Ornature

[Victor Oseragighte] Aside from the plugs in either ear lobe he wears curiously few adornments. No bracelets, no tattoos or pendants. He smiled, cutting through whatever tension had arisen hopefully when he accepted the offered hand. He shook his head, though, at the offer to share. "No thank you. Doesn't agree with me. Guess I'm a bit overly predatory in nature." His mouth quirks just a little at each corner.

[Adrian Sandenberg] That, really, is confirmation enough - and Adrian is at least a little appalled that, by now, he isn't better at telling these things. It doesn't matter that he knows all he (or most people) will sense is something a little off; after being raised at sept, with a Garou father, he simply should know.

Anyway.

"Thank you, Kora. If we need more, I'll get another." It's only polite to accept the breaking of bread, as it were, if one can . . . and Adrian is nothing if not polite, and has none of the dietary restrictions Victor does. "And it's good to see you too. I was half wondering if you'd left." One way or another, though it's mostly teasing - he is, quite possibly, the lowest maintenance kin ever. He doesn't call with problems, doesn't get kidnapped - he simply studies, and occasionally finds things of possible interest.

The ball is picked up and he raises an eyebrow Victor's way - polite there, too. "You're welcome to join us, regardless. You and Kora may have some things in common." Says the purely bred kin who finds himself in the company of not one Garou, but two.

[Kora] "They can probably accommodate your tastes at the Brotherhood," says Kora by way of reply. Her handshake is firm, her fingers long and spare, rather like the rest of her lean body. From a distance, her eyes are simply dark. Close enough to shake hands, though, they are clearly a dark blue, the color of the sky at twilight perhaps. They touch on his ear plugs, the corners of his mouth, the drop to meet his gaze. " - if you're interested. Some kin of ours," a faint lift of her chin, including both of them in the suggestion of kinship, no matter how fine the broken thread, no matter how distant. " - run the place."

Her attention rises to Adrian, then. The subtle shake of her head, the suggestion of a clear, direct look is his answer to the mild tease. "We've moved, though. Me and Joe, southside to north. I'll give you directions so you can find us if you've need of it." Adrian invites her into the game; Kora shakes her head, quiet. "I am terrible at hacky-sack," she replies, shaking her head. "You all go on. I'll be the cheering section."

[Victor Oseragighte] "Just came from there." He returned the shake firmly but not challengingly; there was more muscle there than one might expect, however. His eyes are as black as his hair, solid and dark. "Was brought over last night." He speaks tersely yet not rudely, as if that is simply his manner. When she withdrew he smiled again and stuck his thumbs into his pants pockets, nodding to Adrian again, indicating that he was still game for continuing.

[Adrian Sandenberg] There's a moment's flicker at the mention of Joe - Adrian isn't keeping himself to himself as well as usual today - and then a nod. "It'd be a good thing to know, just in case." It had taken Kora weeks, or maybe months, to meet the Jarl when it was Kemp, and Adrian'd heard good things about him. Joe, though . . . well. It's a different story, there.

Kora declines to join the game, and Adrian shrugs, tosses the ball from one hand to the other, and then drops it to the top of one foot to send it back into play. He's careful with where he looks and how, now - never mind that he's fairly certain Kora knows, he still doesn't need to advertise it to her, let alone to a second, relatively unknown, Garou.

"Everything's alright now, though? With you, I mean." It's just checking up on a friend, of course.

[Kora] "Cool." Kora's voice is unaccented. Or rather: she has a wholly American accent, the broad tones of middle America, the respectable suburbs, even and non-specific as the announcer on the cable news. Her voice is low and rich, though, and her mouth curves around the words engagingly. Adrian and Victor begin to play, and Kora steps back, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her worn jeans, her boots sinking just into the soft turf.

"It's good to have reinforcements," she tells Victor, her eyes on him as the ball drops back into play. " - we've had some losses, lately. Too many. Are you passing through, or planning to say?" There is the merest pause, then, the right corner of her mouth higher than the other. " - or testing the wind, so to speak?" It's not a smirk, just a twist of her generous mouth.

Then she lifts her eyes to Adrian, following the track of the ball as it arcs over the grass. "Thomas is off on a quest," she tells Adrian, " - though I'm not sure you ever met him. You'd remember if you had." Then, her expression deepens, the faintest sheen of something in her dark eyes. " - but yeah, otherwise things are better. Things are - " the faint curl of her smile lingers, finds light in her eyes. " - good. I wasn't sure whether you'd be in town over the summer, but we should have a meal, sometime, Adrian."

