Ornature

[Missed the first several posts. Kora offered Cigney a corn dog. August came along with her new baby Ella.]

[Cigney North] "Oh I couldn't...my hands aren't clean...I mean, I don't have sanitizer..."

But you can tell by her eyes that she's absolutely dying to hold the baby. Cigney crouches down a moment longer, then rises and smiles at August.

"She's absolutely darling. You must be on cloud 9!"

She looks back over at Kora and opens her mouth for a quarter second...before it shuts immediately thereafter. A question perhaps? One she isn't going to ask however. Cigney looks at August.

"Whose Paul? Proud papa, right?" Her eyes are still sparkling.

[Kora] "Good," Kora replies. That August has a place, or that Paul has returned. Or, that the Fang kinswoman has opened her home an offered to do so again. There's this world underneath the reply, distinct and quiet, a gleam in the Garou's fine dark eyes as she offers it. When August thanks her, though, her expressive mouth curves upward, more to the right than the left. "If you run out of options - " Kora responds, quietly, stepping another step back as the two young kinswoman discuss the baby. " - you'll let me know before you go back - "

To Ezra. Or something worse.

"Yeah?"

August offers to let Cigney hold Ella, and Cigney - holding back her desire to gush over the child - sighs, delighted at the infant's name. Another night the Fenrir woman might smile, even indulgently, as the kin coo over the infant. Tonght, she just holds herself apart, watching the pair of them, and their backs, her dark eyes lifting from the two young women to the crowd on the pier.

[August Grant] "I will call you if I run out of options. I promise." She offered a reassuring smile to Kora even as she leaned down to scoop the small baby out of the stroller.

"Oh, it's alright Cigney.. you can hold her. She's a strong little girl - she's got her momma's genes.." As for the father - well, she just doesn't mention him.

"Here.. " She offered the child out to the basically unknown Fenrir kin. If Kora wouldn't have been there, she likely wouldn't have been so open about letting a stranger hold her child. If Kora was here with her, then she could be trusted.

[Cigney North] The rapid breathing returns, and Cigney blinks in amazement at the baby the Gaian kin is offering to her. Her face glows with the warmest smile you've ever seen in your whole life. She then carefully, oh so carefully takes the baby girl into her arms and places the infants head on her bare shoulder, cradling her just so, her cheek gently touching the baby's forehead.

Oh that was it, right there. The warmth and the smell. Pure heaven...

Cigney's eyes close. A look of complete peace and a feeling of joy radiating from the core of her being.

[August Grant] Just as only little babies could do, Ella remained asleep - soft skin and warmth comforted the little one and she looked quite comfortable.

August just smiled. "You're going to make a wonderful mother one day.."

[Kora] "I think you made her night." Kora remarks, low-voiced to August. She does not demand any further reassurances. Just that remark, maybe that reassuring smile from such a well-bred young kinswoman. August's blood speaks for her to Garou, as much as anything else. Kora's hands remain in her pockets. There's standing on a pier, and night has gathered at the edges of the scene, held back by the bright lights of the pier, the rides running along the length, glittering and gleaming. There are other family groups, teenagers, tourists back and forth in the moving throng, enough that her dark eyes keep roaming, watching the constantly moving stream of peopl for any threat.

Briefly, Kora glances at Cigney - the absolute peace radiating from the young woman - then she looks back to August with a faint, lingering thoughtful frown. "Did you have a kin as a midwife?"

[Cigney North] [I need to go after my next post...thanks so much for the scene! I'll make an exit post]
to August Grant, Kora

[Cigney North] [At these words, Cigney opens her eyes a little and smiles at August. A look of regret passes over her face as she then just as carefully returns the baby girl to August. Looking at the infant longingly a moment. There's no response from her, no thank you for the compliment. Just awkward silence.

"It's late and I need to be getting back".

She touches her ponytail absently.

"Please, be careful and I hope to see you both soon".

A gentle look at August, and a respectful nod to Kora before Cigney moves with the people walking off the Pier before slowly disappearing into the crowd.

[August Grant] "No." She shook her head slightly. "There were none that I was aware of. I just went to the county hospital and saw whatever doctor was there that day. I never saw the same person more than once." A small shrug.

August took the little one back and cradled her close while kissing her forhead. "Goodbye, Cigney. Hopefully we will see each other again. Have a safe journey home."

[Kora] "Be safe, Cigney," Kora responds to the young Fenrir kinswoman, lifting her dark eyes to trace the young woman's path back through the crowd. There's a certain conviction in her voice, Kora. She doesn't offer these polite little murmurs to fill space. Be safe, Cigney sounds lik a command.

Cigney hands back the infant, and Kora glances briefly from August's hand on the baby's head, then back out over the crowd as her kinswoman's golden head is slowly lost to crowd, distance, darkness.

