[Izzy Montoya] He sits, and he talks. And talks. And really keeps going. That brow hitches higher, slightly. She drops her gaze toward his hand, and then sets her coffee down and slips her hand into his. Her fingers are almost delicate, but with a strength there too. They are not silken smooth, nor extra rough, but it is clear she uses her hands for her work, and is not too much of a girly girl. Nails are clean, and short, and unpolished. She is who she is, like it or leave it.
"Detective Izzy Montoya." Her introduction is even shorter than his.
As for his assertion that everyone should start off on good terms, that gets a snort, as lips curve into a slight smirk. "Is that so. Then a hint for you in dealing with me. It is Izzy, or Detective Montoya. Not honey, dear, sweetheart, kinswoman, 'mine' or any other such terms of endearment. Bitch is acceptable, but in limited amounts."
A pause, and then. "That said, which branch of the tree did you fall out of."
[Simon] A nod of his head, and a shake of his hand."They're your rules right?"He asks with a shrug of his shoulders.
A wince in those eyes, the pain of that simple shrug was incredible. But he showed no other open sign of so much as noticing the pain. His hands rest on his side of the table and he leans back in his chair to get comfortable.
"Keeping things professional, I can roll with that. Not exactly gonna argue with a woman who carries both a badge and a gun. Never been shot and would like to keep it that way."He pauses a minute to think about that."Least I'm pretty sure I've never been shot but then again who knows? After a while I guess all these things tend to blend together till you can't tell one from another right?"He gives a smirk before tapping the piercing in his lower lip against one of his incisors.
"No tree... I came rolling outta the clouds themselves."He adds with a bright smile, she was being cryptic with her wording and he was going to be cryptic right the hell back. Though neither one was really being all that terribly difficult to understand.
"How about you? You have any family in town here?"
[Izzy Montoya] "Being shot isn't so bad." She says it with the tone of one who knows, but doesn't give details. Of course, with the intensity of Fenrir blood that rolls through her veins, it's likely that it was considered nothing more than a scratch even while bleeding. Not to mention, you should have seen the other guy...
Her dark eyes flick toward his wound when he winces, and then back to meet his gaze. He doesn't mention it, and she does not either. Chances are, they've both seen and felt worse. He is, after all, still walking.
"Lord then." Not so cryptic, such as careful with her words in public. As for her 'family', she smirks. "Too many, it seems at times."
[Simon] He nods back to her."You can never have too many, especially with things being tense as they are at the moment. The more the merrier, or at the very least the more there are the better our chances."He says with a nod of his head."So what department are you in Detective Montoya?"He asks her curiously. He was quite familiar with law enforcement being that he has found himself having to keep a step or two ahead of it several times in the past.
"A big city like this must be especially violent. I mean just from sheer population density and all. I'd imagine you've seen all kinds of crazy shit by now. I mean I'd imagine things can get pretty nasty with the sheer scale and number of criminals lurking around every corner out here. I'd imagine it can get pretty hardcore on the other side... Lord knows I've seen some fucked up shit back in Detroit."He adds with a little laugh, amusing himself with the realization that the most fucked up shit he ever saw was actually his doing.
When his laughter stops his eyes meet hers and he lifts his cup towards his lips slowly. Those eyes were intense, and unsettling, he was a predator and a monster capable of terrifying acts of violence in the blink of an eye. And there he sat sipping his coffee and patiently awaiting a response.
[Izzy Montoya] A huff of breath as he declares there can never be too many. Clearly he has not met the Fenrir of the city just yet. But then again, as a full blood, his trails are not her trials. She doesn't clarify, nor explain why she believes so, but instead lets the conversation follow where he directs it, to her job.
"Homicide. My.." A beat. Boyfriend is so.. teenager-ish. She settles for "..partner is in Vice. Between the two of us, we work an average of 18- 20 hours a day. Chicago provides us with job security, if nothing else."
And that, of course, includes the coverup work she performs for the nation on a startlingly regular basis.
[Simon] He nods his head and that cup is settled down on the table before him."See Homicide is something I can really click with. I understand the need for society to impose limitations on who gets to kill whom and for what reason. Sure it's usually the cops who get to kill whoever they like and there ain't shit anyone else can do about it... But at least it's consistent."He laughs and looks around the area then back to her.
"Never been much for sitting around on my ass either. I like to keep busy, always chasing something even if I'm just chasing after something to chase. Maybe I should look into homicide, I bet I'd make an awesome cop!"He says with a brilliant smile at the thought, imagining himself in the outfit.
[Izzy Montoya] Her gaze narrows slightly as he insults not only her, but her profession. The muscle in her jaw jumps as she teeth clench, and she has to force herself to take a slow breath.
"Your kind does not have the control for it."
Obviously.
[Adamidas] She makes her way out of an alley, after something pops like a soda bottle being jumped on by an overzealous teenager.
She walks out of the alleyway, past the dark, in a pair of short shorts and a tee shirt. She's taken to wearing shorts again. She likes shorts. They're comfortable, and they have air conditioning. It's starting to feel like spring, now, and she revels in every inch of that. She wears shoes that are comfortable, she wears shorts that are comfortable, she wears everything that's comfortable. People be damned if that doesn't work out. Damned if people think her shorts are for their benefit. She walks out of the alleyway with confidence.
There's a smile on the Fury's face. She is absolutely pleased.
The moon is full, she is smiling, and she is headed for a cafe. Life is good.
[Simon] He notes the way she tenses and it almost seems to brighten his smile.
"Since when did the police force start requiring restraint? I thought the whole point of joining it was so you didn't have to show restraint..."He adds before lifting his elbows to the table and leaning forward."Personally I'm glad to know we have friends, and family looking out for us but I've just never been much of a fan of the law. I don't know personal biases and all I suppose, it seems to me an inefficient and unwieldy tool. I'm sure on an individual basis from person to person the officers are mostly okay but..."He chuckles to himself."Just seems to me like ogres trying to smash ants with clubs isn't a great deterrent against the crows in the corn fields."He nods his head and swishes the straw in his cup around, peeking down for several moments before his eyes peek up at the sky seeing the full moon looming overhead before returning his attention to Izzy."Full moon... It's my night."He adds with a tiny chuckle.
"It's a fucked up world out there, it's nice to know there are folks out there who know the difference between right and wrong."He says with a nod of his head."Wouldn't be worth fighting for if there wasn't something left in this world that was beautiful, and decent. Isn't that what it's all about?"His grin was warn brilliantly as he gently lowers himself enough to sip gently from his straw.
[Izzy Montoya] There is a briefcase by her feet, and it is to it that she bends, sliding the folder she had been reading into it. There is a careful calculation to her movements, as he keeps speaking. There are several possibilities running through her mind;
1. He is deliberately baiting her and..
2. He's been sent to do so. Or
3. He really is a fucking idiot.
And more along those lines. It is a split second decision, as she straightens with the case in hand and stands with a grace that displays athleticism without even trying. Her voice is carefully controlled. "It is your moon, and perhaps some would forgive your insults because of that. I am not one of them. I do believe it is in both our best interests that we part company now. Good evening, Mr. Zahradnik."
It's dismissive. it's carefully controlled. It's a sure sign that the Fenrir kin is beyond pissed - and Simon has found no friend in the law here. If only he knew what it cost her to simply turn, and begin to walk away.
[Simon] He grins and shrugs his shoulders back at her comment."I seem to have that effect on people."He shakes his head and rolls his eyes."An insult would be something directed at you not your profession, last I recalled there was more out there in the world than what we did for a living and far more important things to keep in mind."
He leaves her with that thought. What he met was left to her own interpretation.
She turned and he shrugged his shoulders."At least you can stick to your convictions. Gotta respect that, I'm sure I'll see you around Officer Montoya, and if you ever have need of me don't be afraid to come calling. I stand ready to help when and wherever I am needed..."He adds with a bit of a smile. He wasn't about to allow her or anyone else being offended to stand in the way of duty. Though he smacked his lips together dryly, something about the kin left a dry taste in his mouth. He was beginning to understand what Joey meant when she said the local Kin were out of control.
He mighta kept his eyes upon her till she walked away but Adam slipped past and caught his attention. His smile returned as he looked her over. That cheerful friendly smile on her face was infectious and he could already feel the cloud of gloom and distaste clearing from his head.
[Izzy Montoya] "Detective." she corrects, automatically - with a slight pause. "And to insult what you do, would be to insult you. I am far from stupid, Mr. Zahradnik. Pray you have no need of me in the near future."
She, it seems, holds a grudge. But then again - she is Fenrir. They are not the most forgiving of Tribes. And with that, she steps to the street, pulling her phone from her pocket as it rings, and snapping her answer as she heads toward the parking lot, and the unmarked police issue vehicle waiting there.
"Montoya."
[Adamidas] She continues on her way, catching a look at the people down the way. One is familiar, a second is familiar too. She looks at Izzy, over the details and the breeding- the things that smack her in the face if she wasn't learning to expect it. That was Izzy Montoya. She was a daughter of Fenris. She was a homicide detective. She knew Adam a little better than she had originally thought.
