[Roman Turner] Dust flew, weeds shot out in a spray across the cracked pavement next to the small lot as oil spewed in the air with each ragged chug of the obviously second, third hand mower. And there he was as the sun was setting, pushing the contraption in a pair of cut off shorts, sporting the whitest legs on the planet and of all things, cowboy boots in a pink skin tight tank top that said "Juicy" on it. And yes, a straw hat.
[Kora] It was a warm, bright summer afternoon. Some weekday. Some day when ordinary people are off working, looking out at the sky through the warehouse's big doors or through the slatted lights of he drawn blinds at the office. They are not ordinary people, though, and the rhythm of the week means as little to them as the cycles of the moon means to humans.
Now, close to dusk, the city is shutting down - traffic is low out here in the ghetto and people on the safer streets gather on their stoops to swat at mosquitoes and gossip, lulled by the constant drone of cheap air conditioning units.
Roman does not have the whitest legs on the planet, but Kora's not showing off her own. Instead, she's dressed in worn jeans and a black t-shirt, snugly fitted to her lean frame, with the word PIXIES across it in white letters. Roman makes a turn and finds the tall Fenrir standing at the gate, her left hand wrapped around a slat, eying the young man and his get-up with a certain skepticism. Her usual smile is absent, and that suggests tension - in her body, in her mouth, held in such a line.
"Fate-yuf - " she calls out, low and controlled when he is close enough to hear. The formality of deed-name and suffix suggest that this is more than a social call. The tight body language, all stark, does much the same. "When you're done, I'd like a word."
[Roman Turner] He was a little surprised to see Kora on his next turn in the small dust choked yard. It wasn't until he let go of the handle on the mower and the engine sputtered to death that he could hear her. A little current of stiffness flickered through his body language with the sudden formality of Kora's speech. A little current that was quickly subdued behind a liquid smooth touch to his brim.
"Sorrow-Yuf."
He replied while wondering exactly what she thought of his get-up. And for a moment he wondered if the response he was trying to get from Sparrow had instead turned and bit him on the ass because Kora was SO not suppose to see him like this. Oh well when life handed you lemons, you squirted them in someone's eye, right?
"I have time of course. And simply L O V E the shirt. Maybe you can tell Sparrow where you shop when we are finished?"
For a moment devilment shown in his eyes before it was pushed down and he waved her towards the stoop.
"Offer ya water or a pop?"
[Kora] Kora glances down briefly at her lean torso. The word: white letters on black cotton, is so familiar by now that she hardly sees it. For the sparest moment, Roman's needling draws the corner of her mouth up, the right-most corner. Her eyes flicker him up and down once more, then she offers him a supple shrug, " - I don't. Shop, I mean. It's a band t-shirt, though. If Sparrow wants, I'll have Trent find her one. I'm sure they sell them on the internet."
With the implicit invitation, she pulls open the gate and lets herself in. A few long strides take her past the dusty yard, the cloud of exhaust from the mower hanging in the air. There's no hesitation in her when he offers hospitality. She takes it. Listen: "Coke would be brilliant, yeah."
She's at the stoop, now, her hands in her hip pockets, one foot planted on the bottom-most step, pale hair drawn back, dark eyes sure and direct. Underneath it all, she's tired.
And furious.
We cannot forget furious.
"Thanks for the hospitality."
[Roman Turner] "Not a problem Miss Kora. It's what I folk are suppose to do. Ya just take a load off and I'll be right back."
With that he ducked inside and just when she thought he had to get lost in the tiny rental, he was back out in jeans and a clean if rumpled tee offering her a cold can of Coke.
"Pink ain't really my color."
His way of explaining the change of clothes. After he handed off one can, he cracked one open for himself with a pop and fizz before hunkering down on the stoop.
"Now, that talk?"
All the while he was trying to figure out what he had done that got back to her.
[Kora] "It's just Kora," the Fenrir returns before Roman ducks inside. When he's back, she accepts the can of Coke from him with a sort of easy grace that speaks to the animal underneath her skin. She's taller than the young Gaian by good several inches, made taller again by the heavy black boots she wears, even in the middle of the summer, but despite the invitation to sit, she's not done so when he returns.
Pink ain't really my color, he explains, and she flicks him a look, up and down Another night, and she might respond to that. It's not another night. Inside, she opens her can of Coke and takes a drink. This is formal, too: offered and accepted.
