[Izzy Montoya] The message, when it was delivered via voice mail, was simple and to the point. "I have some info for you. Karls?"
If one thing could be said about Detective Izzy Montoya, it's that she does her job. She does it, and she does it well - both of them. Which is why she's here, at the smallish run of the mill sports bar called Karls, where most of the patrons are busy watching the night's game on the big screen, and Izzy can find a quiet table in the back.
When Kora arrives, she's already there. She's obviously just come from work, her jacket draped on the seat of the booth next to her, a file folder that she's working through taking up most of the area directly in front of her.
She looks as she always does - with one addition: the remains what must have been a spectacular black eye. There's a cut high on her right cheek well on the way to healing, and the bruising has faded from brilliant blacks blues and purples to a not near as pretty green and yellow.
Otherwise, she is just the same - from the casual business dress code, to the whiskey -neat - within easy reach. She hasn't ordered for Kora, as she's unsure what she'd drink now that she's pregnant, and Izzy is not one to make assumptions. Ever. Instead, there is a glass of water, with lemon, drops of condensation dripping down the side.
[Kora] Today was warmer enough - with slices of sun incised neatly through the canyons of the city's high-rise developments - that some of last month's - last year's - accumulation of snow has started to melt. The massive piles pushed up around berms, caged trees, streetslights are criss-crossed with slowly growing rivulets of meltwater that gleam pale gray against the darker grime of the filthy snow.
Still, when the sun sets - no later than 4:30, 4:45 - winter closes in again, and a cold, wet wind dances through the city. Kora enters Karl's with another gust of that cold wind at her back. The creature is dressed for winter - in layers - a dark wool coat, black or gray - over a hoodied defined by varying shades of horizontal stripes in tones of deep blue-green, the hood pulled up over her pale blonde hair, her hands kept snug and warm in the forward pockets of the coat.
Her black boots glisten with runoff, snowmelt; the multicolored laces are dark from the wet, and bedraggled where they wrap around her calves. The well-worn leather is stained from salt and cinders spread by the city and well-meaning shopkeepers to keep the streets and sidewalks free of ice, and her jeans are damp nearly to the knee, rising above the boots, from a long day out in the city.
They are opposite as night and day. One of Izzy's colleagues might assume that the pale-skinned blonde with the sharp, dark-eyed stare is an informant of some sort. Her skin is pink from the cold, in the cheeks, in the tip of her streaming nose - and her eyes shine with the pleasant shock of the heat blasting against her sinuses after the cold night outside - but there's nothing else innocent about her. The winter gear is enough to conceal her pregnancy, still, and the way she walks - thoughtless and sure - says animal all over.
"Detective," Kora greets her, stopping at the side of the table to unbutton the outer layer of her wool coat, sliding the buttons through the buttonholes one by one, before she tugs it off and slings it into her side of the booth. She half-unzips the hoodie, showing a dark t-shirt over an undershirt in a thermal waffle-weave, and folds herself into the seat with an ease her future self will envy in the months to come. "What's up?"
That question is quickly followed by - " - what the hell happened to you?" when Izzy looks up, revealing the old, sickly pattern of her healing shiner.
[Izzy Montoya] There's a moment, when Kora enters the room, where everything goes still. It doesn't last long, less than a second in truth, where the patrons inhale, and wait as she animal walks into their midst. If asked, they wouldn't actually remember the moment at all - it's that basic, it's that instinctive, it's that buried. It passes, the noise resumes it's level, and Izzy's 'informant' makes her way to the table.
Detective, Kora greets her. "Kora." Is the reply.
Then she asks the question of the hour, and Izzy actually chuckles, and lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "Zigged when I should have zagged during a questioning. It's nothing. You should see the other guy." Sometimes? There isn't a doubt at all that Izzy is Fenrir.
"As for what's up - heard anything about knockoff shoes and or makeup being sold on the streets?"
[Kora] Izzy brushes off the question - zigged when I should have zagged with a joke. There is a moment, nearly liminal, where Kora's attention sharpens like so: her eyes narrow and her mouth goes still, and that sense of attention, of watchfulness, of consideration shifts to something more full of intent. Stillness lingers in her mouth, and the kinswoman may have the strange impression of her reflection in the Garou's eyes, pale against the dark irises, the smear of lights from the bar, the back and forth on SportsCenter about the playoffs and bowl bids, discussion of the Bear's chances, and all the like a sort of illiquid background to their conversation, made staccato by the rhythm of the games being broadcast.