[Victor Oseragighte] "I was told." He did not turn away from the game to say this, did not miss a beat even. "Sorry to hear." It was a good minute more before he spoke again, the beanbag bouncing back and forth between his left foot and right knee before he sent it back to Adrian again. He turned his head toward Kora. "Probably be here a while. Good place to test the wind." While Adrian has the beanbag he looks so very relaxed, no tension at all to him.

[Adrian Sandenberg] "I leave in a month, but I'm not going far, and will be in and out of town. The dig's southwest, but still in Illinois - I thought it prudent to stay close, all things considered."

Moira is his closest friend here, after all, with only her ahead of Kora, and goodness knows that girl is a magnet for all kinds of trouble. And there's also the matter of all those recent losses - his mouth tightens just slightly at the mention, but he lets it go without comment. Never mind who was lost to him, or how recently; he makes no mention of them. This is what happens, to them - it's part of who they are.

"I had dinner with Trudy and her family last night - it was nice." To be surrounded by family (not 'his' in this case, for all that they share Tribe) and children, to laugh and eat and help kids with homework and toss a ball and so on. It had almost been like being back in London, but for being surrounded by blonde heads instead of red and brunette. "And she mentioned a grill sometime, perhaps before I go."

There is almost always tension in Adrian, at least when he's with other people - the freest Victor'd seen him was before Adrian noticed he was there, before he'd started tucking himself away from prying, possibly disapproving (or worse) eyes.

"Which is to say, I'd love to have a meal with you. Just tell me when, where and what to bring."

[Kora] Kora's attention sweeps upward to Adrian, lingers there as she listens. The shape of her mouth deepens when Adrian mentions dinner with Trudy and her family, a note of approval in her body language that remains otherwise silent. Her head sweeps sidelong, the hint of the animal under her skin, her dark eyes ticking over his expression, the way his mouth tightens, the his body language changes underneath the tension that lingers just beneath the skin. "It's good to have families around," she agrees, obliquely, her gaze lingering still. " - and it sounds like you'll just be half a day's drive away. Just be careful. Let us know if anything strange happens. And stay away from the north, yeah? You know where."

Her attention cuts back to Victor, then. She waits until he is not bouncing the beanbag - has tossed it back to Adrian, or perhaps waits until it is out of play, too hard to too soft, sending the hacky sack to the wet ground. "I'm she who offers sorrow," her voice is quiet, the introduction low. For his ears only. It is just possible that this is the first time Adrian has heard her deedname. She does not share it with kinfolk routinely. They are worlds apart. "Cliath, Skald, and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland, pledged to Maelstrom for several moons, packed under Hermodr and my Alpha, Joe War-Handed. We are reclaiming territory north of the Caern, extending along the river and into Cabrini, now the that Eagles have fallen or flown."

This time, she doesn't offer her hand. Such greetings are human, human entirely, and they are not. She gives him her full attention though, shoulders level, spine straight. All this in a park on a cool, damp gray Saturday. Around a game of hacky-sack.

[Victor Oseragighte] Skald. He could guess at a few different means for it, but he'd not admit to not knowing. Listen closely enough, observe, and he'd discover that in due time. His answer is very casual, the tone one that nobody passing by would pay any real attention to. When you acted secretive, people often reacted. "Victor Oseragighte. Called Ken'tarakonha:ka. Swallow, if you prefer English." He turns back as if he is speaking to Adrian now, studying him casually as he continued with the introduction. "Cliath, Half-Moon, Wendigo. Come on the wind to the Windy City." Adrian gets that same friendly, easy-going smile he gives most people, the smile of somebody who truly listens. The nhe looked back to Kora and nodded politely, giving her his full acknowledgement and deference as an outsider to a native.

[Adrian Sandenberg] "Adrian Sandenberg, kin to the Get of Fenris," he says in that quiet, unassuming way of his - this, though, doesn't project as his initial introduction had. And he no longer introduces himself as 'adopted by the Children of Gaia' as he once had; it's a thing. He still considers the family who adopted him more family than anyone but his brother, but that . . . well. It's a mess, and behind him. "And I came here because of Northwestern's Archeology department."

