of the car kicked in.

Spotting her, he smiled quietly. Approaching, he was careful on the wet side walk, not hurrying across it, but taking his steady, sweet time. "Good morning, Kora." He greets her with a warmth that carries in the depth of his voice, easily and honest.

[Kora] "Baby," she says in her low, rich voice, pitched just enough to carry. She's hoarse from the frigid air, the forced march here from the spare loveliness of the early morning Caern, but it hardly matters. Her voice thickens like syrup around the pet name just as her mouth curves in a small, private smile as she slides down from the brick piling, easily gaining her feet.

There is that native grave always in her, though a new something - subtle, shifted - as she adjusts unconsciously to her changing center of gravity as their child grows and her body grows to accommodate it. Her eyes are bright in the cold morning hair, her cheeks and the tip of her nose a bright pink from exertion in the cold. The path here is damp, nothing more - regularly shoveled by the ground staff - but there are patches of black ice against the pavement that justify his steady caution.

He makes it there, dignity intact, still standing, and she slips from the piling to both feet reaching out to grab his hands and pull him close, reaching up to kiss him like she'd been away for days, weeks, when it has only been a few nights. The kiss is lingering and settled - at once intimate and chaste. She lets go his fingers and cups his cheeks, thumb tracing his jaw as she enjoys his mouth, his closeness, his heat, the scent of his blood underneath his skin, the rough stubble lining his jaw. From a distance, it looks like one of those movie kisses - lovers on a train platform, some lingering farewell - but up close it is written in this intimate sort of haiku, the chill pads of her long fingers stippled across the line of his cheekbone, the warm sweep of her breath, a little stale from a long night, against his mouth. His eyes close to hers, definition lost from nearness - just a pale, shining gray, all solid.

The kiss changes, becomes more fierce, more hungry - more full of want, which is the root of wanton toward the end, before she breaks off and just leans her forehead against his, her eyes half-closed, the slushy remnants of mostly-shoveled snow crunching beneath their feet. He has to lean down for his, drop his height to match hers, and so she is looking up at him, every so slightly, the rosy light of early morning pooling across her cheeks as she eventually pulls away, tugs him with her down toward the end of the pier.

"Let's watch the sun rise, yeah?"

[Trent Brumby] His mouth curves to almost match hers, still amused by the pet name that she has dubbed him with. He's never corrected it, and honestly doesn't mind. It's very human of her, and that part he enjoys. Like when she paints her nails and the colour gradually chips off. Or how she grabs anything to use in her hair, pushing it through the pale strands to keep it knotted in a design he still hasn't figured out how to master. There's some trick to it that most women know, and for the life of him he can't figure out, even though he can usually diagnose a problem with a car and patch it together again. It should be easy, simple, but its one of those marvels that he hasn't asked about. It's a girl thing, and he loves to keep it that way. Mysteries of womanhood, like the glow of her skin in pregnancy, and the gut intuition that all women have and only few men are blessed with.

She kisses him. It ranges from chaste to intimate, and becomes something more hungry and consuming. He likes all shades of it. The variety is what keeps him on his toes. He never knows what to expect from her and that's the thrill of it. He's heard that the libido can be dampened if not out right squashed when a woman is pregnant. Maybe that doesn't apply to Garou. Kora still wants to crawl through his mouth until she can taste his bones, and he's perfectly accommodating. No man would dare complain.

His hands had come out of their pockets, and once she's done with the warmth of them, he touches her waist while his mouth is locked to hers. He still tastes faintly like mint from his toothpaste. It lingers on the back taste buds and the inside cheeks to his mouth. She can smell the shampoos trapped under his watch cap, and the cologne splashed across his collar; nothing too strong, just not yet faint from a days wear. Reluctantly pulling back, his mouth still parted, he slowly opens eyes made heavier with a moment of heat.

Before he can protest, or tell her what better ideas he has on his mind - all of which she can read in his raw expression -, she's pulling him towards the pier and diverting his attention from her to their surrounds. Taking them in, he walks with her, curling his fingers around hers until they are laced, a little firmer with the potentially slippery slope of the ground. Not for his benefit, but hers, as if somehow his footing his more secure then a woman that can run on four paws if she so chose.

"You're looking bright." He casts a quick side glance at her. "Happy." Although it's a statement, it's one of those with a slight lilting edge, an invitation for elaboration on her part. He's wondering what's up, and why the early morning call.

[Kora] "Later, baby - " she promises him, too, when she reads that heavy spark in his eyes, the catch of flame behind the gray disks. This is quiet, sure and bemused. Her chin lifts to brush the words against the shell of his ear, this subtle little promise. "We'll have breakfast in bed." So quiet no one listening could overhear, were there anyone else in the park at this hour of morning, when the sky is a gray color streaked with pink and purple shadows, and the morning star still lingers, bright against the horizon, in the first flush of coming dawn.

Their hands are linked now, like the long sweeping shadows cast back, behind them over the icey boards of the pier. The structure creaks and groans underfoot, and the lake water laps quietly against the pilings buried deep in the muck. The boards are worn, will need to be scraped and painted again come spring. If he looks down at their tandem steps, Trent will see the worn fans where the park workers' snow shovels have scraped and re-scraped the cold, damp pier.

Her mouth is brighter, the morning hoarseness chased away by the bright mint of his toothpaste. She can still taste him with every breath, and tightens her hand around his, squeezes as they walk, but does not drop the contact. His hands are broad and callused, hers are fineboned and long. They fit together like lock and key, and that knowledge sparks again in her dark eyes as she meets is sidelong glance.