Then the moment passes. Pale lids cover dark eyes, the grace of her blond lashes across her still wind-lashed cheeks as Kora blinks looks up over Izzy's shoulder, then drops her gaze back to the Detective's face. Unflinching, right? Even, steady, and assured.
"No - " here the line of her mouth breaks, crests into a brief, wry smile. " - fashion isn't really my thing. Why?"
[Izzy Montoya] Kora's attention sharpens, her eyes narrowing and her body falling still, full of intent. She arches a brow, slightly, and quietly adds... "It's my job, Kora. He got scared, he swung, I didn't duck fast enough. It happens. It's nothing."
Nothing to do with the Nation, she means. Then, she moves on, and nods, a slight smirk curving her lips. "Mine either. Got a call on a dead hooker in an alley on the 26th. In the course of investigating, I discovered she was kin. I don't have a lot to go on, but enough to suggest you and yours might want to look into it. Here's what I have."
She sifts through the folder, and finds the paper she's looking for and slides it across the table. On it are typed notes that she recites from memory. "Her name was Claire Daniels - street name was Chloe. The security guard that waited for my arrival was Officer Wallach. He was her friend - in the way that cops can be with hookers without fucking them, anyway, but didn't know much about her. Said she wasn't from Lake View where we found her - worked the corner Southside by J and C liquor."
She pauses and takes a swallow of her whiskey, swallowing it with a grimace. "While I looked into it - heard some things." There's a pointed look, so that Kora knows exactly how she heard such things... "She was Gnawer kin. Killed by a blow to the head after... well." She waves a hand. She heard it. She's not going to repeat it. "Before that though, she was talking with a guy she called Jonsey. Officer Wallach confirmed that someone named Jones was a friend of hers, that and a guy called Royo or something similar that he considered bad news. Anyway, they were talking about the knock offs of makeup and boots being bad news, and 'hard core shit'" A beat, and a shake of her head. "He wanted her to quit hookin. She said she would when it stopped getting her information."
Another drink, another inhale. "Only other thing of interest was just before they killed her, she asked where they were getting the product. They said North."
[Kora] Someone else might need to write the details down, but Kora is a Skald, with a Skald's careful attention to the fundamentals of a thing, and a Skald's ear for words, and a Skald's care for a story. Her mouth cuts itself into a brief, narrow little frown as she considers the information, her nostrils flaring when Izzy mentions that she was kin to the Bone Gnawers.
The creature is quiet, after.
"Claire Daniels," she confirms, breaking the pall of silence, a minute's worth, or two or three between them, while TCU scores in the background again and again, and a thick-necked commentator bloviates about the bowl system. The need for playoffs. Future prospects and present dangers.
"I'll tell her tribe directly." This is the first duty - not vengeance but memory, scrawling the name that might otherwise be forgotten back into the realm of smoke and ash to which it belongs. "I'd appreciate it if - if there is information as to next of kin - you could find out for me. I'll pass it on. Let me know if someone has claimed the body. If not, her tribe will want to do something - " Pose as a sister, a mother, a grieving brother. Ensure that the dead woman does not become a science experiment, a desiccated, excavated corpse for the education of men - a thing on a slab, cold in the light of morning. " - to give her an appropriate send off."
Kora straightens her shoulders, flashes Izzy a quiet direct look, unsurprised in the end at the rest. The source of the knockoffs, the connection of the goods to violence. "More than a moon ago - " this is low-voiced, all in earnest, her voice pitched quiet to share between them. " - I tracked a cursed human to a boutique on the Mile. He took refuge there, tripped a silent alarm before I could take him out. While I was waiting for the cops to leave, a no-moon snuck into the building, found it crawling with darkness, tainted goods, with several cursed humans inside. We ended them, later, and the store closed."
A flat, wry look.
" - briefly.
"The murderspirits seemed to gather around the shoes and perfume."
Kora reaches for a napkin, then, and gestures for Izzy's pen, scrawls an address in the Mile from memory and pushes it back to the detective. "That was the original store. See what you can find out about it, yeah? Public information, nothing that might expose you to them, nothing that might show your hand." Kora pauses, her mouth curving downwards in thought. "Let me know if your investigation turns up anything else, too."
[Izzy Montoya] She nods. "I happened to have a run in..." literally, in fact "...with one of her Tribe. Said he is packed with one of yours - Joey Oliver? I let him know of her death, and that I would be speaking to you as soon as possible. He seemed to think that unnecessary. I informed him otherwise." A slight smirk there - the expression familiar.
