[Imogen] A muscle tics in the doctor's jaw.
"No," she says, flatly. "She neglected to pass that on."
A beat.
"Bloody hell."
[Kora] "That's what she told the Sept. That Oliver had your number, Izzy Montoya's number, and John Thornton's number when he was taken." The creature's voice is low but taut with an underscored tension that rings through the vowels and makes the consonant crisp and precise.
"Tell me," a glance back at the distinctive kinswoman, with her pale skin and flame-red hair. They are standing on the street, in the warm spring darkness. The clouds that were glutting the horizon earlier have moved on, and left the left bare. A handful of stars are bright enough to shine through the haze of the city's light pollution - and these only in places like this one, where the city does not bother to replace the bulbs in the streetlamps when they burn out, away from the lights shed by the few businesses - like Vinny's Pizza Studio - open at this hour.
" - you never met him, did you? "
[Imogen] "No." She is angry. Tightly coiled and angry. It is in the curtness of her tone. The set of her jaw, the sapphire stone of her eyes.
"But my number is at the Brotherhood, isn't it just? At the caern. Easy enough fer anyone to have it."
[Kora] "Easy enough," Kora agrees, her voice still low, just agreeing. Her dark eyes sweep the street spread out around them, then return settle on Imogen's set face, a stark wash of fine pale skin in the darkness. There is something alert about the Skald's gaze; something attentive, the way her eyes take in set of Imogen's jaw, the angry cut of her eyes.
"If you've no objections, I'll come by your building everyday, on the other side, I mean." The offer is quietly made, provisional somehow. "Look out for eyes that shouldn't be there, that sort of thing."
[Imogen] Imogen is quiet, then. Her gaze takes in the Garou - much younger than she, a stark difference of experience, personality and up-bringing.
Her anger subsumes, taking on the tone of a different type of tension - thought what, it is hard to say. She is not an easy woman to read, not even when one knows her well.
"I don't mean any offence," she says, finally, reaching into her jacket pockets to retrieve her cigarette pack and lighter. She slides a cigarette free as she speaks, fitting it casually between her fingers, "but if somethin' wants to take me, having one Garou drop by my apartment every once and a while won't help much.
"I'd prefer not to ha' the illusion o' safety. S'no where near as effective as the real thing."
[Kora] Kora's features are still, her eyes half-hooded, pale lashes skimming over the dark discs of the irises, pupils ringed in the center, huge and dark in the shadows in which they stand. The street is still around them. The other trio have moved on, taken the next kneeling bus, been carried off in a cloud of exhaust fumes, playing Galliard games, exchanging stories, quiet, disturbing everyone unfortunate enough to be taking the evening express down Grant Avenue tonight. On the distant corner, the trio of kids dealing drugs are quiet. It's a slow night; or, it's a slow hour. They send the smaller, - Shorty!, they call him, laughing - running across the street to Vinny's for a trio of the true dollar slices, slivers of cheese and dough and marinara, nothing more.
Still and tense, Kora's eyes drop to Imogen's hand as she pulls out her cigarette pack; as she slides one from the rest, holds it familiarly between the fingers. Her gaze cuts back up to Imogen's face, her mouth a line, straight and unnaturally flat, without the leavening of the usual curve at the corners of her expression, without the half-hint of the smile she wears.
"Alright," she agrees, at last, her voice clipped. "You'll give me your new number, yeah?"
[Imogen] The gravity of Kora's expression is not unexpected.
The kinfolk, after all, has just refused an offer of help, no matter how pretty Imogen's words.
A line has formed between Imogen's eyebrows and it does not leaven in the seconds of silence.
"I will," she says. "I should ha' one by tomorrow." A pause. "I'd rather not ha' it posted at th'Brotherhood just now. Given the risks."
[Kora] "Trust me," says Kora, her shoulders rising with the brief, physical suggestion of laughter. There is a raw snort, formed back-of-the-throat, that sort.
"I will not be posting anything at the Brotherhood." The corner of her mouth twists, taut, wry, brief. Then, the expression is subsumed into the sharp planes of her face, the expressive mouth, the dark eyes, still and watchful.
"And I won't," she continues, quiet in this, "pass it around."
[Imogen] The kinwoman nods slightly - her expression solemn.
"I appreciate it," she says, simply, before adding, "Fer the offer o' help and the heads up as well."
Her cigarette had been forgotten between her fingers. She lights it up now, letting the smoke fill her lungs, turning her head to exhale it.
"Is he dead?" she asks. "Joey's kin."
[Kora] "I've no idea." Kora responds, low and intent. Looking away, now, from Imogen's face. She is watching the street inside, the wash of distant headlights across the asphalt, the path cut by the 12-year-old drug-runner charging back across the street toward his supervisors, slices in hand, laughing like a kid, the hems of his baggy jeans dragging the ground making him use a lurching, unsteady, swinging gait. " - he was an FBI agent.
"If he's not dead, and walking free - " she leaves that unspoken. Death is the best possible outcome for Matthew Oliver. Every other single possibility is more grotesque than a good, clean death, a cold corpse, the spirit flown. " - well, you hear anything let me know."
[Imogen] Though Kora looks away, Imogen's gaze remains focused.
Imogen's breath exhales slightly, sharply. "Believe me," she says, a little dryly, a sudden twist of her expression, her mouth moving. "You'll be one o' the first to hear o' it."
A flick of her eyes skyward, the clear sky showing the stars, though giving her little hint as to the lateness of the hour. Still: "I should head back." She takes another drag of her cigarette, exhaling the smoke toward the street.