There's no more or less reason for it than that, at least not in any way that Adrian has control of, whatever he's found himself a part of since he arrived. It is what it is - a casual arrival, though his eventual departure may well be less so, at this point, given connections he's made.

"Und ja, I know where to avoid well enough."

[Kora] "Ken'tara - Ken'tara-kon," she listens closely and makes the effort, to imitate his pronunciation, familiar enough with the shape of strange languages, of other words in her mouth, on her tongue. Her expression is faint, rueful. She can hear the failure in her voice, and shakes her pale head as she finishes the attempt.

"I'll prefer your tongue," she says at last, " - as long as it doesn't offend you that I'll mangle the pronunciation a half-dozen times or more before I finally figure out it. You should find me at docks, sometime," if he has traveled close to the Caern, he'll understand the euphemism she chooses, " - I'd like to hear the story of how you got that name." There is a supple pause. She stands there, hands in her back pockets, elbows wide, her body language casual, easy.

"Do you mind if I ask what language that is?"

Adrian introduces himself then; Kora's dark eyes sweep back to the tall kinsman, linger there as he introduces himself. There's a hint of conflict underneath it, but she ignores that. He receives a faint, warm look, all direct as he claims the blood under his skin, in his bones, names it as his own.

[Victor Oseragighte] "The winds seem to blow me the right way since I've arrived." That sentence is a veritable speech for him. He hears Adrian's occupation and something about it brings a hint of mirth to his eyes, a smile to his lips as he takes a moment to scratch his bearded chin. "Sounds interesting," he offered Adrian, something a lot of people probably said but he sounded pretty sincere at.

Dark eyes slid to the trueborn and his mouth opened to repeat the word again. "Ken'tarakonha:ka. Mohawk. You have time, could tell it now." The offer was made, tossed out as if any response she gave was equally worthy.

[Adrian Sandenberg] It's rare that Adrian gets to hear these things, at least from the people who made the stories - he knows the story of how his father earned his name backwards and forwards, of course, and those of a few others to lesser degrees. To have it offered forth here, though, without getting the feeling he should find somewhere else to be is nice, and novel.

"It is, I tend to think," is all he says, though there's something about the shift in that fine, subtle tension about him - the desire to hear said story with Kora is hidden even less well than the other things about which there are hints and clues.

[Kora] "I have time," the Fenrir woman replies, her voice a quiet thread between them, her attention touching briefly on Adrian before it returns to Victor. They define a loose triangle of shifting angles and axes with the demands of the game, but the beanbag is on the ground, now. Forgotten for the moment, not unlikely Kora's meal, the hotdog and the Frito's and the soda can, cooling in the park bench five feet behind them. Her hair is just damp, frizzed from the humidity in the air, definition a pale halo around her sharp features, dominated by her expressive mouth. " - and I'd like to hear it, Ken'tara" pause, then, this smile as if there were a stone in her mouth, cool and whole as she remembers, and reproduces, "konha:ka-yuf."

Her pronunciation is imperfect to his ear, doubtlessly, but she soothes whatever offense she might give for it with a straight on look, clear and direct.

[Victor Oseragighte] He nodded and, instead of instantly launching into his tale, walked between the two of them, over to a low wall which he leapt lightly up onto. He tread along it as if it were just another path, and then stepped from there up atop a stone and metal garbage can, and there crouched down to address them from his perch. The question he asks is probably not what they expected, and there is a gleam of mischief in his eyes. "Ever see Wolfen?"

[Kora] There is a certain animal grace in her, evident in the easy, careless way Kora pivots to track Victor's path as he walks between the pair of Fenrir, true born and kin. And there is a certain curl to her mouth, a lively spark in her dark eyes as he leaps up onto the stone wall, and then climbs onto the garbage can, sinking into a low crouch. While he moves, she walks closer, a willing audience.

"Never," she allows, with a wry shake of her pale head, unearthing her hands from her back pockets and instead sinking them into her hip pockets, down to the first knuckle only. Her posture changes, though the change is subtle, the way she holds herself easy, hipslung, more comfortable somehow.

[Adrian Sandenberg] Adrian (who is more rapt just at watching the other man move than he should be - this could be pinned down to a slightly gawky, studious sort watching someone considerably more physically adept, however) simply shakes his head - he's not a big one for movies or television, really.

