Ornature

[Slaughter] She does not have good intentions, but she does have money. She hides it here, but does not hide it completely. Older jeans, a nondescript corduroy jacket and a plain t-shirt does not hide her posture or confidence.

She never looks quite like she belongs here. A puzzle piece that is just slightly disjointed from the rest.

Kora's request that Imogen call her draws a regard from the kinwoman. "It's not necessary," she says.

The squeaking of the cart draws her attention, her brow furrowing slightly. She keeps him (her, it) in her awareness as she continues to walk. They are headed to her car. Or at least, Imogen is, and one presumes that Kora is walking her there or perhaps intending on shearing off at a cross street that leads her to her pack home.

[Blu] The cart slowly squeaks down the sidewalk towards the pair, bumping over cracks in the pavement now and then. Rattling comes from the cart and an added scuffling sound. Swish...swish..squeak..squeak... The sounds of the city are like a steady background noise to the world here, like the purring of a cat, nearly comforting. Now and then a siren blends with that purring. A horn adds it's tones to the song of the city. All of this is a backdrop to the immediate area and the soft voices of the pair.

[Blu] The smell of rot rose and fell with the wind as it stirred trash along the street. Something scurried out of the dark, running across the top of one of Kora's boots before bumping in to Imogen's ankle and scuttling off with a high pitched squeak. The lights of a passing car shedding enough light across the cart to show an array of trash piled precariously high and two old house slippers just beneath a pair of sagging ankles. Then the light was gone, yet the scuffling swish and squeak continued like the ticking of a clock.

[Sorrow] "Roman," Kora returns, low-voiced, this hint of laughter underneath the pitch, liquid without ever being fully expressed except in the shape of her shoulders and the curl of her mouth, " - would not ever forgive me if I left you to do work like that alone. So," this has an aura of the decisive to it, " - you'd actually be doing me a favor, in the end. Think of the what you'd spare me, yeah? Those things are awkward, anyway. Easier to handle, less likely to attract unwanted attention with four hands than two."

The squeaking cart, that internal rattle the only counterpoint to the white noise of the night-strewn city. Kora's eyes touch on the cart now and again as they walk. Her eyes narrow against the flash and flare of the car's headlights, then the word is dark again -

" - shit." she curses, her voice still low, turning her head to try to follow the trajectory of the rat in the dark. "Damn rats."

[Sorrow] Per + Alertness
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Failure at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Slaughter] So -

"So don't tell him," Imogen inserts, her mouth twisting faintly an eyebrow arching.

Her mouth moves in distaste, lifting up her foot as the rat - or whatever it was, careens into her. Her jaw tightens and she bites back a comment, her nostrils pinching as a wash of particularly foetid garbage fills her nose.

(Perception+alertness: HAIL KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] Kora didn't notice, but Imogen had warning as another small body came their direction. Infact, Imogen noticed it wasn't just one, it was a small wave of bodies and they were rushing towards the pair from the direction of the cart like the devil was herding them. They swarmed pass the cart, around it and towards the pair. And through the song of little squeals came a high pitched cursing.

"Get away from me you nasty creatures! This is mine! You get your own!"

[Sorrow] So don't tell him, Imogen inserts, adroitly.

Kora's mouth twists into a small, sardonic curve. There's this little huff of a breath from her, this terribly subtle little laugh underneath the surface, mostly lost in the sound of the homeless woman's high-pitched cursing. With a quick, lilting little look toward Imogen, all sidelong, Kora finally assents, "Yeah, alright," she says, that sardonic note lingering in her voice, without resentment. Just this sort of expectation under the surface. " - you win that point."

"Ma'am?" Kora has no warning, just the old woman's high-pitched cuse as the small wave of rodents rocks down the sidewalk. Still, she lifts her voice, calls out to the stranger. "You know there's a women's shelter on Kingwood, near the highrises. Won't have to worry about the rats there."

The guards, maybe. The other residents. Lead paint and salmonella and rat poison in the milk and milk in the rat poison, yes. But rats: no.

[Slaughter] Imogen does not speak to help the woman, instead contracting her eyebrows, taking a step back.

"Rats seem a bit singleminded, don't they?" she observes rather mildly, given the circumstances as she points out the wave of rodents surging in their direction.

[Blu] The rats were running towards Imogen and Kora after swarming around the cart. They ran full out as the voice behind the cart continued to squeal it's warning. In a moment the rats broke around the pair, scurrying over feet and bouncing off as they split around legs in their race.

[Sorrow] "What the hell are they running from?" That's Kora's first thought. She pivots in place, turning to track the rats' collective path, over their feet and around their legs and on down the sidewalk. That passing expression of distaste has disappeared, her voice is level, touched with a hint of - alertness, firmness - and she steps aside, then, begins edging up the sidewalk toward the homeless woman, dark eyes lingering on the cart as she moves, then flashing beyond, searching out the storefronts, the empty windows, the broken doors - some nook, some cranny. Something that might frighten a great swarm like that, excite it into motion -

A glance back at Imogen, the flash of her eyes in the darkness. "See anything?"

[Slaughter] (perception again!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Perception again!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Slaughter] (PERCEPTION x3 HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7) Re-rolls: 3

[Sorrow] I WILL TRY THAT TOO!!!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Blu] Kora asked...."See anything?"....and just about then the cries of "Mine" died away along with the frightened squeal of rats. In that moment it was like all sound died as something flew over the mound in the cart towards the pair. A dark object came spinning towards them. Imogen was the first to feel something warm hit her cheek as her brain registered the object about the size of a bowling ball, was going to hit her if she didn't move. Both women feeling the sudden brief shower of wet warmth hitting them in small splats.

[Slaughter] Imogen reacts almost silently - allowing her reaction to warn Kora rather than words. She falls to a crouch to avoid the bowling ball-sized ... thing, a hand diving beneath her coat to pull free her weapon.

She twists her head to glance in the direction where the rats had run - where the object had headed, one hand lifting to touch her cheek where a droplet had sprayed her, bringing her fingers in front of her eyes.

[Sorrow] Alert, alive to Imogen's silent reaction beside her, Kora ducks as the dark object comes spinning toward them. She breathes out a silent curse, reaches up to touch the wetness spattered across her cheer. Her dark eyes close briefly, this sort of simmering, inward focus, before she rises to this rather awkward half-height stance, using the mounded cart as cover, and grabs the end closest to her, pulling sharply at the laden cart.

[-1 WP, Resist Pain]

[Sorrow] Ancestors to brawl!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]
to Blu

[Blu] Imogen reached for Kora and fell in to a crouch just as the object spun over their heads to land with the sound of a melon hitting pavement. It rolled a foot before stopping. There in the dark wide open eyes reflected what faint light there was as the head stared open mouthed at the two women. And the cart? Kora grabbed for the cart that had continued towards them, and she pulled it to reveal the rest of the body laying beyond on the ground.

There just beyond the body were a large pair of green eyes that blinked at the two women, sparking a month's old memory. Abby cat? Where are you?"

[Slaughter] (+9!)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Sorrow] "Fuck." That's the last thing Imogen hears from Kora's human mouth. Without the resistance of the dead woman's weight and the dead woman's slack hands and the dead woman's possessive grasp on the handlebars, the laden cart goes rolling awkwardly down the sidewalk. Crouched forward already, Kora bares her human teeth in a feral, responsive snarl at the beast in front of them, sinking into her feral form.

[+7 in homid!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[Blu] Meow +8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Blu] Sorrow
Imogen
Meow

[Blu] There was the feeling of large and dark. A feeling of fur standing on end and a gleam of teeth as a low rumbling growl rose up and turned to the full out howl of a very large cat. Behind all of this was the distinct feeling of muscles gathering to pounce.

[Slaughter] Imogen has her gun out by her side, the safety off. Finding the cat is as much sense as sight or sound. The gleam of teeth, the rumbling growl that becomes a disconcerting yowl, followed by the instinct that the beast is priming for battle.

The kinwoman takes aim and fires. Thee quick taps of the trigger, then a fourth.

(Split actions
1. 3 round burst
2. fire!)

[Sorrow] Sorrow moves; her fingers unfold from their grip on the cart as it goes trundling down the street, the weight an a lazy wheel making its movements awkward and unpredictable. Leaning forward, the crouching woman becomes a huge dire wolf in an eyeblink, faster. The snarl of challenge slides from her dull human teeth and her raw human throat, become something deeper, more feral as she shifts.

[-1 Rage, snapshift to hispo!. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1. BITE. Rage 2. BITE.]

[Blu] Meow was preparing to leap.

[Sorrow] 1a Dex + Brawl + Hispo + Ancestors sux -3
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] Meow....soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Failure at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Sorrow] 1c!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Slaughter] three round burst.
HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Slaughter] damage!
HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] Meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Slaughter] fourth shot! HAIL O GREAT KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Slaughter] Damage!
HAIL O POWERFUL AND GREAT KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 7, 7, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Blu] The cat gathered itself to leap. It was huge, it was the size of a pony. Kora sprang from human to Hispo in the blink of an eye, jumping the cat to leave bloody marks that brought an infuriated howl. In the same moment, Imogen opened fire and though it appeared she struck true, in the dark it was hard to tell just how true. Now the cat moved, those teeth and claws came in to play and it was going for the wolf in it's face.

[Blu] Only one claw struck out this time, and it swiped for Kora.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Sorrow] Rage 1: BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] Kora bit again, tasting blood in her mouth and that howl of a pissed off big cat came and the flash of claws as it tangled with the hispo wolf.
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Blu] dam
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] Rage 2!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Blu] meow...
1 bite kora
1 r bite kora

[Slaughter] 1. fire
2. fire
3. fire
4. fire

[Sorrow] 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE.

[Sorrow] Kora 1a. BITE.
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1b. BITE!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blu] meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Sorrow] 1c. BITE!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Sorrow] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Blu] Meow soak
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Blu] *-*

[Blu] It was over that fast. Fur flew, blood sprayed and the roars came to die in one sharp sound as Sorrow's teeth found purchase and snapped the neck of the beast. There in the sudden silence they stood with ringing ears and the smell of blood and gun smoke. Back towards Imogen lay a sightless head, watching the horror play out. An over turned cart of what most would consider trash lay between Kora and Imogen in the street where it had fallen over after leaving the curb. And before Kora lay the pony sized black cat, now limp in death. Somewhere in the city one small cat sat on a window sill grooming itself as the larger one died.

[Slaughter] Imogen lowers the gun, a hand lifting briefly to pinch the bridge of her nose. The ringing is loud in her ears. Her hand falls away and she says, dryly to Kora.

"I suppose tha' site can manage one more use."

There is resignation in her voice, far more than amusement.

[Sorrow] The street is quiet. There was a homeless woman pushing her cart down the block, dead now. There was a river of rats, surging, squeaking with fear, they've scattered toward the dark waters of the still Chicago River. The spasm of violence lasts a handful of seconds; in that handful of seconds, Sorrow's rage is nearly spent. The warformed Garou remains standing over the fallen beast for another handful of seconds, until the last twitch of its nervous system dies away, until she is sure it will not come roaring back to life.

Then she shifts, backing up abruptly from all fours to two legs. There's blood on her hands. There's blood smeared on her mouth, and she reaches up to wipe it away with the back of her first, glancing down at it once, a flicker of interest, before her dark eyes fall on the kill.

"Convenient," Kora says, a ghosting look towards the kinswoman as she surveys the street. " - anyway, yeah?"

