[Imogen] It is a cool autumnal evening, the sky dark, though cloudless. The day itself had been brilliantly bright, the sun shining, warming what it could, though it never overwhelmed.
She sits in a booth near an open window, a file folder in front of her, a beer to her left. No cigarette - Chicago does not allow them indoors anymore, but her hard-pack sits nearby, a zippo atop it, as if waiting for the moment for the mood to strike.
Overhead, music plays, canned, a radio which plays inoffensive rock, mostly classic, mostly repetitious. The stage is empty. Tuesday nights are not particularly a big draw, even in the British pub knock-off world. Many of the tables are empty.
[Kora] There's a fire going in the hearth. It isn't a real fire, just the facsimile of one - clever facsimile that it is. The logs are sculpted out of fire resistant resins, lights are embedded among the cinders scattered underneath the iron cradle in which the fake logs are contained, then spark and sizzle like the real thing. The crowd is small enough on a Tuesday night that the staff have opened the glass doors that would be closed on a busier night, and the fire dances cheerily, though it gives off little enough heat.
The hearth and the deep wooden booths and the polished brass and the gregarious barstaff imported from the countries of the Commonwealth - or at least those that produce citizens with the sort of charming accents that lilt pleasantly in the ears of Americans. Most of the crowd are clustered around the hearth, there's a game of darts in the corner. Otherwise, the place has that wrung-out, empty feel of a bar after hours, the overhead lights turned on, the trash cans brought out to start the clean-up. There's too much empty space, too much music, too little of the murmur of other conversations, the white noise of other people, ther lives, that one usually finds in a place like this.
Kora stops at the bar to put in her order for the kitchen, waits and clarifies a moment, and is then handed a glass. She pays the bill now, on the theory that her food will be presented to her sooner in such circumstances, in cash slid over the counter, surveying the room while the 'tender finds and makes change. Leaving a few bills behind as a tip, she picks up the glass and saunters through the dark pub, circling empty tables, the amateur dart league, stops at last at Imogen's table.
"Doc," the Skald's greeting is quiet, easy, her eyes direct as always. There is a glance shaved off to the file folder, then back to Imogen. " - mind if I join you?"
[Imogen] Imogen sees movement approaching out of the corner of her eye, and as she does, she begins to close her work. The papers are gathered, the folder closed, even as she realizes it is Kora. It is habit that that makes the action seem unhurried, even as it is immediate.
She watches the Skald approach, her gaze flicking briefly to the glass, then up again.
"I don't," she says. "Ha' a seat."
She moves the file folder aside, leaning back in her chair. "Ordered food, ha' you?"
[Kora] "Cheers, thanks," Kora returns, when Imogen notes that she doesn't mind. She lifts the glass just a little by way of toast, the dark liquid - not carbonated - gleams in the dim light. In the handful of steps from the bar to the table, Kora has already slid her free hand back into her right front pocket. Now she slides it out, shifting the drink from hand to hand, lowering herself into th seat opposite with that careless, animal precision that marks so many Garou, that defines them so easily, so clearly, to those accustomed to looking for these subtle signs.
" - yeah," she continues, affirms, shooting a glance over her shoulder, told the bar and the kitchen beyond. "Bangers and mash. I don't suppose you've ever it here, have you? All I've had before is the fish and chips. Which is usually decent, even if the fucking imported British newspaper is a bit much." Then she is sliding across the opposite seat, until she can press the back of her shoulder blades against the paneled wall, sit nearly sideways, keeping a keen eye on the barroom.
[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twists slightly in wryness as she shakes her head in answer to the question. "I didn't come all th'way t'America t'eat poor knock offs o' food I could get back 'ome," she says.
Back home, she calls it, always. It doesn't matter it's been ten years. It doesn't matter she never goes back. Back home while here - well. It's somewhere she lives.
She picks up her beer, a brew dark enough to be its own meal, and takes a sip, swallowing slowly.
"Trent stopped by to see me," she says, somewhat abruptly. "Shall I congratulate you on your news or pretend I don't know anythin' about it?" An eyebrow cocks a quarter inch as she looks at the Skald - her gaze more direct than most cliaths.
