[Imogen] The skydeck is nearly empty, over four hundred metres above ground. On a clear day, the brochures remind you that you can see four states, fifty miles in any direction.
Today, the rain coats the window panes. One can see Lake Michigan as a far away blur. One can see the buildings as indistinct lines and shapes, Chicago's distinctive skyline distorted by mist and rain. The building sways with the wind, causing the floor to move beneath her feet, though she keeps a steady stance, and never seems to feel uncomfortable by the movement.
Imogen stands near one of the great glass windows, her eyes fixed on the lake. Her hair is damp from outside - the falling rain, though she carries an umbrella in one hand. Her attire is business, a skirt-suit in navy, a blouse in pearlescent silk. It's cool enough, both outside and in. Air conditioning, the chill of a rainy late spring evening.
As the sun sets, the lights of the buildings begin to turn on, adding their cacophony to the indistinctness.
[Kora] There aren't many people on the skydeck tonight. The tourists are inside somewhere, hiding from the rain, shopping in Nordstrom's on the mile, figuring out how to exchange their tickets for the rained out game at Wrigley Field. Sunset is a popular time to take the trip to the skydeck - except when the sun is hidden behind a wall of ruinous clouds, except when the views from the windows and the infamous ledge are obscured by drifting pieces of half-lowered clouds and windblown raindrops spattered against the glass. The lights of the city run together like brush strokes in an oil painting - an artist's suggestion of a city rather than a thing itself - but the view of the lake is a fine counterpoint to the city view, dark and cool and still, the clouds above it illuminated by the city's constant glow.
There is a security guard walking a beat. He's passed Imogen twice in the evening, venturing a greeting on the second circuit. Footsteps behind her, the sound of boots on carpet distinctive. It could be the same guard - thirty something, attractive in the manner of former football players, former high school hockey stars - who have not yet gone entirely to fat - except that the indistinct reflection in the glass suggestion a narrower shape - the blur of pale hair and skin, dark clothing.
"Hey doc, " says Kora, from behind and to Imogen's right. She is less calm about the building's movement. More alive to the unnatural sway of steel and glass below her, physically unnerved - somewhere underneath her surface mind, somewhere under her skin, somewhere in her body - even as she approaches the glass, stands sidelong not far from the kinswoman, but not close. There is an assessing glance, brief but thorough. Her dark eyes touch the kinswoman's face, her business attire, the umbrella in her hand, then rise back to the kinswoman's features before looking out toward the lake. The building sways, sickly, from a sudden gust of wind.
Kora follows Imogen's look, out toward the dark lake. "You ever been to Barcelona?"
[Imogen] Imogen's gaze shifts to Kora when the Garou flanks her. A subtle shift and flicker of her eyes, then back again toward the darkened lake.
"Hello," the greeting returned. She lifts her free hand to push it over her faintly damp hair, the wetness barely deeper than the surface, more as if it had been misted or perhaps tangentially dampened in the downpour, less like the kinwoman had been so unprepared as to be caught in the rain and soaked.
The question provokes a pause, though it is not a particularly trying enquiry. "Once," she says, "on holiday." A flick of her gaze toward the Skald - she sees Kora in profile, the cut of her nose, the shape of her mouth and brow, side on.
"Why do you ask?"
[Kora] This evening, Kora is wearing a black cotton jacket - zippered and hooded - over her black cotton t-shirt and worn jeans. There's damp darkening her blond hair, and the shoulders, front, and tipped back hood of the jacket are rainsoaked and dark. With the air conditioning blasting the interior to a frosty, humidity free 68 degrees, she should be shivering. Except that she likes the cold; except that her body generates its own sort of heat as the day falls to evening.
The curve of her cheek deepens, a half-smile. Imogen looks toward Kora and finds the Skald looking out toward the lake, her body a narrow, definite line, her hands in the front pockets of her rainsoaked jeans, her eyes skimming both the reflective surface of the windows, and the dark expanse of the lake beyond. "Those towers at the Sagrada Familia - " briefly, back toward the kinswoman, " - did you go up in them?" The question is almost rhetorical, so evenly inflected is it. "Anyway, I think that's the last time I was this high."