"You've heard of the Eagles since you've been here, yeah? Silence-rhya was their Alpha. He kept the territory after his last packmate died, here in the Green. You've been on the other side, you've seen the trophy poles and glyphs north of the Caern.
"Except he's left, right? Called away to be a Warclaw, and his pack dead. War-Handed and I claimed the territory he left behind; set to remaking the spirit-pacts, chasing out the Wyrm that had come creeping around in his absence."
Throughout the little speech, Sorrow's dark eyes are fast on Roman's young face. His youth does not phase her. She's nearly a decade older than he is, but they're ranked the same. Like as not, they've been Garou for about the same length of time. Late change, hers.
[Roman Turner] He took a sip and rubbed his nose as if he had a sudden tickle as she spoke.
"I heard of the Eagles and seen the area on the otherside. Heard of Silence-Rhya of course. Never met him though I got a brief look at him last Moot. I didn't really realize you and your's had taken over the old Eagle turf, but it seems like a wise and needed move."
He rubbed his nose again and pushed the brim of the hat back as he tilted his head back to look up at her.
"Mind if I ask something? War-Handed, where is he? You mention him but I ain't seen him about."
[Kora] Most Fenrir around here are pure-blooded. Look at them and you remember the heroes of the past; the great northmen, bloody-handed and terrible, spilling the guts of their enemies across the snow. Not Sorrow: she's just a girl, a young woman, who would be pretty except for the rage, the animal inside her. Dark eyes and pale skin and pale hair, a generous mouth usually turned into a faint curving smile is flat tonight: taut.
"War-Handed," she said the name easily first. Past-tense, hear that? Now she has to stop herself from spitting it. The Coke can in her left hand crinkles under the pressure of her fingers. Her right hand, in her pocket, is curled into a white-knuckled fist. She releases both. It is deliberate, the letting-go.
She starts again. "War-Handed has left. He's run off; abandoned the pack and Maelstrom and the territory. Our other pack-mate is too far away, and I cannot keep the totem. I expect Gut-Song to follow War-Handed anyway, even should he return." This is all evenly spoken, recited nearly. These are the facts, and her focus is briefly lost; then recovered. Her dark eyes fix again on Roman, and this time do not waver.
"I have no pack. I'm alone and Hermodr is gone. I cannot hold that territory alone." The soda pops and fizzes in the can, singing nearly silently against the aluminum. "I've come to ask your help. Run with me. Learn the border; fight with me. Hold that land against the darkness. That's why I've come to you, Fate-yuf."
[Roman Turner] Very soothingly he spoke.
"Careful of the can or you'll end up wearing that Coke. Life happens, strange things happen to folk. Sometimes it don't make sense to those of us on the outside. But I can tell ya this. I done fought with ya a few times now. I like the way ya work. Sparrow and I are family and in a sense, that makes us a mini pack here in this city. I will run with ya. I'll learn. I'll fight alongside you Sorrow-yuf. And most important? I don't run out on my folk. Only way you will get rid of me is if I up and die."
[Kora] There's something sharp in the way her dark eyes remain on his face; or rather - something - astute. The Skald watches him with this attention, closely observed, that could be scouring but is instead simply: aware. The corner of her mouth twitches upward, but the spare expression does not reach her dark eyes.
"Thanks for the warning," she says, with no small amount of irony, tipping the can at him in toast before she takes another drink, long, clearing her senses of all but the taste of the soda, sweet going down. Then, straightening, she pulls her foot back from the bottom step. " - and thank you for the pledge. Find me sometime - at the Cabrini Methodist Church. Or just cross over at the edge of the territory. The bird-spirits - sparrows or the scab birds - should let me know you've come. I'll show you around."
There is the faintest easing of tension in her spine; in her mouth, in her dark eyes - in the sense of fury about her tonight, nearly incandescent. "Thanks for the Coke, too." She tips it upward again, and takes another sip.
[Kora] transcript!
to Kora
[Roman Turner] He rose with her with a salute of his can.
"I will. And Sorrow-yuf? You can let the tension go. I don't give my word lightly. Me and mine are strong, stubborn and they grow us straight and true where I come from. You have more shoulders to share the load with now, it makes the carrying easier. Relax, take a long soak in a hot tub of bubbles with a beer and just soak in the extra shoulders idea."
[Kora] "I'm Fenrir," she responded before turning to go, a huff of laughter in her voice that did not quite reach her eyes, and the briefest " - we're allergic to bubble baths. And ease. I'm glad to know it, though. I'll see you soon, yeah?"