[Victor Oseragighte] He dropped from the crouch to sit atop the dented, scratched old metal dome, looking quite comfortable as he balanced there solidly. He looks somehow like he belongs there, or higher still. "It plays to an old stereotype. The Indian high iron worker. Kind of like the beardless Indian." He raised his hand to stroke his own, fingers rustling silently through short, wiry black strands. "But it is based in a little truth, like the other. There is a tribe who does high iron work. And we do a lot of it in New York. My father works the high iron. He was born in sixty-four. His father worked the high iron. Forty-five. His father did, and his father did. And so did the first Victor Oseragighte, born in eighteen-seventy-seven. He is buried with thirty-four other Mohawks of Kahnawake, each under a steel beam cross. Quebec Bridge collapse of nineteen-o-seven. The legend is that we do not fear heights. That we are superhuman or walk different. Truth is... we're scared to death. But with no more wars to fight, it is the way of choice to prove your manhood in Kahnawake. Mohawks from my reservation work in cities across the country. Some, like my father, live in Kahnawake and drive down to New York for the job during the week."

He went quiet now, studying them each once more, giving them some time to absorb everything he had told them before he continued, and to ask questions if they felt like it.

[Adrian Sandenberg] Adrian listens and absorbs, as any history student is likely to do - some of this he's heard (or rather, he's heard similar stories belonging to many cultures) before, though he's rarely had a name aside from the most famous connected with them. Victor moves from crouch to sitting like he belongs in the air, and like the story, this captures Adrian - sociological anthropologist, yes indeed. One learns a lot from the stories of others - especially those who aren't so much with the going out and making stories of their own.

[Kora] The high iron, says Victor. And Kora interjects, "Skyscrapers, yeah?" quietly enough that she does not interrupt the flow of the story. This is likely when Victor sits there, stroking his beard to bear out against the stereotype of the beardless Indian. The Fenrir woman gives him half a look, then, a subtle twist of her mouth by way of acknowledgment. Of the stereotype, or its falsehood.

With her hands in the front pockets of her jeans, her body language is different. Her arms are held close against her lean torso, which is distinctly unfeminine, straight and strong except for the subtle suggestion of her hips. When Vincent looks at her, he can see her mouth working, echoing his names and his dates - echoing them, remembering them, committing them to memory. He says: sixty-four, and her mouth shapes it. And forty-five. And so on, the strand, father to son, father to son, that stitches them together.

He mentions that they are scared to death; she shoots a look over her shoulder, at the sky scrapers in the Chicago Loop, the older ones all brick and iron, the newer ones iron and glass, considering the high points, imagining the skeletons underneath, all that air below. There is a certain intensity to her dark eyes when her attention returns to Victor, nodding for him to continue. Her interest in the story evident in the shape of her fine mouth, in the alert gleam in her eye.

[Victor Oseragighte] "I would have gone up there like my father. To work the high iron. Bridges. Buildings. Skyscrapers, yes. It began on bridges. I was learning to. Over the course of generations, games grew to hone our balance. We would go out and walk the Quebec Bridge, where the first Victor died, where so many of our ancestors died. We would walk other bridges, and dangerous places. I think the fear keeps you alive, really. The fear, and knowing that everybody else is watching."

He chuckled dryly and rolled his shoulders, folding his hands into his lap and rocking gently, purposefully. "I came down a lot with my father and others. Others would come down, too, kids, teens, with uncles and fathers and brothers. And of course not all of the workers are from my tribe, so we run with the kids of the other workers, white or black or brown, whatever. So I was running with friends. A few of mine. A few of theirs. We were just out to have some fun. So simple, right?" The shake of his head said otherwise, spoke with dark, certain foreboding of tragedy to come.

"I did not know what fomori were when started to harass us. When we fought back. When we fled and they came after us with strange, impossible powers and so much viciousness. Charlie died. Andy's hurt bad. Mark, he's this new guy I never met before, black kid, new to the group. His father knew Andre's father. They hunted us. We ran. We set traps, we fought back, and we kept running. Mark and I, we make it so Andre and Jerry can get away with Andy, get him help. So they're chasing us."

He closed his eyes and when he spoke again there was a guttural tone to it, predatory, other. "I don't remember it very much. I remember them cornering us. I remember them torturing, toying with us. I don't remember the red. Except in a dream, now and then. Rare. I remember the blood when I came to. I remember Mark looking at me, and me thinking he should be screaming, and he is not. Mark is kin. Walker. And I am so damn tired and confused I follow him when he tells me he can take me to people who know."