"I'll find out about the body, and next of kin if they exist and let you know." And then, she mentions the boutique, and Izzy nods. "Someone mentioned a boutique - one of her Johns, but I couldn't get a name out of them, or an exact location." It's likely connected. Such things usually are.
She takes the napkin and the address written on it, and nods, slightly. "I'll see what I can find."
[Kora] "Joey?" echoes Kora, with a certain arching sense of surprise, the lilt of her pale brows, brief, narrow line that is shadowed between them, this fleeting ghost of startlement replaced by something - different, solid underneath, wry again but with a darker edge - judgment rather than humor implicit in the expression, something closed to the line of her gaze. " - she's Fenrir, but I've not seen her in a good three moons. Maybe more."
The flat expression resolves itself, not softening, but curling in response to Izzy's smirk. This subtle acknowledgment of the sentiment, with a brief, renewed glance at Izzy's black eye. Though Kora is now speculating freely about the provenance of Izzy's injury, she conceals much of it, and does not impugn the kinswoman's honor by questioning her about it beyond the information she offered.
"Then again," Kora's generous mouth curves again; not a smirk, but this distinctive expression, twisted at the corners. " - she seems to come and go." Inconstant, the creature nearly said. "Thanks, Detective."
Kora reaches for her coat, then, pulls it to her side, the way she sits forward in the booth is clear indication that she's ready to leave. But she stops at the last moment - stills, and casts Izzy a brief, speculative look. "Drew's back in town. Did you know her?"
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly. "He said they just returned." Other than that, she hasn't a clue. Other than Joey was around while she was dealing with Daniel, and that is a time she'd rather not revisit. She is exhausted, she is alone, she is stubborn and determined and still terrified of enclosed places and still mouthy at all the wrong times.
She says thanks, and Izzy nods. This is followed by the information that Drew has returned. There's a huff of wry amusement. "I knew her. We didn't get alone."
Shocking. Not.
[Izzy Montoya] (er, along. They did not get ALONG. not alone. *L*)
[Kora] "She left with Joe," Kora returns, her voice distinctly neutral - inflectionless - like a mirror rather than a well. Kora is careful about the details; or rather, is careful to leave the details in that dead space outside of recriminations or approbations. We did not leave on good terms. - she said to Drew, leaving her to imagination, swallowing the rich spark of anger the mention of her former Alpha could still strike in the fibers of her soul, the chord of it - consuming her lungs, filling the possibility of her breath with it.
So now, careful, all that history - held in check. "They were mated." Kora's voice is flat, even - glassine. "He's dead." Her nostrils flare, but this is the only sign of her tension beyond the curious narrowness of Kora's inflections. A twist of a half-smile follows, but only after a reasonable period of silence. Of quiet - which is to say, space between the news and the half-smile, not pleasant the expression, not even with the way her mobile mouth moves - but tightly woven, like a well-made knot.
"Izzy, I am sure you did not have the best opinion of War-Handed. And," here that taut half-smile appears again, "I trust your honor enough not to speak ill of the dead that I'm sure you will agree that Drew need never hear that opinion from you." Softly, still holding the kinswoman's dark brown eyes with her own, a deep, reflective blue. "I hope we understand each other."
[Izzy Montoya] She left with Joe. Joe is dead.
It's isn't that that gets a reaction, though, it's what comes next. There's a tightening of her jaw, a swallow, a flash in her gaze. Then, there's a huff of laughter, brief - and without humor. She does not flinch away from that even gaze, either, but simply meets it.
"If that were true, Kora, that you trust my honor enough, you would not feel the need to bring it up at all. I have no intention of speaking with the child, let alone about the dead. I should think I've more than proved myself to you and yours. I see I am mistaken."
One step forward, two steps back.
[Kora] "The child is an adult by every measure of their society - " a brief glance beyond Izzy's shoulder indicates the humans, seated at the bar, lingering over their beers, rehashing yesterday's winter classic, debating tomorrow's playoff game. Her tone is mild, as she slides smoothly from the booth, the wool coat trailing behind, held easily by two fingers. " - and ours."
The buttons have a vague, persistent iridescence that gleams mutely from the dangling coat as she folds it briefly over her arm. "And a name, I think, Detective Montoya. Thanks for the information, we'll talk again soon."
[Izzy Montoya] "As am I." She does not look away when Kora does, and when blue eyes return they are met with her own dark gaze just as it was - a simmering anger, a disappointment, exhaustion, underlying undefined emotion written in the depths of dark brown.