After another moment's assessment of the size of the dead monster and her own strength, Kora shifts, less noticeably to her larger near-man frame, and drags the corpse into the most convenient shelter - an alley, a narrow causeway, someplace to stage things as they vivesect the corpse, to carry the pieces back to the barrels for one more use.

Garou that she is, Kora takes trophies. Both eyes for the Hrafn, and the claws for the Wyrmpole. She doesn't bother to hide this from Imogen, but does not request the kinswoman's assistance in that part of the bloody work, pulling the eyeballs from the sockets, severing the wickedly clawed paws from the corpse on her own, setting the aside to wrap them in newspaper until they can be cleansed, and taken to the Caern.

[Kora] Outside, they have a short drive to the lakefront - and their pick of public beaches, which hug the curve of the lake below the public, green levels of Grant and Lincoln park, continuing north, past the river, dotting the old industrial docks, fitted in between marinas and piers - mile after mile of white sand beaches.

Sure, the sand has been trucked in, mined from elsewhere, and the surf kicks up only when a ferry or some other ship churns by, and one day out of three the city's lifeguards post warnings about water quality on sternly worded little white signs near the parking lots and public walkways leading down to the beaches - on any given summer day, the city's beaches are thronged with Chicagoans hoping for a breath of breeze, a kiss of sun on their skin. If they squint, they can pretend it's Miami Beach, or Newport, or Hilton Head, or at least the Jersey shore.

They stop at an all-night take-out place - a WaWa sandwiched between a record store GOING OUT OF BUSINESS and 24-hour Kinko's, deserted but for the clerks standing amidst a small army of copiers in the center of the store, visible through the windows, illuminated. - for drinks. A six pack of beer, or maybe a bottle of wine. Water pulled from a cooler full brimming with a cold, icy slurry. Kora leaves the shopping to Trent, and instead watches the street, and the Kinko's employees who do not know they are on such display.

Parking's easy. The lot is empty. Kora holds their take-out meals in her lap as Trent drives, the soup warm against her thighs. Popular as the beaches are in daylight, they're closed at night. The gate is drawn across the access-path, and there are no streetlights here to mark their way. Just a full moon hanging in the sky, bright enough that the pair of them cast moon-shadows here, when cross the parking lot toward the path in this dark ribbon of shoreline that hugs the curves of the city.

She hands him the bag of take-out before she climbs the gate, then - after an abortive attempt to shove the toe of her steel-toed boots into the small diamond texture of the gate - bends over to unlace her boots, peeling them off, and her socks after, setting them aside, hidden by the waving grasses meant to anchor the make-shift dunes.

Barefooted, she clambers over the gate easily, swings herself over the top, and lowers herself overhand until she just - lets go, and jumps the last few meters, landing in an easy, half-feral crouch. The moon catches out the sharp lines of her features, sheens across her eyes as she turns back to him, reaching through the small gap in the gate for their food and drink before it is his turn to climb after her. While they are maneuvering the soup container through the narrow gap, she looks up at him, briefly stark, briefly still, reaches out and snags the tail of his t-shirt with her free hand and pulls him close, leaning her head toward him as if she might kiss him through the metal barrier of the gate.

But no, she pulls back at the last minute, the soup in hand, their makeshift picnic on her side rather than his, and watches him, appreciatively, as he makes the climb in her wake.

[Trent Brumby] Trent makes a quick stop at the store to get the beverages of Kora's choice. If she didn't have one, he got her regular favourites and had them packed up in a bag to carry with them out to the car again. The drive hadn't been too long and the conversation rather idle and short. Once he found a park he offered to carry the picnic things, had a blanket in his trunk that he offered to bring along too, and whether he was carrying them or not, they made their way over to the gate.

He's about to suggest something else, somewhere else, as he watches her unlace her shoes but holds his tongue at the last minute. This is what she wanted to do and he reminds himself not to question it. Climbing a fence is no problem for a Garou, but he still didn't want to see her fall or break a bone. She could feel his gaze, intense and watchful as she climbs, and the way he almost holds his breath as she begins down then jumps.

She lands and he exhaled a relieved sigh, covering it with a quick look away. But when he looks back she's already looking at him, eyes glinting and hand ready to take the bag from him, which he passes through. After, she's grabbing his t.shirt and pulling him towards the mesh of the gate. It makes him inhale sharply through his nose, his gaze locking on to her and his fingers curl through the links as he grabs it and keeps himself close to her.

Even after she lets him go he stays there a heart beat longer, longing, pulse in his throat and a stirring heat in his eyes.

Reluctantly stepping back, he glanced up to the top of the gate, sliding his steel capped boots from his feet and reaches down to pull off his socks, tucking them into the shoes. He sets them aside with hers and flexes bare toes on the ground before he starts climbing up the fence. He doesn't do it as quickly as she had, it's been awhile since he's climbed fences, and his bulk is bigger and heavier. There's concentration as he swings his leg over, being careful about assets, as he slides over and climbs a small way before dropping down.

He lands less gracefully on his feet, but on his feet no less, and wipes his hands on the back of his work pants before offering to take the things from her again.

[Kora] The metal gate groans and sways more deeply under his greater weight, the links pulling away from the frame as he climbs. It all holds, of course, snaps back into place when his path takes him closer to the frame. Below, she has her arms full of blankets and take-out and beer, the former thrown across her shoulder like a sash. Her dark eyes gleam pale when she looks up at him, reflecting the near-perfect disc of the moon back at him as climbs carefully over, and makes his way down to jump, at the end. His landing kicks up a little cloud of sand, the scintillating mica catching the light like confetti as it sifts back to the earth.

She was quiet throughout most of the drive, dark eyes drifting over their reflections in the car windows, keenly conscious of the presence of the full moon in the sky above them ever since they left the restaurant. She's quiet now, handing back over the blanket and take-out, the six pack when he offers, leaving him with no hands free, and her with two -

- one of which she slides into his back pocket as they start to walk down the slanting path that leads to the beach, just to feel the bunch and flex of his glutes as he walks, beside her. Because his ass is hers, and she wants to feel it move. There's that sure, quiet darkness in her eyes if he glances at her, then, the animal in her sharp under the moon. She walks quickly, and he has to hurry to keep up with her, though she seems perfectly prepared to drag him after if he begins to fall behind.

When they reach the beach proper, her pace slows. The water moves here, the light of the moon a rippling ribbon of color across the dark water, not like the ocean moves, not that heart-beat rhythm of some coastal shore, but it still laps at the constructed beach quietly, darkly. The sand is still warm, the heat of the day lingers, and their feet sink into it, toes flexing around the sand.

Kora picks a place as likely as any other, though a fair pace away from the lifeguard's tower, sheltered by a spit of land thrusting outward into the ocean, a good ten feet higher than the beach itself.

"Here - " she leans close to tell him, while his hands are full, his arms occupied, stepping neatly between his burdens and lifting her curling mouth to his. Some part of her wants to tell him that she appreciates the work he is doing for her; the kin he cares for, the hospitality he extended to night. And so on - but that part is remote on a night like this, under the full moon. "I want it here."

[Trent Brumby] The work pants he wears are the strong, thick sort, worn well enough to fit his backside and his thighs in the way that maintains that rough shape before they're washed. They're a bit dirty too, along the legs mostly, at the knees, but it blends in with the dark navy. Her hand fits into the short pocket easy, and he throws her a glance of raised brows, before looking ahead again, not quite able to keep that quirk from his mouth. She finds her ass there, indeed, firm and well worked as they walk - he picks up his stride to keep up, towards the location where she wants to settle.

But before she does, she steps in and he splays his arms out a little to give her more room, offering more of his chest, to meet the kiss. "Here it is," he confirms after, letting his pale grays drift over her features, down to her mouth and back up along her nose to her gaze.

Stepping back, he sets down the bags first, neatly out of the way before grabbing the blanket and spreading it out. He makes sure all the corners are laying out flat, and that its smooth enough over the sand. Of course he gestures her on there first while he's grabbing food to give to her and beer as well. Only after does he settle down, leaving her plenty of room, and reclining on his side, weight distributed from leaning on his elbow down his ribs, hip and leg.

He waits for her to settle and begin eating before he opens up his lamb souvlaki, his gaze flicking up now and again to watch her as he peels back the paper to expose the food. "So I've been meaning to ask you," he says in a low voice, "and there's no real way to ask it other then to say it out right. I'm just hoping you won't bite my head off tonight." Full Moon, aware.

[Kora] The kiss lingers, barely open-mouthed as he opens his arms to her. He can feel the heat of her skin, sense the tension underneath, this fine, threaded sort of tension that lives in her spine and her narrow shoulders, in the curving flexion of her quadriceps and calf muscles as she rises to the balls of her feet to meet his mouth, and then again, as she lingers, as she breaks away.

There's a breeze here. That much makes the lakeshore like the ocean - it sweeps from the vast, flat openness of the lake's dark waters, the scent of water in the air, faint and sure and humid. The elevation change from beach to park is enough that all but the tallest of the city's buildings are hidden by the slope and the retaining walls, by the trees the city has planted above, lining the jogging paths that wind through the parks.

Her eyes are on his as she breaks again, dark against pale. Then he's spreading the blanket for their take-out picnic, and she settles down, cross-legged while he reclines at her side, peeling back the lid of her avgodolemono soup. There's still steam, this bright, lemon scent against the savory undergirding of homemade-chicken stock. Never mind that it is in the mid-80s, she drinks it savoringly as he opens his souvlaki. Her bare feet and tucked underneath her knees, and she's sitting forward, just curving, the articulations of her spine visible against her t-shirt.

When he says so, she turns to look down at him. Her eyes are hooded in that moment, a trick of elevation, and dark, and the chopsticks she's using tonight in lieu of hair bands are slowly losing their grip on her hair. She was about to offer him a sip of her soup. "Yeah?" The combination of so I've been meaning to - and bite my head off spark a certain animal wariness so briefly in her gaze, reflected in her shoulders and frame as she stills.

Then moves again, reaching out across the space between them to push her long fingers through his dark curls, rub the edge of her thumb against his temple with this sort of aching delicacy, defined by restraint. "I'm not going to bite your head off," she tells him, confident.

She hopes.

[Trent Brumby] Not yet eating any of the food, but creating a pile of ripped paper and foil from the roll, into one of the carry bags, he watches her as she stills and reaches towards him. He doesn't flinch, doesn't even tense up, but his head tilts when her fingers slide into his black curls, making his eyes drift part way closed and momentarily distracts him from his conversation. His blink is slow as he enjoys the feel of her fingers in his hair, thumb rubbing his temple.

Refocusing he draws in a slow breath, blinking his eyes wider open to look at her. "I've noticed over the last few days, since you've returned, your want for certain foods." It's subtle this little remark, and there's some hesitation as he navigates this territory - women and food are rarely a good combination to speak about in the same sentence. "I might be jumping the gun," or hoping too much, "but, is it possible that you're pregnant?"

There's a slight swallow in his throat as he asks this, gaze locked onto her features to catch any change in them, even as he picks some salad from the top of the souvlaki where it's threatening to fall out, and bring it to his mouth to chew slowly.

[Kora] There is a moment after his first remark, the shading subtlety of it, where she goes starkly, utterly still. There are animal analogies for it; that stillness - body, mind, breath - is far from human. He's navigating unfamiliar territory, and she's still tense, her short, blunt nails cutting half-moons into the styrofoam container of avgodolemono soup. Kora has enough presence of mind to turn and set the soup container down beside her, nestle it into the still warm sand, and press the lid back into the contain so it doesn't accumulate grit.

He finds his path into the question. Kora's soup-less now, her souvlaki still unopened, her hands on her knees, her features in profile to him, the curve of her mouth still, the line of her jaw dominant, the hollow between her ear and her jaw a dark pool of shadow.