[Kora] The story he tells is both specific and universal, as if it were the skin of a story stretched over an ageless skeleton. I didn't know, he says. When we fought back. Kora - her deedname is Sorrow - she was born under a waxing moon, and her eyes are clear and direct on his. Her response to his tale is subtle, the twist of her mouth here, the faint nod of her pale head there, each expression folding its way into the next.

Her gaze is clear, too, when he speaks of the enemy's viciousness, the injuries and the deaths of his friends, these kids, wrong place, wrong time, wrong life. Wrong world, maybe: world gone wrong. Call it that. Her gaze is clear as a witnesses' should be, dark and sure.

"You're close to your ancestors, yeah?" the last bit is more a subtle verbal tic, this warm little sound at the end of the question. " - but didn't know what you were going to become. What you were." There is a minute dip of her pale head as she encourages him to continue the story, her attention rapt on him, her dark eyes alive to the subtle changes of tone and posture - the places where the memory breaks the skin of the present, finds its way back into his voice, the guttural tone, the hint of the wolf under his skin, the animal, the beast. The thing that kills.

[Victor Oseragighte] She had caught that. He smiled bitterly and nodded. "Not a clue. My father, later, much later, when I returned to see him again, said there were old rumors. And there are others in Kahnawake who know of them. Some know more. But a lot of them, our kin there, have forgotten. Or maybe it's just that we work the high iron and the rest of the Tribe, or many anyhow, see us as better left in the dark. Too 'tame' now. Like they know."

He shook his head and looked off, somewhere else now. "We were iron workers' kids. We knew how to move. How to use anything as a weapon. But against that gang, those monsters... there was only so much we could do." They can watch his throat move as he swallows thickly. "Not long after my first, after I had been brought to the wolves of New York City, the first of my dead ancestors came to me. I saw her protecting her people, people running from a horde of creatures. Monsters. And they moved through the trees like birds. Like the wind. Like swallows in the sky, soaring, swift and wild and fearless. Swallows go where they want. I go where I want. And I've proven that many times over. The city is just another forest, and if you can climb and run, you can go anywhere."

[Adrian Sandenberg] Adrian doesn't speak, doesn't ask questions - he listens not just to the words, but to the way they're spoken. He watches the two Garou (two vastly different Tribes, two vastly different cultures) interact. Some part of his brain is, no doubt, taking notes, or writing a paper, or some such thing. It's interesting, all of it.

This is what Adrian does - this is who he's been since before he realized he could study it, could find these stories (or their ancient versions) in the things that people left behind. Right now, he's the proverbial kid in the candy store, and it ticks behind his eyes, in the slow erasing of that tension. It's not all gone, nor anywhere near, but it's enough to reveal a bit more of the seeker-kin.

[Kora] "You're well-named, Swallow," the Fenrir woman concludes, her chin rising as she makes this assessment, based only on the passion with which he tells his own story. On the manner in which he honors his ancestors, human and otherwise. There's no blood in her, no story under her skin, no hint of the promise of the past returned to live in her body, in her blood, in bones, but she favors Victor with her close gaze, easy, dark, and her wide mouth slides into full smile that can only be read as - fierce. Not vicious, but fierce, alive.

" - and I thank you for sharing your tale with me." There is a certain formal undercurrent to both her thanks, and the invitation that follows. "Remind me, sometime. I owe you a beer." Briefly, passing, the fierce smile gains a rueful edge, " - if that's palatable for you. A steak, otherwise." Kora crosses the space between them, then. She's on the grass, in a manicured park, her boots sinking into the sodden ground. He's sitting on a stone-made trashcan. No matter, she reaches out again for his hand, and - if he accepts the gesture - clasps his forearm with her own rather than shaking his hand. "I have to get going, but I'm sure we'll see each other - soon. It's good to have you here. Welcome to Chicago, Ken'tarakonha:ka-yuf." It is better this time, her pronunciation of his name. She knows his story, now. It's beginning, and the name fits her mouth.

Then, releasing his hand, she turns to her kin, lifting her chin at Adrian. "Don't be a stranger," she offers the kinsman, by way of farewell. " - yeah?"

[Kora] - and with that, she turns, heads off toward the lunch she left behind on the park bench, leaves the sodden, cool hot dog for the birds, but grabs both the soda and the Fritos, casting a look back over her shoulder at the pair of them by way of farewell.