"I am - " she confirms, her mouth curving quietly around the word. " - happy." She tips her head, forward toward the horizon, a gray swath of clouds over a gray stretch of lake, flat as the great plains, the pink promise of the rising sun beyond. "Look, the sun's coming back. There was a time when you really had to do the rites - the hunt - the sacrifices - to charm the sun back into the sky, so they say." A neat, narrow shrug of her still-narrow shoulders follows, and in that moment he might think this celebration - early morning, along in the cold bright world - is just that. Winter is here. Winter is already passing.

"And, well - Lila came back from the Hanging Oak Sept." She continues, but only when they've reached the edge of the pier, where she can lean against the reinforced railings and draw him close, beside her and behind her, where she can feel some shadow of his body heat through their heavy winter gear. "I'm Fostern, now."

[Trent Brumby] He likes to hear that she's happy. It's a rare thing to be spoken aloud. She's Garou and her life isn't meant for that. Blood, pain and misery seems far more common amongst the Garou. But she's always smiled. She's mourned too, but happiness seems like a great deal of achievement. It leaves him satisfied, even if he may only be a small part of it. He doesn't ask. He doesn't want to know all the answers.

With his larger hand around his, he seeks to keep hers warm. That fine boned hand seemed so fragile. But he never forgets, not for a moment, what she's capable of. One might think that knowing a lover can turn into a mythical creature, with teeth and fangs, and claws to rend through flesh and bone, might make one wary or even repulsed. But he has long come to acceptance and knows nothing different, even if this is the first time he's ever lived with a Garou so intimately woven into his daily life. "Good," he had said, and lifted her hand to his mouth to kiss the back of her bare knuckles.

Releasing it shortly after, he slides in behind her and lays his arms around her waist, drawing her back into the solid expanse of his chest and into the bulk of arms and fabric. He's taller and his view is unobstructed. Only her bright hair is in the line of his sight, reflective more then the dark water below the pier, and spreading out around them. He has yet to meet Lila, though she's been mentioned a few times. He's quiet as his mate tells him about her return, and then drops a little bombshell.

"You're what?" Sliding hands from her belly, he grips her at the waist and turns her part way as he comes to meet her, looking around her shoulder to find her face, not just the side profile of it. "When did this happen?" He doesn't sound outraged. He's moving from shocked into surprise, and she can see the slow glow building as he shares this delight with her. Her triumph of moving up in the world.

[Kora] There is something charmingly awkward about embracing through all these clothes. Kora's warm down coat squeaks softly with most every movement, turns her into some junior approximation of the Michelin Man from a distance, but up close the downy layers depress easily beneath his arms, and the sound of friction against the nylon shell becomes part of the background noise, like the distant roar of traffic on the interstate, the low lapping of water about the wooden beans holding up the pier. The hood of her next layer - her cotton jacket - has fallen down from the crown of her head, revealing the oddly intricate twist of her hair, secured with a long, slender twist of knobby driftwood still damp from its journey over the lake to the shore.

Her eyes half-close as his mouth touches the back of her knuckles and her breath catches again, sharply this time in the back of her throat - emotion shining in the dark discs of her eyes. Where he touches her skin - his mouth on her hand, his fingers cupped around hers, striving to keep her warm - she's a degree or two warmer than he is, as if she had the slightest fever. It's just the rage - banked, subtle, everpresent - warming her blood.

When she turns like this, her body sideways against his, her neck craned so that they are eye to eye, he can feel the shape of her pregnant stomach like a shadow against his flanks, through the whispering layers of cotton and down that keep her warm.

"The last couple days - " her eyes are quick on his; she follows the gradations of surprise, the slow, building glow, deep in his gray irises. Her reflection is there two, shining back at her, framed by the rising sun.

The creature's voice is low, quiet, but she does not break eyecontact. " - but really, officially," she breathes out, nostrils flaring as if she had just sked herself a question. " - about an hour ago. She gave me another name, too." A minute pause, before she supplies the name. " - Renders Bone."

[Trent Brumby] An hour ago. He's happy with that answer. He'd have hated to be the last to find out, that this had happened days ago and she was just telling him now. His smile is instant and broad, giving him laugh lines around his eyes and deepening the shined colour more. Tightening his arms back around her, he gives her a little squeeze, not around the belly but more about the shoulders. The kiss he gives her is sound, left on the high part of her cheek, and he murmurs there: "Congratulations." He's proud, but doesn't say it, for fear of sounding like some condescending prick.

"Renders Bones." Repeating the name, he soaks it in. It's very Fenrir. Violent sounding. It chases some of that good glow to him, but not all of it. Just brings him quickly back to ground and to reality. He looks at her again. It's more serious this time, darker for different reasons, and his voice is low, matching it. "I'm very glad that I'm on your good side," he tells her, and means it.

[Kora] "I left the Caern," she tells him, voice soft, quietly leaning back against him, feeling the solidity of his musculature, his big chest, the broad shoulders, the architecture of which she knows so well, under so many different strains. " - and called you." Confirming his place in the hierachy of People She Told. With a worming motion, she frees her right arm from where it is trapped behind their bodies and reaches up to grave the groove of her thumb over the laugh lines framing his left eye. The edge of her thumb trails down his cheek thing his jaw, like she was memorizing the angles of his face, the hard lines and softer hollows as she returns the shining look in his eyes.

His gaze darkens then. They are standing at the end of a pier jutting out into a dark, quiet, freshwater lake in the pale gray of predawn, and they breath fogs around and the air feels so cold that she can almost swear she can see the condensation freezing as she breathes out, that she imagines she can trace the miniscule filaments of quick-formed ice out of the air between them, watch them fall, shattering toward the ground.

The sky is beginning to turn extraordinary colors, but there's still the mystery of the setting moon low in the west, the bright, singular point of the morning star in the east, the promise of a new day as drifts of icy fog creep through the silent city.