Pause. " - in a building, anyway." Moonpaths don't count. Count differently.
[Imogen] A faint sound of agreement answers the rhetorical question. Imogen went up in 'those towers'.
"I've lived 'ere fer years," she says, "And ha' never come here. I thought it might be time."
The floor shifts beneath their feet again, and Imogen's weight shifts with it, moving fluidly as if to accommodate. She grew up among boats, and though this is not quite the same - it is not all that different.
"Yeh've travelled a lot fer a full-blood," she observes. The guard is on a fair point of his circuit, unable to hear anything more than the rhythm of their voices. "An American full-blood in particular."
[Kora] "Familiarity," Kora replies, her voice low - as the floor shifts beneath them. The spring rain sings outside, not quite a storm, and the wind is the same wind that peels down from the north in the winter. Then it brings snow in waves like a gift. Now it brings damp, cool rain to wash the pollution from the air. " - breeds indifference, yeah?" There is a laugh, just the hint of it in her voice and in her body. Underneath it, she is thoughtful, her voice quiet. "I get that, though.
The Garou is stiffer than the kinswoman; the subtle tension that the place brings out in her lines in her joints, in her spine and her shoulders and her hips. The perspective is revelatory, freeing - on top of the world - except that it comes encased in a slumbering skin of steel, wrapped in calcifying webs that separate her from herself, swarming with spiders that would make and remake her into a thing of perfect order. And then there are the reflections, the glass - inches from the wind and rain, so close that she can almost feel it on her face, can almost breathe the sharpness of the air chilled from altitude.
"Before," Kora appends, to Imogen's comment. This, too, is quiet. Not a correction - just a coda, of sorts. Call it a footnote. The familiar shape of her expressive half-smile still curves her mouth and the shape of her cheek, counterpoint to the way tension lives inside the lines of her tall frame. " - I traveled before I knew what I was. Afterwards," her right shoulder shifts beneath the damp cotton in an neat little shrug. " - well," another low huff of laughter, more unvoiced than voiced, " - there's not much room for that sort of thing. I stayed in one place for awhile, then came back to the States, and ended up here."
There is a pause, narrow. Then, " - do you mind it? Being here, rather than - " another shrug, a sort of et cetera, a gesture across the city, across the water. Over there.
[Imogen] Before.
"Ah." There isn't much else to say to that. A quiet acknowledgement, a wealth of understanding in the words. It makes sense now. She had never known a Garou who could manage an airplane; not one who would manage one willingly.
It had been a boon, of sorts.
Kora meets her comment with a question. "In America, rather than England, you mean." It's not a question, but merely a place holder. Words to say which are not an answer to a question.
"I mind, very much, sometimes," she says, finally, quietly - honest more for the depth of feeling than anything else. Her breath exhales, soundless, her mouth twisting in mirthless humour. "But if I were back 'ome, I'd doubtless mind bein' there as well."
[Kora] I mind very much sometimes.
Kora cuts a sharp look sideways, then. Not at the kinswoman, but at her ghost, reflected against the shallow curve of city lights hugging the shoreline, the checkerboard pattern of the streets made imprecise by rain. Imogen's distinctive hair loses some of its fire in reflection, which is dominated by the contrast between her ivory skin and dark eyes and dark clothing. That watchfulness is evident in the Skald's face, still now, her own eyes alert, not wary - just intent, without being invasive. She is watching Imogen's reflection, after all.
Then, she lifts her eyes, looks away and is quiet. The space around them is dominated by the sound of the air conditioning, low and constant. Rain slaps against the windowpanes soundlessly, so thick is the glass. They are cocooned in white noise.
"Solitude is impractical," Kora quotes, half-remembered, this. The twist of her mouth has rather more mirth than Imogen's, and there's a sort of threaded humor that insinuates itself evenly into her tone. " - society is fatal."