[Kora] Six months ago, when spring was slowly crawling from the slough of winter, 50-something felt like a heat wave. Throw in some watery sun and bright blue sky and she might've gone around bare-armed, without a jacket, innured to the cold both by virtue of her blood and by dint of the long, dark winter days - in and about the streets.
Now though, softened by summer, Kora's already wearing her thermal underneath her t-shirt, topped by a hooded cotton jacket in bands of muted blue and gray zipped half-way up. It's light enough that she needed take it off, but she's unzipping it, about to make some quip about British food, knock-off or otherwise, being inherently superior to the hardscrabble traditional foods of the northmen of Iceland, Faroe, Hjaltland, the bare, salt-washed rocks of the north Atlantic islands. Headcheese and pickled testicles, dried fish, whale fat.
Instead, though, she's caught with that faintly ironic half-smile on her mouth, a moment's lilting surprise at Imogen's bluntness.
"I heard Roman puked on his shoes," Kora acknowledges, in lieu of a more direct response. Kora glances up, meets the kinswoman's eyes then, and breathes out a sort of spare laugh, this flare of her nostrils that stills, after. A pause. Then, "I'm sorry you found out like that, though."
[Imogen] Kora mentions Roman and Imogen's breath exhales slightly. "It was a little - " a brief pause. "Dramatic, shall we say, yes."
The Fenrir apologizes and Imogen shakes her head slightly, picking up her beer for another swallow. Her eyes move away, touching briefly on a couple, laughing near the bar, her expression masked.
"I'm sure there's no etiquette for it," she decides to say, finally, turning back. "How yeh tell a kinfolk acquaintance that you're enceinte." The word choice is handled with particular irony.
"I wasn't particularly missin' my engraved letter."
[Kora] That particular choice of words is enough to make Kora laugh - briefly, brightly - out loud. Her mouth curls around the hint of laughter, and the movement of it lingers in the tension of her shoulders, gleams across the surface of her eyes, after.
"No," she says at last, agreeing. Left to her own devices, Imogen - perhaps even Roman - would likely have remained ignorant until they could see the change in her body with their own eyes. "I suppose there aren't rules for that. I meant more - " a gesture of her free hand, and a brief, unconscious, even envious glance at Imogen's beer. " - the rest of it, yeah?" The vomiting packmate, the - drama of it - though Kora leaves that unspoken.
"Would've been better if he found out from me," she continues, sobering. Her fingers circle the rim of her glass. Not beer, but iced tea. A concession, perhaps, to her delicate condition. Kora shoots a look, direct, at Imogen, then looks off, more unfocused, toward the flames dancing in the fireplace.
[Frost] (Okay if I join in?)
to Imogen, Kora
[Kora] (I think Mei - Imogen's player - needs to sleep, but I'd be happy to start a scene, or shift this one to RP with you!)
to Frost, Imogen
[Frost] (That would be great. I don't mind lurking a few while you guys wind up.)
to Imogen, Kora
[Imogen] Imogen is quiet again, picking up her file folder to lean over, sliding it between the teeth of her brief case's open mouth.
"I'm not owed an apology," this, simple, firm. "Personally, I can't imagine he is, either, but that's fer you and him to decide."
[Imogen] (and pause!)
[Imogen] (goodnight, folks! *grin* have fun! Frost, I look forward to playing with you!)
to Frost, Kora
[Frost] ((Me too! Good night.))
to Imogen, Kora
[Kora] okay: so, I can continue in the setting we were using - a British-style pub? - or go somewhere else if that makes more sense for you. Also: does your chickhave pure breed!
to Frost
[Frost] (No pure breed. She could certainly use a drink though. *G* She's new in town and has been trying to hook up with the family, but doesn't have any connections here.)
to Kora
[Kora] Okay. Bar works! If she has anything that might mark her out as kin to help me out in giving Kora a reason to talk to her, that would be brilliant. I'll post again, recycling some of the setting stuff. :)
to Frost
[Kora] Their conversation continues, shifts, moves. Sometime later, Imogen leaves, packing away her file folder, disappearing out the front door, her precise, clipped gait, remarkably slight, her hair bright against the clear gloom of the Chicago night.