August replies that she just went to the county hospital, and Kora's response is a back of the throat murmur. Like that moment of silence when Cigney - neatly evaded August's compliment, there's a moment of awkwardness when Kora glances away, not sure why she asked the questionin the first place. Then, a glance back to August. "Were you meeting someone here?"

[August Grant] "No.. I really, really wanted mini donuts and I know this is the place I could get them." She carefully replaced the baby back in the stroller and tucked her back in.

"Were you meeting someone? I wouldn't mind waiting with you if you were. Or just taking a walk with you if you wanted company.."

[Kora] "Let's get the mini donuts," Kora returns, quickly, easily, as if she were a girl who did things like that. As if she were a girl, and not a Skald, not a Garou, not a warrior of Fenris. As if there were not things lurking in the dark, under the pier, broke things in the crowd shifting around them. As if donus mattered.

- and maybe they do. "I," there's a certain formalism to the Skald, maybe it's just the timbe of her voice. Her sense of the rhythm of language, the way things play together, " - was actually here to meet a corn dog, as I cannot convince Trent that they are one of the thee food groups. But really, mini-donuts sound divine, particularly if they are freshly deep-fried. Then," and this is the important part, the part after eating donuts. "I can walk you back, yeah?"

There's a certain parternalism there. Garou: kinfolk. Garou: kinfolk. Infant, the next generation.

[August Grant] There was no question to August: Mini Donuts DO matter. They matter just as much now as when she was pregnant. Her soft pink lips slid into a grin as Kora spoke of Corn Dogs as a food group. It was perhaps the lightest comment she'd heard the woman make, ever.

"Well, lets get the mini donuts and the corn dog then. Maybe two? One for you, and one for Trent?" There was the difference there - that Kora knew well enough. August was just a young woman. She knew about the icky things, at least in the back of her mind somewhere. But she was by no means focused on it and she could be carefree and believe the best in people. It's probably why she was chipper so much of the time.

"And then.. yes, we can walk back to my car." A beat as she leaned down to make sure the baby was comfortable looking and secure. "I believe I saw the mini donuts just down this way?" She motioned down the pier, into the crowd.

[Kora] "Trust me," the Fenrir returns, in this easy voice as if she were offering a confession. " - he won't eat a corndog. Ever. Not even if I told him to eat it, and then he'd likely spit it out in the back of his hand. I'll grab some donuts, though. I guarantee that Roman could eat a whole bag full."

Roman could use a bag full of donuts. He's a growing boy.

So they walk. August is pushing her stroller. There's a benefit to having a Fenrir Garou around. Kora clears the way, they have an easy path through the shifting crowd, as people find other places to be, remember somethin left behind on a benc.h. As they go elsewhere.

[August Grant] It was kind of nice, actually - having a path cleared for her. She thought things were difficult with a belly - but while pushing a stroller, things were much more difficult.

"That's too bad. He's missing out really. Though I don't really like corndogs too much because the hotdog ends up tasting like stick and that just isn't too good." She made a little face as she pulled the stroller into line for the donuts. "I mean, if I wanted to chew on a stick.. I would."

[Kora] Rather like the crowd, the line for the donuts clears out more quickly with a Garou standing at August's side. It may be difficult for the kinswoman to piece out what the humans feel - that primal sense of fear that seems to open up in so many of them when a Garou is close. Kora is not ragebound, she holds it all back, in easy check, with a strong will and a sort of living confidence that seems both more rooted and older than the primal wash of anger than is rage.

Still, it's there, under her otherwise ordinary skin, pale in the shifting glitter of the pier's changing lights.

"I think I eat them too fast," the edge of Kora's half-smile is wry, " - to ever taste the stick, yeah? Since I never thought of that before. Mind you, I missed stuff like this in Europe. Mindless fast food. Generally, the food there's better - but you can't beat an amusement park or state fair for deep fried things. On a stick."

[August Grant] She should drag a trueborn with her at the grocery store too. It'd clear the lines out quicker, save some time. August ordered two bags of the donuts and paid for it without second look at Kora.

"I've never been to Europe.. what's it like over there? And they don't have food on a stick? Man, they are missing out for sure. A deep fried candy bar on a stick is the best.."

[Kora] "Could you excuse me?" Kora asks, briefly, lifting her chin and looking up over the crowd, with a winging frown curling across her pale brows. "I need to take this call. And, Europe's a pretty big place, but I can tell you about - oh, Barcelona for starters. I'd go back there in a heartbeat, if I could."

Not that she's likely ever to see it again.

With that, Kora ducks away as August waits for the donuts, pulling an inexpensive phone from her pocket, lifting it to her ear.