Most nights, he hears her stories before anyone else, feels them in her shoulders, in her body, the rumble of her words inside the circle of his arms before the sound reaches his ears. She's quiet now, though. "I'm glad you are, too - " she tells him, her voice thrumming with that same vibrancy of repressed, half-voiced emotion, though it means something else in her, in this gray light of early dawn.

An hour from now, as they are walking back to his car, as they are shivering in the seats, testing the heat again and again to see if it is warm enough to blast while the city wakes up around them - an hour from now she'll tell him the story - of Burns Within, a Fianna - she will say, quiet - a red wolf who scoured a great and hungry darkness from these lands years ago, before he disappeared. Who died inside a strange living maze of a house in the umbra, whose bones she found to return to his people, and with them, the story of his death. The details are so strange and fanciful that they are hard to credit, bring to mind Alice in Wonderland so strongly that he can almost - in the oddest, most quiet moments - taste the mad hatter's tea - and yet she tells him this strange tragic with such abject forthrightness, with such solidity in the blast of the dry heat in the front seat of his car.

They will eat breakfast before she takes him to bed, seated on the couch in his living room, warm coffee, hot chocolate to steam away the bright, bitter chill of the early morning. Burns Within stays with them, here, too - this unseen presence, just out of sight, the Galliard's promise to remember, above all. Until she says, quietly, so directly, so level - " - let's go to bed." - because she wants to feel his skin against hers, and his body beneath hers. Because she wants to feel him, alone in the breathing darkness of his bedroom some ordinary morning, as the vast city wakes up around them.

[Kora] transcript!
to Kora

[Kora] The block is familiar - a late-night sushi place that doesn't even open until 9:00 p.m. - a contemporary theater, a handful of boutiques scattered about like diamonds between the more conventional bars and restaurants, the coffee shops and florists. Simon spent a good two hours with a certain Fenrir Skald one day about a moon ago hanging out as the cold, dark night turned into a cold, dark morning, waiting for the police cars to pull away, waiting for an opening so they could slip back inside one particular boutique with [i]particular sorts of goods - designer fragrances, and killer (fucking killer) shoes.

--

The next week the place as closed, the big display windows - where the shoes were treated as singular works of art and no mention of price or commerce was permitted - darkened, papered over from inside, a hand-written UNDER RENOVATION sign slipped beneath the glass and brown paper. If he walked past the place, well - didn't it just feel like a job done well, and a job well done when UNDER RENOVATION changed to CLOSED written in red marker with backwards S the day before Thanksgiving.

--

Strange, then, that the place is open again just a few days after Christmas, a small "AFTER CHRISTMAS BLOW-OUT" sign slipped into the glass window, as if the small boutique had been open all season, along with the rest. Not even a nod to NEW OWNERSHIP or any of the usual things businesses due to lure back clientele after an abrupt setback, an unexpected change of hands or focus.

It's 8:30 on a Monday night; the air is arctic - in the teens, the temperature dropping fast. Steam billows from exhaust grates, smoke from the tailpipes of idling cars. The stores are open late tonight to take advantage of all that after-Christmas demand, but the frigid air, the promise of snow, the battered gray sky keep everyone moving quickly, heads down, faces shrouded by scarves, hurrying, conserving both energy and warmth.

And here's Simon, amidst all this consumerism, all these glad-tidings, on the hunt. He caught a glimpse of a familiar face - familiar enough to set all the hairs on his neck on end, the way it twisted -

- a familiar face, a sharp-faced man, broadshouldered but too thin under a down jacket, with greasy brown hair and watchful, deep-set eyes. Caught sight of it five blocks ago, and has followed him from a distance for five blocks full of Christmas shoppers and holiday revelers, busy city streets, not a single dark alley or hole-in-the-wall into which he could jump the familiar Spiral without attracting far too much of the wrong sort of attention, without bringing down all the mortal world on himself, without endangering the veil.

Now: four blocks later, the theater, the sushi restaurant, the boutique - open again, light shining through the windows.

--

Here is the last coincidence: Kora, familiar from a distance - it's her height, her pale hair, the sharp, animal familiarity of her presence, standing on the street like an island, frowning faintly as she studies the boutique, so still that the rat-faced man almost runs into her in his slowing trajectory toward the front door.

[Simon Zahradnik] Simon was smiling to himself, he was looking rather smug as he followed at a cautious distance. You see the thing about striking fear into the hearts of ones enemies is that you first have to find enemies to strike fear into the heart of. Up until this point the Garou have almost been ranked among the "Hunted" with a few lucky guesses where they have been sent deliberately into the fray. This is not how a war is best fought... The best defense is a good offense some might say and it was true. It was hard for the Garou to effectively muster a response to the hive so long as they are kept busy by these distractions. Simon, however, aimed to shift that... The more the Garou were on the attack the less the Hive would be able to keep them distracted and occupied.

Something inside him snapped with delight. The darkly clad full moon was easily able to keep himself hidden in the crowd. Cautious and distant and waiting his chance to strike. In the end you can talk as much as you like but it is your actions that show just how serious your words are.

Kora was noted and he took the time to gently glide his tongue around his chapped lips as he closed in on the pair and began to softly whistle the tune to Mack the Knife as he closed in on his prey.

[Kora] The Fenrir is a good fifteen feet from the entrance to the boutique, on the other side of the sidewalk, near a small bank of vending machines - USA TODAY and the Tribune, the free City Paper and so on - dressed in warm layers - heavy coat over a hoodie over a thermal undershirt and so on. The bulk of the winter gear makes her narrow figure seem larger, more ungainly, but there's the underlying grace evident when the rat-faced man nearly trips over her as he weaves through the late-night shoppers. She frowns neatly at him, but just steps back and looks up, then, over his shoulder as the cut of a whistled tune comes back to her from the crowd.