The pub remains three-quarters empty. The evening is a slow one, most of those here are regulars in the small dart league. The kitchen is open late, but the wait staff leave early on a night like this. No use in waiting around for tips when the 'tender can serve those patrons who want food just as easily as anyone else can.
Twenty minutes after putting in her order, Kora still hasn't got her meal yet.
She stands up, picks up her half-finished drink, slides neatly out from the booth and ambles through the warm, dark pub toward the bar. She's a tall woman, dressed in casual clothing - worn jeans, a white thermal under a black t-shirt, under a zip-front cotton hoodie. Pale blonde hair - some ash-hewn color, more gold in the summer, fading to sun-stripped wheat as the sun begins to retreat with the fall - is pulled back sharply from her face. Doc Marten's complete the ensemble, heavy black ones, scuffed and sure, with shafts half-way up her calves, wrapped round with colorful laces.
"Hey, man," she says as she slides up to the bar, hooking a stool with her left foot and pulling it out before climbing up to sit on it. "The hell is my food, anyway?" It's friendly, that, accompanied by the curl of an expressive mouth, this engaging half-smile that takes away some of the sting from the coil of fear that twists around the base of the man's too-human spine, that subtle twinge of subconscious fear, her rage, his will.
[Frost] It must be tall women night at the pub, as Frost steps inside and pauses to look around, pale blue eyes alert, her lips quirked as though she were thinking of something amusing. Ambiance. That's what she needs. Isn't Chicago supposed to be famous for it? Her boots clip the wooden floor with muted thuds as she walks towards the bar. It looks like a slow night. She didn't bother to dress up. She's been doing the business suit thing all week. In fact, she deliberately dressed down, in old levis and a black tee shirt sporting the heavy metal band Rhapsody. Adorning her neck and wrists are spiked bands. At least, that's what a casual glance would get you; however those spikes are not ivory, but real teeth and claws, trophies taken from creatures few humans have ever seen, or lived to tell about.
She pulls up a stool at the bar and orders a Fat Tire. When the beer arrives she gives the aroma an appreciative whiff before she takes a deep draught.
[Kora] Ambiance. That's what she needs. It's not Chicago ambiance she finds her, but some imported facsimile of a British pub. There are pennants for Man United and Tottenham, for Chelsea and Celtic and on and on, scattered about the ceilng. The dart league in the corner consists of a few British ex-pats interspersed with 20- and 30-somethings who would prefer to live on the other side of the pond, and insist on calling the field the pitch, even though they manage the words with accents as varied as Boston and Minnesota.
The bartender serves Frost her drink, gives her a lingering smile maybe calls her love. He has one of those vaguely British accents that suggests he's from somewhere in the Commonwealth, though his place of origin could be as varied as Wales or New Zealand. Someplace with a richer accent than any American could claim, though. Maybe he throws in a love, at the end, one of those endearments that sounds lovely when tossed off in an accent, sexist, and instrusive when spoken by a drawling southern boy.
He's back a moment later, a plate of - well, meat and potatoes, bangers and mash - set in front of the lean blonde woman two seats down, sitting up at the bar. "Thanks," Kora says, with a quiet, casual flicker of a spare smile for the bartender, who retreats rather quickly, all said, without knowing why. Most of her attention is on frost, a flicker of dark eyes over the jewelry that isn't what it seems.
"Interesting stuff." The stranger tells her, a certain tension - a certain awareness - written into the shape of her spin. "The neck piece, and wrist band," she clarifies, a moment later. Her voice is rich, low, the accent blandly American - suburban, any suburb, anywhere. " - you do them yourself?"
[Frost] She can't help a hint of a smirk when the man calls her love in that oddly charming accent. Is it real? She tilts her head slightly wondering, and then the man glances at that other chick and takes off before she can ask for what she's eating. Because it does smell good. Ah well, he'll be back. She takes another sip of her beer and gives the woman a friendly smile. She must have looked clueless when stranger said, "interesting stuff" because she clarified it quickly enough. Frost looks down at her wrist bands and lightly touches one. "Oh, no. I didn't make them. In fact, I wish I knew where they were made, I'd get a belt to match. I sort of inherited them."