"I don't - " Her brow creases; the tension is visible in her trapezius muscles, the way they pull her scapulae against the thin fabric of her old t-shirt. She looks like she's thinking, like she's concentrating on thinking, and her brow creases, her pale eyebrows drawing down over her dark eyes. "I don't -

"I don't - " except the equation isn't one she can complete, not while she's looking away from him, looking out over the dark junction of water and land. And so she looks back at him, this sort of darting alarm lilting over her features before they settle back into that sure, puzzled look, as if she were searching for the last two words in the Sunday crossword. Except that her eyes are stark and direct when they find his.

"I don't know."

[Trent Brumby] There's things in her that make him wary in turn, and he can't quite figure out what it is about her in these moments that have him alarmed. But it's enough to finish the lettuce in his mouth and set his souvlaki by the bag so if anything spills out of the rolled bread its caught by the bag rather then spread over the blanket. His lip is licked and cleaned off, and he waits until she's looking back at him before he reaches out towards her.

His hand slides across her thigh, down to where her hand is curled around her knee and seeks to find her fingers to link with his. He draws it over, leaning up to kiss the back of her hand. "It's okay Kora." His voice is steady and quiet. "I didn't mean to alarm you, I just..." This wasn't what he was expecting, this look on her face, like she's ready to run a mile away, and he might not say it, but his heart is thudding and his throat feels uncomfortable with the idea that she just might. That she doesn't want to have a child despite them having saying at some point they would.

In short, he doesn't know what to think. But he does know he doesn't want her to flip out. His thumb brushes the back of her hand as he wills his own heart rate to calm the hell down and his face to smooth out and keep neutral. "It's fine, Kora. You can eat whatever you want, you know that, right?" Bringing it back to something it's not. He scrambles to grab some control of the situation before the hole digs deeper.

[Kora] He swallows his bite hastily and puts his meal just out of reach; then he reaches for her, sliding his hand along her thigh. If he were an animal, she would be able to smell the change in his body chemistry, the sharp tinge of alarm brighter than the rest of the tangle underneath. He's not an animal, though. He's a man, his scent so familiar she could drink it in her sleep a thousand miles and more away, across land and sea and the great fastness of the spiritual world. There's the cologne in the fibers of his t-shirt, recently re-applied to drive away some of the scent of his long day, his sweat dried on his skin, mingled with hints of grease, of oil.

There are other scents around her, the hint of bleach in her hair from her long day's work, the memory of sun on her skin, chicken and lemon from the soup, car exhaust and the promise of rain on the horizon.

He kisses the back of her hand, and she turns her hand over, the gesture on auto-pilot, cupping her palm to watch the weight of his mouth against her skin.
This confused riot of emotion churns in her body, in her stomach, in the pit of her esophagus, just where the sternum ends. The admixture of startlement, fear, this sort of - underlying something else that is both fierce of indefineable is adulterated by her rage, and made all the more volatile for it. Her rage is a bright, sure thing - like polished brass - underneath her skin, and Trent can feel the heat of it in her thigh, in her hands as strokes her skin, striving to soothe her.

Abruptly, she uncurls her legs, plants her bare feet on the blanket, her knees crooked, and throws herself backward, landing on the blanket, in the cushioning sand except for a few strands of her loosened hair. Flat on her back, looking up at the moon and stars, she barks out a sharp laugh as assures her that she can eat whatever she wants.

Her feet find his, at the other end of the blanket, and her hands find her shoulders, then her breasts. Her eyes are closed now, so he cannot see the start, fleeting look, but he can feel her tension in the aggressive way her toes dig at his, of all things.

"Why do you think I'm pregnant?"

[Trent Brumby] He swallows his bite hastily and puts his meal just out of reach; then he reaches for her, sliding his hand along her thigh. If he were an animal, she would be able to smell the change in his body chemistry, the sharp tinge of alarm brighter than the rest of the tangle underneath. He's not an animal, though. He's a man, his scent so familiar she could drink it in her sleep a thousand miles and more away, across land and sea and the great fastness of the spiritual world. There's the cologne in the fibers of his t-shirt, recently re-applied to drive away some of the scent of his long day, his sweat dried on his skin, mingled with hints of grease, of oil.

There are other scents around her, the hint of bleach in her hair from her long day's work, the memory of sun on her skin, chicken and lemon from the soup, car exhaust and the promise of rain on the horizon.

He kisses the back of her hand, and she turns her hand over, the gesture on auto-pilot, cupping her palm to watch the weight of his mouth against her skin.
This confused riot of emotion churns in her body, in her stomach, in the pit of her esophagus, just where the sternum ends. The admixture of startlement, fear, this sort of - underlying something else that is both fierce of indefineable is adulterated by her rage, and made all the more volatile for it. Her rage is a bright, sure thing - like polished brass - underneath her skin, and Trent can feel the heat of it in her thigh, in her hands as strokes her skin, striving to soothe her.

Abruptly, she uncurls her legs, plants her bare feet on the blanket, her knees crooked, and throws herself backward, landing on the blanket, in the cushioning sand except for a few strands of her loosened hair. Flat on her back, looking up at the moon and stars, she barks out a sharp laugh as assures her that she can eat whatever she wants.

Her feet find his, at the other end of the blanket, and her hands find her shoulders, then her breasts. Her eyes are closed now, so he cannot see the start, fleeting look, but he can feel her tension in the aggressive way her toes dig at his, of all things.

"Why do you think I'm pregnant?"

[Trent Brumby] Drawing his hand back from her when she moves up to her feet, he lets it lay on the blanket between them. Despite working all day and not yet having eaten since lunch, and his stomach is growling at him for the food that he had began to nibble, he leaves his souvlaki to the side and watches his mate with a worried frown instead.

His feet are there for her to abuse, and he flexes his toes a little, giving her something to work against, to scratch at him with her toenails or trap his feet as she would. Watching her close her eyes and close off to herself, withdraw from him, he decides he'd much prefer her biting at him instead of this. With that in mind he shifts from where he is, coming closer to her and trapping a leg over both of hers, tucking her in against the hard line of his thigh, the other leg presses in a long line along side hers and he fits against her hip.

She can feel him hovering there, at her side and slightly over her, looking down into her face. "It was the milk the other morning, you drank it all instead of beer. And you're asking for particular flavours." Reaching up, he grips one of her wrists gently and uncurls them from where she's holding them, lifting her hand so that he can brush her jaw along it. The steadiness of pale grays stay on her face.

"It could be nothing. Either way, I'm sorry to worry you." Realizing that, perhaps, this isn't what she wanted after all. At least not so quickly. "If it's not something you want, Kora. I'll pick up some condoms before we head home."

[Kora] He's closer now. Though her eyes are closed, she can feel his body heat, the solid muscle of his thigh over her own, the hard line of his body fitted against the curves of her own, her hip, her thigh. Some deep, primal part responds to his forwardness. Her quadriceps bunch and flex underneath his trapped thigh. She wants to push him off. She wants him to push back, and so on, until she wins - by sheer dint of her strength, her perserverance. Then he'll show her his throat, and she'll -

- eyes still closed, Kora takes in a deep breath through her nostrils. He is close enough to her now that his scent predominates, his sweat, his long day's work, sharpened by his concern. He grips her wrist gently, finds the taut line of her flexor tendons standing out against the delicate jointure of her wrist, peels her hands away from her body to brush them alongside her jaw. There's some band of muscle standing out here, flexing underneath her skin.

He explains himself, his suspicions, and then he apologizes. I'm sorry to worry you. Her nostrils flare, and she twists her wrists, easily breaking the gentle circle of his grip, dark eyes opening at last, the reflected moonlight arcing across the discs like some electric charge.

"No." She tells him, sharply, firmly. Reaching for and grasping his face, her thumb and index fingers splayed across scruff on his cheeks, the rest of her hand a firm line underneath his jaw, close to the beat of his pulse. God only knows what she means. I'm sorry to worry you. and Maybe it's nothing he tells her. I'll pick up condoms - "I told you. It would be honorless to - to - claim you from your tribe, to hold you as my own and to - fuck.." The curse is a sharpened exclamation; there's this spark inside her that he even suggested condoms, no matter how well-intentioned his suggestion. "Baby don't even say that. You're my mate. We're not using fucking condoms. Gods. I just didn't think - I hadn't - "

Her grip on him changes; she pushes her fingers across his mouth, then. That frisson of anger is still a hot point of light inside her. "I'm just counting. And I don't know. Do they even have organic - " note that she does not say the word, " - tests? Can we even still have sex?"

[Trent Brumby] She grabs his face, firm enough to dent his cheeks in and to feel the hardness of bone in his jaw. Before she even barks her single first word, she's already got his attention. There's this sharpness in his gaze, that locks onto hers. While he doesn't mean for it to be dominant, and it's really not, with the way he has let go of her and stays utterly still, there's a sure build of fire in those grays. It doesn't help that she says fuck and he's thinking of the physical kind, and goes on to adamantly declare that they're not using condoms - which, by the feel of it against her thigh and hip, he's approving of.

When her fingers brush across his mouth he parts them in a soft breath, and she's seen that look before. It has to be frustrating on some level, that she's worried and getting angry, and he's laying there in the beginnings of arousal, quite thoroughly turned on by the way she manhandles him. He really can't help it, though he's trying to. She can see that, too, the way her latter words bring him out of the moment and has his tongue wetting his dry mouth, and he swallows to try and find appropriate words.

"There's tests. Really simple ones," he tells her, maintaining some calm. "I can pick them up from the store. Nothing invasive, you would just need to urinate on a stick and it picks up the hormone levels which changes when a woman is pregnant." Trent is thankful for his background, in both education, profession and Tribe. It really helps him here.

But the last really has him pause and he swallows again, nostrils flaring as he glances quickly over her face. He manages to swallow a smile, even blink it out of his eyes before it gets there, but they're shining anyway, because he's thinking about fucking again. "Yes, we can still have sex, all the way up until the birth."

"Then you get a break for six weeks. Well, maybe less. I'm not sure how long it takes a Garou to recover." Which is blunt and honest as he gets.

[Kora] "Oh gods," she tells him, "I knew that. Not about the sex, I mean. I can heal a gunshot in ten minutes, but - I don't know what - I mean. I knew about the other things. The - " pause, and if he's looking at her, even in the silvered light of the full moon he can see the flush beneath her skin, the opened blood vessels, want or embarrassment or the two twinned together, that sure, sudden flush of blood under her skin, " - tests, you know? I knew that, I mean, I remember that. The fucking ads on television. Like a pen that turns pink or fucking blue, and there's gauze or something. Maybe a beach? Or that's - " something else. Feminine hygiene products, though thankfully she swallows that thought before she blurts it out. He is so utterly calm in the face of her sputtering, stream-of-consciousness, so precise, so blunt and honest.

" - we can have sex that long?" That part surprises her, stills her maybe. She never imagines that she'll live another six months, let alone nine. It's strange, to write yourself into the future, the way she writes the dead back into their shared past.

And she's got this strange, hot feeling inside her, the anger she struggles with under the moon, that he'd even suggest something she feels to be dishonorable in an absolutely visceral way, that some part of her is afraid of this - her knowledge of her own fear worse, somehow, than the fear itself. She's a daughter of Fenris after all. It's her job to be fearless.

