[Sorrow] It is evening, and late. Cooler than it had been over the weekend, when the only way to survive in the heatsink of the city was to turn on the air conditioner or open up a fire hydrant - when kids made money selling cold water on the streetcorners, turning .25 cent water bottles from the dollar store into a small profit center, pulling them glistening from a slurry of ice and water in a battered old cooler.
So: late, evening. The house that Sparrow and Roman share is dark. There's no one home. Garou have more to do than spend time at home, puttering around the living room, watching old episodes of Iron Chef - Japan on the DVR. Garou have more to do, and a greater sense of territory: so that Kora, who is waiting for Sparrow, waits not on he front porch, but leaning against the wrought-iron fence that outlines the small area of their territory.
The evening is cooler, not cool, and the day was warm. Her dark t-shirt is damp with sweat, clings to her line of her torso, which suggests a lean sort of strength that lives in her body, under her skin. She has no pure breeding to mark her out as a once and future hero to other Garou, just that animal grace and the passing familiarity from the Caern, from the last moot, from a fight or two on these dark streets. There is no mistaking that she is waiting at the gate, outside the gate, a lean slouch against the fence. She has an animal patience about her, a hunter's sense of time: which is to say, she is waiting with a predator's ease, casual and sure. If there is a tinge of (well-) controlled fury to her body language, there is only the merest hint of it from a distant.
[Sparrow] It's cool tonight.
She's taken care of the lawn as best she can, and she does take care of it. The dark-haired female spends her time outside when it's cool, namely because she needs to keep her shirt on. She lives in a neighborhood; there's a family a few doors down. She stays out when the kids are home.
There's a monster who lives on their street; she's pretty. The dealer three doors to the left as suspiciously disappeared. Funny how these things work.
Timing is strange; the Child of Gaia, with her bright blue eyes and her dark hair and nice tan, is spending time on the porch. There is a person coming to her gate. The female stands, a little over five and a half feet tall. She's wearing a tee shirt and a skirt. She's wearing boots. She's wearing bracelets- the outline of those little bird tattoos can be seen through her tee shirt.
"... it was Sorrow, wasn't it?" she's trying to remember her name.
[Sorrow] "Kora," the Fenrir woman corrects, her voice low and rich. They are in the human world, wearing their human skins. Were this another night, she might offer Sparrow the edge of a neat little half-smile.
Tonight, though, there's something different about her, like a string under her skin has been pulled, and there's a sharpness to her voice and a tension to her posture that suggests - fury. Held back, contained inside her skin, but rage nonetheless. They're a handful of feet apart, maybe more.
Kora has her hand on the edge of the gate, and lifts her chin. This is a question, because they are animals and there is the matter of territory. "Mind if I come in?"
[Sparrow] "Of course," she says. She smiles, and her teeth are bright and white and straight.
Sparrow is friendly enough, serene enough, but there is always rage there. Always nagging and whining beneath the surface. There is always, always something there that negates that Gaian breeding. Unicorn isn't known for her full moons, but there one is.
"Do you want anything to drink?" she asks. The fence is easy enough to open. Just there for show, it seems. Or, rather, it's just not locked right now. The lawn is immaculate.
[Sorrow] "No," says Kora to the offer of a drink; the response is curt as her offer to the name. It's not rage in general that one senses near her; her control is greater than most of her tribe. This is rather more specific; but she hears the curt note in her voice, hears it as a dissonance in her head. Hears it jangle against her senses and corrects it, " - no thank you."
She pushes and the gate swings open; look - she turns around and closes it too, pushing it until it latches behind her. Only when the gate is closed and latched does she turn around and stride down the walk, up the steps onto the porch.
"I've met your cousin, but you and I have not been formally introduced. I'm Kora Eyjólfsdóttir to my kin, she who offers sorrow to the Nation, cliath Skald and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland, pledged to Maelstrom now for some moons. Lately," here is the fury, her generous mouth like a slash, " - of Aesir's Call. We followed Truth-in-Frenzy-rhya until he died."
Her hands are in her front pockets now, as if to corral them, and although there is a hip-slung sense to her body, these easy, elegance to it, she does not cheat her height by an inch anstands a good head taller than Sparrow, blonde where the younger Garou is dark haired, pale-skinned where Sparrow is tanned. There is a certain extra whiteness to her tonight, evident when Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands. Evident if Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands: her knuckles are strained white. Her fingers are fisted in her pockets.
"This isn't," she says, all quiet, "exactly a social call."
[Sparrow] She is fairly observant. Not horrifically so, but observant enough that she looks down... looks at Kora's hands and notices her tensions. Notices the rage, notices...