[Kora] "Family heirlooms?" Kora returns quickly, her interest sharpening, dark eyes tracing the gesture as Frost reaches down, touches the wrist band - lightly, even musingly, she continues, her expressive mouth quirked at the rightmost corner, the expresson not-quite a smirk. "You might injure yourself with a belt, you know. Or," unwrapping her untensils from her napkin without quick looking. " - someone you know, or want to know. Probably best that didn't come as part of the matched set."
There's a shout from the kitchen, and then the bartender comes back to Frost just as she thought he would. "Anything from the kitchen love, he's about to shut it down for the night."
[Frost] Nods when she calls them family heirlooms. They well could be. Funny, she never saw her mother wear them, but they were in her things. Perhaps from a chapter of her life she'd never shared, and now, never would. "I think I could have managed a belt unscathed." Ah, there he is. She gives the bartender a warm smile. "Yes, LUV, how about a dish of what my friend here is having."
[Kora] "Bangers and mash?" the 'tender inquires, a dubious glance at Kora's full plate of mashed potatos and cooked sausages, British style, not Chicago style - bangers, not brats, swimming in glistening grease. When he receives affirmation from frost, the 30-something ex-pat retreats to the kitchen window, calling out the last few orders to the kitchen.
--
Kora, well, Kora flicks one of those dark eyed looks back at Frost. The glance lingers, now. More interested, more watchful, more aware of the shape of the bones, the claws affixed to the black leather. Humans would dismiss them, assume them to be constructed of plastic, resin. Something front hot-topic, maybe, purchased from some dealer in leather goods at a concert. The stranger takes a bite - sausage and potato, together - savors it and swallows.
Then, the bartender out of earshot by the kitchen window, the dart club celebrating - and disputing - some divergent score in the corner, she continues, rather more quetly, a sort of stillness written into the planes and angles of her features, the sharp jaw, the curving mouth, the intent gleam in her dark eyes. "Never seen an animal with claws like that," the stranger says, a lift of her chin. " - who'd you say gave them to you?"
[Frost] A nod to the bartender, yes that is really what she wants. Another sip of beer as he walks away. She can feel a sort of tension building in the air between her and the other woman. She hasn't missed the scrutiny, and now... she wonders. Deliberately she unbuckles one of the wrist bands. No cheap costume jewelry snap. She fondles the spiked leather, each bit of ivory secured in a pewter base. She can't help noting the leading question. "I didn't say, but they were my mother's." She offers the band over to her, thinking she might like a closer look.
[Kora] The Skald reaches out across the empty barseat between them and, palm-up, accepts the spiked leather band. The hoodie she wears doesn't match the black PIXIES t-shirt evident underneath when she turns, swiveling on the stool, opening her body briefly to take up the cuff.
Neither does it match the bracelets wrapped around her own wrist. None of them are so martial as Frost's spiked cuff - though there are a good half-dozen of them on either wrist, braided leather, twisted suede, even knotted rope and fiber, the utilitarian sort one might use in fishing nets, in boat rigging, splayed open, unwound and repurposed on a long, drawn-out night.
These are matched by a choker of braided black leather, thin and fine, dark against her pale skin, evident really only when she turns. Underneath the mixture of pieces, on the fine skin of her inner wrist, a small tattoo - an angular Futhark rune - etched neatly into her pale skin, just above the pulse. Just a glimpse of that, really - though it is distinctively norse rather than some other script, for one who knows the lines of the old runic alphabets, hard and angular, precise.
Kora turns the piece over in her hand, moving her thumb over the pewter fixings, feeling both the weight and supple hand of the leather.
"Your mother's, yeah?" the Skald asks, when she's finished. It is just a placeholder; or - more than that, an acknowledgment, respectful, quiet. Were is a distinctive term. Past tense. "She collected them herself."
That last bit isn't even a question. Without though, Kora reaches across the bar, snags a pen from behind the counter, and scrawls a number and a name on a napkin.
"My number. I have to go, but you should give me a call."
[Kora] (III posted, and alas, I need to sleep. Does tha work for an ending?)
to Frost
[Kora] (and! if you have AIM: mine is istioname)
to Frost
[Frost] She watches her closely, taking the number and putting her hand out to receive the bracelet back. "I'm Frost," is all she says.