It surprised her.
She headed closer, walked forward... stepped once... twice... a little closer. She looked at her- the moon was bright and harsh and, oddly enough, it made Adam more in-focus than it had before. Having a full moon nearby makes the Fury alert. She smiles, her lips upturn and she trots over.
She slows when she sees the tension in the female's form.
The Fury headed over, passed and gave the Fenrir a wave. She wiggles her fingers, then bumps the Shadow Lord with a hip.
"Hey Detective," she says, "and Mister Zahradnik."
[Izzy Montoya] As Adam waves and says hello, Izzy nods, but she does not stop.
[Simon] He blinks at the hip bump and winces in pain. His eyes close and he draws in a slow and deep breath as he chases back the pain, it was suddenly throbbing, searing, and tearing through him. It spread like lightning through his nerves, and took several moments to recover from."Jesus fucking christ! Be careful!"He snapped sharply. His eyes slowly opening as he breathes several more times and looks back at her.
His eyes roll and he smiles once more."Call me Simon. I'm not that much older than you."He says, looking in Izzy's direction and nodding his head towards her.
"Charming girl that detective Montoya. I can see why Joey thinks someone needs to reign them in."He adds before shaking his head and looking back at Adam."How are you tonight?"He asks her curiously.
[Izzy Montoya] In fact, she does not stop until she reaches her car. It is there, that the Izzy other's have seen is much more evident as she speaks into the phone. "Holy Mary mother of FUCK are you really that stupid? It's quite simple. Check in date, check in time, motherfuckin' description. You can read, right? What do you mean you.." a pause, and she closes her eyes. there's the very real sense that she is likely counting to herself. Backwards. In something like.. Sanskrit. A longsuffering breath.
"Listen to Finn."
And then she closes the phone with a snap, and opens the car door only to throw her briefcase inside. the door slams again, and she leans back against it, digging around to find her cigarettes and lighter. The latter is used to light one of the former, before the pack is tucked away, and she inhales deeply. Afterwards, as she exhales, she rubs her temples with her fingertips.
Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.
[Adamidas] She looked at him, and looks almost taken back. It wasn't shock, it was immediate concern. He's talking, and she isn't looking at him, though she does catch the change in moon, the smile, knows where she's made contact-
"You okay?" she looks at him, and suddenly it's all business. It's more business than he's probably used to seeing from her. Comrades, yes. He's not her sister, not by a long shot, but... well, she wears concern openly. She's well aware of how this works, and she's well aware that it's a full moon.
The Fury takes a second, and half lifts his arm to start assessing damage, "if you're bleeding I'm not going to be happy, Simon, I'm just letting you know. I'm going to frown, a lot, the weight of my disapproval will be fierce."
She looks up and smiles, "and I'm great. Moon's full, you should see this part of town from the other side."
[Mila Davis] Mila was all brightness and sunshine today. Something must be wrong with her. She wore a summery white skirt, knee length - a pair of pink peep-toe heels and a pink tank top. Her dark hair was down, and there was a white flower, silk of course.. clipped in one side. She in no way looked like the dark brooding creature she was.
The Galliard quietly hummed to herself as she walked down the sidewalk.. that was, until she saw her dearest packmate sitting at a little cafe. Her smirk grew a bit and she headed his way.
[Kora] "Evening, Detective." Izzy turns around, rubbing her temples with her fingertips, and finds herself face to face with her tribe.
Kora's voice is low and rich. The night is awash with sounds of traffic in the distance - the constant hum of the loop, the rattle of a nearby El - but her voice carries, over the sound of the thumping bass from some tricked out car, instrusive enough that it resonantes in the back, in the hollow spaces of one's skull, below the other sounds of the night, the wind from the lake, the hum of air conditioners and dehumidifiers whirring on rooftops all around them.
"Long day?"
[Simon] He shakes his head at her."Nothing I can't handle just a bit of an injury that's all."He nods his head."I'll be fine just didn't expect that."He says with a nod of his head.
Simon's neck and shoulder are bandaged in blood soaked gauze, Adam can see he's taken a significant wound. Though it is hidden under the gauze and not exactly out in the open not completely anyway. He let her examine his arm reluctantly."It's really nothing don't worry about it. I will live."All the while he keeps his face as straight as possible as she moves his arm which only causes his pain to grow. He had not gift to contain the incredible pain, nor did he have pain killers. He was stuck closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. Concentrate Simon, focus on something else.
[Izzy Montoya] Evening, Detective. Izzy's eyes are closed and she doesn't have to open them to know who is there - the voice is distinctive, the presence undeniable. Moments earlier she told Simon it seemed that there were too many of her 'family' around, as they tended to pop up everywhere - and here she is.
Izzy drops her hands, though one only goes so far to allow her to take another drag, the smoke of which she exhales away from the Skald.
"Kora." she says by way of greeting, though her lips curve, just slightly, amused. "Getting longer by the minute. You?"
[Mila Davis] "Hey Adam.. Simon." The young woman smiled as she stepped up beside them. She was almost unrecognizeable in the new clothes. Lightly glossed lips formed into a light smile.
"How ya healing, Simon?"
[Kora] Tall and lean, narrowshouldered, with long bonde hair pulled back from her face and secured at the nape of her neck by the broken barrel of a mechanical pencil long since out of lead - the Skald is a distinctive counterpoint to the darkhaired kinswoman. Though her coloring is classically northern European - pale skin that gleams with the promise of health their kind possess, pale blonde hair washed out in the darkness, except where the streetlights catch out the highlights, make them shine, dark blue eyes now fixed on the kinswoman, watchful, alert - considered, even.
Close as the regard is, it is not invasive. Kora isn't trying to steal the woman's secrets, she is, instead, alive to the way muscle moves beneah skin, as the detective pulls on the cigarette, exhales a cloud of tobacco smoke.
"I'm well," the Fenrir woman responds, her voice low, " - though the night's just beginning." Then, a pause, as she tips her head toward the car behind Izzy, or maybe the glimpse of a briefcase she caught in the backseat.
"You still on duty?"
[Adamidas] [pooooooke: mother's touch, -1 gnosis, diff 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]
[Izzy Montoya] Where Kora is light, Izzy is dark, her hair long, and hanging loose about her shoulders, though it does nothing to soften the rather strong features she was born with, features that put a face to the stories of old written in her blood. She is used to being considered, she has fallen under Kora's watch before. It's not an all together comfortable thing, to be watched like this. She and Kora, after all, did not have the grandest of starts.
But Izzy's been on her best behavior for months now.
[...something's bound to snap soon...]
There's a glance spared for the car behind her, before she simply shakes her head. "Never completely off duty, but officially just on call tonight. If they manage to get their heads out of their asses, I'll have the evening free."
[Adamidas] He was getting the third degree from someone who probably weighed about eighty pounds less than he did. She looked at him, didn't have much to say, didn't really have anything to say about what was going on. He was a bloody, awful mess. She drops her voice, and the Fury speaks evenly, "like you too much to let you get picked off by some punk who gets a lucky shot."
She puts a hand on his arm, over some bloody bandage, and focuses.
She said that she was a healer in front of the whole sept, proved it at that. She looks back up and over at Mila, she nods upward, "lot better now."
It's not perfect, though. She grits her teeth and looks at Simon again. Frustration. Not anger, not in the least. Her brows fill inward, the corners of her mouth pull inward, push outward slightly. It's not perfect. Not at all. She pulls back. It was an understated affair. Muscle reknit. Scrapes and bloody spots mended, but it isn't perfect
[Kora] She had been watching the drift and curl of smoke in the cool night air. Then Izzy says heads out of their asses and Kora's dark eyes dart unerringly back to the detective's face. There's a faint curve to the creature's mouth, hardly enough to be called an expression except that it gives her sharp features a thoughtful cast.
The expression twitches briefly wider at the right corner of her mouth, then filters away. "One can hope," she replies, simply, bemusement a lingering light in her dark eyes.
The moment is almost wholly human - one of those where it is easy to forget that she is what she is - until it changes again, until she tips her head like this, sidelong, her chin rising, the line of her jaw prominent - that animal cant of her head, accompanied by a sweeping look, head to toe, too thorough to be born of anything but the wolf in her.
"I'll buy you a drink." Kora tips her pale head toward the warm looking bar on the corner - Hank's says the sign, all dark brown and leather-looking, with ferns evident in the windows. Not a dive bar, that. Not the sort of place cops hang out. Lawyers, though - " - or a coffee." Another eloquent little gesture, entirely physical, toward the coffee shop. "if you're free for either."
[Simon] He glanced over his shoulders and narrowed his eyes as she questioned him."I am healing nicely, how about you?"He asks her, a little spite in his voice, after all she was the one who did this to him. It had been a horrible enough night for him and he was not exactly loving the fact that his alpha had decided it would be funny to tease him about the wound she inflicted!
After a moment of tension he rolled his eyes and smiled back at her."You're not exactly gonna find much use for your a half dead full moon in a stand up fight."He points out to her. He wasn't complaining about the wound so much as the fact he was forced to recover from it the old fashioned way.