"Come inside," she says, and the female heads to the front door. The woman opens the front door and pushes it to the side. If Kora follows, eventually they end up in her living room.
There's not a lot of furniture.
She listens to the words. To the negations. Followed. Lately of Aesir's Call. White knuckles and memories.
"What seems to be the problem?"
What can I do?
[Sorrow] Kora follows. She glances around the living room briefly, and not with the eye of the connessieur. The home is better than any place she has lived since she returned to the states, but her interest in the surroundings is detached, passing. She looks because they are in a room, and because she is a creature who looks at things.
When Sparrow asks what the problem might be Kora quirks her mouth at last. The right corner rises, and there's this direct look, a subtle suggestion of humor, already passing. Her mouth has a natural curve to it. She always looks as if she is smiling a secret smile. Thus, the flat line into which it settles requires moment; requires tension. It is not thoughtless, though there is no thought behind it.
"You've heard of Silence-rhya and the Eagles, yeah?" The rhythm of her speech remains, but her voice is sharp, all clear. " - who claimed territory in Cabrini, north of the Caern along the river corridor, the Caern's flank, essentially, and held it even when they disclaimed loyalty to Maelstrom."
[Sparrow] All clear, all crisp, and yet this Child of Gaia is so relaxed.
She nods, and doesn't say anything. No need- of course she's heard of Silence. Of course she's heard of the Eagles, abou the territory they've claimed. Of course she knows about the totem.
Eagle. Something just... out of her reach.
Eagle isn't here anymore, not represented. And it's been here since hte beginning. Something about that makes Sparrow... concerned. Disheartened. She only nods, though. There is no need for words.
[Sorrow] "Silence-rhya maintained some of the territory after the deaths of the remaining members of his pack," Kora replies. She's a Galliard, she's a Skald. Her voice, even touched as it is with urgency, with an underscore of fury that is both still and open, is rich and evocative. "Sandman-rhya was his last true packmate. The borders of the territory are clear; and Silence-rhya scoured it of the Wyrm when he returned ranked Athro.
"Now," she continues, her voice quiet, "he's Warclaw, called back to Stormhammer, and the territory left abandoned. When he left, we started exploring it and reclaiming it. It's what Kemp would have done; it's necesary. That territory is a direct line of defense for the Caern. More, to let it fall to the Wyrm after so many have died to protect - " There is a low scoff, here. Contemptuous of any churl who would be so base as to - what? abandon their obligations to the dead, let something fall to the Wyrm. Something.
"Now War-Handed has abandoned tribe and pack and Sept. I cannot hold the totem; our remaining packmate is away on a quest and may never return. Hermodr has fled; I alone cannot hold that territory.
"I've asked your cousin to join me. I have no pack, not now. I have territory that I cannot hold alone. Join me: run with me. Protect the land that the Eagles and their kin carved out of the city and died to protect. You have no reason to believe in me or follow me except that: these lands should not fall.
"I fought with your cousin. I fought with you, once. You've heard me sing the dead to Valhalla. This is all I can offer you by way of troth."
[Sparrow] "I've seen you fight," she says, "and you've carried the dead to Valhalla. You've done your duty, and you've done it well... and you've given tribute in ways that I know would honor those I hold dear."
It's her concern. She's not talking about herself; she's talking about her cousin. that, if her cousin dies, she trusts Kora to send him off. If she dies, she trusts Kora to send her off. She made a good impression with Wrath- a male that had no right to be as important to Sparrow as he was. She takes a moment.
"We will help you protect that land. And we will help you," she says.
There's silence.
"I can't give you much more than my life," it's really all an ahroun has.
[Sorrow] There is nothing bird-like about Sorrow. She tops Sparrow by a head, and has a lean sense of leashed violence about her tonight. The storm inside her that is not grief; that is - instead - a subscapular sort of rage, livid underneath not just her skin but her bones, all around inside her.
Still, Sparrow responds in kind with the stark formality of Kora's offer and that writes a flicker of surprise across the Skald's features. Her dark eyes track the Gaian's face, her mouth, linger there as the former speaks, then rise to her eyes. How strange; this echo of the past in a sparsely furnished living room in the middle of a clapboard house in a marginal neighborhood of a modern American city. How apropos.
Here is the ghost of a smile; not easy, but eased, if only just.
There are dark circles under her eyes. Kora is [i]exhausted[/i]. That ghost-smile wipes it all away, though. Makes her clarified, somehow.
"Thank you," says Sorrow. She means it. She says the words as if they were words that held meaning rather than a passing placeholder. "Find me at the Cabrini United Methodist Church. It's abandoned. Or, come closer and cross over. The bird-spirits - sparrow and scab - will see you and tell me. I'll start showing you both around."