Dark eyes find Simon, and stay there. The frown remains - lingers at the corners of her generous mouth - before she lifts her chin in a sharp sweeping gesture up and cuts a look from Simon to the boutique.

The rat-faced man is looking back, then. Hands in the pockets of his down coat, he shoots a furtive look down the street, like he's seeing a ghost, then reaches for the door of the boutique, opening as a pair of gilded young women - the sort with more money and looks than sense - push out of the store, laden with packages. Rat-face reaches for the opening door, holds it form them, arm rising above eye level as he tucks himself back in the vestibule and lets them pass.

They don't even notice him.

[Simon Zahradnik] Simon doesn't really seem to care if he's been seen or not. Fear was the name of the game here... Fear caused people to panic and when people panic they make mistakes. So Simon continued to whistle the song ever so softly in his own little way magnifying the predatory side of the beast closing in on its prey.

When Kora looked at him he simply grinned and shifted his eyes towards the man and then back towards Kora, repeating this a few times in the hopes she'd notice he was pointing something out. Yet still that whistle continued as he made his way towards the door intent on following him into the Store. It was quite fortunate Kora was around because it would provide a hint of cover if he was in there with a woman.

[Kora] She has her hands in the front pockets of her jeans, her body hunched over at the shoulders as if she's cold - freezing - waiting for a ride, someone to meet her, a boyfriend, a cousin, an aunt, like a normal shopper. Her rage isn't so great as Simon's, and there's no breeding in her blood, so she blends with the crowd better than he does, looking nearly ordinary except for the sharpness of her dark gaze cutting through the glittering twilight of the busy street.

Simon doesn't need to make that gesture twice. The Skald's generous mouth curves, the look nearly soft except at the corners, and she steps away from the bank of newspaper machines and bumps against Simon in this familiar way, more human than animal, like they're old friends, like he's the one she's been waiting for all night.

"Hey big spender," she says with an irony that sets lie to whatever flirtatiousness a stranger might read into the words. They're both walking toward the boutique now, and can see the rat-faced man, a pair of browsers, and a clerk at the center island, surrounded by little pyramids of perfume (parfum) in glittering lead crystal bottles. " - what's up?" This before they get to the door, in a low, sharp undertone. Then, just before the door, she instructs, " - and open the door for me. Make it look real, yeah?"

[Simon Zahradnik] Normally Simon would be flustered to have the woman in so close. Instinct was a dangerous thing and had he not already been focused on something else he might be knocked off course. However, for the moment, there was nothing that could keep the Full Moon off his designated target. As she presses in he glides a hand around her shoulder and reaches out to pull the door open. His hand is quick to glide off her shoulder so she can slip in."After you..."He says politely. His grin was playful and flirtatious as well, though largely that was as a result of being on the trail of prey it tended to fill the young mans eyes with such delight.

The fortunate thing about Simon walking into any building where the clients were expected to lug around copious amounts of cash was the fact that Simon's dress, mannerisms, and even tattoo matched well with his youthful good looks. It was easy enough to pass the threatening young man off as anything from thug to some kind of musician who were pretty much thugs but thugs who oozed money out of their pores. So it wasn't hard to meld in with the other Clients. In fact one didn't usually come into a place like this with tattoos and facial piercings unless they intended to spend money. Shoes were hard to sell on the street after all.

He continued to softly whistle, that tune intended to keep his prey off guard and moving. Seeking somewhere dark and away from others to hide himself away... Somewhere away from people where he could be dealt with properly.

[Kora] Strangers can stretch and find a reason for Simon to patronize a place like this. The rock star no one knows, the drug dealer with a girlfriend with expensive taste. The owner, maybe. Made his money in clubs, moved up to boutiques, designer fragrances and killer shoes.

There's nothing about Kora that makes her feel like she belongs here, though. She has clear, direct eyes and an expressive mouth, attractive enough features - except that, bare of make-up she looks far too ordinary for a place like this. Her long blond hair is pulled back from her features into a messy twist at the back of her neck, secured by a chopstick, and though the hair is glossy and healthy, it isn't artfully arranged to maximum her features, held in place by a bodifying spray and a ClearShine organic mousse. She has no obvious tattoos, none of the usual signifiers of clothes horse or rock star's girlfriend. Her shoes are Doc Marten's, not Christian Louboutin's.

But there's enough illusion there; their fake-intimate body language, his thuggish look.

"Anything I want, eh?" she says, turning around, walking backwards, trusting their rage to clear the room without much work - that human sense that something is wrong beneath their skins. Something ancient, something old - some terror made liminal by time, immediate by their presence.

Rat-face looks back, and frowns. He's away of Simon - Simon specifically - for the first time this evening and gives the Shadow Lord a flat, sneering sort of look. The exchange he has with the clerk is brief, then he's moving again, up the stairs to the couture collection. Not quite dark, but empty, to be sure.

The other patrons are already finding reasons to leave the store.

[Simon Zahradnik] "Anything you want..."He mutters as he watches her slip backwards away from him. His attention didn't linger on her for long, however. He honestly didn't much care for the well being of the people in the boutique one way or another. He was here for something far more important and those who know what is best for them would do good to vacate the building quickly.

A look shared between Simon and his prey only brought a smile to his face. His whistle was soft and playful as he kept up that tune. Wanting to drive home his point that the Rat Faced man would not survive the night. Do what he might, death was coming for him in the form of the Sept's Wyrmfoe. He wasn't about to show up at the next Moot without proof that he was worthy of the position. So as the man headed upstairs he flashed his attention back towards her.