"I'll see you."
"No," she says, flatly. "She neglected to pass that on."
A beat.
"Bloody hell."
[Kora] "That's what she told the Sept. That Oliver had your number, Izzy Montoya's number, and John Thornton's number when he was taken." The creature's voice is low but taut with an underscored tension that rings through the vowels and makes the consonant crisp and precise.
"Tell me," a glance back at the distinctive kinswoman, with her pale skin and flame-red hair. They are standing on the street, in the warm spring darkness. The clouds that were glutting the horizon earlier have moved on, and left the left bare. A handful of stars are bright enough to shine through the haze of the city's light pollution - and these only in places like this one, where the city does not bother to replace the bulbs in the streetlamps when they burn out, away from the lights shed by the few businesses - like Vinny's Pizza Studio - open at this hour.
" - you never met him, did you? "
[Imogen] "No." She is angry. Tightly coiled and angry. It is in the curtness of her tone. The set of her jaw, the sapphire stone of her eyes.
"But my number is at the Brotherhood, isn't it just? At the caern. Easy enough fer anyone to have it."
[Kora] "Easy enough," Kora agrees, her voice still low, just agreeing. Her dark eyes sweep the street spread out around them, then return settle on Imogen's set face, a stark wash of fine pale skin in the darkness. There is something alert about the Skald's gaze; something attentive, the way her eyes take in set of Imogen's jaw, the angry cut of her eyes.
"If you've no objections, I'll come by your building everyday, on the other side, I mean." The offer is quietly made, provisional somehow. "Look out for eyes that shouldn't be there, that sort of thing."
[Imogen] Imogen is quiet, then. Her gaze takes in the Garou - much younger than she, a stark difference of experience, personality and up-bringing.
Her anger subsumes, taking on the tone of a different type of tension - thought what, it is hard to say. She is not an easy woman to read, not even when one knows her well.
"I don't mean any offence," she says, finally, reaching into her jacket pockets to retrieve her cigarette pack and lighter. She slides a cigarette free as she speaks, fitting it casually between her fingers, "but if somethin' wants to take me, having one Garou drop by my apartment every once and a while won't help much.
"I'd prefer not to ha' the illusion o' safety. S'no where near as effective as the real thing."
[Kora] Kora's features are still, her eyes half-hooded, pale lashes skimming over the dark discs of the irises, pupils ringed in the center, huge and dark in the shadows in which they stand. The street is still around them. The other trio have moved on, taken the next kneeling bus, been carried off in a cloud of exhaust fumes, playing Galliard games, exchanging stories, quiet, disturbing everyone unfortunate enough to be taking the evening express down Grant Avenue tonight. On the distant corner, the trio of kids dealing drugs are quiet. It's a slow night; or, it's a slow hour. They send the smaller, - Shorty!, they call him, laughing - running across the street to Vinny's for a trio of the true dollar slices, slivers of cheese and dough and marinara, nothing more.
Still and tense, Kora's eyes drop to Imogen's hand as she pulls out her cigarette pack; as she slides one from the rest, holds it familiarly between the fingers. Her gaze cuts back up to Imogen's face, her mouth a line, straight and unnaturally flat, without the leavening of the usual curve at the corners of her expression, without the half-hint of the smile she wears.
"Alright," she agrees, at last, her voice clipped. "You'll give me your new number, yeah?"
[Imogen] The gravity of Kora's expression is not unexpected.
The kinfolk, after all, has just refused an offer of help, no matter how pretty Imogen's words.
A line has formed between Imogen's eyebrows and it does not leaven in the seconds of silence.
"I will," she says. "I should ha' one by tomorrow." A pause. "I'd rather not ha' it posted at th'Brotherhood just now. Given the risks."
[Kora] "Trust me," says Kora, her shoulders rising with the brief, physical suggestion of laughter. There is a raw snort, formed back-of-the-throat, that sort.
"I will not be posting anything at the Brotherhood." The corner of her mouth twists, taut, wry, brief. Then, the expression is subsumed into the sharp planes of her face, the expressive mouth, the dark eyes, still and watchful.
"And I won't," she continues, quiet in this, "pass it around."
[Imogen] The kinwoman nods slightly - her expression solemn.
"I appreciate it," she says, simply, before adding, "Fer the offer o' help and the heads up as well."
Her cigarette had been forgotten between her fingers. She lights it up now, letting the smoke fill her lungs, turning her head to exhale it.
"Is he dead?" she asks. "Joey's kin."
[Kora] "I've no idea." Kora responds, low and intent. Looking away, now, from Imogen's face. She is watching the street inside, the wash of distant headlights across the asphalt, the path cut by the 12-year-old drug-runner charging back across the street toward his supervisors, slices in hand, laughing like a kid, the hems of his baggy jeans dragging the ground making him use a lurching, unsteady, swinging gait. " - he was an FBI agent.
"If he's not dead, and walking free - " she leaves that unspoken. Death is the best possible outcome for Matthew Oliver. Every other single possibility is more grotesque than a good, clean death, a cold corpse, the spirit flown. " - well, you hear anything let me know."
[Imogen] Though Kora looks away, Imogen's gaze remains focused.
Imogen's breath exhales slightly, sharply. "Believe me," she says, a little dryly, a sudden twist of her expression, her mouth moving. "You'll be one o' the first to hear o' it."
A flick of her eyes skyward, the clear sky showing the stars, though giving her little hint as to the lateness of the hour. Still: "I should head back." She takes another drag of her cigarette, exhaling the smoke toward the street.
"I'll see you."
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