He then blinks at Adam and he breathes in sharply, before watching her quietly for several long moments. Those rich brown eyes of his scan the woman suspiciously before he looks back at Mila, and once more towards Adamidas."I'mnot about to let some punk get the better of me... Not now, not tonight anyway."He says before smiling back to her."Thank you."He says softly.
[Izzy Montoya] A brow arches, slightly, at the offer, and her gaze shifts to the bar on the corner. Hanks. One of any number of little hole in the wall oasis that can be found in cities like Chicago. Izzy studies the flickering sign a moment, then shifts her gaze back to Kora. Half a second, and she nods, slightly, pushing away from her lean against the car.
"Alright." She turns to checks her pockets, her weapon, her keys, and then to lock the car door, before she faces the Skald again. "I could use a drink."
Or ten. But she's been better about that, too. Either way - the tip of her head is toward the bar rather than the recently vacated coffee shop. She really can't trust herself not to shoot Simon just yet. "Lead on."
[Mila Davis] "Oh Simon.. don't be such a baby. It isn't very becoming." She smiled, her tone light, teasing. "No one forced you to recover the old fashioned way.. and I'm glad that Adam helped you out. Then at least I don't have to watch you milk it for the next week."
There was an empty chair beside them, she she took it, being careful to make sure there was nothing dirty on that chair to mess her skirt up. Her gaze shifted to Adam. "He wanted to know why I was Alpha.. I showed him. And.. I didn't almost kill you.. I like you." For the last part, she'd glanced back to Simon.
[Adamidas] "I'm going to assume that went well?"
Concerned was assuaged. There was still blood on her hand, and she wipes it off on her shirt. It's a black shirt, so it doesn't really show blood too well. She looks at Mila, and finds herself looking at the female as well for any signs of damages.
her hands find her back pockets, and she's quiet.
"And it's only half dead, so it's partially alive."
[Kora] Hank's is a hole in the wall - almost literally. Before the gentrification of the neighborhood, it was a diner, and the bar retains that long, narrow character - with a half-dozen or more booths lining one long wall and the bar where the counter and short-order grill had been years before. The restrooms are a long stumble down a set of steep stairs to the basement, the perfect gauge of whether or not you're sober enough to drive, by the reckoning of most of the patrons. Make it down and back up: good to go.
Hands held negligently in the front pockets of her worn jeans, Kora leads the way. She walks quickly, her gait long and efficient, long legs devouring the sidewalk. Her booted feet are heavy enough on the sidewalk. The bar's storefront has been redone in warm woods, and the interior has that oiled-leather scent, as if one were stepping into the library of some old family home. The skald swings pulls open the front door, holds it open for Izzy. They are met by a wash of cool sharp air - the clean, cold scent of air conditioning above the oiled leather, the hops and barley undertones.
"Tell me what you're having, and pick a booth," Kora says, her eyes adjusting to the darkness as she surveys the patrons. The evening crowd is light enough. The place is hopping at happy hour, but after 10 p.m. only die-hards remain. Later - midnight, or one a.m. - another rush will finish out the night, but for the moment there are just a few knots of regulars clustered around the video poker machines, the electronic dartboard. The Skald tips her head toward the bar. " - I'll grab the drinks."
[Simon] He smiled back at Mila and rolled his eyes."I'm not milking it... That shit hurt like hell!"He says before taking his arm back and flexing it a little."Still does."He laughs then peeks back at Adam.
"She's convinced me she's good enough to keep it for the moment. That doesn't mean she's safe though. I gotta keep her on her toes don't I?"He asks with a wink as he sinks back into his own chair. Leaning forward enough to draw forth a sip of his drink.
"I am beginning to suspect that someone does in fact need to reign the kin in this city in before they fuck up and start getting themselves as well as us into trouble. Too much autonomy can be as dangerous to them as it is to us."He says with a shake of his head.
[Izzy Montoya] Her stride matches Kora's easily enough, her long legs well used to making short work of long distances. It's not a mistake that she is slender, lean, athletic - she has spent the majority of her life on her feet, on the beat, chasing down the idiots stupid enough to think they can outrun her, and her gun.
On the way, she finishes her cigarette, and pauses outside the door as Kora holds it open, to put it to a grinding death under the toe of her shoe against the cement of the sidewalk. From the looks of it, she is not the first to do so, either. Then she steps inside, and pauses long enough to let her eyes adjust to the darker lighting. When Kora asks her question, Izzy offers her that same little bemused quirk of her lips.
"Whiskey. Neat."
She is a guys girl, after all - and grew up proving to the boys on the beat that she could outdrink them all if she were of a mind. The crowd is light, and she turns to make her way to a booth that will do two things - give them a touch of privacy should it be needed, as well as allow Izzy to watch the door and the majority of the room.
She slips from her light suit jacket when she arrives at the table, and lays it across the back of the booth. In the low light the handle of her weapon gleams at the small of her back, before it is hidden again as she slides into her seat, and goes about rolling up the sleeves of her tailored blouse.
[Mila Davis] She grinned and patted Simon's shoulder (the one that wasn't hurt). "Simon knows playing gets rough sometimes.. " Mila looked fine in fact. There might be a slight limp, but she was alright.
"How have you been, Adam?"
[Adamidas] "But not enough autonomy breeds resentment and terrible things from the other side. I think... some of the issues with kin, I think, stem from a lack of connection or understanding," such an optimist, this one.
She looks at Mila, perks up and considers for a moment. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, left hip standing outward slightly, "I'm great! It's a wonderful night and it's getting warm finally."
[Kora] While Izzy picks the booth, Kora approaches the bar, leans over the gleaming wooden counter and insinuates herself between two video poker players. The bartender - arms crossed, eyes fixed on the television playing a silent loop of the Blackhawks' easy victory over San Jose while yammering sportscasters speculate about whether the 'hawks will shut out the Flyers to win the Stanley Cup, or win it in five games - looks reluctantly away from the television, lifts her narrow little chin at Kora - whose eyes are briefly fixed, too, on the endless loop of the hockey game.
Their exchange is quiet. Kora pulls out a handful of bills from her back pocket - not a wallet, just a ten tucked into the pages of a battered passport - and pays for the drinks, then tucks the passport back into her pocket, leaving the meager change on the bar as a tip as she takes up her own draft beer and Izzy's whiskey in neat, careful hands, long fingers fine around the cool glass, and circles back to the booth.
Kora sets down both drinks at the edge of the scarred wooden tabletop, pushes Izzy's carefully towards the kinswoman, then tucks herself into the opposite seat, apparently not minding that her back is to the door.
Maybe she's more afraid of walls than of doors. Maybe she can see enough movement reflected in the highly polished wood paneling that it doesn't matter that her back is turned. Maybe she trusts the detective's instincts enough to alert her if something demands her attention.
Maybe it was the only place to sit.
Seated, Kora picks up her beer and offers the detective the vague gesture of a toast. She doesn't add words, but there's some silent salute in there, some resolute immediacy that suggests that her first toast is always to the dead.
"Cheers."
[Izzy Montoya] When Kora joins her, she has rolled her sleeves and pushed them up the last bit, so that the cuffs are now just above her elbows. Said elbows are placed on the table before her, her hands lightly clasped as she studies the room. It seems idle, this contemplation, but it's not. It is practiced and calculated, and each patron's position is marked, each one's level of apparent intoxication noted, as well as aggression or lack thereof. It's a move so practiced and easy, that it takes barely more than a single sweep of the room. She is, as she so often says, very fucking good at her job.
Even when she's technically off the clock.
Kora returns, and slides the drink over, and Izzy wraps long fingers around the glass. Kora's toast is noted, even in it's brevity. She is not one to add words herself [unless they are cuss words, and that's a different story all together] and doesn't sully Kora's simple toast with any. She simply nods, and lifts her drink slightly, before taking the first drink. More than a sip, less than a shot - just right.
She makes a slight face as she swallows, and then sets the drink down, letting her fingers lace together around it. "So. Haven't seen you all in a while. Things alright?"
See, she can be civil and even [sorta] friendly... despite what so many believe of her...
[Kora] The edge of a faint, curving little smile then. Kora back against the cushioned booth, pulls her beer closer to the edge. There's still a decent head of foam on the top, and a hint of it on her upper lip. She dashes away with a quick dart of her tongue, shaking her pale head. "I'm in one piece. Joe's in one piece. Thomas is off questing, but I can feel him well enough to know he's out there." This is all quiet, this rundown, natural and sure. " - and no one's died for at least two weeks. I'm well."
There is a supple thread of laughter underlying the words. No - not laughter, not precisely - but warmth. "Actually, I was going to ask you - the same thing. No sightings of Matthew Oliver, eh? No weird phone calls?"
The Skald does not mention the reconnaissance she herself has been doing - a daily loop through the umbra, watching for watchers outside the residences of three kinfolk whose names and numbers were perhaps exposed to the Wyrm when Oliver was kidnapped - the second and permanent time.