"Let's start upstairs and work our way down?"He asks her before heading in the direction of the upstairs. He honestly didn't want to fight in the boutique if it was possible to avoid but he would fight wherever he had to. So he headed for the stairs fully prepared to be lept at or worse. That tune rising from the stairwell soon enough as footsteps began to carry him slowly upwards to the beat.

[Kora] The narrow stairs lead up past a bank of mirrors, rising over the dressing rooms. There's a little chain near the top still swinging from where the rat-faced man crossed it. The clerk tries to speak up as the two of them follow Rat-face. "That's not actually open?" - she says, her voice rising on the last word to turn it into a question. Kora ignores her, and one presumes Simon does too.

The downstairs is much the same, but upstairs has changed. The carpet is a new soft pink, but there are no clothes on the racks on the wall, just a certain stillness to the space. Three changing rooms line the far wall, the curtains drawn. And - nothing. No immediate sign of Rat-Face.

[Kora] Kora: Per + Alertness
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Simon Zahradnik] They slip upstairs oblivious enough that one might imagine they simply didn't hear what was being said to them. He pushes the chain aside and soon enough they were headed up the stairs. A playful little smile as he glances around."Pretty empty up here... Not many places to hide..."He continues with a little chuckle as he begins looking around to see if he can't pinpoint where the man went.

[Per+Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Rat-Face: Dex + Stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Simon doesn't pick out rat-face hiding in the gloom of the empty upper salon, but Kora spots him as soon as her booted feet hit the top riser in the stairs. Simon's standing in front of her, looking around, searching the shadows in the dressing rooms for any sign of the stranger, and feels the Skald's fingertips beneath his elbow. They aren't pack, and have to rely on words, on human utterance. "There - " she says, quiet and unerring, close enough that he can feel her body heat, that he can hear the slither of nylon as she starts stripping off her winter coat lest it be destroyed in a shift.

- and that, in the end, is all the warning they have. Rat-face bursts from the shadows with a snarl. And -

[Simon Zahradnik] [+8]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Kora] Kora: +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Kora] Rat-Face +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Kora] Rat-Face AGAIN!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Kora] Kora: AGAIN
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Kora] Order:

Simon: 13
Rat-Face: 10
Kora: 10

Kora: Reflexive - Resist Pain, rage-shift to hispo.

1a. reserved for defensive action.
1b. BITE Rat-face

Rage 1: again
Rage 2: and again.

Rat-Face: Rageshift to hispo.

1a. Bite Simon
1b. Bite Kora

Rage 1: Bite Simon
Rage 2: Bite

[Simon Zahradnik] [-1 Rage shift to Crinos -1 WP Resist Pain]

1a: Claw Ratface
1b: Claw Ratface

1R: Claw Ratface
2R: Claw Ratface

[Simon Zahradnik] [Dex+Totem+Crinos+Brawl = 9 -2 Dice for split actions Claw 1!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Simon Zahradnik] [Str+Totem+Crinos+1+2 = 11]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] Rat-face: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] [Same as before -1 dice]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] [Same as before -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] 1a. -2 BITE Simon
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] [Shit soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] 1b. BITE Kora
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Kora] Kora: dex + dodge -2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Kora: 1b. BITE Rat-face -3
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Rerolling 10s on initial roll b/c FORGOT
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 4 (Failure at target 5)

[Kora] Rat-Face SOAK
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] [Dex+Totem+Crinos+Brawl = 9 Dice Claw!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] [Str+Totem+Crinos+1+2 = 11]
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Rat-face. WHOA.
BITE! -1 (wounds)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage! (-1 wounds!)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Simon Zahradnik] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Kora: Rage 1: BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 5) [WP]

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Kora] Rat-face SOAK
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] The fight is brief and vicious. Humans watching would see - nothing more than a flurry of monstrous forms, something out of a horror movie, less than a handspan of heartbeats and then -

just blood, just the ozone of rage oozing in the air. The rat-faced man falls, not dead - not that, not yet - but nearly so, incapable of rising, unconscious - metis, he reverts to his breedform, the monstrous, misshapen crinos has dun-black fur covered in spiraling tattoos. Sorrow stands over him, flanks heaving, mouth peeled back from her teeth in a silent snarl.

But look: Simon tracked him here, and Sorrow gives him the grace of the last, killing blow.

[Kora] (PAUSE PAUSE)

[Sorrow] "Mouse," says Sorrow. "I will call you Hungry-One, I will call you Remembers-Death. I will tell this story and I will call you Mouse, and you will be remembered, as great and great and many times great grandfather's greatgreat grandfather remembered the red wolf.

"Listen, there is more to your story. The red wolf was named Burns Within, and he harried a great darkness from the winter land, a darkness that would have swallowed everything, even the narrow spaces, even the burrows and warrens where you hide. We remember how he lived - distantly, through a distorted mirror, but then his name fails us, because we do not know how he died. Left behind, his woman mourned him until her hair fell out, so red it seemed like blood on the snow, keened for him until her throat closed and the moon turned away, so as not to hear. Named her children Misery and Grief, and so went the rest of her days.

"I have told you this," all this is quiet, is sinuous but solid as cinderblock, is made of aggregate words, half-remembered languages, the breath of sighs, the meaning of gray. " - now listen, quick. Tell me what you remember. His pointless death, and I will feed you, because it is winter, and your are hungry."

[Waking Dream] The ladder is cold. Not winter-cold, not cold as a pure concept of cold; not cold as it might be, quintessentially. But cold enough to bite. The ladder is metal. The ladder flakes rust under her fingers, staining them. Mouse who will be Hungry-One, Remembers-Death, is liquid-eyed, and its whiskers drip more light at a quicker pace, quickquickquick, mouseheartbeat fast, and it washes its whiskers with one hand, then lifts its head and looks off to one side.