He's aroused. She can feel it against her hip and thigh, can smell his arousal on his skin, the way it deepens his scent and sharpens the light in his eyes. The moon is full and there's this animal part of her that wants precisely two things underneath a great fat moon like that, lush, bright and pregnant in the sky, no shadows left, heavy with reflected like - a good fight, or a good fuck. The signs of her responsiveness are rather more subtle. Her pulse is visible in her throat, and her knees part, just, her toes curl over his bare feet, sand between them still warm from the day.

She's startled out of that ramble when her want sparks against his. Where she feels it: flint and steel. Then her grip tightens on his jaw again and she reaches up to curl her fingers through his short dark hair and pull him down to her mouth. "Pick one up tomorrow, yeah?"

[Trent Brumby] He listens through her ramble and doesn't interrupt. There's plenty of things he could tell her and advice to give, or try and soothe this uncertainty or fear, or whatever it is she's going through - these things he can't really tell, only that something is bothering her enough to make her flustered and unhappy. But he listens and watches her, his body still around her, and some of his weight seems to have folded back in on himself, as if to give her more room to breathe and to feel less trapped even though he hadn't actually left her side or removed his leg.

"Yes we can," he confirms, always answering a question. This time he doesn't offer anymore information on it, letting her come around to questions on her own accord. He doesn't want to push her any further or make her more upset.

But he needn't worry about that. She grips him again, and pulls his head forward with hand on his jaw and another in his hair. He makes a sound in his throat, surprised mixed with plenty of Oh god, yes. He could say a lot with those groans, or gasps, and grunts. In some ways he can speak her language like that, and that's the only time, some primal sounds that need no words. "Yes ma'am," he manages to breathe out, mouth open and eyes half hooded, watching her, and waiting until she kisses him and not demanding the other way around.

[Kora] There is one very specific question she wants to ask him; one very specific question she's afraid to ask him. It remains subconscious, just now, buried by the wordless, nameless fears he sees but cannot interpret, nearly deliberately. She swallows the thought whenever it rises in the back of her mind and the back of her throat, finds her way through it to concrete things - like organic pregnancy tests, or whether her gods damned sex life is going to be interrupted by the inconvenient center of being the female half of a mated pair.

The moon's full, he's lingering over her, his weight shifted, those sounds in the back of his throat. Her hands are in his hair, splayed across his cheek and jaw. She can feel the vibrations of his voice box as he groans for her, under his breath. She can feel the deeper vibrations, rumbling basso through his chest, those deeper tones that she - even with her deep, rich alto - could never hope to reproduce in this human skin she wears.

No matter the hopes and fears of her human mind, the animal underneath always wants him. Because he is strong, and because he is fertile, because she can smell his virility in the richness of his blood underneath his skin. Feel it against her body, now - edged by his arousal. Sex and all its pleasures are inextricably knotted together with that animal drive, which sparks and deepens somehow, the surface turmoil, all that frustration and confusion of her human mind.

He's waiting for her, and she pulls him down and kisses him so gently that at first it seems a farce. The moon's full and he can feel her rage, which is a bright, hot answer to the light in the sky, to luna's impressive gravity, heavy enough that she pulls the tides in her wake. The moon's full and she's kissing him as if he were made of some fragile porcelain, delicately formed and fired and glazed. It is so chaste, so fucking gentle it practically hurts -

- underneath she's still, her muscles bunched, haloing movement, promising some vibrant arc of sudden motion. Her fingers are warm against his jaw, tight in his hair, but she's not moving except to tilt back her chin as she reaches for his mouth.

Just one more sound. One more sound from his fucking mouth and she'll move like the predator she is.

"One more sound," she tells him; her voice so quiet he has to strain to hear it. He has to feel it against his mouth. "C'mon, baby. One more."

[Trent Brumby] She's toying with him, and he likes it. It's not that he asks for her to do so, or even maneuvers himself so that he will be in a position like this. He wants nothing more then to kiss her and crawl between her legs, tear off her top and mark her with his teeth. He has all that, always had, it's right there under the surface and she's seen it a few times before. But he has some serious discipline in him, some sort of switch that needs permission before he can go that route, and without her giving that, he'll contain it and do nothing but thrum with tension and ache until she gives it - even if he has to wait until he's cooked dinner, cleaned up, showered her, before that comes.

Now, it's just a promise, right there. She asks for a noise, but he's already given one, a small pant of breath. His weight shifts just enough to press more into his leaning arm, leveraging himself up a little more, pulling on the roots of his hair, slowly, but enough to feel it, and almost steal his kiss himself. His work pants are uncomfortable now. Blood infuses his body, heating up his skin and making his heart thud quicker, harder.

Breath inhales through his teeth, as he opens his eyes, straining in her grip, just enough to make her dig fingers in harder. He looks down at her, eyes are steel, glinting now. She's been gone for awhile and he's got plenty to make up. It makes that look a little harder, demanding, utterly masculine. She can almost see the things he wants to do reflected there, and none of them really has anything to do with asking her permission for anything.

One more tilt of his head has another sound rise up his throat, this one laced with more. More want, more need, more now. "Please."

[Kora] He says please, and her mouth parts underneath his. There's a flash of white beneath her generous mouth - her teeth, her human teeth dull compared to all of her animal selves, but sharp enough to draw blood. - and it's one of those expressions that is either a smile of anticipation or a grin of feral warning.

Or both, braided together until the thread of one is indisguishable from that of the other.

The steel in his eyes sends this electric charge up and down his spine. These flashes of underlying masculine strength in him coil through her body, and the smile/threat/warning deepens as he shifts close enough that he might steal the kiss he wants rather than have her bestow it on him. There's some perverse little kernal inside her that wants to say: no, just now, not to see how prettily he'll plead, but to see how hard he will strain against the invisible leash of his impressive discipline. To see if it will just snap, once and for all.

Except - he says, please and his weeks have been her months, timelessly lost in the umbra admist the raucous hoardes of Fenris' great brood in the far trackless wastes of some imagined north, and now they're alone and under the sky and the moon is full and she's deeply, abidingly hungry for him, for his mouth and his body, for way she can lose herself in the physical, bury all her hopes and her fears underneath his skin and just fuck him already. - and so, there's that, that glint of would-be denial in her eyes, that animal spark in her rising to the challenge of the steel in his.

She lifts her chin, her head to meet his mouth, her hair uncoiling from the sand, she tugs back once, sharply on his hair, reminding him of her strength, and chases his mouth, after. "C'mon baby - " she says, a split second before she kisses him, one of those deep, seeking kisses. Her voice is burred with want, and pointed, goading. "I want you in me so fucking bad it hurts."

[Trent Brumby] Another groan when she pulls his hair, made worse by the way he can read that denial in her eyes, and he's not sure which way that it's going to fold, or how much she's going to make him work for it. He can feel her as surely as she can he, strained and hot, ready and waiting. But he doesn't have to wait long, she's not a cruel mistress at all.

Surprisingly, he does work against her hold on him. He creates that pain that shoots through his scalp, aches in his neck, as he shifts to grab her, rolling back and pulls her with him. They can struggle, his grip isn't perfect and he's not wrestling her. But he seeks to get her on top of him, with the back of his hair narrowly missing his souvlaki resting on the blanket. All the while she has control of his head, limiting his movement, watching the flash of his teeth as he bares them with a hiss of self inflicted motions.

He's reaching then, to do exactly what he wanted to do, and peel her shirt off, pulling the back up over her spine to yank it free. All the while he balances with taut muscles under his t.shirt coiled and straining to hold them both into place.

[Imogen Slaughter] Late night. Not many people about.

Imogen moves along the pathways, her body silhouetted by the lamplight above as she passes through the pools of illumination, then shaded as she steps into the shadow. She moves without hesitation or discomfort of her surroundings - as a woman might under these circumstances. Late night, isolated pathways, empty, shrouded park. The kind of place that should require a quick step and furtive glances.

The kind of place that, in a horror movie would end in Imogen's certain death.

She walks through this the way she'd walk through it on a summer day: alert, but unafraid; or perhaps merely brave. It's impossible to tell anymore. There is no one left to whom she'd admit fear.

And maybe she has none anymore.

Whatever: Dark night, slender woman walking along the pathway. The Garou are at the railing over the water. She sees the blonde of Kora's hair, the darkness of Thoth's skin. Both familiar, one more than the other. She moves their way.

[Thoth Massri] Thoth raises a brow now, perhaps the first real reaction in his face since they had begun to talk, and he shook his head slowly from side to side, the look on his face was of slight ever so slight annoyance but in the end there is the slimmest of smiles that cross his face.

"Is the sky and the land not calm and quiet before twisters arrival, before destruction...death and rebirth?" He asks of her as he stands there. "Twister is many things, and capable of much, it is...a shame, that few see it for what it truly is."

Another body approached, another...woman to be precise and Thoth's gaze briefly turned to regard her, he remembered her...but from where?

[Kora] Two wolves, one kinswoman, whose breeding is so sharp it flavors the air around her. There are old stories inside Kora, dimly remembered, and then only when she is haunted by her ancestors, by the living past that too-often inhabits her body - overlaying the present, this startling sense that there is something just beyond the reach of her conscious mind that she can almost touch in the living memory that is Imogen's blood. Thoth will hear the way the Skald draws in a brief, sharp breath through her nostrils, before she lifts a hand to Imogen from a distance.

No matter the horror movie setting, the depth of the shadows, the loneliness of the path, the silence fall of Imogen's steps on the decomposed granite walkway, her blood calls across the distance, and Kora identifies her with that first winging glance. "I've never been in a tornado," the Skald replies, quiet sensibly, that half-smile still on her mouth. "So I don't have personal knowledge," she continues, with a neat, faint shrug of her narrow shoulders. "but since you follow the whirlwind rather than the land, I don't know. I'd expert more -

" - whirl, yeah?" There's a rustle in the trees, the breeze from the lake dropping lower. Low enough that the underbrush, the brambles, the vines, the dogwood and floribunda roses shiver in the beeze. Kora glances at the foliage, then looks back at Imogen. "You know the doc?"

(Everyone can roll perception + alertness!)

[Imogen Slaughter] (perception+alertness)
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Kora] Kora: Per + Alertness
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Thoth Massri] [Per+Alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] The wind is not low enough to hit the underbrush. There's a specific area that's moving, and just that area moves.
to Imogen Slaughter, Thoth Massri

[Kora] Thoth catches an animal scent in the air.
to Thoth Massri

[Kora] Imogen hears something low - from behind the underbrush. A low growl, something like it.
to Imogen Slaughter

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen glances briefly at Thoth, answering for him. "We've met - " though her sentence was complete, the final word cuts off a little more abruptly than perhaps it should have.

The doctor's head turns toward the underbrush, a line forming between her eyebrows.

"Are either of you expecting a friend?" she enquires, her voice deceptively mild and low. "Perhaps of the animal nature?"

[Thoth Massri] "It has been sometime since we had last met." Thoth says as he watches both woman, but then his eyes turn and catch on the underbrush watching it move, listening to Imogen talk before the man shook his massive head.

"I am not." He comments as he turns towards the disturbance fully and steps towards it, his fists closing as he did so. "Kora?" He enquires with just her name, a brief look in her direction before he returns his gaze to the underbrush, his eyes narrowing as he did so.

[Kora] "Do you see that?" Kora says, quietly to Thoth. She lifts her chin, in a slow rising look toward Imogen, her dark eyes steady distance, then tips her head toward the thicket at the base of a great, spreading oak tree. This is a public park, so those little signs Thoth and Imogen pick up could simply be - part of that, movement in the park, someone walking a dog late at night. Her voice is low, controlled. She shakes her head once, sharply to Imogen' question, then holds out her index finger, her middle finger, then, after a pause, her ring finger, counting out one, two, then the pause, maybe three.