"Goodnight, Kora."
If one thing could be said about Detective Izzy Montoya, it's that she does her job. She does it, and she does it well - both of them. Which is why she's here, at the smallish run of the mill sports bar called Karls, where most of the patrons are busy watching the night's game on the big screen, and Izzy can find a quiet table in the back.
When Kora arrives, she's already there. She's obviously just come from work, her jacket draped on the seat of the booth next to her, a file folder that she's working through taking up most of the area directly in front of her.
She looks as she always does - with one addition: the remains what must have been a spectacular black eye. There's a cut high on her right cheek well on the way to healing, and the bruising has faded from brilliant blacks blues and purples to a not near as pretty green and yellow.
Otherwise, she is just the same - from the casual business dress code, to the whiskey -neat - within easy reach. She hasn't ordered for Kora, as she's unsure what she'd drink now that she's pregnant, and Izzy is not one to make assumptions. Ever. Instead, there is a glass of water, with lemon, drops of condensation dripping down the side.
[Kora] Today was warmer enough - with slices of sun incised neatly through the canyons of the city's high-rise developments - that some of last month's - last year's - accumulation of snow has started to melt. The massive piles pushed up around berms, caged trees, streetslights are criss-crossed with slowly growing rivulets of meltwater that gleam pale gray against the darker grime of the filthy snow.
Still, when the sun sets - no later than 4:30, 4:45 - winter closes in again, and a cold, wet wind dances through the city. Kora enters Karl's with another gust of that cold wind at her back. The creature is dressed for winter - in layers - a dark wool coat, black or gray - over a hoodied defined by varying shades of horizontal stripes in tones of deep blue-green, the hood pulled up over her pale blonde hair, her hands kept snug and warm in the forward pockets of the coat.
Her black boots glisten with runoff, snowmelt; the multicolored laces are dark from the wet, and bedraggled where they wrap around her calves. The well-worn leather is stained from salt and cinders spread by the city and well-meaning shopkeepers to keep the streets and sidewalks free of ice, and her jeans are damp nearly to the knee, rising above the boots, from a long day out in the city.
They are opposite as night and day. One of Izzy's colleagues might assume that the pale-skinned blonde with the sharp, dark-eyed stare is an informant of some sort. Her skin is pink from the cold, in the cheeks, in the tip of her streaming nose - and her eyes shine with the pleasant shock of the heat blasting against her sinuses after the cold night outside - but there's nothing else innocent about her. The winter gear is enough to conceal her pregnancy, still, and the way she walks - thoughtless and sure - says animal all over.
"Detective," Kora greets her, stopping at the side of the table to unbutton the outer layer of her wool coat, sliding the buttons through the buttonholes one by one, before she tugs it off and slings it into her side of the booth. She half-unzips the hoodie, showing a dark t-shirt over an undershirt in a thermal waffle-weave, and folds herself into the seat with an ease her future self will envy in the months to come. "What's up?"
That question is quickly followed by - " - what the hell happened to you?" when Izzy looks up, revealing the old, sickly pattern of her healing shiner.
[Izzy Montoya] There's a moment, when Kora enters the room, where everything goes still. It doesn't last long, less than a second in truth, where the patrons inhale, and wait as she animal walks into their midst. If asked, they wouldn't actually remember the moment at all - it's that basic, it's that instinctive, it's that buried. It passes, the noise resumes it's level, and Izzy's 'informant' makes her way to the table.
Detective, Kora greets her. "Kora." Is the reply.
Then she asks the question of the hour, and Izzy actually chuckles, and lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "Zigged when I should have zagged during a questioning. It's nothing. You should see the other guy." Sometimes? There isn't a doubt at all that Izzy is Fenrir.
"As for what's up - heard anything about knockoff shoes and or makeup being sold on the streets?"
[Kora] Izzy brushes off the question - zigged when I should have zagged with a joke. There is a moment, nearly liminal, where Kora's attention sharpens like so: her eyes narrow and her mouth goes still, and that sense of attention, of watchfulness, of consideration shifts to something more full of intent. Stillness lingers in her mouth, and the kinswoman may have the strange impression of her reflection in the Garou's eyes, pale against the dark irises, the smear of lights from the bar, the back and forth on SportsCenter about the playoffs and bowl bids, discussion of the Bear's chances, and all the like a sort of illiquid background to their conversation, made staccato by the rhythm of the games being broadcast.