Today, the rain coats the window panes. One can see Lake Michigan as a far away blur. One can see the buildings as indistinct lines and shapes, Chicago's distinctive skyline distorted by mist and rain. The building sways with the wind, causing the floor to move beneath her feet, though she keeps a steady stance, and never seems to feel uncomfortable by the movement.
Imogen stands near one of the great glass windows, her eyes fixed on the lake. Her hair is damp from outside - the falling rain, though she carries an umbrella in one hand. Her attire is business, a skirt-suit in navy, a blouse in pearlescent silk. It's cool enough, both outside and in. Air conditioning, the chill of a rainy late spring evening.
As the sun sets, the lights of the buildings begin to turn on, adding their cacophony to the indistinctness.
[Kora] There aren't many people on the skydeck tonight. The tourists are inside somewhere, hiding from the rain, shopping in Nordstrom's on the mile, figuring out how to exchange their tickets for the rained out game at Wrigley Field. Sunset is a popular time to take the trip to the skydeck - except when the sun is hidden behind a wall of ruinous clouds, except when the views from the windows and the infamous ledge are obscured by drifting pieces of half-lowered clouds and windblown raindrops spattered against the glass. The lights of the city run together like brush strokes in an oil painting - an artist's suggestion of a city rather than a thing itself - but the view of the lake is a fine counterpoint to the city view, dark and cool and still, the clouds above it illuminated by the city's constant glow.
There is a security guard walking a beat. He's passed Imogen twice in the evening, venturing a greeting on the second circuit. Footsteps behind her, the sound of boots on carpet distinctive. It could be the same guard - thirty something, attractive in the manner of former football players, former high school hockey stars - who have not yet gone entirely to fat - except that the indistinct reflection in the glass suggestion a narrower shape - the blur of pale hair and skin, dark clothing.
"Hey doc, " says Kora, from behind and to Imogen's right. She is less calm about the building's movement. More alive to the unnatural sway of steel and glass below her, physically unnerved - somewhere underneath her surface mind, somewhere under her skin, somewhere in her body - even as she approaches the glass, stands sidelong not far from the kinswoman, but not close. There is an assessing glance, brief but thorough. Her dark eyes touch the kinswoman's face, her business attire, the umbrella in her hand, then rise back to the kinswoman's features before looking out toward the lake. The building sways, sickly, from a sudden gust of wind.
Kora follows Imogen's look, out toward the dark lake. "You ever been to Barcelona?"
[Imogen] Imogen's gaze shifts to Kora when the Garou flanks her. A subtle shift and flicker of her eyes, then back again toward the darkened lake.
"Hello," the greeting returned. She lifts her free hand to push it over her faintly damp hair, the wetness barely deeper than the surface, more as if it had been misted or perhaps tangentially dampened in the downpour, less like the kinwoman had been so unprepared as to be caught in the rain and soaked.
The question provokes a pause, though it is not a particularly trying enquiry. "Once," she says, "on holiday." A flick of her gaze toward the Skald - she sees Kora in profile, the cut of her nose, the shape of her mouth and brow, side on.
"Why do you ask?"
[Kora] This evening, Kora is wearing a black cotton jacket - zippered and hooded - over her black cotton t-shirt and worn jeans. There's damp darkening her blond hair, and the shoulders, front, and tipped back hood of the jacket are rainsoaked and dark. With the air conditioning blasting the interior to a frosty, humidity free 68 degrees, she should be shivering. Except that she likes the cold; except that her body generates its own sort of heat as the day falls to evening.
The curve of her cheek deepens, a half-smile. Imogen looks toward Kora and finds the Skald looking out toward the lake, her body a narrow, definite line, her hands in the front pockets of her rainsoaked jeans, her eyes skimming both the reflective surface of the windows, and the dark expanse of the lake beyond. "Those towers at the Sagrada Familia - " briefly, back toward the kinswoman, " - did you go up in them?" The question is almost rhetorical, so evenly inflected is it. "Anyway, I think that's the last time I was this high."