With that, she finished off the can of soda and offered the empty back to him for recycling, then turned to go. Maybe there was a certain easing of her posture - the stark line of her spine and shoulders. Maybe that was there, after all.
[Kora] It was a warm, bright summer afternoon. Some weekday. Some day when ordinary people are off working, looking out at the sky through the warehouse's big doors or through the slatted lights of he drawn blinds at the office. They are not ordinary people, though, and the rhythm of the week means as little to them as the cycles of the moon means to humans.
Now, close to dusk, the city is shutting down - traffic is low out here in the ghetto and people on the safer streets gather on their stoops to swat at mosquitoes and gossip, lulled by the constant drone of cheap air conditioning units.
Roman does not have the whitest legs on the planet, but Kora's not showing off her own. Instead, she's dressed in worn jeans and a black t-shirt, snugly fitted to her lean frame, with the word PIXIES across it in white letters. Roman makes a turn and finds the tall Fenrir standing at the gate, her left hand wrapped around a slat, eying the young man and his get-up with a certain skepticism. Her usual smile is absent, and that suggests tension - in her body, in her mouth, held in such a line.
"Fate-yuf - " she calls out, low and controlled when he is close enough to hear. The formality of deed-name and suffix suggest that this is more than a social call. The tight body language, all stark, does much the same. "When you're done, I'd like a word."
[Roman Turner] He was a little surprised to see Kora on his next turn in the small dust choked yard. It wasn't until he let go of the handle on the mower and the engine sputtered to death that he could hear her. A little current of stiffness flickered through his body language with the sudden formality of Kora's speech. A little current that was quickly subdued behind a liquid smooth touch to his brim.
"Sorrow-Yuf."
He replied while wondering exactly what she thought of his get-up. And for a moment he wondered if the response he was trying to get from Sparrow had instead turned and bit him on the ass because Kora was SO not suppose to see him like this. Oh well when life handed you lemons, you squirted them in someone's eye, right?
"I have time of course. And simply L O V E the shirt. Maybe you can tell Sparrow where you shop when we are finished?"
For a moment devilment shown in his eyes before it was pushed down and he waved her towards the stoop.
"Offer ya water or a pop?"
[Kora] Kora glances down briefly at her lean torso. The word: white letters on black cotton, is so familiar by now that she hardly sees it. For the sparest moment, Roman's needling draws the corner of her mouth up, the right-most corner. Her eyes flicker him up and down once more, then she offers him a supple shrug, " - I don't. Shop, I mean. It's a band t-shirt, though. If Sparrow wants, I'll have Trent find her one. I'm sure they sell them on the internet."
With the implicit invitation, she pulls open the gate and lets herself in. A few long strides take her past the dusty yard, the cloud of exhaust from the mower hanging in the air. There's no hesitation in her when he offers hospitality. She takes it. Listen: "Coke would be brilliant, yeah."
She's at the stoop, now, her hands in her hip pockets, one foot planted on the bottom-most step, pale hair drawn back, dark eyes sure and direct. Underneath it all, she's tired.
And furious.
We cannot forget furious.
"Thanks for the hospitality."
[Roman Turner] "Not a problem Miss Kora. It's what I folk are suppose to do. Ya just take a load off and I'll be right back."
With that he ducked inside and just when she thought he had to get lost in the tiny rental, he was back out in jeans and a clean if rumpled tee offering her a cold can of Coke.
"Pink ain't really my color."
His way of explaining the change of clothes. After he handed off one can, he cracked one open for himself with a pop and fizz before hunkering down on the stoop.
"Now, that talk?"
All the while he was trying to figure out what he had done that got back to her.
[Kora] "It's just Kora," the Fenrir returns before Roman ducks inside. When he's back, she accepts the can of Coke from him with a sort of easy grace that speaks to the animal underneath her skin. She's taller than the young Gaian by good several inches, made taller again by the heavy black boots she wears, even in the middle of the summer, but despite the invitation to sit, she's not done so when he returns.
Pink ain't really my color, he explains, and she flicks him a look, up and down Another night, and she might respond to that. It's not another night. Inside, she opens her can of Coke and takes a drink. This is formal, too: offered and accepted.
"You've heard of the Eagles since you've been here, yeah? Silence-rhya was their Alpha. He kept the territory after his last packmate died, here in the Green. You've been on the other side, you've seen the trophy poles and glyphs north of the Caern.