[Simon] He leans forward and rests his head on his fists as he looks between the women before shrugging his shoulders."They're not my kin so I will bite my tongue and do my best to accept it, but you can be certain I would not have tolerated that kind of talk from one of my own."He felt himself twitching a bit, he was on edge... Others around him kept an extra careful distance. That rage bubbled up within him, it was unstable, and welling up within him as his moon stood high over head. Of all the Moon's the Full-Moon was likely the worst affected simply for the fact they tended to carry more fury in their hearts than most.
"Maybe it's not the kin... Maybe it's something else."He gives a soft cynical laugh and his eyes shift back and forth between them both."But I still don't fucking like cops."He says with a little groan as he lets his hands drop to the table and he lowers his head into his arms in an attempt to lay down and simply relax.
Tick, tick... The clock keeps racing in his head. Each heartbeat thrumming within his head. I am not a man, I am a beast, I am a soldier, I am a monster. He sighs and tries to drown it out by humming but that rage is searing hot within him. His flesh was on fire... He needed to be free. He needed to run, he needed something to break, something to destroy.
"They only get in the fucking way..."
[Izzy Montoya] Kora goes along the list of names. Everyone is alive, accounted for, and no one has died in two weeks. It's good enough, and sometimes all they can hope for - and Kora was going to ask her the same thing, which has Izzy's lips curving, slightly. It's not a full smile - but oh so few people ever get to see those.
"Not as of yet. He hasn't tried to contact either John or myself." And here the amusement returns. "And the only weird phone calls I have gotten is when John forgets to lock his cell and buttdials me in the middle of interrogations."
And somewhere in there, the smile softens. Warms. Out of everything that came from the trials she was forced to deal with at the hands of Daniel - the one good thing to come of it was her relationship with John. It's clear they should have been together long before now, as well as the fact that they fit together now because they were apart so very long.
Daniel said that John made Izzy happy.
He was right.
She clears her throat, then, and takes another sip of her drink, hiding the last of the smile behind the glass.
[Mila Davis] "The weather is nice. It's just good it's not colder than shit anymore. I like seeing the sun sometimes. How's your pack doin? I'd like to meet more of them.. you all seem like great allies and friends too." Mila seemed genuine enough in her statements.
"Simon.. we don't worry about other tribe's kin.. it's just gonna get us in trouble. And we for sure don't dally with them. If their tribes can't keep 'em in some sort of line, then.. well, that's really more of their problem.."
[Kora] "I'm pleased you're both well," the Skald responds, quietly, her dark eyes gleaming in the dim lighting of the bar as she watches Izzy - the way her smile softens and warms, the way she hides it behind the curve of her glass, the surface of the whiskey swimming with light. "You'll let me know if you hear something, yeah?"
The booths are high, all polished wood, and the table between them is solid wood too, the grooves and whorls of the tree's life evident beneath the coat of varnish shiny enough that it reflects the pale line of her forearm, the long curve of her fine fingers as she reaches for her beer.
She pauses, then, thoughtful - her pale brows knitted together in consideration - before looking up, a question written into the shape of her wry, expressive mouth. "Do you have a - " a gesture, vague this, circular, with the long fingers of her right hand, as the left is wrapped around her beer glass. " - particular territory that you work in the city?"
[Izzy Montoya] "Yeah." That's the answer to the first, and part of Izzy is glad that Kora has chosen not to comment farther on what she has seen, what Izzy is partially aware of showing in her eyes, her smile, the way even her voice softens. After all - its not the facade she puts on for the outside world. She is a Detective - and not just a Homicide detective, but one of the best in the city.
Which leads to the next question. "Primarily in the 'Green, but I'm often called to lead the teams on other investigations throughout the city due to my.. unique talents and record for cases solved. They don't know how I do what I do - yet they don't question or complain when the net result is another asshole found and incarcerated."
[Adamidas] "They're my sisters, I really hope you get to meet them, they've played a huge part in who I am," she seems so proud when she talks about them. She radiates it, wears it carefully, comfortably, and wears it well. It's like pride. No, it is pride. Such pride.
She muses over it, then, "I think... given how close we all are. It's all potentially something we have to deal with. I mean, we don't make rules for other people's kin. That's tribal business, but you never know when your tribal business could become someone else's tribal business. I think it has to do with a lack of internal connections, really..."
The Fury takes a second to think about what she said, and she frowns for a second. The Fury shakes her head, and comes back to reality. Thoughts are back from wandering and its wondering. The Fury is definitely a thinker. She pauses, inhales deep through her nose and out through her mouth. What a blessing she has. Not nearly enough rage, not enough that she could even risk frenzying.
"They're just doing their job... it's a pain, sometimes, but.. you know... sometimes they do good things," she sighs, and raises her shoulders up slightly. She looks around, and almost as an afterthought, "you don't think she's coming back, do you?"
[Simon] Cold, and focused the ahroun's head rises and he finds his gaze directed across the street back towards the park itself."Then why have they allowed it to get to this point? Look around you? Do you see anything resembling harmony, and understanding? This place stinks... Like smoke and stale water. They've poisoned their waters in the name of progress. The rich have built themselves an empire that rests upon the backs of the common man. They have taken everything and forced him to live with the scraps they throw him out of generosity. They sit up in their towers safe and protected by the police force they set loose to keep the rabble in line."He says with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I do not play by their rules, nor do I bow to their laws. They are the part of the problem that keeps the real criminals in this world safe and just outside our grasp. The real problem isn't the junkies and whores who are just looking for an escape or a way to make a living... The real problem is the people who took everything from them... And won't even let them have the tiny pleasure of a quick fix."His smile is bitter and filled with fury.
"Sure they're just doing their job... But it's not the people themselves I despise... It's the job itself."He laughs softly to himself and closes his eyes. Resting his head in his hands and sighing."I should be breaking something..."
[Kora] The creature lifts her beer to her mouth and makes a low sound over the glass, speculative, considered - something like it. A hmmph in the back of her throat, as warm as her voice always is. Her dark eyes - the color lost in the deep shadows of the well-trimmed bar - cut back to Izzy from the surface of her beer when Izzy mentions her - unique talents - but the nature of those goes unremarked, for the moment.
Instead, she takes another drink, swallows it, savoring the hoppiness of the brew, then looks back up. "Used to be, the Eagles claimed a good chunk of the Green." Her voice is low, always, carefully pitched so that it will carry to Izzy, and no further. " - but the pack is dead, and Silence has gone. It's important territory, though. Held by the tribe since the founding of the Sept. We'll be walking it. Seeing what parts we can hold, taking up the banner, so to speak. We can probably use your eyes and ears, in that, too."
Then, her fine features still, the curve of her mouth lingers, though, more bitter than sweet, the pith rather than the pulp of the fruit. She breathes out, nostrils flaring faint and sure with the expelled breath, looks back across the table at Izzy, considered. "Do you know the War Poets?"
[Izzy Montoya] She has never come clear with joe about her talents, about how she knew exactly what Joe and Kemp had said to John that night in the apartment, though she had been kicked out of the building at the time. She never admitted that she was anything different than she seems to be - a damn good Detective, though there are certainly signs enough that something... something is special about the kin. If not? Her mouth would have gotten her killed a long time ago.
She nods, though, at the idea that the Fenrir will strive to hold the territory in the Green. "I'll do what I can." It is all she can promise - and it is a lot.
At the last question, however, she blinks, and tips her head, slightly. "I'm... not much of a poetry fan, really." That can't be a total surprise. "So can't say that I do..."
But in the admission there is an invitation to continue.
[Adamidas] She perks up, and looks like she might just-
But she doesn't. Instead, she half pats Simon on the arm. Or, rather, she doesn't even do that. She takes a step his way, he takes a step forward, and the younger Fury is completely thwarted. She, instead, tries to play it off like nothing happen. She shoved her hands into her back pocket. He's smiling with bitter fury.
The Fury looks at him, during the rant, during the bitter smiling, and she inhales.
"Well... dealing with them... those people... is fighting the war. Where it needs to be fought," she says it like absolute fact. Truth. Reality.
A beat.
"Let's go break things."
[Kora] The bitter/sweet half-smile remains upon the young woman's generous mouth, twisting just so at the corners, sheening her dark eyes with pools of light. She nods a minute thanks at Izzy's vague promise, the corner of her mouth twisting upward, just.
"I can't tell you," she begins, her voice low and grave and rich, as fine and as expressive as the subtle shape of her mouth. " - how many of that pack are buried in the Graves." It is not quiet a non-sequitor, then, when she lifts her chin in Izzy's direction, her eyes half-closed with memory. She continues, reciting with a relentless awareness of the shape of the words themselves in her mouth, the memory of death on her tongue. Heroes do not live underneath her skin, but history does, the inevitable, inextricable knot of it, formed into the marrow of her bones.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Pause, a lingering pause. She savors words the way she savors the sharp bite of the hops in the beer in her hand. Then, continues, the power ebbing from her voice, back to her usual low, even tones. "John McCrae wrote that, after World War I."
[Mila Davis] At some point in that conversation, Mila had gotten lost in thought. Her mind had wandered to somewhere.. that occupied most of her attention. She didn't look quite as happy anymore. The young woman sighed..and then blinked.