- this is what the Mice in this Land of Lands and Doors and Fields know of the red wolf and his pointless death. He came many times. The first time he came he said what is this place it is waking. He left behind breadcrumbs. They were big crumbs, and tasty. His pockets promised more breadcrumbs but we did not get too close because he (twitch) smelled of (twitch) bad things blood and he showed teeth when he saw the Mice like humans show teeth. He walked through halls and tested doors and wanted to know what they were for. He did not know that doors are for going through and closing. That was what the Mice think he learned.

The third time he came there was something in the house that ate. It ate and it ate and it ate ate ate and it was hungrier than I am very hungry I am hungry and I am old. The Mice remember this time because they were all very hungry. Hungrier than winter. We thought that his pockets might still have crumbs and what might be inside and the Mice ate each other. More than just the weaklings. We made each other weak and ate ate ate and some of us tried to eat the red wolf too. Then the hunger went away although our bellies were still not full. The last time the red wolf came he walked to the door you are going to but it took him many days. When he was asleep a thief took something from him and when he woke up and saw he became a monster and tore up many things.

We the Mice thought that maybe he would snap us up so we did not see. We hid we hide from things like that and there is a falcon. The falcon is a good hunter. The falcon is swift. We do not like its talons, we have thought many times that perhaps we will eat the falcon when it sleeps, but we have not yet. Not yet. And the falcon is watchful. The red wolf's blood was good they say. They say it was everywhere. They say that he did not heal. But only the bad mice say that. I do not know. I cannot smell it.

When he reached the door he could not open it because the key had been left in another door. He wanted to go back but he couldn't. He opened the door by being hurt. We the Mice do not understand it, but we think that maybe, maybemaybemaybe, it is because he was weak, so what was behind came to see, and he said he would give something, and then he just died. We the mice did not see him give anything. He did not have anything because it was all taken. That is his pointless death. He went into the door and then he never came out. But then he was dead and we could smell him. We did not go near the door for manymany years.

- and with that, the Mouse dashes away. Or begins to. A sleek shadow, shape.

[Sorrow] Sorrow listens, does that thing that humans due when they bare their teeth. Which is to say: she smiles, a generous curve of her generous mouth, the gleam of white teeth behind her soft lifts, the promise of the wolf inside, a hungry thing, moon-made and sure. Hungry-One, Remembers-Death, Mouse speaks and the wolf-girl listens, rust from the ladder flaking beneath the pads of her fingers, drifting down through night and night and night and hungry to some quiet landing place, some shadow, raining down through some ceiling door onto the still, stripped floorboards below.

"Thank you," says Sorrow, low-voiced, still as the horizon shrouded by mist on a cold winter's morning. Her fingers are cramping, in truth, and the cold eats its way into her bones, and inside her is another life-to-be, maybe not even a heartbeat yet, just some promise there, just some need. She reaches out, fingers except for the rust, turned up. Sorrow does not have pockets full of breadcrumbs, but she does have her spirit, and she offers a kiss of it to Mouse for the story as promised. " - here."

Offers Gnosis for his hunger.

- and then she moves again, straightens, reaching upward for the next rung, and the rung after that, eyes closed against the rust as it falls like flakes of ash from a fire; like a first, fat snow onto her cheeks, her mouth, into her lungs as she climbs and climbs, imagining a door, and remembering that they are for going through and closing.

- and coming back, and opening, too.

[Sorrow] stamina! (homid!) plus ze athletics!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 10

[Waking Dream] There is a moment where her muscles protest. They've stiffened. They quake. The moment passes. Athletic, limber Kora - determined, well-aquainted with her own physicality. When she reaches the very top of the ladder, which happens now, now that she has walked so long and climbed so far, now that - surely - dawn is beginning to silver Chicago's snowclouds, and pokes her head above, what she sees is another portion of the (another?) attic. A lower portion, perhaps; something at the root, somehow unnoticed before, no door that lead to it, nothing.

The ancient thing with the ancient voice and the mellow, ponderous way of speaking waited for her - it took the shape of a stag, and she saw the room through its hooves, which it pawed the floorboards with. A stag, yes - but so large, so vast, so greatgreatgreatgreat that its shoulders hulked against the ceiling and it had to bow its head, 'lest its mighty rack tear holes in the ceiling, rip right through to the - attic. The other attic. The sky. Whatever. It says -

- and here we are. Remember what you promised -

There are windows here, too, and feathers everywhere, soft and moon-translucent, as if this little room was a place for birds to roost. The windows here are not boarded up. The wood is new, and smells new, still smells of trees - of pine. Go on, Kora; smell it, Sorrow? This is a room made out've a wood which was made out've pine, perhaps; some evergreening thing, some winter-strong, dark and stark thing, and the metal charm hanging from her earring means she can hear the sleepy caught-in-slumber dream-talking of the wood-spirit within the timbers. There is a well-made dresser, pressed against the wall. On it, a copper chocolate pot. A little copper spoon. A little wooden tray, a little oil lamp. And one of the drawers is half-open, and from it comes a spill, a froth, of yellowing old lace, something that looks like it might ash into dust if someone looks too hard at it.

And there is a door, set against the wall. The door is stone. The door does not belong. The door is stone, and the door has a sun carved on it; maybe a glyph - too far for her to see. There is also the whisper of a stain on the floor in front of the door, and it lies there like the shadow of a thought. She will notice, too, after a moment, maybe more - one bone, another, the remnants of yet another; human bones, maybe. Or Garou. Just scraps.

[Sorrow] "Three times three minutes," she says, nodding a slow, solemn nod, the seal on a pact, the - "when you ask. When I can."