Then the moment passes. Pale lids cover dark eyes, the grace of her blond lashes across her still wind-lashed cheeks as Kora blinks looks up over Izzy's shoulder, then drops her gaze back to the Detective's face. Unflinching, right? Even, steady, and assured.
"No - " here the line of her mouth breaks, crests into a brief, wry smile. " - fashion isn't really my thing. Why?"
[Izzy Montoya] Kora's attention sharpens, her eyes narrowing and her body falling still, full of intent. She arches a brow, slightly, and quietly adds... "It's my job, Kora. He got scared, he swung, I didn't duck fast enough. It happens. It's nothing."
Nothing to do with the Nation, she means. Then, she moves on, and nods, a slight smirk curving her lips. "Mine either. Got a call on a dead hooker in an alley on the 26th. In the course of investigating, I discovered she was kin. I don't have a lot to go on, but enough to suggest you and yours might want to look into it. Here's what I have."
She sifts through the folder, and finds the paper she's looking for and slides it across the table. On it are typed notes that she recites from memory. "Her name was Claire Daniels - street name was Chloe. The security guard that waited for my arrival was Officer Wallach. He was her friend - in the way that cops can be with hookers without fucking them, anyway, but didn't know much about her. Said she wasn't from Lake View where we found her - worked the corner Southside by J and C liquor."
She pauses and takes a swallow of her whiskey, swallowing it with a grimace. "While I looked into it - heard some things." There's a pointed look, so that Kora knows exactly how she heard such things... "She was Gnawer kin. Killed by a blow to the head after... well." She waves a hand. She heard it. She's not going to repeat it. "Before that though, she was talking with a guy she called Jonsey. Officer Wallach confirmed that someone named Jones was a friend of hers, that and a guy called Royo or something similar that he considered bad news. Anyway, they were talking about the knock offs of makeup and boots being bad news, and 'hard core shit'" A beat, and a shake of her head. "He wanted her to quit hookin. She said she would when it stopped getting her information."
Another drink, another inhale. "Only other thing of interest was just before they killed her, she asked where they were getting the product. They said North."
[Kora] Someone else might need to write the details down, but Kora is a Skald, with a Skald's careful attention to the fundamentals of a thing, and a Skald's ear for words, and a Skald's care for a story. Her mouth cuts itself into a brief, narrow little frown as she considers the information, her nostrils flaring when Izzy mentions that she was kin to the Bone Gnawers.
The creature is quiet, after.
"Claire Daniels," she confirms, breaking the pall of silence, a minute's worth, or two or three between them, while TCU scores in the background again and again, and a thick-necked commentator bloviates about the bowl system. The need for playoffs. Future prospects and present dangers.
"I'll tell her tribe directly." This is the first duty - not vengeance but memory, scrawling the name that might otherwise be forgotten back into the realm of smoke and ash to which it belongs. "I'd appreciate it if - if there is information as to next of kin - you could find out for me. I'll pass it on. Let me know if someone has claimed the body. If not, her tribe will want to do something - " Pose as a sister, a mother, a grieving brother. Ensure that the dead woman does not become a science experiment, a desiccated, excavated corpse for the education of men - a thing on a slab, cold in the light of morning. " - to give her an appropriate send off."
Kora straightens her shoulders, flashes Izzy a quiet direct look, unsurprised in the end at the rest. The source of the knockoffs, the connection of the goods to violence. "More than a moon ago - " this is low-voiced, all in earnest, her voice pitched quiet to share between them. " - I tracked a cursed human to a boutique on the Mile. He took refuge there, tripped a silent alarm before I could take him out. While I was waiting for the cops to leave, a no-moon snuck into the building, found it crawling with darkness, tainted goods, with several cursed humans inside. We ended them, later, and the store closed."
A flat, wry look.
" - briefly.
"The murderspirits seemed to gather around the shoes and perfume."
Kora reaches for a napkin, then, and gestures for Izzy's pen, scrawls an address in the Mile from memory and pushes it back to the detective. "That was the original store. See what you can find out about it, yeah? Public information, nothing that might expose you to them, nothing that might show your hand." Kora pauses, her mouth curving downwards in thought. "Let me know if your investigation turns up anything else, too."
[Izzy Montoya] She nods. "I happened to have a run in..." literally, in fact "...with one of her Tribe. Said he is packed with one of yours - Joey Oliver? I let him know of her death, and that I would be speaking to you as soon as possible. He seemed to think that unnecessary. I informed him otherwise." A slight smirk there - the expression familiar.