"I'd love to meet your sister, Adam." A beat. "You two go break things.. have fun at it. I'm gonna go see if I can find Twister for ya.. make things offical and all.."
[Kora] (...and, fade: kora/izzy. night folks!)
"Detective Izzy Montoya." Her introduction is even shorter than his.
As for his assertion that everyone should start off on good terms, that gets a snort, as lips curve into a slight smirk. "Is that so. Then a hint for you in dealing with me. It is Izzy, or Detective Montoya. Not honey, dear, sweetheart, kinswoman, 'mine' or any other such terms of endearment. Bitch is acceptable, but in limited amounts."
A pause, and then. "That said, which branch of the tree did you fall out of."
[Simon] A nod of his head, and a shake of his hand."They're your rules right?"He asks with a shrug of his shoulders.
A wince in those eyes, the pain of that simple shrug was incredible. But he showed no other open sign of so much as noticing the pain. His hands rest on his side of the table and he leans back in his chair to get comfortable.
"Keeping things professional, I can roll with that. Not exactly gonna argue with a woman who carries both a badge and a gun. Never been shot and would like to keep it that way."He pauses a minute to think about that."Least I'm pretty sure I've never been shot but then again who knows? After a while I guess all these things tend to blend together till you can't tell one from another right?"He gives a smirk before tapping the piercing in his lower lip against one of his incisors.
"No tree... I came rolling outta the clouds themselves."He adds with a bright smile, she was being cryptic with her wording and he was going to be cryptic right the hell back. Though neither one was really being all that terribly difficult to understand.
"How about you? You have any family in town here?"
[Izzy Montoya] "Being shot isn't so bad." She says it with the tone of one who knows, but doesn't give details. Of course, with the intensity of Fenrir blood that rolls through her veins, it's likely that it was considered nothing more than a scratch even while bleeding. Not to mention, you should have seen the other guy...
Her dark eyes flick toward his wound when he winces, and then back to meet his gaze. He doesn't mention it, and she does not either. Chances are, they've both seen and felt worse. He is, after all, still walking.
"Lord then." Not so cryptic, such as careful with her words in public. As for her 'family', she smirks. "Too many, it seems at times."
[Simon] He nods back to her."You can never have too many, especially with things being tense as they are at the moment. The more the merrier, or at the very least the more there are the better our chances."He says with a nod of his head."So what department are you in Detective Montoya?"He asks her curiously. He was quite familiar with law enforcement being that he has found himself having to keep a step or two ahead of it several times in the past.
"A big city like this must be especially violent. I mean just from sheer population density and all. I'd imagine you've seen all kinds of crazy shit by now. I mean I'd imagine things can get pretty nasty with the sheer scale and number of criminals lurking around every corner out here. I'd imagine it can get pretty hardcore on the other side... Lord knows I've seen some fucked up shit back in Detroit."He adds with a little laugh, amusing himself with the realization that the most fucked up shit he ever saw was actually his doing.
When his laughter stops his eyes meet hers and he lifts his cup towards his lips slowly. Those eyes were intense, and unsettling, he was a predator and a monster capable of terrifying acts of violence in the blink of an eye. And there he sat sipping his coffee and patiently awaiting a response.
[Izzy Montoya] A huff of breath as he declares there can never be too many. Clearly he has not met the Fenrir of the city just yet. But then again, as a full blood, his trails are not her trials. She doesn't clarify, nor explain why she believes so, but instead lets the conversation follow where he directs it, to her job.
"Homicide. My.." A beat. Boyfriend is so.. teenager-ish. She settles for "..partner is in Vice. Between the two of us, we work an average of 18- 20 hours a day. Chicago provides us with job security, if nothing else."
And that, of course, includes the coverup work she performs for the nation on a startlingly regular basis.
[Simon] He nods his head and that cup is settled down on the table before him."See Homicide is something I can really click with. I understand the need for society to impose limitations on who gets to kill whom and for what reason. Sure it's usually the cops who get to kill whoever they like and there ain't shit anyone else can do about it... But at least it's consistent."He laughs and looks around the area then back to her.
"Never been much for sitting around on my ass either. I like to keep busy, always chasing something even if I'm just chasing after something to chase. Maybe I should look into homicide, I bet I'd make an awesome cop!"He says with a brilliant smile at the thought, imagining himself in the outfit.
[Izzy Montoya] Her gaze narrows slightly as he insults not only her, but her profession. The muscle in her jaw jumps as she teeth clench, and she has to force herself to take a slow breath.
"Your kind does not have the control for it."
Obviously.
[Adamidas] She makes her way out of an alley, after something pops like a soda bottle being jumped on by an overzealous teenager.
She walks out of the alleyway, past the dark, in a pair of short shorts and a tee shirt. She's taken to wearing shorts again. She likes shorts. They're comfortable, and they have air conditioning. It's starting to feel like spring, now, and she revels in every inch of that. She wears shoes that are comfortable, she wears shorts that are comfortable, she wears everything that's comfortable. People be damned if that doesn't work out. Damned if people think her shorts are for their benefit. She walks out of the alleyway with confidence.
There's a smile on the Fury's face. She is absolutely pleased.
The moon is full, she is smiling, and she is headed for a cafe. Life is good.
[Simon] He notes the way she tenses and it almost seems to brighten his smile.
"Since when did the police force start requiring restraint? I thought the whole point of joining it was so you didn't have to show restraint..."He adds before lifting his elbows to the table and leaning forward."Personally I'm glad to know we have friends, and family looking out for us but I've just never been much of a fan of the law. I don't know personal biases and all I suppose, it seems to me an inefficient and unwieldy tool. I'm sure on an individual basis from person to person the officers are mostly okay but..."He chuckles to himself."Just seems to me like ogres trying to smash ants with clubs isn't a great deterrent against the crows in the corn fields."He nods his head and swishes the straw in his cup around, peeking down for several moments before his eyes peek up at the sky seeing the full moon looming overhead before returning his attention to Izzy."Full moon... It's my night."He adds with a tiny chuckle.
"It's a fucked up world out there, it's nice to know there are folks out there who know the difference between right and wrong."He says with a nod of his head."Wouldn't be worth fighting for if there wasn't something left in this world that was beautiful, and decent. Isn't that what it's all about?"His grin was warn brilliantly as he gently lowers himself enough to sip gently from his straw.
[Izzy Montoya] There is a briefcase by her feet, and it is to it that she bends, sliding the folder she had been reading into it. There is a careful calculation to her movements, as he keeps speaking. There are several possibilities running through her mind;
1. He is deliberately baiting her and..
2. He's been sent to do so. Or
3. He really is a fucking idiot.
And more along those lines. It is a split second decision, as she straightens with the case in hand and stands with a grace that displays athleticism without even trying. Her voice is carefully controlled. "It is your moon, and perhaps some would forgive your insults because of that. I am not one of them. I do believe it is in both our best interests that we part company now. Good evening, Mr. Zahradnik."
It's dismissive. it's carefully controlled. It's a sure sign that the Fenrir kin is beyond pissed - and Simon has found no friend in the law here. If only he knew what it cost her to simply turn, and begin to walk away.
[Simon] He grins and shrugs his shoulders back at her comment."I seem to have that effect on people."He shakes his head and rolls his eyes."An insult would be something directed at you not your profession, last I recalled there was more out there in the world than what we did for a living and far more important things to keep in mind."
He leaves her with that thought. What he met was left to her own interpretation.
She turned and he shrugged his shoulders."At least you can stick to your convictions. Gotta respect that, I'm sure I'll see you around Officer Montoya, and if you ever have need of me don't be afraid to come calling. I stand ready to help when and wherever I am needed..."He adds with a bit of a smile. He wasn't about to allow her or anyone else being offended to stand in the way of duty. Though he smacked his lips together dryly, something about the kin left a dry taste in his mouth. He was beginning to understand what Joey meant when she said the local Kin were out of control.
He mighta kept his eyes upon her till she walked away but Adam slipped past and caught his attention. His smile returned as he looked her over. That cheerful friendly smile on her face was infectious and he could already feel the cloud of gloom and distaste clearing from his head.
[Izzy Montoya] "Detective." she corrects, automatically - with a slight pause. "And to insult what you do, would be to insult you. I am far from stupid, Mr. Zahradnik. Pray you have no need of me in the near future."
She, it seems, holds a grudge. But then again - she is Fenrir. They are not the most forgiving of Tribes. And with that, she steps to the street, pulling her phone from her pocket as it rings, and snapping her answer as she heads toward the parking lot, and the unmarked police issue vehicle waiting there.
"Montoya."
[Adamidas] She continues on her way, catching a look at the people down the way. One is familiar, a second is familiar too. She looks at Izzy, over the details and the breeding- the things that smack her in the face if she wasn't learning to expect it. That was Izzy Montoya. She was a daughter of Fenris. She was a homicide detective. She knew Adam a little better than she had originally thought.
It surprised her.
She headed closer, walked forward... stepped once... twice... a little closer. She looked at her- the moon was bright and harsh and, oddly enough, it made Adam more in-focus than it had before. Having a full moon nearby makes the Fury alert. She smiles, her lips upturn and she trots over.
