[Kora] It's a bitterly cold night, a fresh inch or two of snow on the stone steps leading up to the derelict church from a quick snow-squall a half-hour ago. There's another pair of footprints on the steps leading up to the columned portico, to the big iron-banded wooden doors. Someone with smaller feet than Simon. Someone who took some of those steps two at a time. Even those are half-filled in, softened, more impressioned than imprinted.
He knocks; and the great door starts to swing open a minute or two later. It stops once, enough for the opener to eyeball him through an inch-wide sliver of open door, and then begins again, an object lesson in inertia, gathering speed as it moves. The hinges are well oiled, silent, for all that the place otherwise looks like a hulk, a derelict. In places, the roof of the sanctuary has burned away, so that gaps of the sky are visible, and little clouds of snow flurries slide down from the failing roof to the exposed stone floor.
The pack areas in the sanctuary of the old church are covered - a handful of things in the round half-dome of the nave, a scattering of couches, tables, space heaters and pews that form the rough approximation of a living room sheltered beneath the choir loft.
"Simon," Kora's opened the door. She is standing there barely on the cold stone floor, wearing a pair of striped pajama pants, the flannel sort with an elastic waist and a ribbon drawstring under a long-sleeved white thermal and an unzipped blue and gray hoodie. The thermal clings to her breasts, her stomach. She's pregnant, showing, not yet ponderous with it - and it makes her seem lustrous, somehow. Healthy. Fertile. All those animal cues. Her hair is half-loose, the knot at her neck coming uncoiled. There's something stark about her, washed out - spent - but she gives him a smile, the edge of a welcoming one, and steps back to let him inside. "C'mon in. It's freezing out."
It's cold inside too, but they are close enough to the space heaters that he can feel the warm air tickling against his skin.
[Simon Zahradnik] Simon was standing on the other side of the door, a smile taking shape on his face. Charming and youthful, and his eyes were hidden behind shades so it was hard to pick the predator out of that dimpled smile. Unless, of course, one knew the wolf as intimately as they do. Simon could almost feel a little tension for a moment or two as his eyes found themselves wandering behind those shades. It was mostly innocent but all too natural and part of the problem of living life as a true born... Eyes roam and wander. Thoughts flood into the minds of the young and undisciplined. Even the older and wiser have their occasional breaks and lets be honest right now Kora looked rather pleasing to the eye. A breath chased back any distracting thoughts and he reaches up to peel his glasses off.
Her invitation to ender drew his boots to tap against the floor before he entered."S'up Rhya?"He asks her as he brushes past and steps into the larger room to glance around and then back to her."You got a minute or two?"He asks her curiously."I thought I'd drop in an check up a little on shit..."
He folds his glasses up and stuffs them into his coat before reaching down to peel off his gloves."You had any more trouble since the other night? I mean this is your territory and all and I don't wanna interfere in your business. Still if you need any assistance that's what I am here for. Wyrmfoe might have lost it's meaning in this sept for whatever reason but the position still means something to some of us."It was something he had little doubt the Fenrir could understand. Seeing as how it just seemed one of those positions the Fenrir would gravitate towards in their septs.
[Kora] Simon steps inside, starts peeling off his gloves; Kora gives him a sidelong look, and gestures for him to follow her toward the make-shift living room. The sanctuary is huge, the ceiling - where they open up beyond the choir loft - absolutely soar and the shadows tonight are deep, broken by the soft orange glow of the snow-wrapped city and the bright, distinctive flare of an oil lantern. The real thing, that sends flickering flares of guttering light licking up the gray stone walls.
If she notes the way he looks at her, the way his eyes lingering on her frame, on the glowing pallor of her skin, she says nothing of it. "No trouble," she informs him, a glance case over her shoulder, the bulk of her hair caught up in her hood, her profile awash against the dark reaches of the church. " - not here, anyway. Linus found this - trap - that the pack left behind. Some half-finished ritual, not far outside our territory. We did a cleansing but there was something - "
He cannot see her, but Kora's features look briefly drawn, her mouth still, her eyes distant, pausing as they reach the couches, illuminated by the coiled glow of space heaters and the flicker of that lantern. "Well, I was out for much of that. You might get more details from Adam or Hunter though."