"I'll find out about the body, and next of kin if they exist and let you know." And then, she mentions the boutique, and Izzy nods. "Someone mentioned a boutique - one of her Johns, but I couldn't get a name out of them, or an exact location." It's likely connected. Such things usually are.
She takes the napkin and the address written on it, and nods, slightly. "I'll see what I can find."
[Kora] "Joey?" echoes Kora, with a certain arching sense of surprise, the lilt of her pale brows, brief, narrow line that is shadowed between them, this fleeting ghost of startlement replaced by something - different, solid underneath, wry again but with a darker edge - judgment rather than humor implicit in the expression, something closed to the line of her gaze. " - she's Fenrir, but I've not seen her in a good three moons. Maybe more."
The flat expression resolves itself, not softening, but curling in response to Izzy's smirk. This subtle acknowledgment of the sentiment, with a brief, renewed glance at Izzy's black eye. Though Kora is now speculating freely about the provenance of Izzy's injury, she conceals much of it, and does not impugn the kinswoman's honor by questioning her about it beyond the information she offered.
"Then again," Kora's generous mouth curves again; not a smirk, but this distinctive expression, twisted at the corners. " - she seems to come and go." Inconstant, the creature nearly said. "Thanks, Detective."
Kora reaches for her coat, then, pulls it to her side, the way she sits forward in the booth is clear indication that she's ready to leave. But she stops at the last moment - stills, and casts Izzy a brief, speculative look. "Drew's back in town. Did you know her?"
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly. "He said they just returned." Other than that, she hasn't a clue. Other than Joey was around while she was dealing with Daniel, and that is a time she'd rather not revisit. She is exhausted, she is alone, she is stubborn and determined and still terrified of enclosed places and still mouthy at all the wrong times.
She says thanks, and Izzy nods. This is followed by the information that Drew has returned. There's a huff of wry amusement. "I knew her. We didn't get alone."
Shocking. Not.
[Izzy Montoya] (er, along. They did not get ALONG. not alone. *L*)
[Kora] "She left with Joe," Kora returns, her voice distinctly neutral - inflectionless - like a mirror rather than a well. Kora is careful about the details; or rather, is careful to leave the details in that dead space outside of recriminations or approbations. We did not leave on good terms. - she said to Drew, leaving her to imagination, swallowing the rich spark of anger the mention of her former Alpha could still strike in the fibers of her soul, the chord of it - consuming her lungs, filling the possibility of her breath with it.
So now, careful, all that history - held in check. "They were mated." Kora's voice is flat, even - glassine. "He's dead." Her nostrils flare, but this is the only sign of her tension beyond the curious narrowness of Kora's inflections. A twist of a half-smile follows, but only after a reasonable period of silence. Of quiet - which is to say, space between the news and the half-smile, not pleasant the expression, not even with the way her mobile mouth moves - but tightly woven, like a well-made knot.
"Izzy, I am sure you did not have the best opinion of War-Handed. And," here that taut half-smile appears again, "I trust your honor enough not to speak ill of the dead that I'm sure you will agree that Drew need never hear that opinion from you." Softly, still holding the kinswoman's dark brown eyes with her own, a deep, reflective blue. "I hope we understand each other."
[Izzy Montoya] She left with Joe. Joe is dead.
It's isn't that that gets a reaction, though, it's what comes next. There's a tightening of her jaw, a swallow, a flash in her gaze. Then, there's a huff of laughter, brief - and without humor. She does not flinch away from that even gaze, either, but simply meets it.
"If that were true, Kora, that you trust my honor enough, you would not feel the need to bring it up at all. I have no intention of speaking with the child, let alone about the dead. I should think I've more than proved myself to you and yours. I see I am mistaken."
One step forward, two steps back.
[Kora] "The child is an adult by every measure of their society - " a brief glance beyond Izzy's shoulder indicates the humans, seated at the bar, lingering over their beers, rehashing yesterday's winter classic, debating tomorrow's playoff game. Her tone is mild, as she slides smoothly from the booth, the wool coat trailing behind, held easily by two fingers. " - and ours."
The buttons have a vague, persistent iridescence that gleams mutely from the dangling coat as she folds it briefly over her arm. "And a name, I think, Detective Montoya. Thanks for the information, we'll talk again soon."
[Izzy Montoya] "As am I." She does not look away when Kora does, and when blue eyes return they are met with her own dark gaze just as it was - a simmering anger, a disappointment, exhaustion, underlying undefined emotion written in the depths of dark brown.
"Goodnight, Kora."
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