She slows when she sees the tension in the female's form.
The Fury headed over, passed and gave the Fenrir a wave. She wiggles her fingers, then bumps the Shadow Lord with a hip.
"Hey Detective," she says, "and Mister Zahradnik."
[Izzy Montoya] As Adam waves and says hello, Izzy nods, but she does not stop.
[Simon] He blinks at the hip bump and winces in pain. His eyes close and he draws in a slow and deep breath as he chases back the pain, it was suddenly throbbing, searing, and tearing through him. It spread like lightning through his nerves, and took several moments to recover from."Jesus fucking christ! Be careful!"He snapped sharply. His eyes slowly opening as he breathes several more times and looks back at her.
His eyes roll and he smiles once more."Call me Simon. I'm not that much older than you."He says, looking in Izzy's direction and nodding his head towards her.
"Charming girl that detective Montoya. I can see why Joey thinks someone needs to reign them in."He adds before shaking his head and looking back at Adam."How are you tonight?"He asks her curiously.
[Izzy Montoya] In fact, she does not stop until she reaches her car. It is there, that the Izzy other's have seen is much more evident as she speaks into the phone. "Holy Mary mother of FUCK are you really that stupid? It's quite simple. Check in date, check in time, motherfuckin' description. You can read, right? What do you mean you.." a pause, and she closes her eyes. there's the very real sense that she is likely counting to herself. Backwards. In something like.. Sanskrit. A longsuffering breath.
"Listen to Finn."
And then she closes the phone with a snap, and opens the car door only to throw her briefcase inside. the door slams again, and she leans back against it, digging around to find her cigarettes and lighter. The latter is used to light one of the former, before the pack is tucked away, and she inhales deeply. Afterwards, as she exhales, she rubs her temples with her fingertips.
Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.
[Adamidas] She looked at him, and looks almost taken back. It wasn't shock, it was immediate concern. He's talking, and she isn't looking at him, though she does catch the change in moon, the smile, knows where she's made contact-
"You okay?" she looks at him, and suddenly it's all business. It's more business than he's probably used to seeing from her. Comrades, yes. He's not her sister, not by a long shot, but... well, she wears concern openly. She's well aware of how this works, and she's well aware that it's a full moon.
The Fury takes a second, and half lifts his arm to start assessing damage, "if you're bleeding I'm not going to be happy, Simon, I'm just letting you know. I'm going to frown, a lot, the weight of my disapproval will be fierce."
She looks up and smiles, "and I'm great. Moon's full, you should see this part of town from the other side."
[Mila Davis] Mila was all brightness and sunshine today. Something must be wrong with her. She wore a summery white skirt, knee length - a pair of pink peep-toe heels and a pink tank top. Her dark hair was down, and there was a white flower, silk of course.. clipped in one side. She in no way looked like the dark brooding creature she was.
The Galliard quietly hummed to herself as she walked down the sidewalk.. that was, until she saw her dearest packmate sitting at a little cafe. Her smirk grew a bit and she headed his way.
[Kora] "Evening, Detective." Izzy turns around, rubbing her temples with her fingertips, and finds herself face to face with her tribe.
Kora's voice is low and rich. The night is awash with sounds of traffic in the distance - the constant hum of the loop, the rattle of a nearby El - but her voice carries, over the sound of the thumping bass from some tricked out car, instrusive enough that it resonantes in the back, in the hollow spaces of one's skull, below the other sounds of the night, the wind from the lake, the hum of air conditioners and dehumidifiers whirring on rooftops all around them.
"Long day?"
[Simon] He shakes his head at her."Nothing I can't handle just a bit of an injury that's all."He nods his head."I'll be fine just didn't expect that."He says with a nod of his head.
Simon's neck and shoulder are bandaged in blood soaked gauze, Adam can see he's taken a significant wound. Though it is hidden under the gauze and not exactly out in the open not completely anyway. He let her examine his arm reluctantly."It's really nothing don't worry about it. I will live."All the while he keeps his face as straight as possible as she moves his arm which only causes his pain to grow. He had not gift to contain the incredible pain, nor did he have pain killers. He was stuck closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. Concentrate Simon, focus on something else.
[Izzy Montoya] Evening, Detective. Izzy's eyes are closed and she doesn't have to open them to know who is there - the voice is distinctive, the presence undeniable. Moments earlier she told Simon it seemed that there were too many of her 'family' around, as they tended to pop up everywhere - and here she is.
Izzy drops her hands, though one only goes so far to allow her to take another drag, the smoke of which she exhales away from the Skald.
"Kora." she says by way of greeting, though her lips curve, just slightly, amused. "Getting longer by the minute. You?"
[Mila Davis] "Hey Adam.. Simon." The young woman smiled as she stepped up beside them. She was almost unrecognizeable in the new clothes. Lightly glossed lips formed into a light smile.
"How ya healing, Simon?"
[Kora] Tall and lean, narrowshouldered, with long bonde hair pulled back from her face and secured at the nape of her neck by the broken barrel of a mechanical pencil long since out of lead - the Skald is a distinctive counterpoint to the darkhaired kinswoman. Though her coloring is classically northern European - pale skin that gleams with the promise of health their kind possess, pale blonde hair washed out in the darkness, except where the streetlights catch out the highlights, make them shine, dark blue eyes now fixed on the kinswoman, watchful, alert - considered, even.
Close as the regard is, it is not invasive. Kora isn't trying to steal the woman's secrets, she is, instead, alive to the way muscle moves beneah skin, as the detective pulls on the cigarette, exhales a cloud of tobacco smoke.
"I'm well," the Fenrir woman responds, her voice low, " - though the night's just beginning." Then, a pause, as she tips her head toward the car behind Izzy, or maybe the glimpse of a briefcase she caught in the backseat.
"You still on duty?"
[Adamidas] [pooooooke: mother's touch, -1 gnosis, diff 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]
[Izzy Montoya] Where Kora is light, Izzy is dark, her hair long, and hanging loose about her shoulders, though it does nothing to soften the rather strong features she was born with, features that put a face to the stories of old written in her blood. She is used to being considered, she has fallen under Kora's watch before. It's not an all together comfortable thing, to be watched like this. She and Kora, after all, did not have the grandest of starts.
But Izzy's been on her best behavior for months now.
[...something's bound to snap soon...]
There's a glance spared for the car behind her, before she simply shakes her head. "Never completely off duty, but officially just on call tonight. If they manage to get their heads out of their asses, I'll have the evening free."
[Adamidas] He was getting the third degree from someone who probably weighed about eighty pounds less than he did. She looked at him, didn't have much to say, didn't really have anything to say about what was going on. He was a bloody, awful mess. She drops her voice, and the Fury speaks evenly, "like you too much to let you get picked off by some punk who gets a lucky shot."
She puts a hand on his arm, over some bloody bandage, and focuses.
She said that she was a healer in front of the whole sept, proved it at that. She looks back up and over at Mila, she nods upward, "lot better now."
It's not perfect, though. She grits her teeth and looks at Simon again. Frustration. Not anger, not in the least. Her brows fill inward, the corners of her mouth pull inward, push outward slightly. It's not perfect. Not at all. She pulls back. It was an understated affair. Muscle reknit. Scrapes and bloody spots mended, but it isn't perfect
[Kora] She had been watching the drift and curl of smoke in the cool night air. Then Izzy says heads out of their asses and Kora's dark eyes dart unerringly back to the detective's face. There's a faint curve to the creature's mouth, hardly enough to be called an expression except that it gives her sharp features a thoughtful cast.
The expression twitches briefly wider at the right corner of her mouth, then filters away. "One can hope," she replies, simply, bemusement a lingering light in her dark eyes.
The moment is almost wholly human - one of those where it is easy to forget that she is what she is - until it changes again, until she tips her head like this, sidelong, her chin rising, the line of her jaw prominent - that animal cant of her head, accompanied by a sweeping look, head to toe, too thorough to be born of anything but the wolf in her.
"I'll buy you a drink." Kora tips her pale head toward the warm looking bar on the corner - Hank's says the sign, all dark brown and leather-looking, with ferns evident in the windows. Not a dive bar, that. Not the sort of place cops hang out. Lawyers, though - " - or a coffee." Another eloquent little gesture, entirely physical, toward the coffee shop. "if you're free for either."
[Simon] He glanced over his shoulders and narrowed his eyes as she questioned him."I am healing nicely, how about you?"He asks her, a little spite in his voice, after all she was the one who did this to him. It had been a horrible enough night for him and he was not exactly loving the fact that his alpha had decided it would be funny to tease him about the wound she inflicted!
After a moment of tension he rolled his eyes and smiled back at her."You're not exactly gonna find much use for your a half dead full moon in a stand up fight."He points out to her. He wasn't complaining about the wound so much as the fact he was forced to recover from it the old fashioned way.
He then blinks at Adam and he breathes in sharply, before watching her quietly for several long moments. Those rich brown eyes of his scan the woman suspiciously before he looks back at Mila, and once more towards Adamidas."I'mnot about to let some punk get the better of me... Not now, not tonight anyway."He says before smiling back to her."Thank you."He says softly.