There's a pizza box on the nearby table, an open bag of oreos and a tall carton of whole fat milk set on the cold stone floor. A book is open, face down on the couch, a blanket unwound onto the floor. Before Kora returns to her next of pizza and cookies, though, she stops at a cooler. "Have a seat. You want a beer?"
[Simon Zahradnik] He looks around as they enter."You know if I were you I would think about sealing up some of the exits... Maybe adding a heavy duty wall opposite the heavy doors there, properly reinforced that shit'll stop a mac truck."He says with a nod of his head as he looks about the place."I mean technically speaking this place could be a fortress in the event you all need to hole up."He adds with a little nod of his head as he follows her into the other room.
His hood was pulled back soon enough and soon an array of light and shadow was dancing off his face as they moved through the church. He kept himself at a distance that spoke of comfort though also a hint of respect. She was both his elder and this was her territory.
He seemed to perk up and his head nodded slowly."I will ask more about that. Can't be leaving any loose ends, bad for business and all."He says as he eyes her spot near the chair. There was a slight smile, after all the woman was a terrifyingly dangerous woman and yet here she was holed up in her own little fortress of comfort and solitude.
He looks up with her question then turns to face her before nodding."Sure whatever you got is fine."He says back to her before looking around and picking out a seat to settle into while he waits."So umm... I am thinking I would like to call for a Convocation of the packs at the next moot. Not a moot... But a formal planning session so we can get our asses together and start formulating plans in this whole war thing. I mean what we're doing is fine and dandy but I think there could be a lot more cooperation and planning in this whole thing. You know what I mean? I don't wanna step on my elders toes or their plans but this is something I think we need."
[Kora] "Here." she says, fishing a bottle up from the slurry of half-melted ice in the cooler and tossing it lightly towards Simon. He's a Garou, an Ahroun. She doesn't bother with the bottle opener. There's a curve to her mouth, mild, wry - that does not entirely chase away that sense that she's drawn, spent for the moment. Emptied in some vital, invisible way that is not physical - because all the cues of fullness are there, all the secondary signs of fertility, pregnancy, even were it not for the obvious swell of her stomach against her thermal undershirt. "Drink fast. I want you to have an extra one for me."
Apparently, she is not taking chances with alcohol and her pregnancy, no matter what her mate says about the latest research, no matter what she knows about her own metabolism.
"I'm stuck with cookies and milk."
Then she's walking past him to her coccoon on the counch, foldering her long legs underneath her body. The flannel pajama bottoms are huge and loose; probably large enough to expand until she's nine months along.
"I'm all for coordination," Kora returns, low and serious as she sits down at last, pulling up the unwound blanket over her shoulder as her dark eyes find him in the shadows. Her voice is low, direct, and after the remark about cookies and milk, absolutely serious. " - trust me. Though I think informal ties are as important as formal ones. We have to fucking talk to each other in order to work together."
Then, she frowns briefly, pale brows drawing together on her fine features. "Lukas might take offense, if you made that call. He might consider that his territory as Alpha of your tribe and his pack. And your - " a brief, twisting little half-smirk. " - auspice."
[Simon Zahradnik] He catches the bottle in hand and his smile shows as he takes the time to press the tip of the bottle against the nearest table and with a sudden pop he opens the bottle. His eyes shifting back up to her as he tips the beer back. He wasn't about to disobey his elder's orders!
When the bottle is lowered his eyes drop to the cookies and he grins just a little."You say that like cookies are a bad thing..."His eyes never leave her, face as she returns. He was drawing in her words and his smile only grew at the mention of Lukas. He was his Elder, both in Auspice as well as Tribe, though there was an apparent shrug of his shoulders when he heard this.
"People are dying... Step up or get out of the way. We should be having weekly if not monthly meetings on this shit. We should be directly and actively coordinating. Sitting around waiting for our elders to come up with a plan is well and good but it does not seem to me that it is the best path."He tilts that beer back once more to take another long drink.
He looks around and then down to his beer which he settles on his table before him."We're on the defensive, hiding and running when we should be out there taking an active role in our fate. I stand ready to die for this nation so why then should I be afraid my elders would take offense to saying what needs to be done?"He asks as his attention drifts back to her."We need a plan of action. We need a course and a direction which, so far as I can tell, we do not have. I respect my elders but I also respect the soldiers in this war. A man needs to be ready to stand up for what he believes in right? Especially when he feels his elders are not doing what they are supposed to be doing."