[Frost] (My bed time too. I have Aim but it won't add you. It doesn't work very well for some reason. Very glitchy. Sylkie696 or ebon_wyvern@hotmail.com)
to Kora
She sits in a booth near an open window, a file folder in front of her, a beer to her left. No cigarette - Chicago does not allow them indoors anymore, but her hard-pack sits nearby, a zippo atop it, as if waiting for the moment for the mood to strike.
Overhead, music plays, canned, a radio which plays inoffensive rock, mostly classic, mostly repetitious. The stage is empty. Tuesday nights are not particularly a big draw, even in the British pub knock-off world. Many of the tables are empty.
[Kora] There's a fire going in the hearth. It isn't a real fire, just the facsimile of one - clever facsimile that it is. The logs are sculpted out of fire resistant resins, lights are embedded among the cinders scattered underneath the iron cradle in which the fake logs are contained, then spark and sizzle like the real thing. The crowd is small enough on a Tuesday night that the staff have opened the glass doors that would be closed on a busier night, and the fire dances cheerily, though it gives off little enough heat.
The hearth and the deep wooden booths and the polished brass and the gregarious barstaff imported from the countries of the Commonwealth - or at least those that produce citizens with the sort of charming accents that lilt pleasantly in the ears of Americans. Most of the crowd are clustered around the hearth, there's a game of darts in the corner. Otherwise, the place has that wrung-out, empty feel of a bar after hours, the overhead lights turned on, the trash cans brought out to start the clean-up. There's too much empty space, too much music, too little of the murmur of other conversations, the white noise of other people, ther lives, that one usually finds in a place like this.
Kora stops at the bar to put in her order for the kitchen, waits and clarifies a moment, and is then handed a glass. She pays the bill now, on the theory that her food will be presented to her sooner in such circumstances, in cash slid over the counter, surveying the room while the 'tender finds and makes change. Leaving a few bills behind as a tip, she picks up the glass and saunters through the dark pub, circling empty tables, the amateur dart league, stops at last at Imogen's table.
"Doc," the Skald's greeting is quiet, easy, her eyes direct as always. There is a glance shaved off to the file folder, then back to Imogen. " - mind if I join you?"
[Imogen] Imogen sees movement approaching out of the corner of her eye, and as she does, she begins to close her work. The papers are gathered, the folder closed, even as she realizes it is Kora. It is habit that that makes the action seem unhurried, even as it is immediate.
She watches the Skald approach, her gaze flicking briefly to the glass, then up again.
"I don't," she says. "Ha' a seat."
She moves the file folder aside, leaning back in her chair. "Ordered food, ha' you?"
[Kora] "Cheers, thanks," Kora returns, when Imogen notes that she doesn't mind. She lifts the glass just a little by way of toast, the dark liquid - not carbonated - gleams in the dim light. In the handful of steps from the bar to the table, Kora has already slid her free hand back into her right front pocket. Now she slides it out, shifting the drink from hand to hand, lowering herself into th seat opposite with that careless, animal precision that marks so many Garou, that defines them so easily, so clearly, to those accustomed to looking for these subtle signs.
" - yeah," she continues, affirms, shooting a glance over her shoulder, told the bar and the kitchen beyond. "Bangers and mash. I don't suppose you've ever it here, have you? All I've had before is the fish and chips. Which is usually decent, even if the fucking imported British newspaper is a bit much." Then she is sliding across the opposite seat, until she can press the back of her shoulder blades against the paneled wall, sit nearly sideways, keeping a keen eye on the barroom.
[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twists slightly in wryness as she shakes her head in answer to the question. "I didn't come all th'way t'America t'eat poor knock offs o' food I could get back 'ome," she says.
Back home, she calls it, always. It doesn't matter it's been ten years. It doesn't matter she never goes back. Back home while here - well. It's somewhere she lives.
She picks up her beer, a brew dark enough to be its own meal, and takes a sip, swallowing slowly.
"Trent stopped by to see me," she says, somewhat abruptly. "Shall I congratulate you on your news or pretend I don't know anythin' about it?" An eyebrow cocks a quarter inch as she looks at the Skald - her gaze more direct than most cliaths.
[Kora] Six months ago, when spring was slowly crawling from the slough of winter, 50-something felt like a heat wave. Throw in some watery sun and bright blue sky and she might've gone around bare-armed, without a jacket, innured to the cold both by virtue of her blood and by dint of the long, dark winter days - in and about the streets.