[Izzy Montoya] A brow arches, slightly, at the offer, and her gaze shifts to the bar on the corner. Hanks. One of any number of little hole in the wall oasis that can be found in cities like Chicago. Izzy studies the flickering sign a moment, then shifts her gaze back to Kora. Half a second, and she nods, slightly, pushing away from her lean against the car.
"Alright." She turns to checks her pockets, her weapon, her keys, and then to lock the car door, before she faces the Skald again. "I could use a drink."
Or ten. But she's been better about that, too. Either way - the tip of her head is toward the bar rather than the recently vacated coffee shop. She really can't trust herself not to shoot Simon just yet. "Lead on."
[Mila Davis] "Oh Simon.. don't be such a baby. It isn't very becoming." She smiled, her tone light, teasing. "No one forced you to recover the old fashioned way.. and I'm glad that Adam helped you out. Then at least I don't have to watch you milk it for the next week."
There was an empty chair beside them, she she took it, being careful to make sure there was nothing dirty on that chair to mess her skirt up. Her gaze shifted to Adam. "He wanted to know why I was Alpha.. I showed him. And.. I didn't almost kill you.. I like you." For the last part, she'd glanced back to Simon.
[Adamidas] "I'm going to assume that went well?"
Concerned was assuaged. There was still blood on her hand, and she wipes it off on her shirt. It's a black shirt, so it doesn't really show blood too well. She looks at Mila, and finds herself looking at the female as well for any signs of damages.
her hands find her back pockets, and she's quiet.
"And it's only half dead, so it's partially alive."
[Kora] Hank's is a hole in the wall - almost literally. Before the gentrification of the neighborhood, it was a diner, and the bar retains that long, narrow character - with a half-dozen or more booths lining one long wall and the bar where the counter and short-order grill had been years before. The restrooms are a long stumble down a set of steep stairs to the basement, the perfect gauge of whether or not you're sober enough to drive, by the reckoning of most of the patrons. Make it down and back up: good to go.
Hands held negligently in the front pockets of her worn jeans, Kora leads the way. She walks quickly, her gait long and efficient, long legs devouring the sidewalk. Her booted feet are heavy enough on the sidewalk. The bar's storefront has been redone in warm woods, and the interior has that oiled-leather scent, as if one were stepping into the library of some old family home. The skald swings pulls open the front door, holds it open for Izzy. They are met by a wash of cool sharp air - the clean, cold scent of air conditioning above the oiled leather, the hops and barley undertones.
"Tell me what you're having, and pick a booth," Kora says, her eyes adjusting to the darkness as she surveys the patrons. The evening crowd is light enough. The place is hopping at happy hour, but after 10 p.m. only die-hards remain. Later - midnight, or one a.m. - another rush will finish out the night, but for the moment there are just a few knots of regulars clustered around the video poker machines, the electronic dartboard. The Skald tips her head toward the bar. " - I'll grab the drinks."
[Simon] He smiled back at Mila and rolled his eyes."I'm not milking it... That shit hurt like hell!"He says before taking his arm back and flexing it a little."Still does."He laughs then peeks back at Adam.
"She's convinced me she's good enough to keep it for the moment. That doesn't mean she's safe though. I gotta keep her on her toes don't I?"He asks with a wink as he sinks back into his own chair. Leaning forward enough to draw forth a sip of his drink.
"I am beginning to suspect that someone does in fact need to reign the kin in this city in before they fuck up and start getting themselves as well as us into trouble. Too much autonomy can be as dangerous to them as it is to us."He says with a shake of his head.
[Izzy Montoya] Her stride matches Kora's easily enough, her long legs well used to making short work of long distances. It's not a mistake that she is slender, lean, athletic - she has spent the majority of her life on her feet, on the beat, chasing down the idiots stupid enough to think they can outrun her, and her gun.
On the way, she finishes her cigarette, and pauses outside the door as Kora holds it open, to put it to a grinding death under the toe of her shoe against the cement of the sidewalk. From the looks of it, she is not the first to do so, either. Then she steps inside, and pauses long enough to let her eyes adjust to the darker lighting. When Kora asks her question, Izzy offers her that same little bemused quirk of her lips.
"Whiskey. Neat."
She is a guys girl, after all - and grew up proving to the boys on the beat that she could outdrink them all if she were of a mind. The crowd is light, and she turns to make her way to a booth that will do two things - give them a touch of privacy should it be needed, as well as allow Izzy to watch the door and the majority of the room.
She slips from her light suit jacket when she arrives at the table, and lays it across the back of the booth. In the low light the handle of her weapon gleams at the small of her back, before it is hidden again as she slides into her seat, and goes about rolling up the sleeves of her tailored blouse.
[Mila Davis] She grinned and patted Simon's shoulder (the one that wasn't hurt). "Simon knows playing gets rough sometimes.. " Mila looked fine in fact. There might be a slight limp, but she was alright.
"How have you been, Adam?"
[Adamidas] "But not enough autonomy breeds resentment and terrible things from the other side. I think... some of the issues with kin, I think, stem from a lack of connection or understanding," such an optimist, this one.
She looks at Mila, perks up and considers for a moment. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, left hip standing outward slightly, "I'm great! It's a wonderful night and it's getting warm finally."
[Kora] While Izzy picks the booth, Kora approaches the bar, leans over the gleaming wooden counter and insinuates herself between two video poker players. The bartender - arms crossed, eyes fixed on the television playing a silent loop of the Blackhawks' easy victory over San Jose while yammering sportscasters speculate about whether the 'hawks will shut out the Flyers to win the Stanley Cup, or win it in five games - looks reluctantly away from the television, lifts her narrow little chin at Kora - whose eyes are briefly fixed, too, on the endless loop of the hockey game.
Their exchange is quiet. Kora pulls out a handful of bills from her back pocket - not a wallet, just a ten tucked into the pages of a battered passport - and pays for the drinks, then tucks the passport back into her pocket, leaving the meager change on the bar as a tip as she takes up her own draft beer and Izzy's whiskey in neat, careful hands, long fingers fine around the cool glass, and circles back to the booth.
Kora sets down both drinks at the edge of the scarred wooden tabletop, pushes Izzy's carefully towards the kinswoman, then tucks herself into the opposite seat, apparently not minding that her back is to the door.
Maybe she's more afraid of walls than of doors. Maybe she can see enough movement reflected in the highly polished wood paneling that it doesn't matter that her back is turned. Maybe she trusts the detective's instincts enough to alert her if something demands her attention.
Maybe it was the only place to sit.
Seated, Kora picks up her beer and offers the detective the vague gesture of a toast. She doesn't add words, but there's some silent salute in there, some resolute immediacy that suggests that her first toast is always to the dead.
"Cheers."
[Izzy Montoya] When Kora joins her, she has rolled her sleeves and pushed them up the last bit, so that the cuffs are now just above her elbows. Said elbows are placed on the table before her, her hands lightly clasped as she studies the room. It seems idle, this contemplation, but it's not. It is practiced and calculated, and each patron's position is marked, each one's level of apparent intoxication noted, as well as aggression or lack thereof. It's a move so practiced and easy, that it takes barely more than a single sweep of the room. She is, as she so often says, very fucking good at her job.
Even when she's technically off the clock.
Kora returns, and slides the drink over, and Izzy wraps long fingers around the glass. Kora's toast is noted, even in it's brevity. She is not one to add words herself [unless they are cuss words, and that's a different story all together] and doesn't sully Kora's simple toast with any. She simply nods, and lifts her drink slightly, before taking the first drink. More than a sip, less than a shot - just right.
She makes a slight face as she swallows, and then sets the drink down, letting her fingers lace together around it. "So. Haven't seen you all in a while. Things alright?"
See, she can be civil and even [sorta] friendly... despite what so many believe of her...
[Kora] The edge of a faint, curving little smile then. Kora back against the cushioned booth, pulls her beer closer to the edge. There's still a decent head of foam on the top, and a hint of it on her upper lip. She dashes away with a quick dart of her tongue, shaking her pale head. "I'm in one piece. Joe's in one piece. Thomas is off questing, but I can feel him well enough to know he's out there." This is all quiet, this rundown, natural and sure. " - and no one's died for at least two weeks. I'm well."
There is a supple thread of laughter underlying the words. No - not laughter, not precisely - but warmth. "Actually, I was going to ask you - the same thing. No sightings of Matthew Oliver, eh? No weird phone calls?"
The Skald does not mention the reconnaissance she herself has been doing - a daily loop through the umbra, watching for watchers outside the residences of three kinfolk whose names and numbers were perhaps exposed to the Wyrm when Oliver was kidnapped - the second and permanent time.
[Simon] He leans forward and rests his head on his fists as he looks between the women before shrugging his shoulders."They're not my kin so I will bite my tongue and do my best to accept it, but you can be certain I would not have tolerated that kind of talk from one of my own."He felt himself twitching a bit, he was on edge... Others around him kept an extra careful distance. That rage bubbled up within him, it was unstable, and welling up within him as his moon stood high over head. Of all the Moon's the Full-Moon was likely the worst affected simply for the fact they tended to carry more fury in their hearts than most.