"Get ready." The Skald warns them, very, very quietly.

[ -1 WP, Resist Pain!]

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's mouth draws tight - it's a sharp, sudden expression that then fades merely as she nods in Kora's direction.

Her hand lifts, sliding beneath her black blazer. The snap of the gun holster's restraint is barely audible, the weapon large and improbably in her hand as she slides it out. She moves backward and away from the Garou, keeping her line of fire on the bush clear.

Her gaze flicks over their surroundings as they move, a quick appraisal for humans; for unwanted witnesses.

[Thoth Massri] "Fight us...and die." Those words were instructional it seemed, it certainly sounded like it. Thoth seemed to have no illusions as to what was about to happen, he was simply illustrating the quickest and most efficient way that this...thing could get through the next few moments.

His eyes never leave the bush, he waits there, prepared to catch or perhaps to simply annihalate that which appears...the calm before the storm indeed.

[Kora] There's a low bark, then an answering bark - deeper. The parks are doglike and meaningless to the Garou. Underneath the second bark, a low snarl that starts as a rumble of warning and turns into something rather more vicious, liquid underneath. The sound of the last half-second before a dogfight erupts, the rustling of the leaves and behind it, the snap of a leash. The sharpest ears among them might hear someone ordering, rather frantically plotz. plotz. one (?) of the dogs about to fight, but then there's a break and a crash, and a great beast of mutt leaps out from the thicket -

- with two heads, and a huge spiked collar surrounding its massive neck, a leather leash trailing behind it. The two-headed dog is shorthaired, with a mottled coat and the big, pugnacious build of a pitt bull. Except that it exceeds a pit bull's size by a good two or three hundred pounds, not quite a match for a Garou in hispo in terms of size, but close. One of the heads has the snarling snap of a rottweiler's mouth, its ears turned forward, slavor swinging from its maw as it charges toward the trio. The second head has the curl coat of a standard poddle, though its mouth is pulled back from its sharp teeth, a vicious growl rumbling in its chest.

A half-second later, the owner plunges through the thicket after the two-headed dog, lunging for the leash. His head is hidden by a black cowl, but his hands have elongated, thickened nails, with the fingers fused together in two groups of two.

Imogen sees no humans in the immediate vicinity. The closest are a good walk away at the Millennium Fountain.

[Imogen Slaughter] (+9)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Kora] in homid, Kora, +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Thoth Massri] [in Homid +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Kora] Cerberus, Jr. +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Kora] Charon! +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Kora] ze order is:

Imogen 19
Cerberus, Jr. 14
Charon 12
Thoth 9
Kora: 8

[Kora] Kora: [Rageshift to hispo!] 1a. BITE 1b. BITE; Rage 1: BITE, Rage 2: BITE. Starting with Cerberus, Jr. Moving to Charon.

[Thoth Massri] [Rageshift to Chrinos] 1a: Claw Cerb, 1b Claw Cerb, Rage 1 Claw Cerb.

[Kora] Charon: 1. Molt!

Cerberus, Jr. - Poodle: 1. BITE Thoth. Rage 1: BITE Thoth.

Pit Bull: 1. BITE Kora. Rage 1. BITE Kora.

[Imogen Slaughter] Split action:
1. 3rb Charon
2. SHOOT Charon

[Imogen Slaughter] Three round burst
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Imogen Slaughter] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Charon - soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Imogen Slaughter] Shoot!
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Imogen Slaughter] Damage!
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Kora] Imogen shoots the 'owner' of the dogs, who plunged through the underbrush chasing after the leash on which they were kept. Both rounds connect, the first going through and through his shoulder, the second hitting him in the gut. He staggers back, reeling, blood slick on his hands, his eyes glazed, stunned. His skin was already turning liquid, moving like ripples of water down a beaded line - but that is all he does, staggering backward, coughing up blood, struggling to remain concious and standing.

[Kora] Poodle! Biting Thoth
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kora] Rottie, biting Kora!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Kora] damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] Claw! [Dex+Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Damage!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Kora] Cerberus: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Claw 2!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] Kora: 1a. BITE!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kora] Cerberus: soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] 1b. BITE:
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Poodle: bite thoth!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kora] Rottie: bite kora!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] Claw!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] Rage 1: Kora
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 5)

[Kora] Rage 2: Kora!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Cerberus +4
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Thoth Massri] [Init +6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Imogen Slaughter] (+9!)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Kora] Charon +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Kora] Kora: +9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Kora] Kora: 19
Charon: 16
Thoth: 15
Imogen: 14
Cerberus: 8

[Kora] Cerberus: 1. Poodle: Bite thoth! Rage 1: Bite thoth!

2. Rottie: Firebreath! Rage 1. Bite Kora!

[Imogen Slaughter] 1. 3rb
2. Shoot!
Target: Charon

[Thoth Massri] [Declare 1a Claw, 1b Claw, 1c Claw, Rage 1 Claw [starting with cerberus moving to Charon]

[Kora] Charon: 1a. Enshadow! 1b. Run run run run run away!

[Kora] Kora: 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. Rage 1: BITE. Cerberus, then Charon.

[Kora] 1a. BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] 1b. BITE
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kora] Charon: enshadow!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Claw]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] [Claw]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Thoth Massri] Claw
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] x.x

[Imogen Slaughter] I SEEEEEE YOOOOOOOOOU
(I hope)

HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Imogen Slaughter] Three round burst!
HAIL KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 7) Re-rolls: 2

[Imogen Slaughter] Damage!
HAIL ALMIGHTY KAHSEENO!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 6 (Failure at target 8)

[Kora] x.x

[Kora] The massive, two-headed dog falls first. The beast is already wounded sorely - enough to lay out even a Garou flat on his back - but still furious, mindless, slavering, the pooble and rottweiler heads working together only because they are fused together, the two brains strengthening the massive, muscled body beneath. Sorrow tears it open; and then at last the Strider ends the thing, popping an eye and tearing the poodle's head half away from the falling corpse.

The broken man, with his fused fingers and his faintly bubbling skin, pulls shadows around him to obscure his position and then turns to run back through the brush. Imogen remembers when he started, though, and levels her weapon at the shadows, aiming through the darkness - and hears the satisfying crash of a body through the brush as he falls, the shadows peeling back from his body when he dies.

In the end, only the Fenrir is wounded, a hunk of flesh torn away from her shoulder, though she cannot feel the wound through the curtain of the gift which keeps the pain at bay.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen lowers her gun and turns her head to look about herself, about them, their surroundings. Her gunfire has an advantage - several, in fact, but it's one main disadvantage is noise. Gunshots in Grant Park.

Again.

She really should stop coming to the park, one of these days.

The tendon in her jaw shifts and tightens, then releases as she brings herself back to reality: that there are three very strange bodies in the middle of the park of which they need to dispose.

She holsters her gun and sets to work.

[Kora] The hispo Garou plunges through the undergrowth searching for other scents, other enemies, other ambushes. The others can hear her circling through the copse of trees as she noses through the brush, returning when she is satisfied that nothing else remains hidden amidst the leaves and trees.

When she returns - human skinned now, a young woman instead of a monster, the wound hidden by her t-shirt, the blood essentially invisible in the darkness, where it soaks the black fabric. - she wipes off her hands on the hem of her t-shirt, and joins Imogen in the bloody, unpleasant work. No smalltalk, not now - and no evidence of that injury when she moves for some time yet. Even when the pain returns, she will grit her teeth and continue, working quietly, quickly, until the grosteque work is finished.

[Roman Turner] "Ya should of seen it. This nut case used spiders for his spies. Kind of ingenious when ya think about him as the spider and the webbing his telegraph. But he was also making Frankenstein's monster meets the transformers or something."

He moved forward to open the door for the ladies.

[Alexa Thanos] Alex raised an eyebrow at Roman when he came over to where she was standing, but she stepped out of his way so that he could be the gentlemen and open the door for the lot of them. Under different circumstances she might have been bemused. She waits for others to head in before she follows through. It's not pleasant inside, but it's a lot better then when they first had walked in.

[The Truth] The insides itself resembled a strange amalgamation of chop shop, hospital, and slaughter house. Save for the fact that no effort had been made to sterilize, or properly store the decaying flesh tossed about like it was useless trash. The entire operation would appear crude though Imogen, being a doctor herself, might pick up on the precision with which the one behind the entire thing worked. He seemed unbothered by the lack of sanitation, not because he was unsanitary but because the decay served as bait. It called to and lured the creatures who, to this day, still lurk beyond the horizon casting a thin haze of rage over the area.

The strange machine things that were being constructed were not the sterile weaver creations one might expect. Just as the wyrm uses the power of rage and the kiss of the wyld to weasel its way into the minds of the Garou so too can the Wyrm manage to take the intentions and desires of creative humans and twist them to its own end. There is no doubt at the sight of decaying corpses, and half constructed mechanical abominations that this was one such instance.

Cleansing the place is more than just a matter of a simple ritual... This entire operation will need to be dismantled and covered up. That would take effort on its own...

Still none of this matter would give answers. Perhaps it was best no one be given a glimpse into the mind of a monster. Perhaps it would be best to simply burn the place to the ground and forget about it. Still this operation was surprisingly well hidden and seemed to serve some kind of function.

For those brave enough to seek answers there were possibilities. Three separate computers were networked together. Three separate computers loaded with all manner of interesting data. Tucked away in the office... No doubt their owner had not intended them to fall into the hands of anyone. Unfortunately his plans didn't work out as he had intended did they?

[Alexa Thanos] [I think that the garou have been here doing clean up since it all went down Nick. Like, I'm sure that there's not decaying bodies lying around anymore, at the very least.]

[Sorrow] So: the four of them outside the only doors to the warehouse that were not bricked over or welded shut or otherwise firmly sealed. Kora pulls open the door. There are lights inside, those battery powered camping lanterns, just a handful if the electricity is not on, and against the chance that it might, at any time, go out if the power grid still words. The first long hall is filled with the freezers that were both prison and tomb to most of them men who died to make the corrupted doctor's super soldiers.

"We've gotten all these cleaned out," Kora says, grabbing the lantern just inside the door. The smell of bleach and oher strong chemicals is sharp, here. "We've been bleaching to get rid of the blood, and have cleaned up, cleansed, and burned most of the bodies we found here. There are a bunch of computers in the office, too. I know we can't just throw those away."

[Imogen Slaughter] "Magnetize them," Imogen says. "Strong magnets on the harddrives and the motherboards t'wipe any potential data."

Her nostrils pinch slightly at the burn of cleaning solvents in the air as she steps through the doorway, her gaze moving over the long hallway of freezers. She is silent, taking in the scope of them.

"Though," she says mildly. "You may want to check them for his suppliers first. And his source o' income. This," a movement of her hand, gesturing at everything. "Does not come cheap. I find it hard to believe tha' someone financed it privately."

[Roman Turner] "Ya might find his schematics and plans. Maybe even his Dear Diary notes on them computers."

He didn't like this place and found himself constantly knocking spider webs down.

[Sorrow] "I can transfer iTunes to an iPod. I can send an e-mail or an instant message, if you let me near a computer, doc," a sidelong glance at the doctor as they continue down the long hallway, the stench of the cleaning producs makes a grotesque admixture of old blood and the sharper scent of bleach applied with a liberal hand.

" - but I haven't touched one in what - four years? Maybe five. I'm not going to get much of anything from his computer. I'd like to know, too, though, who was helping him snatch those patients, you know? Someone had to find him folks who didnt have much in th way of family, or whose families wouldn't really notice that they were missing." She glances at Roman as he suggests that they might find his Dear Diary notes. She gives him this twist of her mouth, edging toward a smirk, made sharper by their surroundings, by the brutal work of the clean-up.