"Or should I wait for more to die before we start taking this war seriously?"His eyes meet hers."Am I being brash and foolhardy in thinking this?"One might even suspect that the Shadow Lord might actually respect the opinion of said elder. It would explain why he might come to her for such a purpose.
[Kora] You say this like cookies are a bad thing Simon grins, and Kora, well - her generous mouth curves into a corresponding smile, more than half. Closed-mouthed, no flash of teeth behind her unpainted, unglossed lips, just the deep gleam in steady dark eyes fixed on him. "I'd rather a beer," the smile goes briefly lopsided, creeping up at the right corner to punctuate the confession. Then, a slender shoulder rises in a subtle shrug. "Trent says I can have one occasionally. But the occasional part seems harder than never."
After that, she sits forward, crossing her long legs beneath her frame, tucking her back feet under the long, firm muscles of her thighs. Balanced like this, forward, she gives Simon the whole of her attention. Her pregnant stomach seems more prominent in this position, but it is mostly an illusion of posture.
"I don't disagree." she responds at last, her still mouth twisting wry at the end. "I just want you to be ready for it. Between Lukas and Katherine - " She offers another shrug, still narrow, a gesture toward the politics she does not want to touch. There's a note of something else there, so much an undercurrent that she is not wholly aware of it. "The coordination is more difficult since so many come and go; without reason, and without notice. But you're right. This disconnection, this is how we lose the war. Hell, sometimes I wonder if we aren't working at cross-purposes. Fighting only the battles we stumble into - "
Another noise, back-of-the-throat, this one low, a curl of anger to it, like smoke. "I wouldn't just go and make a call for a convocation without a plan though, Simon. You need a target, too. Someplace to direct them. Does your pack have a Ragabash?"
[Simon Zahradnik] He nods his head and his own smile is returned."Occasional probably wouldn't hurt... I think the whole Fetal Alcohol thing comes from drinking way too much mostly."He says with a nod of his head."I tell you what... Soon as you are done I'll make sure we take you out and get your ass shit faced drunk."He adds with a little nod of his head. A quiet friendly little promise. The kind of promise Garou always intend to keep... But these are also the kinds of promises that come back to haunt the Garou when death intervenes. Months is a long time to wait... So much can happen in a few months.
"Two of the Auspice Elders sit in the same pack. They have a stranglehold on decision making but local politics might be different. I strongly doubt even they would be opposed to standing up and formulating a plan for the Garou. I should hope that they would take the lead at such a meeting in organizing."He shrugs his shoulders."We are Shadow Lords... When one of our kind fails to perform he is called on his failure. Adversity serves as our guiding light..."He smiles a little and looks up at her."It is our contempt and mistrust for one another that drives us to success."He says with a nod of his head.
He then hears her mention a plan. His eyes look around and then he glances back to her."I have plans and ideas. They begin with scouting out the areas of known Hive or Black Spiral Dancer activity. Not every minion of the Wyrm directly serves the hive. However these outliers serve two purposes, they are the distraction buffer that keeps our focus off the true threat right?"He asks her before lifting his beer once more and taking another long drink."Second many serve as reinforcements and assets which benefit the hive indirectly. From cash to recon to kidnapping kin for breeding to whatever else."He says with a nod of his head."That is where I would begin this war. Find the stragglers and outliers, the ones who are not part of the fold. These will guide us to more important resources... I would like to begin working to starve out their resources in the city. They have fingers in all kinds of pies and I would like to chase after those pies. Even if we can't keep them for ourselves each external resource we cut off from them weakens the overall hive."He says with a nod of his head.
"I like to be meticulous in war. Leave no stone unturned. Starve our enemies out... One by one we cut off those fingers until we have cut them off from the outside world. Then they'll be the ones waiting as we pick them off one at a time."He laughs and shrugs.
"I mean... I'm a full moon. I always have a plan. I just don't always have the man power and support I need to enact that plan. This is why I feel a convocation is necessary."
[Kora] "I'll take you up on that," Kora assures Simon, with a quiet confidence belied by the number of bodies she has burned for the sky gods, or turned underneath the earth. "You best not forget."