So: late, evening. The house that Sparrow and Roman share is dark. There's no one home. Garou have more to do than spend time at home, puttering around the living room, watching old episodes of Iron Chef - Japan on the DVR. Garou have more to do, and a greater sense of territory: so that Kora, who is waiting for Sparrow, waits not on he front porch, but leaning against the wrought-iron fence that outlines the small area of their territory.
The evening is cooler, not cool, and the day was warm. Her dark t-shirt is damp with sweat, clings to her line of her torso, which suggests a lean sort of strength that lives in her body, under her skin. She has no pure breeding to mark her out as a once and future hero to other Garou, just that animal grace and the passing familiarity from the Caern, from the last moot, from a fight or two on these dark streets. There is no mistaking that she is waiting at the gate, outside the gate, a lean slouch against the fence. She has an animal patience about her, a hunter's sense of time: which is to say, she is waiting with a predator's ease, casual and sure. If there is a tinge of (well-) controlled fury to her body language, there is only the merest hint of it from a distant.
[Sparrow] It's cool tonight.
She's taken care of the lawn as best she can, and she does take care of it. The dark-haired female spends her time outside when it's cool, namely because she needs to keep her shirt on. She lives in a neighborhood; there's a family a few doors down. She stays out when the kids are home.
There's a monster who lives on their street; she's pretty. The dealer three doors to the left as suspiciously disappeared. Funny how these things work.
Timing is strange; the Child of Gaia, with her bright blue eyes and her dark hair and nice tan, is spending time on the porch. There is a person coming to her gate. The female stands, a little over five and a half feet tall. She's wearing a tee shirt and a skirt. She's wearing boots. She's wearing bracelets- the outline of those little bird tattoos can be seen through her tee shirt.
"... it was Sorrow, wasn't it?" she's trying to remember her name.
[Sorrow] "Kora," the Fenrir woman corrects, her voice low and rich. They are in the human world, wearing their human skins. Were this another night, she might offer Sparrow the edge of a neat little half-smile.
Tonight, though, there's something different about her, like a string under her skin has been pulled, and there's a sharpness to her voice and a tension to her posture that suggests - fury. Held back, contained inside her skin, but rage nonetheless. They're a handful of feet apart, maybe more.
Kora has her hand on the edge of the gate, and lifts her chin. This is a question, because they are animals and there is the matter of territory. "Mind if I come in?"
[Sparrow] "Of course," she says. She smiles, and her teeth are bright and white and straight.
Sparrow is friendly enough, serene enough, but there is always rage there. Always nagging and whining beneath the surface. There is always, always something there that negates that Gaian breeding. Unicorn isn't known for her full moons, but there one is.
"Do you want anything to drink?" she asks. The fence is easy enough to open. Just there for show, it seems. Or, rather, it's just not locked right now. The lawn is immaculate.
[Sorrow] "No," says Kora to the offer of a drink; the response is curt as her offer to the name. It's not rage in general that one senses near her; her control is greater than most of her tribe. This is rather more specific; but she hears the curt note in her voice, hears it as a dissonance in her head. Hears it jangle against her senses and corrects it, " - no thank you."
She pushes and the gate swings open; look - she turns around and closes it too, pushing it until it latches behind her. Only when the gate is closed and latched does she turn around and stride down the walk, up the steps onto the porch.
"I've met your cousin, but you and I have not been formally introduced. I'm Kora Eyjólfsdóttir to my kin, she who offers sorrow to the Nation, cliath Skald and daughter of Fenris, fostered in Hjaltland, pledged to Maelstrom now for some moons. Lately," here is the fury, her generous mouth like a slash, " - of Aesir's Call. We followed Truth-in-Frenzy-rhya until he died."
Her hands are in her front pockets now, as if to corral them, and although there is a hip-slung sense to her body, these easy, elegance to it, she does not cheat her height by an inch anstands a good head taller than Sparrow, blonde where the younger Garou is dark haired, pale-skinned where Sparrow is tanned. There is a certain extra whiteness to her tonight, evident when Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands. Evident if Sparrow looks down at Kora's hands: her knuckles are strained white. Her fingers are fisted in her pockets.
"This isn't," she says, all quiet, "exactly a social call."
[Sparrow] She is fairly observant. Not horrifically so, but observant enough that she looks down... looks at Kora's hands and notices her tensions. Notices the rage, notices...
"Come inside," she says, and the female heads to the front door. The woman opens the front door and pushes it to the side. If Kora follows, eventually they end up in her living room.