"Maybe you know someone who could pull that info from the machines before we destroy the data?"

[Alexa Thanos] [dont wait on me, fixing lunch for kids.]
to Imogen Slaughter, Roman Turner, Sorrow, The Truth

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's mouth twists slightly, though it's not a smirk, something more like a grimace.

"I can try," a brief glance, wry, in Kora's direction. "I know a bit more than instant messaging and email."

[Roman Turner] "Glasswalker could. Me, I'm, good ole home schooled. I can tell ya the right crop to put in and when to rotate them. Work on a combine and I can buck hay till the sun goes down, but computers are a curse. Ma says ain't got nothing but them poor naked girls on them. And them girls lost their way, that's why they are on there with all the bomb makers looking at them little parts God didn't mean to be shared with more than one person at a time."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's glance to Roman is sharp, her mouth twisting - and this time, it is a smirk, barely suppressed.

"The naked girls are with the bomb-makers, are they? That seems like an unwise distraction when dealin' with bombs."

[Roman Turner] "No, no, they might be the bomb, but they ain't the boom bomb makers. They are showing their little girly parts to them searching the web for bomb plans. And speaking of web. Kind of funny...the web...the webs this guy had all over. Sounds like more than one kind of webbing going on and yet they crossed."

[Sorrow] "C'mon, then," Kora returns, low-voiced. She's hushed in this tomb of a place, except when Roman's comment about naked girls and bomb makers makes her laugh, briefly, surely, a flare of her nostrils, the subtle whuff of air from her nose and mouth.

Their footsteps are sure down the long hallway; they pass through a much larger room, then, with a huge purpose-made freezer in the center. The door has been brutally wrenched away from its welds, smashed through from without. The largest of the soldiers has been dismantled. Kora removed the weapons and the armor for trophies, but cleansed and burned all traces of the body parts used to construct the thing.

Then, they take another turn, down the last hallway toward the office that Alexa first discovered, where they found the computers. "What the hell," Kora asks, as head to the office, with the computers, if only to distract Roman from discussions of naked girls and bomb makers. "does it mean to buck hay?"

[Roman Turner] "Ya ain't never bucked hay?"

He was clearly surprised with that response.

"Well sucks Miss Kora, folk been bucking hay for centuries. Ya gotta cut it first, then someone drives the baler with a truck where all the bales get caught as they come out all nice and neat. Then when ya get to the barn, one guy goes on up in the barn while the other stands in the bed of the truck and bucks the hay up to the catcher. The catcher bucks the hay up to the top of the pile. It's called buckin cause ya lift up one of them 75 to a hundred pound square bales and ya catch them on your gut, supporting it with your thighs. Then ya buck against it as ya thrust up with the bale to give it lift. Ya can always tell the jeans worn during bucking, the thighs are all worn and faded."

[Imogen Slaughter] "Hm." This is all Imogen says to Roman's ramble, letting Sorrow divert him as she leads them into the office. Once inside, she surveys the computer(s) first. Brand, set up. She looks for a modem, a router, any signs of a network or any signs of a network which would possibly go into other parts of the building, indicating computers elsewhere.

[The Truth] The computers themselves are storage devices, and looking through any of them would reveal they weren't used in the typical manner as raw data storage. These devices were extensions of their users brain... As if he was using them to multi-task in his project.

All three were left on, and not a single one was currently connected to the outside world... Though a nearby connection could be plugged in to change that it was apparent that he was not looking to make himself readily available to the outside world. Projects like this tend to get frowned upon by the local authorities these days. Ahh the good old days of Nazi Germany when a scientist could be free to pursue science instead of being limited by small minds standing in the way of true understanding.

Each computer was custom built and scattered about the office was a number of computer parts... It was hard to tell but one could probably put together a number of computers from the scraps left lying about alone. Though the three active computers were pretty impressive themselves. Streamlined for speed and function and a glance at the keyboards would reveal that most of the letters had been worn away from use. Implying these computers were used a lot more than just casually. It's really hard to smudge the ink off a keyboard that can't be more than three months old without constant use.

[Sorrow] "I ain't never bucked hay." Kora responds, throwing in an ain't and a double-negative as she responds to Roman in a casual tone that is rather dry. Her dark eyes linger on Imogen, and she holds up the lantern for general light, offering Imogen the direct beam of a flashlight if and as necessary to trace the networking wires or ethernet cables or - Kora does not know the names of these things. She cannot identify the parts scattered around the office. She stands, alert and wary, ready to act if and as necessary. The room is quiet except for the humming of the computer fans, and the strange banter between the packmates.

"Shocking, isn't it? You ever buck hay, Two Step-yuf?"

[Roman Turner] "Two Step, I like the Two Step. Even better if it'd done in a line."

[Sorrow] "Don't tell me you line dance, Roman," Kora returns in that same, dry voice. Quiet enough. No echoes in the room.

[Alexa Thanos] "I've never bucked hay," she tells Sorrow with a small curl of her mouth. "I've bucked in the hay, if that counts?" Standing off to the side, her fingers are tucked into one of her jean pockets, at the back. She chuckled quietly at Roman's little nudge at her deed name, which is something she's heard plenty before.

"You know it's Two Step in the Blindside, in case, you know, you missed the whole thing." This is said with another small quirk of her mouth. "A bit hard to do that in a line."

[Roman Turner] He snorted with Kora's question.

"Everyone line dances on Friday Night and special occasions and any party. I mean, it's simple standard dancing, though I prefer the Cha Cha steps."

[Sorrow] Kora lifts her pale brows in a neat furrow of a question. "Does that count, Roman?" Before he answers, though, he shakes her head and casts a look back to Alexa. "I don't think that counts, though. And Roman will be scandalized when he figures out what you really meat." Then, back to Roman, "Show me a cha-cha step."

[Alexa Thanos] There's a quiet chuckle from her at Sorrow's remark, and she looks between them after a brief glance to Imogen, to see what the Kinfolk was up to. She really is a quiet Garou. Not much for her to say, only the small quip here and there. They're all waiting to see what can be found out on the computers. Alexa doesn't even know how to turn one on.

[Roman Turner] Well, it ain't easy without music with the right beat, but it's simple enough. Just follow my moves."

Slowly he went from one foot to the other and back again with a rocking of hip and backside. After a few one two three steps slow enough to follow, he kicked in to full speed. His back straight and on each rocking cha cha cha step his hind end and hips made the proper rocking pop motion.

"It's better with music."

Yeah he could dance, infact he liked dancing despite it making Sparrow giggle at him.

[Alexa Thanos] A young Garou, cowboy, telling the Get of Fenris how to do the Cha Cha and showing how in the middle of a warehouse that recently housed a spider man doctor, intent on making some monster-man-machine, out of soldier body parts -- Alexa absorbs it all in, the absurdity of it all and scrubs her hand through her mane of hair before looking out through the office door and onto the main floor.

She might as well do something, so with a small nod to the others, she left them in the office to wait for answers, and headed back to grab up a thick bristled broom to resume some scrubbing with bleach on the floors.

[Roman Turner] So he gave his lesson in brief and after a bit like Alexa, he wanted off to his own chores here. His involved ratchets, screw drivers, drills, drill punch, saws all and even a welder's torch. Back to dismantaling he went. He wanted all the creatures to be headless, brains drained and limbs removed.

[Roman Turner] (and now I must sleep for work) (Tank you)

[The Truth] [*Chuckles*Alright gfolks... Since I was late and kept everyone behind... I am gonna go ahead and send some private messages out to folks detailing what is found on the computers... I will also put up a little detail on the status of the War. I know what you all are looking for out of it so I will try to customize the posts so as to include what folks want!]
to Alexa Thanos, Imogen Slaughter, Roman Turner, Sorrow

[Alexa Thanos] [kay, thanks Nick!]
to Imogen Slaughter, Roman Turner, Sorrow, The Truth

[The Truth] [So yeah everyone can head off and I will get you all on umm... Whatchamacall it! The Forums!]
to Alexa Thanos, Imogen Slaughter, Sorrow

[Imogen Slaughter] (awesome. *bleary eyed* Thank you very much Nick! *Grin*)
to Alexa Thanos, Sorrow, The Truth

[Sorrow] (Thanks Nick! I'm going to drag Alexa off for fifteen minutes and then crawl off to bed, too. Appreciate both your patience and your accommodations!)
to Alexa Thanos, Imogen Slaughter, The Truth

[Sorrow] So they work; Imogen at the computer, with Kora standing guard, though she never calls it that. Now and then, she frowns, her eyes narrowing, dark eyes fickering over the information Imogen has discovered, making notes in her peculiar shorthand that she does not bother to explain - if necessary, only if necessary.

When the kinswoman is satisfied that she has whaever is necessary from the computer, they magnetize them. They magnetize them and remove the motherboards until Imogen's direction, sanitizing the remaining pieces as necessary, wiping down prints, putting them aside for recycling at office supply and/or electronics retailers scattered around the city.

Sometime after midnight, Kora joins Alexa and Roman in the primary room, where they fought a desperate battle against just one of the monstrous soldiers, scrubbing down the walls, cleansing. And on, all night. Even Garou - with their legendary stamina cannot work indefinitely, though. Close to dawn, they put away their tools, drag whatever incriminating remains might be left out of any direct line of sight, and make their weary way to the front entrance of the warehouse. Kora's Nalgene water bottles are almost empty. There's a swig or two left in both, and she offers one to Alexa as she takes the second for herself.

"Someday," the Fenrir remarks, quiet, "I'm going to ask you how you got your deed name." The faint curl of her mouth at the corner looks - haunted, perhaps, lingering at the edges of consciousness, exhaustion evident in the texture of her eyes. "I'm too tired to remember it now, though." The curl deepens, briefly acknowledging the hint of her own humor. "You have a place to stay in the city, while you're about?"

[Alexa Thanos] It's the sort of work that leaves the limbs aching in ways that battle does not. This isn't brute force, but time consuming, never ending motion, repetitive over long hours, that puts crooks in the back and kinks to work out later. Outside, she takes the bottle and has a small sip of it, washing it through her mouth and savouring the wetness against the dry burn chemicals had left behind.

Her gaze cuts over to Sorrow as she remarks on the deed name, wanting to know how she got it, or what it means. It makes the Strider smile faintly and nod, accepting. One day she will tell her about her deed name and how it came about. It's certainly a colourful one, that leaves plenty of open imagination to what it could entail.

"A Kinfolk has a place I can stay," she tells Sorrow, her voice a little raw from inhaling chemicals all night, "and there's the Brotherhood." Not that she's even been there yet, other then to glimpse at it from the outside when visiting the Caern.

"There's always somewhere dry to find."

[Sorrow] "There's an abandoned church on Broad and Pine," Kora tells her, with a minute nod eastward, downriver toward the lake. The Caern is that direction, too, amongst long-abandoned dockyards that linger on the edge of the city, remnants of another age. "North of the Caern, bordering the river. Neighborhood's mostly industrial, but there's not much industry left." Like this one, it's fled. To China, or Alabama, Nebraska, or the suburbs at the least, leaving an economic wasteland for most of what was once a thrivng working class in the city of broad shoulders.

"It's dry there, too. My pack's house. Roman and Sparrow have a lease on another place, but that's the center of things. Plenty of space to find a den. Plenty of room to practice two-stepping in the blindside," she adds, a faint curl of her mouth. "Or the cha-cha. It's in the center of our territory. You're welcome there, if you're looking for someplace dry. Cool?"