Now though, softened by summer, Kora's already wearing her thermal underneath her t-shirt, topped by a hooded cotton jacket in bands of muted blue and gray zipped half-way up. It's light enough that she needed take it off, but she's unzipping it, about to make some quip about British food, knock-off or otherwise, being inherently superior to the hardscrabble traditional foods of the northmen of Iceland, Faroe, Hjaltland, the bare, salt-washed rocks of the north Atlantic islands. Headcheese and pickled testicles, dried fish, whale fat.
Instead, though, she's caught with that faintly ironic half-smile on her mouth, a moment's lilting surprise at Imogen's bluntness.
"I heard Roman puked on his shoes," Kora acknowledges, in lieu of a more direct response. Kora glances up, meets the kinswoman's eyes then, and breathes out a sort of spare laugh, this flare of her nostrils that stills, after. A pause. Then, "I'm sorry you found out like that, though."
[Imogen] Kora mentions Roman and Imogen's breath exhales slightly. "It was a little - " a brief pause. "Dramatic, shall we say, yes."
The Fenrir apologizes and Imogen shakes her head slightly, picking up her beer for another swallow. Her eyes move away, touching briefly on a couple, laughing near the bar, her expression masked.
"I'm sure there's no etiquette for it," she decides to say, finally, turning back. "How yeh tell a kinfolk acquaintance that you're enceinte." The word choice is handled with particular irony.
"I wasn't particularly missin' my engraved letter."
[Kora] That particular choice of words is enough to make Kora laugh - briefly, brightly - out loud. Her mouth curls around the hint of laughter, and the movement of it lingers in the tension of her shoulders, gleams across the surface of her eyes, after.
"No," she says at last, agreeing. Left to her own devices, Imogen - perhaps even Roman - would likely have remained ignorant until they could see the change in her body with their own eyes. "I suppose there aren't rules for that. I meant more - " a gesture of her free hand, and a brief, unconscious, even envious glance at Imogen's beer. " - the rest of it, yeah?" The vomiting packmate, the - drama of it - though Kora leaves that unspoken.
"Would've been better if he found out from me," she continues, sobering. Her fingers circle the rim of her glass. Not beer, but iced tea. A concession, perhaps, to her delicate condition. Kora shoots a look, direct, at Imogen, then looks off, more unfocused, toward the flames dancing in the fireplace.
[Frost] (Okay if I join in?)
to Imogen, Kora
[Kora] (I think Mei - Imogen's player - needs to sleep, but I'd be happy to start a scene, or shift this one to RP with you!)
to Frost, Imogen
[Frost] (That would be great. I don't mind lurking a few while you guys wind up.)
to Imogen, Kora
[Imogen] Imogen is quiet again, picking up her file folder to lean over, sliding it between the teeth of her brief case's open mouth.
"I'm not owed an apology," this, simple, firm. "Personally, I can't imagine he is, either, but that's fer you and him to decide."
[Imogen] (and pause!)
[Imogen] (goodnight, folks! *grin* have fun! Frost, I look forward to playing with you!)
to Frost, Kora
[Frost] ((Me too! Good night.))
to Imogen, Kora
[Kora] okay: so, I can continue in the setting we were using - a British-style pub? - or go somewhere else if that makes more sense for you. Also: does your chickhave pure breed!
to Frost
[Frost] (No pure breed. She could certainly use a drink though. *G* She's new in town and has been trying to hook up with the family, but doesn't have any connections here.)
to Kora
[Kora] Okay. Bar works! If she has anything that might mark her out as kin to help me out in giving Kora a reason to talk to her, that would be brilliant. I'll post again, recycling some of the setting stuff. :)
to Frost
[Kora] Their conversation continues, shifts, moves. Sometime later, Imogen leaves, packing away her file folder, disappearing out the front door, her precise, clipped gait, remarkably slight, her hair bright against the clear gloom of the Chicago night.
The pub remains three-quarters empty. The evening is a slow one, most of those here are regulars in the small dart league. The kitchen is open late, but the wait staff leave early on a night like this. No use in waiting around for tips when the 'tender can serve those patrons who want food just as easily as anyone else can.