There's not a lot of furniture.
She listens to the words. To the negations. Followed. Lately of Aesir's Call. White knuckles and memories.
"What seems to be the problem?"
What can I do?
[Sorrow] Kora follows. She glances around the living room briefly, and not with the eye of the connessieur. The home is better than any place she has lived since she returned to the states, but her interest in the surroundings is detached, passing. She looks because they are in a room, and because she is a creature who looks at things.
When Sparrow asks what the problem might be Kora quirks her mouth at last. The right corner rises, and there's this direct look, a subtle suggestion of humor, already passing. Her mouth has a natural curve to it. She always looks as if she is smiling a secret smile. Thus, the flat line into which it settles requires moment; requires tension. It is not thoughtless, though there is no thought behind it.
"You've heard of Silence-rhya and the Eagles, yeah?" The rhythm of her speech remains, but her voice is sharp, all clear. " - who claimed territory in Cabrini, north of the Caern along the river corridor, the Caern's flank, essentially, and held it even when they disclaimed loyalty to Maelstrom."
[Sparrow] All clear, all crisp, and yet this Child of Gaia is so relaxed.
She nods, and doesn't say anything. No need- of course she's heard of Silence. Of course she's heard of the Eagles, abou the territory they've claimed. Of course she knows about the totem.
Eagle. Something just... out of her reach.
Eagle isn't here anymore, not represented. And it's been here since hte beginning. Something about that makes Sparrow... concerned. Disheartened. She only nods, though. There is no need for words.
[Sorrow] "Silence-rhya maintained some of the territory after the deaths of the remaining members of his pack," Kora replies. She's a Galliard, she's a Skald. Her voice, even touched as it is with urgency, with an underscore of fury that is both still and open, is rich and evocative. "Sandman-rhya was his last true packmate. The borders of the territory are clear; and Silence-rhya scoured it of the Wyrm when he returned ranked Athro.
"Now," she continues, her voice quiet, "he's Warclaw, called back to Stormhammer, and the territory left abandoned. When he left, we started exploring it and reclaiming it. It's what Kemp would have done; it's necesary. That territory is a direct line of defense for the Caern. More, to let it fall to the Wyrm after so many have died to protect - " There is a low scoff, here. Contemptuous of any churl who would be so base as to - what? abandon their obligations to the dead, let something fall to the Wyrm. Something.
"Now War-Handed has abandoned tribe and pack and Sept. I cannot hold the totem; our remaining packmate is away on a quest and may never return. Hermodr has fled; I alone cannot hold that territory.
"I've asked your cousin to join me. I have no pack, not now. I have territory that I cannot hold alone. Join me: run with me. Protect the land that the Eagles and their kin carved out of the city and died to protect. You have no reason to believe in me or follow me except that: these lands should not fall.
"I fought with your cousin. I fought with you, once. You've heard me sing the dead to Valhalla. This is all I can offer you by way of troth."
[Sparrow] "I've seen you fight," she says, "and you've carried the dead to Valhalla. You've done your duty, and you've done it well... and you've given tribute in ways that I know would honor those I hold dear."
It's her concern. She's not talking about herself; she's talking about her cousin. that, if her cousin dies, she trusts Kora to send him off. If she dies, she trusts Kora to send her off. She made a good impression with Wrath- a male that had no right to be as important to Sparrow as he was. She takes a moment.
"We will help you protect that land. And we will help you," she says.
There's silence.
"I can't give you much more than my life," it's really all an ahroun has.
[Sorrow] There is nothing bird-like about Sorrow. She tops Sparrow by a head, and has a lean sense of leashed violence about her tonight. The storm inside her that is not grief; that is - instead - a subscapular sort of rage, livid underneath not just her skin but her bones, all around inside her.
Still, Sparrow responds in kind with the stark formality of Kora's offer and that writes a flicker of surprise across the Skald's features. Her dark eyes track the Gaian's face, her mouth, linger there as the former speaks, then rise to her eyes. How strange; this echo of the past in a sparsely furnished living room in the middle of a clapboard house in a marginal neighborhood of a modern American city. How apropos.
Here is the ghost of a smile; not easy, but eased, if only just.
There are dark circles under her eyes. Kora is [i]exhausted[/i]. That ghost-smile wipes it all away, though. Makes her clarified, somehow.
"Thank you," says Sorrow. She means it. She says the words as if they were words that held meaning rather than a passing placeholder. "Find me at the Cabrini United Methodist Church. It's abandoned. Or, come closer and cross over. The bird-spirits - sparrow and scab - will see you and tell me. I'll start showing you both around."
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