This is after she has pulled herself forward, her arms liquid now, her strength spent, her breath harsh even in her charged lungs. Wolves are made for long-running, ranging across the snows, but humans are not made for climbing, and she is more than one human, now - and she feels the exertion, feels the exhaustion - in dead center in her spine, in the palm of her hands, in her burning calves and thighs, the great slabs of muscle flanking her spine.

There is more there, though. More inside, underneath, and so she pulls herself up until she is seated on the floor of the attic, the root-of-attics, breathes in the dust, the desicated lace, the feathers and pine, the sharp scent of raw, new wood, the musk of bird-things that reminds her of the belltower, the low gleam of the bell she tends every week, atop the church.

The bones and the door: her attention is fast upon them, and after several liquid moments on the floor, where she feels every ache in her muscles, every sort, overworked fiber in their attachment to bone - she pushes herself upright, drawing her dangling feet out of the long, dark shaft through which she climbed. Sparing a glance for the moon and the dresser pushed against the wall, Sorrow crosses to the bones and the stone and the door with its etched maybe-glyph. Her dark eyes settle on the door, still, wary, and then she sinks to her haunches, touches the scraps, one and then another, the shattered little shards, the scraps of flesh, cloth, fur - whatever's left there, gathers them up and turns them over and over in her hands.

After several moments quiet contemplation, Sorrow reaches behind her shoulder, and pulls away something that wasn't there. A narrow olive backpack, half-full, appears against her shoulder and falls to the ground, though she catches one of the straps before the contents spill out and shatter. Carefully, she tugs off her black t-shirt, leaving the thermal behind, and carefully, she folds up the bones, with a quiet sort of - reverence, with an unremitting, quiet grief, remembering her losses, all the deaths before. And carefully, she folds up the bones in the t-shirt, slips them into her backpack, and allows the pack to slide back into her spirit.

And then, there is a door.
A stone door.
And Sorrow has the key.

And so, she opens it.

[Sorrow] Strength!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 8

[Waking Dream] And so, she opens it.

And so, the hungry wind comes for her.
And so, the hungry wind drags at her.
And so, the hungry wind seeks to slough the flesh from her bones, cuts through her clothes, drags at her.

And so, she is almost lost in the roar, the unrelenting ferocity, of what lies behind this door. All wind. All fury. All noise, noise, noise, and for a moment she cannot see: the wind whips at her so, understand, it stings her eyes -

But beyond the door, she can see a carpet of stars, of moonsilvered fields, of a moonsilvered lake, of leaves, shaken from the branches. Winter, again - stark, and helpless, and friendless, and cold. The perfect place for a hungry wind to prowl. And in the distance, wolf-song, wolves speaking each to each, hints of tales, of things lost, of names lost, a search in progress, again -

But she knows these are the voices of the dead. And she knows the stars are fires, as well as stars. And she can smell, in that hungry wind, something redolent of spices, of warmth, of resurrection, of woodsmoke.

[Sorrow] Every shred of concentration, every ounce of her strength goes to keep her rooted: here. Sorrow imagines herself a tree with great, twining branches and deep, endless roots. Imagines herself a mountain, imagines herself stone - in staccato moments as she holds fast, plants her hands on the frame, resists, in the end, the hungry wind.

It steals her breath; steals away her warm breath, blisters her with cold. She's still human-skinned, though now this is so only because the moment's inattention required to shift might be her undoing. The animal in her bares its teeth, the rage in her burns hotter to restore the warmth lost in the lashing wind, and she holds fast until she can pull the stone door about, and push it, finally, closed - the voices of the lost dead clear in her eyes, the distant promise of warmth, woodsmoke, clear skies, a burning hearthfire.

The door shut, she rises to her tiptoes and traces the shape of the glyphs etched into the stone.

Hid(Mem)den(ory).

The bones are in her pack, and her eyes are bright with unshed tears.

Call it the work of the wind.

--

There is still the attic drenched in moonshine, drifting with bird feathers. There is still the sky beyond, the gleam of stars in the dark fastness. She pauses by the dresser, fingers the copper pot, the oil lamp, shifts the yellowed lace beneath her fingers. She opens the drawers, each of them, one by one by one, touches the marker's mark on the bottom of the copper pot, the grain of the wood in the tray. She picks up feathers from the floor and sets them floating in the air like motes of dust in the moonlight, she climbs to her tip-tip-toes and peers out the windows.

She remembers the stars.

And them, quietly, she writes them into her fur. The moon and stairs, the birdfeathers, the dresser, the howl of the hungry wind from the opened door, turns a memory into a memory, a disc of it that clings to her skin the way bubbles cling to flesh when you're breathing underwater.

This is not quite enough.

It never is.

When she is finished - when she has looked through every drawer, traced every groove in the glyph etched into the stone door - when she is finished Sorrow melts from her human skin into her sleek wolf form. She is slender and gray and brown, with keen brown eyes and a short snout, alert eyes, elegant legs, white teeth, and a voice -

well, here she has a voice, a throat that she opens, a howl of loss, a howl of memory, a howl to the moon and the dead.

And then, only then, does she shift into her humanskin, and begin climbing down.

[Waking Dream] The door doesn't want to close. There is effort. Almost, she loses the key. Almost. Almost, she loses her life, and the other life she is just beginning to kindle into a flame-thing, into brightness. Almost. The door closes, and the glyphs are there to be read. They're faint. They're old. And she looks through the attic room, the beneath-the-attic room, and beneath the lace (which does ash when she touches it; half-disintegrates, sighing against her fingertips as it gives up even a semblance of form, a memory that couldn't quite hold in this other-world, not strong enough), she finds a deerskin pouch, something cracked, stiff with age.