[Alexa Thanos] Her gaze drifts in the direction that Kora indicates with her nod, letting her gaze take in the stars briefly, or whats left of them with the pre dawn colours starting to move across the sky. When she lowers her gaze, it's to look at Kora and give her a nod. Her smile is slower to come, but it's laced with something a little warmer at the generosity. "Thank you, she who offers sorrow."

"I'll come by, sometime." Not tonight then, not today. "But I'll see you back here tonight." It's as much of a question as it was a statement. She assumes that the others will return, like she has, to clean up more. The first few nights Alexa had actually stayed within this area, keeping an eye out, but since then had moved on. She was getting no sleep around this area. Today she had plans to find somewhere more open, with fresher air, probably somewhere by the lake. The chemicals have given her a serious headache and she's really beginning to miss wide open spaces of grass or sand.

[Sorrow] "Absolutely." Kora responds, her voice quiet. She's not looking at the sky, but at her hands, raw from the chemicals they've used to clean, from the work of scrubbing, sluicing, breaking down, breaking apart what remains of the monster and his creations. "We're here until the end."

She means that in more ways than one.

[Alexa Thanos] Nodding once, she wipes her hands on the back of her jeans and begins down the few stairs. "I'll see you then." Her pack she has somewhere around here, stashed away where it won't be dirtied or soak in the stench of chemicals. Tonight she'll head to the Brotherhood, wash there, and head over to the Caern. She needed to replenish her Gnosis, this was taking quite a bit out of her.

[Alexa Thanos] Saturday night and Luna is almost at her fullest glory. It's around these times that the city becomes an unsettled place; even the humans feel the touch of her in their veins, becoming more unpredictable and with it the violence is cruel. They are unable to hold the force which comes from a God, barely touched by Her and they create chaos for emergency wards across the country. The worst is yet to come.

Only the Garou have the ability and discipline to hone these wyld touches. Neither flesh or spirit, they walk both worlds, blessed by the gods. Neither human or beast, they struggle to find the middle ground between the two. This life is not easy, but yet they must continue to strive forth. They do not have the luxury to give up, or to become selfish beings to do as they wish, ignoring duty and calling. Life for them is short, leaving little chance to live or leave something of them behind, and the glories made in such a small lifespan are left unknown to the world at whole. Here to save the world, the Mother Gaia, and those living on her, torturing her, are none the wiser.

So while humans run rampant through the city streets, leaving dirt and decay in their wake, spreading disease and filth, Alexa Thanos takes refuge in Grant Park. She lays across a bench, with the sound of the fountain splashing a distance away, the light display flickering in her peripheral vision. Hands resting on her stomach, she watches the sky. The stars are dimmed, their light stolen by generated street lights, humming in orderly lines, forming grids. Traffic drowns out the sounds of crickets, of birds settled down for the night, and steals the sound of the blowing wind.

She is silent and still.

A backpack resting beneath the bench, holding all her worldly belongings. Jeans are faded, worn well on the thighs and backside, but not yet threadbare. Her t.shirt is red with a faded print across the front,and numerous woven threads wind their way around her wrists, brightly contrasting to a leather cuff, soft with age. Her dark mane of hair, spreads, the curls making a cushion between her scalp and the hard wooden surface beneath her.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] One of those summer storms passed through Chicago earlier today, unleashed a downpour that sucked all the humidity from the air. For an hour or two after, the air felt bright and clean, the musk of rain heavier than the usual combination of rotting garbage and car exhaust that marks the city's rather noxious perfume midsummer.

Now, near dusk, after dusk, and the humidity has returned. Walk out of some crisply air conditioned store or theater wearing glasses and they'll fog up in an instant, leaving you blind. A low curtain of fog hangs over the dark surface of Lake Michigan, looking thickened, nearly opaque where the lights from the park shine directly into the fog. Otherwise, it seems threaded, soft, licking at the shore, though never quite creeping over the edge of the bank. The sky has cleared, as much as it ever does.
It's darker here, where the city ends at the edge of the dark lake, but never dark. The moon rose before the sun had fully set, and now it climbs in the southeastern sky

The art museum has just closed for the evening, and the Millennium fountain has two more shows - on the hour, every hour - before parks workers will come and shut it down for the night. There are people in the park, walking home from dinner, or walking from home to the bar. Lingering after some afternoon blues concert at the ampitheater by the marina.

Tourists crowd around the flickering light display of the fountain, oohing and ahhing over the changing light. One pair, a tall, rangey man hand in hand with a child - seven or eight - pause to watch some dramatic color transition, then melt away from the display, cutting through the tourists, away from the fountain.

They're holding hands, the man and the girl, swinging them between. He's got a fountain soda in his free hand, and she's got a giant tub of movie popcorn, still half-full, in her free hand.

"I liked the flying," she says, the girl, laughter in her voice, "pigs best - " the girl is saying, as they round the corner and see Alexa laying down on the bench. There's this silence, after, where she's swallowing her words, the girl, frowning at the woman on the park bench, and slowing her pace.

Lucy worms her hand out of her father's then, reaches over to tug on the hem of his Ramones t-shirt, wrapping her fist in the worn old cotton, pulling. "Do you think she's homeless?" she asks, in a child's whisper, which means it is still rather perfectly audible to everyone in conversational distance.

"I don't know, Luce," he replies, his voice a rumble.

"Do you think she wants my popcorn?" Lucy asks next, her narrow frame curling close to her father's, her dark hair gleaming. They've let go hands, now, and instead he curls his big palm over her head, the fines strands of her hair catching in the callouses on his palm.

"You could ask her," he says; and this is more quiet than the child's whisper. More private, just for the girl.

--

They're ordinary, the man and the child. Except for the subtle hint of breeding in the blood, underneath the skin. Faint in the man, enough that it might be overlooked at first, were it not stronger in the girl.

[Alexa Thanos] Whispered words are captured by sharp ears but she doesn't turn her head to look at them. Her smile is a quiet thing, more to herself then anyone else, barely touching the edges of her mouth. Perhaps the child is right. There are a pair of well worn boots to the side of that pack, the socks tucked in, the laces are long and red, left to curl on the ground. Bare feet are long and lean, coloured like the rest of her - which is to say, that she's not quite Caucasian, olive enough to have tint and the summer makes her darker. It's the sort of complexion that one might consider in need of a scrub, not enough to be dark, and not light enough either. Her knees are comfortably raised, toes resting on the wood.

Slow and steady breathes are relaxed, filling up her lungs and belly in subtle, rhythmic waves. She can feel them under her palms, the rise and fall under lean muscle. As she listens to them, estimating just how far away they are, she can pick up something else. There's breeding in the air. It's not her own - she doesn't have one. Faint as it is, she recognizes it. People like herself are keenly aware, because people like them are born from heroes that still sing in their blood, quietly awaiting to be recognized. Breeding is ancestors speaking in the flesh.

But still she waits. Wondering if the child with the kind heart has the courage to go through with her fathers (assuming) suggestions. It's a rare thing, this quality. Perhaps more readily seen in the eyes of the Nation then that of humanity, but still a jewel to keep safe.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] There's this silence, after. Lucy hugging her father's thigh, her chin sharp against his flank, her soft face, pale and round, disappearing against the white t-shirt he wears. His palm slides from the crown of her head to the back of her head, pulling the strands, combing them back with his long, blunt fingers. He glances at the woman on the bench; maybe she can sense the look, which lingers without being intrusive, tracing the line of the laces on the boots she's kicked off up the shanks, onto the worn wooden slats of the bench where she rests.
Gauging, quietly, firmly, whether he means to encourage his daughter in her instinct to charity, or steer her away.

The pause lingers; the sounds of the crowd around the fountain filter back. There's a loose smattering of applause for the final show, but as there's no person or persons to take a bow, the applause doesn't take hold. Instead, the crowd begins to break apart. Some people drift down toward the water, toward the pier. Others turn back, hoping to catch the next bus, the last express train.

"Go on," the man tells the child at last, as she peels herself away from his leg. His encouragement is engaging but low and quiet but not wheedling. There's a certain firmness underneath. The girl glances up at him, the lights of the park gleaming across her eyes, then uncurls herself from her father's side, leaves the path and crosses a few steps over damp grass to the bench.

"Uhm," says Lucy, the sound humming in her soft palate, extended, thoughtful - uhhhhhhhm - "would you like my popcorn?"

[Alexa Thanos] She feels it and hears it. That look has thought to it, a consideration that she knows well enough, but her hands stay where they are and she looks about as non threatening as she can. Still, she is Garou. It's more clear in her features, in her large eyes or in the way she moves, but right now she is pretending to be human.

When the girl approaches, Alexa turns her head slowly so not to startle her. Dark brows arch, matching the way the edges of her mouth curl upward, slight but obvious. Her eyes are blue, but darkly coloured and the gaze of them flickers across the soft, rounded features of the kindly child not meeting her eyes for too long so not to make her uncomfortable. Long lines in her face give her a sharpness, but its the mouth and the large eyes that softens it.

Turning her hip, she pushes up to prop on an elbow. Hair falls down to one side, dark curls sliding down a lean arm to gather on the bench. "Popcorn you say?" Her interest has a little more enthusiasm for the child's sake, and she glances from the girl to the popcorn in her hand. "Is it the buttery kind?" A gaze flicks up again. It smells good this. She can't remember the last time she actually had popcorn, it's not exactly a staple diet with much nutrition to it, more of a luxury for theaters and what not - places Alexa does not attend.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "No," the girl says directly, with a certain limitless seriousness. "That's not real butter. That's chemicals." So she continues, perfectly serious, saucer-eyed as she holds out the half-eaten tub. "It's got hydro - " here she slips, passingly, searching for a word she's too stubborn to ask her father to supply. " - hydro-den-nated oils, too. Which is bad for you."

She's no more than seven or eight, a summer tan warming her otherwise sharply pale skin, huge eyes, some paler color that is lost in the shadows of the park, and fine dark brown hair that gleams in the lights. She's wearing jeans and a Yellowstone t-shirt, with a good half-dozen neon sillybandz bracelets around either wrist, and a sparkly little dragonfly clip in her hair. And she holds out the tub carefully, nervous underneath her skin, but prideful too - far too prideful to show her nerves, now.

Her father stands behind her, tall and rangey, his Ramones t-shirt black letter on white backround rather than the other way around. He's wearing jeans torn at the knee, shredded at the bottom hem, and leather sandals. He watches them both, Alexa now, more than Lucy, a certain readiness writ into the musculature revealed by the white tee.

[Alexa Thanos] "Hmmm." The sound plays on her tongue and in the back of her throat as she considers what this young one tells her. A brow hitches and her tone takes on something a little more playful. "You'd like to give me your popcorn filled with chemicals that are bad for me?" Her smile threatens to come fully to the fore. "How can I resist?"

"I'd be happy to take them off your hands, but on one condition." There's a small pause here as she waits to see the child's curiousity, perhaps the girl even asks what that might be. "That I give you something in return," this seems easy enough, "and that I might have your name so that I may thank you properly."

"You can have mine first, if you'd like."

"It's Alexa." She offers out her hand, long fingered and clean, to shake.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] This time, Lucy gives in briefly, shoots a glance over her shoulder at her father. He is a solid shadow behind her, made brighter only by the white t-shirt over his solid torso. The oversized movie soda looks absurd in his hands. He holds it loosely by the edges. Moisture beads over the waxed cardboard, glittering in the light when he shifts or moves. Something about his posture, though, suggests that he is ready to employ even the lowly damn soda as a weapon, should the need arise.