Pause. " - in a building, anyway." Moonpaths don't count. Count differently.
[Imogen] A faint sound of agreement answers the rhetorical question. Imogen went up in 'those towers'.
"I've lived 'ere fer years," she says, "And ha' never come here. I thought it might be time."
The floor shifts beneath their feet again, and Imogen's weight shifts with it, moving fluidly as if to accommodate. She grew up among boats, and though this is not quite the same - it is not all that different.
"Yeh've travelled a lot fer a full-blood," she observes. The guard is on a fair point of his circuit, unable to hear anything more than the rhythm of their voices. "An American full-blood in particular."
[Kora] "Familiarity," Kora replies, her voice low - as the floor shifts beneath them. The spring rain sings outside, not quite a storm, and the wind is the same wind that peels down from the north in the winter. Then it brings snow in waves like a gift. Now it brings damp, cool rain to wash the pollution from the air. " - breeds indifference, yeah?" There is a laugh, just the hint of it in her voice and in her body. Underneath it, she is thoughtful, her voice quiet. "I get that, though.
The Garou is stiffer than the kinswoman; the subtle tension that the place brings out in her lines in her joints, in her spine and her shoulders and her hips. The perspective is revelatory, freeing - on top of the world - except that it comes encased in a slumbering skin of steel, wrapped in calcifying webs that separate her from herself, swarming with spiders that would make and remake her into a thing of perfect order. And then there are the reflections, the glass - inches from the wind and rain, so close that she can almost feel it on her face, can almost breathe the sharpness of the air chilled from altitude.
"Before," Kora appends, to Imogen's comment. This, too, is quiet. Not a correction - just a coda, of sorts. Call it a footnote. The familiar shape of her expressive half-smile still curves her mouth and the shape of her cheek, counterpoint to the way tension lives inside the lines of her tall frame. " - I traveled before I knew what I was. Afterwards," her right shoulder shifts beneath the damp cotton in an neat little shrug. " - well," another low huff of laughter, more unvoiced than voiced, " - there's not much room for that sort of thing. I stayed in one place for awhile, then came back to the States, and ended up here."
There is a pause, narrow. Then, " - do you mind it? Being here, rather than - " another shrug, a sort of et cetera, a gesture across the city, across the water. Over there.
[Imogen] Before.
"Ah." There isn't much else to say to that. A quiet acknowledgement, a wealth of understanding in the words. It makes sense now. She had never known a Garou who could manage an airplane; not one who would manage one willingly.
It had been a boon, of sorts.
Kora meets her comment with a question. "In America, rather than England, you mean." It's not a question, but merely a place holder. Words to say which are not an answer to a question.
"I mind, very much, sometimes," she says, finally, quietly - honest more for the depth of feeling than anything else. Her breath exhales, soundless, her mouth twisting in mirthless humour. "But if I were back 'ome, I'd doubtless mind bein' there as well."
[Kora] I mind very much sometimes.
Kora cuts a sharp look sideways, then. Not at the kinswoman, but at her ghost, reflected against the shallow curve of city lights hugging the shoreline, the checkerboard pattern of the streets made imprecise by rain. Imogen's distinctive hair loses some of its fire in reflection, which is dominated by the contrast between her ivory skin and dark eyes and dark clothing. That watchfulness is evident in the Skald's face, still now, her own eyes alert, not wary - just intent, without being invasive. She is watching Imogen's reflection, after all.
Then, she lifts her eyes, looks away and is quiet. The space around them is dominated by the sound of the air conditioning, low and constant. Rain slaps against the windowpanes soundlessly, so thick is the glass. They are cocooned in white noise.
"Solitude is impractical," Kora quotes, half-remembered, this. The twist of her mouth has rather more mirth than Imogen's, and there's a sort of threaded humor that insinuates itself evenly into her tone. " - society is fatal."
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