And within, three talens - a painted clod of clay, one to wake the heart; an egg, tiny, blue, one to call for aid; an unmarked glass bottle [old, filmy] of some old brown liquid almost hardened/crusted against the glass, one to summon light out of the dark. And within, a (used, ew) handkerchief, monogrammed J. B., wrapped around something hard. When, and if, she unwraps it, she'll see a ring, and hiding in the ring something that almost tries to float-away, and oh: she knows. A memory, contained in a circle, a record, bound by Gnosis, a song. A thing, important enough to keep, to replay.

Through one window, the meatpackers' Chicago, Wyrm thick on the ground, smoking, flickering on and off like the memories they are, almost antiqued, ugly as a bone caught in the throat. Through another window, a Chicago that is burning. Through the third, final window, a Chicago with onions, growing green by the river, onion spirits playing pranks.

And then she howls. And her howl carries, long, strong, outward, down - enough to reach her True Time. Her Now Time.

And, below, there is a howl of answer, Waking Dream's, strong and sweet, I'll take this, carry this, and then after Waking Dream's, while Sorrow shifts down to Kora-shape again, human-skinned begins her descent (there is always a descent; that is the story of every ascent), Dreams in Summer Snow howls his reply.

And then she is on the stairs, down, and down, and down again, and the spirits avoid her, hide away, whispering stories, gossip, half-insults.

They do not stop her. Waking Dream and Dreams in Summer Snow have ceased howling long before she reaches the bottom. She feels as if she's been climbing, talking, thinking all night long - how many hours has she lived?

[Sorrow] The talens are spirits bound to flesh; and so she takes them. How many years have then remained here, well beyond their bargained use, trapped inside the cage of their maker's making, waiting to call for aid and ready to wake the heart and dreaming of bringing light of out darkness.

And the handkerchief,
and the ring,
and the memory,

- disappear neatly into her olive green backpack, which disappears into her skin, a dark line of curves and bundles against the bunch of her trapezius, the swell of her deltoid muscle.

Sorrow is tired now, she is spent. She has climbed and climbed for a day and a night, and her body is beginning to fail, and her mind is beginning to fog. She is hungry enough to eat a hungry mouse and she knows how his hunger feels, how it flays at his ribs, how is yawns beneath his diaphragm, how it makes him -

- weak, I am old.

And down she goes, still, her treats against her body, the story in her mind, her fingers dark with rust, aching, spent. Night whispers around her and sometimes she bares her teeth at the insults, but the gesture is subdued now.

--

When Sorrow emerges from Hill House, when she returns the key on its knotted rope to itshook, when she opens the front door, an ordinary door, a door without a key, when she half-stumbles down the four steps to the solid ground, her hair is half-loose, gray with dust and cobwebs, with chips of rust, with memory.

When she reaches Waking Dream and Dreams in Summer Snow, Sorrow sinks to her haunches, pulls the pack loose from her shoulder again, shakes the old olive canvas panels out, sighing. The bag has been around the world with her, twice, and is held together by duct tape, by big, inexpert stitches, by roaddust.

Squinting up at Lila as she undoes the laces holding the bag closed. "The Fianna, Burns Within, died in Hill House. He gave himself to a door marked with the glyphs for Hidden Memory, and is no more." She pauses, long-fingered hands pale on the dark cotton of her dedicated t-shirt, wrapped around talens, wrapped around bones, and pulls it out, unrolling it on the ground. "These are his talens."

"These are his bones."

[Waking Dream] "What will you do with them?"

The question is simple. The galliard watches the skald - who looks weary, tired; determined, steady - steadily. Watches as she brings out the bones.

[Sorrow] "Return them to his Sept and his people," says Sorrow, still crouched on her haunches, one foot forward, the other back, the pack at her booted feet, empty, sighing. No: there are things inside, a gourd here, a clay disc there. A volume bound in black and white, and another in the skin of a death thing, flayed from the bones. " - so that they may remember him."

Her smile is a weary thing; simple, half-formed, curving quite across her mouth. "And the talens, I will release the spirit inside, and return the vessels with the bones."


[Waking Dream] Now, understand.

The spirit world is a moonsilvered thing just now. The scab is a stinking, festering wound, but Hill House is unique. There is less taint here. Nowhere near as pure - as worth saving; as worth defending, dying for, sacrificing to - as Maelstrom's Heart. But it is lovely, here; it almost feels right - rage can almost feel itself banked. Waking Dream, wide-eyed, as still as any creature out of myth that hasn't a prayer of being real, unflinching, tilts her chin downward to stare at she who offers sorrow, cliath skald of the Get of Fenris, and then she looses a held breath. Her gaze flickers to the bones, and she, too, crouches, reaches out and takes Kora's hand. The hand which, earlier, had a circle marked on it: scratched out in blood.

There is no wound now. Of course not. They've shifted. They've fought. And Kora has climbed, hand over hand, higher and higher, so any mark there was must be mixed in with the rest. Waking Dream takes out that antler tine, again, (it came from below), licks the tip, and scratches a circle on Kora's palm, then presses her own over it, tightly, clasping, tightly -

"I would howl this," she says, and then - "I will howl this, she who offers sorrow, renders bone-yuf,"

and then she is on her feet, the circle smeared - broken, and then she is four-footed, war-wolf, hispo-wolf, powerful jaws, powerful throat, lean, a thing between skins, unnatural, more-than-natural, and she howls:

" - flee, wyrmlings;" fierce, joyful; glad, undaunted-thing, "shrivel, taint; be uplifted, Gaia, let your heart beat with hope - know She Who Offers Sorrow, Renders Bone, Fostern Skald of the Get of Fenris."

And she'll howl it into the stones and the stars, howl it unwavering: triumph, see?

[Waking Dream] [...finis.]

[Sorrow] (confetti!)