Twenty minutes after putting in her order, Kora still hasn't got her meal yet.
She stands up, picks up her half-finished drink, slides neatly out from the booth and ambles through the warm, dark pub toward the bar. She's a tall woman, dressed in casual clothing - worn jeans, a white thermal under a black t-shirt, under a zip-front cotton hoodie. Pale blonde hair - some ash-hewn color, more gold in the summer, fading to sun-stripped wheat as the sun begins to retreat with the fall - is pulled back sharply from her face. Doc Marten's complete the ensemble, heavy black ones, scuffed and sure, with shafts half-way up her calves, wrapped round with colorful laces.
"Hey, man," she says as she slides up to the bar, hooking a stool with her left foot and pulling it out before climbing up to sit on it. "The hell is my food, anyway?" It's friendly, that, accompanied by the curl of an expressive mouth, this engaging half-smile that takes away some of the sting from the coil of fear that twists around the base of the man's too-human spine, that subtle twinge of subconscious fear, her rage, his will.
[Frost] It must be tall women night at the pub, as Frost steps inside and pauses to look around, pale blue eyes alert, her lips quirked as though she were thinking of something amusing. Ambiance. That's what she needs. Isn't Chicago supposed to be famous for it? Her boots clip the wooden floor with muted thuds as she walks towards the bar. It looks like a slow night. She didn't bother to dress up. She's been doing the business suit thing all week. In fact, she deliberately dressed down, in old levis and a black tee shirt sporting the heavy metal band Rhapsody. Adorning her neck and wrists are spiked bands. At least, that's what a casual glance would get you; however those spikes are not ivory, but real teeth and claws, trophies taken from creatures few humans have ever seen, or lived to tell about.
She pulls up a stool at the bar and orders a Fat Tire. When the beer arrives she gives the aroma an appreciative whiff before she takes a deep draught.
[Kora] Ambiance. That's what she needs. It's not Chicago ambiance she finds her, but some imported facsimile of a British pub. There are pennants for Man United and Tottenham, for Chelsea and Celtic and on and on, scattered about the ceilng. The dart league in the corner consists of a few British ex-pats interspersed with 20- and 30-somethings who would prefer to live on the other side of the pond, and insist on calling the field the pitch, even though they manage the words with accents as varied as Boston and Minnesota.
The bartender serves Frost her drink, gives her a lingering smile maybe calls her love. He has one of those vaguely British accents that suggests he's from somewhere in the Commonwealth, though his place of origin could be as varied as Wales or New Zealand. Someplace with a richer accent than any American could claim, though. Maybe he throws in a love, at the end, one of those endearments that sounds lovely when tossed off in an accent, sexist, and instrusive when spoken by a drawling southern boy.
He's back a moment later, a plate of - well, meat and potatoes, bangers and mash - set in front of the lean blonde woman two seats down, sitting up at the bar. "Thanks," Kora says, with a quiet, casual flicker of a spare smile for the bartender, who retreats rather quickly, all said, without knowing why. Most of her attention is on frost, a flicker of dark eyes over the jewelry that isn't what it seems.
"Interesting stuff." The stranger tells her, a certain tension - a certain awareness - written into the shape of her spin. "The neck piece, and wrist band," she clarifies, a moment later. Her voice is rich, low, the accent blandly American - suburban, any suburb, anywhere. " - you do them yourself?"
[Frost] She can't help a hint of a smirk when the man calls her love in that oddly charming accent. Is it real? She tilts her head slightly wondering, and then the man glances at that other chick and takes off before she can ask for what she's eating. Because it does smell good. Ah well, he'll be back. She takes another sip of her beer and gives the woman a friendly smile. She must have looked clueless when stranger said, "interesting stuff" because she clarified it quickly enough. Frost looks down at her wrist bands and lightly touches one. "Oh, no. I didn't make them. In fact, I wish I knew where they were made, I'd get a belt to match. I sort of inherited them."
[Kora] "Family heirlooms?" Kora returns quickly, her interest sharpening, dark eyes tracing the gesture as Frost reaches down, touches the wrist band - lightly, even musingly, she continues, her expressive mouth quirked at the rightmost corner, the expresson not-quite a smirk. "You might injure yourself with a belt, you know. Or," unwrapping her untensils from her napkin without quick looking. " - someone you know, or want to know. Probably best that didn't come as part of the matched set."