"Maybe it's not the kin... Maybe it's something else."He gives a soft cynical laugh and his eyes shift back and forth between them both."But I still don't fucking like cops."He says with a little groan as he lets his hands drop to the table and he lowers his head into his arms in an attempt to lay down and simply relax.
Tick, tick... The clock keeps racing in his head. Each heartbeat thrumming within his head. I am not a man, I am a beast, I am a soldier, I am a monster. He sighs and tries to drown it out by humming but that rage is searing hot within him. His flesh was on fire... He needed to be free. He needed to run, he needed something to break, something to destroy.
"They only get in the fucking way..."
[Izzy Montoya] Kora goes along the list of names. Everyone is alive, accounted for, and no one has died in two weeks. It's good enough, and sometimes all they can hope for - and Kora was going to ask her the same thing, which has Izzy's lips curving, slightly. It's not a full smile - but oh so few people ever get to see those.
"Not as of yet. He hasn't tried to contact either John or myself." And here the amusement returns. "And the only weird phone calls I have gotten is when John forgets to lock his cell and buttdials me in the middle of interrogations."
And somewhere in there, the smile softens. Warms. Out of everything that came from the trials she was forced to deal with at the hands of Daniel - the one good thing to come of it was her relationship with John. It's clear they should have been together long before now, as well as the fact that they fit together now because they were apart so very long.
Daniel said that John made Izzy happy.
He was right.
She clears her throat, then, and takes another sip of her drink, hiding the last of the smile behind the glass.
[Mila Davis] "The weather is nice. It's just good it's not colder than shit anymore. I like seeing the sun sometimes. How's your pack doin? I'd like to meet more of them.. you all seem like great allies and friends too." Mila seemed genuine enough in her statements.
"Simon.. we don't worry about other tribe's kin.. it's just gonna get us in trouble. And we for sure don't dally with them. If their tribes can't keep 'em in some sort of line, then.. well, that's really more of their problem.."
[Kora] "I'm pleased you're both well," the Skald responds, quietly, her dark eyes gleaming in the dim lighting of the bar as she watches Izzy - the way her smile softens and warms, the way she hides it behind the curve of her glass, the surface of the whiskey swimming with light. "You'll let me know if you hear something, yeah?"
The booths are high, all polished wood, and the table between them is solid wood too, the grooves and whorls of the tree's life evident beneath the coat of varnish shiny enough that it reflects the pale line of her forearm, the long curve of her fine fingers as she reaches for her beer.
She pauses, then, thoughtful - her pale brows knitted together in consideration - before looking up, a question written into the shape of her wry, expressive mouth. "Do you have a - " a gesture, vague this, circular, with the long fingers of her right hand, as the left is wrapped around her beer glass. " - particular territory that you work in the city?"
[Izzy Montoya] "Yeah." That's the answer to the first, and part of Izzy is glad that Kora has chosen not to comment farther on what she has seen, what Izzy is partially aware of showing in her eyes, her smile, the way even her voice softens. After all - its not the facade she puts on for the outside world. She is a Detective - and not just a Homicide detective, but one of the best in the city.
Which leads to the next question. "Primarily in the 'Green, but I'm often called to lead the teams on other investigations throughout the city due to my.. unique talents and record for cases solved. They don't know how I do what I do - yet they don't question or complain when the net result is another asshole found and incarcerated."
[Adamidas] "They're my sisters, I really hope you get to meet them, they've played a huge part in who I am," she seems so proud when she talks about them. She radiates it, wears it carefully, comfortably, and wears it well. It's like pride. No, it is pride. Such pride.
She muses over it, then, "I think... given how close we all are. It's all potentially something we have to deal with. I mean, we don't make rules for other people's kin. That's tribal business, but you never know when your tribal business could become someone else's tribal business. I think it has to do with a lack of internal connections, really..."
The Fury takes a second to think about what she said, and she frowns for a second. The Fury shakes her head, and comes back to reality. Thoughts are back from wandering and its wondering. The Fury is definitely a thinker. She pauses, inhales deep through her nose and out through her mouth. What a blessing she has. Not nearly enough rage, not enough that she could even risk frenzying.
"They're just doing their job... it's a pain, sometimes, but.. you know... sometimes they do good things," she sighs, and raises her shoulders up slightly. She looks around, and almost as an afterthought, "you don't think she's coming back, do you?"
[Simon] Cold, and focused the ahroun's head rises and he finds his gaze directed across the street back towards the park itself."Then why have they allowed it to get to this point? Look around you? Do you see anything resembling harmony, and understanding? This place stinks... Like smoke and stale water. They've poisoned their waters in the name of progress. The rich have built themselves an empire that rests upon the backs of the common man. They have taken everything and forced him to live with the scraps they throw him out of generosity. They sit up in their towers safe and protected by the police force they set loose to keep the rabble in line."He says with a shrug of his shoulders.
"I do not play by their rules, nor do I bow to their laws. They are the part of the problem that keeps the real criminals in this world safe and just outside our grasp. The real problem isn't the junkies and whores who are just looking for an escape or a way to make a living... The real problem is the people who took everything from them... And won't even let them have the tiny pleasure of a quick fix."His smile is bitter and filled with fury.
"Sure they're just doing their job... But it's not the people themselves I despise... It's the job itself."He laughs softly to himself and closes his eyes. Resting his head in his hands and sighing."I should be breaking something..."
[Kora] The creature lifts her beer to her mouth and makes a low sound over the glass, speculative, considered - something like it. A hmmph in the back of her throat, as warm as her voice always is. Her dark eyes - the color lost in the deep shadows of the well-trimmed bar - cut back to Izzy from the surface of her beer when Izzy mentions her - unique talents - but the nature of those goes unremarked, for the moment.
Instead, she takes another drink, swallows it, savoring the hoppiness of the brew, then looks back up. "Used to be, the Eagles claimed a good chunk of the Green." Her voice is low, always, carefully pitched so that it will carry to Izzy, and no further. " - but the pack is dead, and Silence has gone. It's important territory, though. Held by the tribe since the founding of the Sept. We'll be walking it. Seeing what parts we can hold, taking up the banner, so to speak. We can probably use your eyes and ears, in that, too."
Then, her fine features still, the curve of her mouth lingers, though, more bitter than sweet, the pith rather than the pulp of the fruit. She breathes out, nostrils flaring faint and sure with the expelled breath, looks back across the table at Izzy, considered. "Do you know the War Poets?"
[Izzy Montoya] She has never come clear with joe about her talents, about how she knew exactly what Joe and Kemp had said to John that night in the apartment, though she had been kicked out of the building at the time. She never admitted that she was anything different than she seems to be - a damn good Detective, though there are certainly signs enough that something... something is special about the kin. If not? Her mouth would have gotten her killed a long time ago.
She nods, though, at the idea that the Fenrir will strive to hold the territory in the Green. "I'll do what I can." It is all she can promise - and it is a lot.
At the last question, however, she blinks, and tips her head, slightly. "I'm... not much of a poetry fan, really." That can't be a total surprise. "So can't say that I do..."
But in the admission there is an invitation to continue.
[Adamidas] She perks up, and looks like she might just-
But she doesn't. Instead, she half pats Simon on the arm. Or, rather, she doesn't even do that. She takes a step his way, he takes a step forward, and the younger Fury is completely thwarted. She, instead, tries to play it off like nothing happen. She shoved her hands into her back pocket. He's smiling with bitter fury.
The Fury looks at him, during the rant, during the bitter smiling, and she inhales.
"Well... dealing with them... those people... is fighting the war. Where it needs to be fought," she says it like absolute fact. Truth. Reality.
A beat.
"Let's go break things."
[Kora] The bitter/sweet half-smile remains upon the young woman's generous mouth, twisting just so at the corners, sheening her dark eyes with pools of light. She nods a minute thanks at Izzy's vague promise, the corner of her mouth twisting upward, just.
"I can't tell you," she begins, her voice low and grave and rich, as fine and as expressive as the subtle shape of her mouth. " - how many of that pack are buried in the Graves." It is not quiet a non-sequitor, then, when she lifts her chin in Izzy's direction, her eyes half-closed with memory. She continues, reciting with a relentless awareness of the shape of the words themselves in her mouth, the memory of death on her tongue. Heroes do not live underneath her skin, but history does, the inevitable, inextricable knot of it, formed into the marrow of her bones.
"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
Pause, a lingering pause. She savors words the way she savors the sharp bite of the hops in the beer in her hand. Then, continues, the power ebbing from her voice, back to her usual low, even tones. "John McCrae wrote that, after World War I."
[Mila Davis] At some point in that conversation, Mila had gotten lost in thought. Her mind had wandered to somewhere.. that occupied most of her attention. She didn't look quite as happy anymore. The young woman sighed..and then blinked.
"I'd love to meet your sister, Adam." A beat. "You two go break things.. have fun at it. I'm gonna go see if I can find Twister for ya.. make things offical and all.."
[Kora] (...and, fade: kora/izzy. night folks!)
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