Dark eyes are fixed on Alexa. The strange man has close-cropped dark brown hair, and one of those beards shaved to follow the shape of his jaw rather than hide it. It's gone a bit over tonight; the man needs a shave. There's a leather necklace around his neck; and another, a gunmetal chain that is slightly longer. Last of all, old dog tags, on a metal popcorn chain.

Lucy looks to him briefly, her eyes shining, her body language caught between that sort of bravery that rises from native fearlessness, overwritten by caution. He drops his eyes to his daughter briefly, nodding chin-up to her wordlessly.

Then Lucy turns back to Alexa, glancing at her sidelong, this frowning little look that draws her dark brows together, turns her bow-mouth into a moue of thought.

"I'm Lucy," the girl says at last, reaching out to take Alexa's hand. Her own is small, both wrists wrapped by a hand-dozen little neon sillybandz.

[Alexa Thanos] "Lucy," Alexa shakes her hand gently, fingers light, "it's a pleasure to meet a kind young lady such as yourself." It sounds genuine, mostly because it is. Releasing the others hand, she moves to sit up slowly, sliding her feet off the bench and onto the ground. Moving, then, she crouches on the balls of her feet as she pulls her hiking pack closer to her. There's a bed roll tied to the bottom of it, camping style.

"Let me see what I have in here." It takes her a moment, opening up a small zipper section of the outside, and she looks through some odds and ends. A small draw string back is pulled out and she opens it up, digging her fingers inside to find what she was looking for. From inside she pulls out an elephant made out of rose quarts. The bag is put back within the pouch of her back pack and she turns the elephant over, which is just large enough to see the details etched into the surface, the trunk raised, the ears flat, eyes small. It's a purchased thing, not something made herself.

She offers it out to Lucy. "This is a rose quarts," she explains softly, "which is said to be for all warmth and happiness. Most suitable for a young lady like yourself." Nodding for her to take it. "The elephant has the longest memory, and will remember your kindness today. Take it with you. It's seen many places, all the way from India."

There's a small glance here, over to the man that watches her closely. Alexa hopes that she is not crossing any boundaries here, and seeks some sort of approval like the child had asked, before looking back to Lucy.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] Alexa glances over at the man, and finds him looking back at her. His features are cast in shifting shadows. The light is uncertain here, brighter flickers cut through the line of ornamental trees that screen the path from the fountain in the square behind them, soft pools spread beneath the artful streetlamps that line the street. She knows that he is watching her by the angle of his regard, because his eyes are in shadow. What light there is catches the furrow in his brow, the firm set of his jaw, marked by a faint, watchful frown.

His arms are loose by his side. Even in the darkness, his tattoos are evident. The right arm is covered by a tribal tattoo, dark black ink against his tanned skin - a single piece that covers his arm from the midpoint of his forearm, over his elbow, and disappears beneath the sleeve of his Ramones t-shirt.

Attention on her, his features do not soften when Alexa looks to him for permission. He's alert, wary and still. He does not, however, wave her off when she offers the child the carven elephant. This time, Lucy does not look back at her father. She reaches out and curve her small hand around the elephant, fitting her fingers around the grooves that define the stumpy legs, the trunk, the ears. Her fingernails are painted a peeling pink, and the little silicone bracelets are bright against her wrist.

"Have you been?" Lucy asks, " - to India? Did you have samosas? I like samosas. And mulliga- mulligantowny soup. I've been to Texas and California and I've been to the Okeefenokee Swamp but I've never been to India. Are you gonna go back? Is that why you're - "

"Luce," the man interrupts her, cautions her. It is his father's tone of voice, deep and sure. The girl wraps her small fingers around the elephant and shoots a lilting glance back over her shoulder at her father. "Did you say thank you?"

The girl, with a bit of a guilty start, turns back to Alexa and says just that. "Thank you."

[Alexa Thanos] "Samosas? Oh, they're alright," Alexa says easily, still resting in a one knee crouch. Her bag is all zipped up and left to the side and her elbow now rests on the seat, gently leaning into it. There's a small distance between her on the child, purposeful. Parents never liked strangers getting close to their children, and with good reason. "But biryani is my favourite."

Her gaze darts to John when he reminds the girl, and slides back to Lucy when she offers her thanks, smiling to her with a small nod. "You're most welcome, Lucy."

"And yes, I suppose I shall head back there at some point. I never really stay in one place for too long." While the father may have cut the child off from that particular questioning, the woman has no qualms returning to it or even speaking about it. "I have the blood of the gypsies," she goes on to tell her, winking one of her dark blue eyes, "and the wind always pushes at our back, telling us to keep moving."

Another glance is given over towards John, even as she talks to Lucy. "Is that your dad over there? Would you mind if I go and introduce myself to him?"

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "C'mere, Luce - " the kinsman says quietly to his daughter after Alexa has explained that she has the blood of the gypsies, before Lucy tells Alexa that her best friend Jennifer dressed up like a gypsy for Halloween last year which is where called Samhain even though most people don't even know that and they carved pumpkins and turnips and marrows and put them all around the cafe to keep away the spirits of the dead and now Jennifer is still in Seattle but Lucy is here and she's got to go to a new school and make new friends and she thought gypsies had to wear scarves on their heads and have funny names and -

- instead of all that, she watches Alexa bright-eyed, tucks away the elephant in the front pocket of her jeans and returns to her father's side. His slides his large left hand affectionately through her hair, a fond glance down at her softening the alertness, the evident caution in his eyes and posture.

"My name's John," he tells her. The introduction is partial, and cautious. There is a hint of apology in his tone, but it doesn't soften the firmness of his voice. " - and we have to be getting home." Lucy yanks on the hem of his t-shirt, gives him an elbow in his solid thigh. He looks down at her as she looks up, all shining eyes, pale blue gray.

The invitation that follows arises only from the girl's prompt. "If you need a meal sometime while you're in the city, I've got a place here in the city. Café Lulu. Drop by and we'll get you fed."

[Alexa Thanos] When the girl heads back over to her father, Alexa slowly rises from her crouch, enough to sit on the edge of the seat. Her bare toes rest on the cement that's been poured over the earth, helping the bench legs root themselves in the soil. She nods to John as he offers his name, explaining that they need to be getting home. It's late, and she assumes well past a child's bedtime, but she doesn't think that is the reason why they're going. That, too, she can understand.

Since she had said her name earlier, she adds now, to John. "Strider." It's enough to be said in front of a child with a loose tongue. Enough to let him know she doesn't mean any harm, but it's good that he has it in him anyway.

"Thank you, for the invitation." She smiled then, both to him and the child, but it wasn't something full. It warms more on Lucy. "And thank you for the popcorn."

"May you both have a good night."

[John Brendan Cavanagh] The last detail sharpens John Brendan's attention on Alexa. One word changes the equation of their conversation. His brown eyes are level on her face, even and still wary. It is a different sort of wariness; and for all that he is an open book, with one of those honest faces that seems to give away his every tell, he meets her eyes with a directness that most kin can not summon, and will not bear.

"Kin," he asks, though his voice does not rise, it is clearly a question. "or -- "

The rest is unvoiced. Lucy is quiet now. She has that eerie sort of awareness that the adults are talking about adult things, and her stories and questions can wait. Instead, she listens, tipping her head back against her father's cradling hand to crane up a look at his face, then looking back across at Alexa.

[Alexa Thanos] "New moon," she fills in the blanks for him. No, she's not Kinfolk. She's a Silent Strider, one of Gaia's questioners, scouts, and sometimes - more often then not, warriors. A foot leaves the ground and the knee folds, bending the heel in towards the other thigh, resting her foot against the inside of it. She sits like this, casually propped onto the edge of the bench. Her fingers of one hand curl around the shin, and the other leans into her opposite thigh.

For now she doesn't offer anything more, merely watches him from her distance without adding any pressures to his already cautious self. She lets him work through his thoughts, potential problems, allowing him to still escape her to head home, as much as she's inviting the conversation to continue.

Silent Striders are quite adapt in listening, also communicating, and not just with words.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] She says New Moon, fills in the blank for him; that she is kinfolk, not Garou. The eye contact lingers, not challenging, but clear and confident. He is easy to read, except that the flash of expression that gleams in his brown eyes and twists his mouth, framed by his trimmed beard, is so complex that even he could not name it. There is awareness, an unconscionable sort of pity, tinged with bitterness so brief it is hardly perceptible, so sharp that it draws the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth, as if he had just bit into a lemon. Here he would feel it spark against his soft palate. Here he would shave it back, until he could taste something else, again.

Then his gaze drops abruptly back to Lucy, to the way the strands of the girl's hair pull like silk underneath his calloused palm. The same complex of emotions sharpens his otherwise ordinary features - a strong jaw, a too-wide nose - emphasizing the hint of breeding that marks him so easily as kinfolk.

The hint of breeding is stronger in the girl. Fianna, too - more clearly so, with her light skin, her round rosy cheeks, her clear eyes an opaque gray-blue, the hint of fire in the undertones of her chestnut hair - and aware, too, of the changing atmosphere, for all that's she's quiet know, her attention almost a solemn thing.

"John Brendan Cavanagh," he gives his full name, now. His voice is a low rumble, his hand still in the girl's hair. "The invitation stands. It's in Lake View, though a bit far from the condos. I'm sure you can find it. Ask for Chef Cavanagh."

[Alexa Thanos] For all that he is going through, she is simply watchful and silent. Alexa does not need to school her expressions, for all the fire in her blood, it's quiet and takes a lot to get simmering in the first place. While Luna may be round in the sky, heating her skin, outward from her core, she is disciplined with it. Follower of Owl, she is still and silent.

"I will," she tells him. She would, too, find that cafe. Whether she comes in and asks for a hand out is another thing altogether, but she would come there to know where it is, he and the girl are, just for the sake of knowledge. "Thank you, John." For the kindness and thoughts.

Her toes curl a little, gripping the jeans covering her thigh, and relax again. Idle, restless, comfortable. The world was what she could call home, this bench likely to be her bed tonight, and she seems relaxed in the openness of it. There's thoughts to continue the conversation. A want to keep them here, talking to her, but the overriding desire wins out - that which is not to become a burden. It's easy to spend the hours alone.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] His gaze lingers a moment. There's a spark of humor in his eyes and his mouth, which does not deepen into laughter full throated or otherwise. "My mother's the only one who calls me John," he tells her, though he does not offer her another name. Does not tell her which of the many potential contractions and diminutives he recognizes as his name.

Then, he drops his eyes to his daughter. "C'mon, Luce," he says again, his hand pillowing her head now. The thread of his voice is low and dark, and the girl looks up at him, her eyes gleaming in the ambient light. "Let's go."

Lucy has one fist in the front pocket of her jeans, cradling her elephant. The other hand is wrapped through one of the belt loops on her father's jeans. The brown belt he wears is soft, dark against her small hand, a good half-dozen years old, if the lines in the leather are any indication.

That's all he says by way of farewell. The pair of them walk off down the path that cuts through the park toward the bus stop that will take them home. He has his hand on her head, and she holds onto his clothing or his body as they walk. The park bench is left behind, Alexa with it, in the opening, sleeping under the stars, over an apron of poured concrete that smothers the soil beneath it.

As they walk, Lucy twists her head half-way round, walking Alexa, who was left behind, until the Strider is swallowed by the shadows, or a bend in the path takes them out of line of sight. Her gaze is simmering and watchful and alive. Then she's gone, and they're gone, somewhere beyond a copse of trees planted as a manicured homage to the forests that once covered these lands.