There's a shout from the kitchen, and then the bartender comes back to Frost just as she thought he would. "Anything from the kitchen love, he's about to shut it down for the night."
[Frost] Nods when she calls them family heirlooms. They well could be. Funny, she never saw her mother wear them, but they were in her things. Perhaps from a chapter of her life she'd never shared, and now, never would. "I think I could have managed a belt unscathed." Ah, there he is. She gives the bartender a warm smile. "Yes, LUV, how about a dish of what my friend here is having."
[Kora] "Bangers and mash?" the 'tender inquires, a dubious glance at Kora's full plate of mashed potatos and cooked sausages, British style, not Chicago style - bangers, not brats, swimming in glistening grease. When he receives affirmation from frost, the 30-something ex-pat retreats to the kitchen window, calling out the last few orders to the kitchen.
--
Kora, well, Kora flicks one of those dark eyed looks back at Frost. The glance lingers, now. More interested, more watchful, more aware of the shape of the bones, the claws affixed to the black leather. Humans would dismiss them, assume them to be constructed of plastic, resin. Something front hot-topic, maybe, purchased from some dealer in leather goods at a concert. The stranger takes a bite - sausage and potato, together - savors it and swallows.
Then, the bartender out of earshot by the kitchen window, the dart club celebrating - and disputing - some divergent score in the corner, she continues, rather more quetly, a sort of stillness written into the planes and angles of her features, the sharp jaw, the curving mouth, the intent gleam in her dark eyes. "Never seen an animal with claws like that," the stranger says, a lift of her chin. " - who'd you say gave them to you?"
[Frost] A nod to the bartender, yes that is really what she wants. Another sip of beer as he walks away. She can feel a sort of tension building in the air between her and the other woman. She hasn't missed the scrutiny, and now... she wonders. Deliberately she unbuckles one of the wrist bands. No cheap costume jewelry snap. She fondles the spiked leather, each bit of ivory secured in a pewter base. She can't help noting the leading question. "I didn't say, but they were my mother's." She offers the band over to her, thinking she might like a closer look.
[Kora] The Skald reaches out across the empty barseat between them and, palm-up, accepts the spiked leather band. The hoodie she wears doesn't match the black PIXIES t-shirt evident underneath when she turns, swiveling on the stool, opening her body briefly to take up the cuff.
Neither does it match the bracelets wrapped around her own wrist. None of them are so martial as Frost's spiked cuff - though there are a good half-dozen of them on either wrist, braided leather, twisted suede, even knotted rope and fiber, the utilitarian sort one might use in fishing nets, in boat rigging, splayed open, unwound and repurposed on a long, drawn-out night.
These are matched by a choker of braided black leather, thin and fine, dark against her pale skin, evident really only when she turns. Underneath the mixture of pieces, on the fine skin of her inner wrist, a small tattoo - an angular Futhark rune - etched neatly into her pale skin, just above the pulse. Just a glimpse of that, really - though it is distinctively norse rather than some other script, for one who knows the lines of the old runic alphabets, hard and angular, precise.
Kora turns the piece over in her hand, moving her thumb over the pewter fixings, feeling both the weight and supple hand of the leather.
"Your mother's, yeah?" the Skald asks, when she's finished. It is just a placeholder; or - more than that, an acknowledgment, respectful, quiet. Were is a distinctive term. Past tense. "She collected them herself."
That last bit isn't even a question. Without though, Kora reaches across the bar, snags a pen from behind the counter, and scrawls a number and a name on a napkin.
"My number. I have to go, but you should give me a call."
[Kora] (III posted, and alas, I need to sleep. Does tha work for an ending?)
to Frost
[Kora] (and! if you have AIM: mine is istioname)
to Frost
[Frost] She watches her closely, taking the number and putting her hand out to receive the bracelet back. "I'm Frost," is all she says.
[Frost] (My bed time too. I have Aim but it won't add you. It doesn't work very well for some reason. Very glitchy. Sylkie696 or ebon_wyvern@hotmail.com)
to Kora
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