"Except he's left, right? Called away to be a Warclaw, and his pack dead. War-Handed and I claimed the territory he left behind; set to remaking the spirit-pacts, chasing out the Wyrm that had come creeping around in his absence."
Throughout the little speech, Sorrow's dark eyes are fast on Roman's young face. His youth does not phase her. She's nearly a decade older than he is, but they're ranked the same. Like as not, they've been Garou for about the same length of time. Late change, hers.
[Roman Turner] He took a sip and rubbed his nose as if he had a sudden tickle as she spoke.
"I heard of the Eagles and seen the area on the otherside. Heard of Silence-Rhya of course. Never met him though I got a brief look at him last Moot. I didn't really realize you and your's had taken over the old Eagle turf, but it seems like a wise and needed move."
He rubbed his nose again and pushed the brim of the hat back as he tilted his head back to look up at her.
"Mind if I ask something? War-Handed, where is he? You mention him but I ain't seen him about."
[Kora] Most Fenrir around here are pure-blooded. Look at them and you remember the heroes of the past; the great northmen, bloody-handed and terrible, spilling the guts of their enemies across the snow. Not Sorrow: she's just a girl, a young woman, who would be pretty except for the rage, the animal inside her. Dark eyes and pale skin and pale hair, a generous mouth usually turned into a faint curving smile is flat tonight: taut.
"War-Handed," she said the name easily first. Past-tense, hear that? Now she has to stop herself from spitting it. The Coke can in her left hand crinkles under the pressure of her fingers. Her right hand, in her pocket, is curled into a white-knuckled fist. She releases both. It is deliberate, the letting-go.
She starts again. "War-Handed has left. He's run off; abandoned the pack and Maelstrom and the territory. Our other pack-mate is too far away, and I cannot keep the totem. I expect Gut-Song to follow War-Handed anyway, even should he return." This is all evenly spoken, recited nearly. These are the facts, and her focus is briefly lost; then recovered. Her dark eyes fix again on Roman, and this time do not waver.
"I have no pack. I'm alone and Hermodr is gone. I cannot hold that territory alone." The soda pops and fizzes in the can, singing nearly silently against the aluminum. "I've come to ask your help. Run with me. Learn the border; fight with me. Hold that land against the darkness. That's why I've come to you, Fate-yuf."
[Roman Turner] Very soothingly he spoke.
"Careful of the can or you'll end up wearing that Coke. Life happens, strange things happen to folk. Sometimes it don't make sense to those of us on the outside. But I can tell ya this. I done fought with ya a few times now. I like the way ya work. Sparrow and I are family and in a sense, that makes us a mini pack here in this city. I will run with ya. I'll learn. I'll fight alongside you Sorrow-yuf. And most important? I don't run out on my folk. Only way you will get rid of me is if I up and die."
[Kora] There's something sharp in the way her dark eyes remain on his face; or rather - something - astute. The Skald watches him with this attention, closely observed, that could be scouring but is instead simply: aware. The corner of her mouth twitches upward, but the spare expression does not reach her dark eyes.
"Thanks for the warning," she says, with no small amount of irony, tipping the can at him in toast before she takes another drink, long, clearing her senses of all but the taste of the soda, sweet going down. Then, straightening, she pulls her foot back from the bottom step. " - and thank you for the pledge. Find me sometime - at the Cabrini Methodist Church. Or just cross over at the edge of the territory. The bird-spirits - sparrows or the scab birds - should let me know you've come. I'll show you around."
There is the faintest easing of tension in her spine; in her mouth, in her dark eyes - in the sense of fury about her tonight, nearly incandescent. "Thanks for the Coke, too." She tips it upward again, and takes another sip.
[Kora] transcript!
to Kora
[Roman Turner] He rose with her with a salute of his can.
"I will. And Sorrow-yuf? You can let the tension go. I don't give my word lightly. Me and mine are strong, stubborn and they grow us straight and true where I come from. You have more shoulders to share the load with now, it makes the carrying easier. Relax, take a long soak in a hot tub of bubbles with a beer and just soak in the extra shoulders idea."
[Kora] "I'm Fenrir," she responded before turning to go, a huff of laughter in her voice that did not quite reach her eyes, and the briefest " - we're allergic to bubble baths. And ease. I'm glad to know it, though. I'll see you soon, yeah?"
With that, she finished off the can of soda and offered the empty back to him for recycling, then turned to go. Maybe there was a certain easing of her posture - the stark line of her spine and shoulders. Maybe that was there, after all.
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