Then the mood shifts. Simon begins to lay out his plans, meticulously. Point one, point two. Kora - reaching for her milk - stops midgesture and sits up, her eyes on Simon's face. His deeper voice finds the fissures in the sanctuary, the great spaces where sound echoes, where it opens up, where it blooms, and sometimes he hears his own voice echoing back at him. "The Fenrir follow strength, too," Kora tells him, where there's a break for breath. " - but we trust each other's honor. We'll break the weak, but we don't skulk around breathing contempt for each other." There's a note of mild disapproval there, more distant, professional rather than personal.
"Alright," says Kora when he's finished; her dark eyes soak up the light like a sponge and return it to him. He can see himself reflected in the optic discs, the color of her dark iris lost in the shadows. The orange glow of the city gilds her coiled hair, and snowflakes drift down from the ceiling in desultory spirals. " - you have plans." She's holding his gaze now, her eyes on his face, her long-fingered hands braced on her thighs. " - they're too general, though. When you call your convocation, you'll need more. More intel. Specific targets in the city, I think. Or even, in the hivelands. It's like a giant game of capture the flag, yeah? You need something to rally the troops around, and something to direct them again. Get them used to working together, to sharing developments, to acting as a unit rather than a loose association of lone wolves, and they'll do it again.
"If you want to rally the troops," she finishes, sitting back now. " - you need a rallying cry."
[Kora] (pause/fade!)
He knocks; and the great door starts to swing open a minute or two later. It stops once, enough for the opener to eyeball him through an inch-wide sliver of open door, and then begins again, an object lesson in inertia, gathering speed as it moves. The hinges are well oiled, silent, for all that the place otherwise looks like a hulk, a derelict. In places, the roof of the sanctuary has burned away, so that gaps of the sky are visible, and little clouds of snow flurries slide down from the failing roof to the exposed stone floor.
The pack areas in the sanctuary of the old church are covered - a handful of things in the round half-dome of the nave, a scattering of couches, tables, space heaters and pews that form the rough approximation of a living room sheltered beneath the choir loft.
"Simon," Kora's opened the door. She is standing there barely on the cold stone floor, wearing a pair of striped pajama pants, the flannel sort with an elastic waist and a ribbon drawstring under a long-sleeved white thermal and an unzipped blue and gray hoodie. The thermal clings to her breasts, her stomach. She's pregnant, showing, not yet ponderous with it - and it makes her seem lustrous, somehow. Healthy. Fertile. All those animal cues. Her hair is half-loose, the knot at her neck coming uncoiled. There's something stark about her, washed out - spent - but she gives him a smile, the edge of a welcoming one, and steps back to let him inside. "C'mon in. It's freezing out."
It's cold inside too, but they are close enough to the space heaters that he can feel the warm air tickling against his skin.
[Simon Zahradnik] Simon was standing on the other side of the door, a smile taking shape on his face. Charming and youthful, and his eyes were hidden behind shades so it was hard to pick the predator out of that dimpled smile. Unless, of course, one knew the wolf as intimately as they do. Simon could almost feel a little tension for a moment or two as his eyes found themselves wandering behind those shades. It was mostly innocent but all too natural and part of the problem of living life as a true born... Eyes roam and wander. Thoughts flood into the minds of the young and undisciplined. Even the older and wiser have their occasional breaks and lets be honest right now Kora looked rather pleasing to the eye. A breath chased back any distracting thoughts and he reaches up to peel his glasses off.
Her invitation to ender drew his boots to tap against the floor before he entered."S'up Rhya?"He asks her as he brushes past and steps into the larger room to glance around and then back to her."You got a minute or two?"He asks her curiously."I thought I'd drop in an check up a little on shit..."
He folds his glasses up and stuffs them into his coat before reaching down to peel off his gloves."You had any more trouble since the other night? I mean this is your territory and all and I don't wanna interfere in your business. Still if you need any assistance that's what I am here for. Wyrmfoe might have lost it's meaning in this sept for whatever reason but the position still means something to some of us."It was something he had little doubt the Fenrir could understand. Seeing as how it just seemed one of those positions the Fenrir would gravitate towards in their septs.
[Kora] Simon steps inside, starts peeling off his gloves; Kora gives him a sidelong look, and gestures for him to follow her toward the make-shift living room. The sanctuary is huge, the ceiling - where they open up beyond the choir loft - absolutely soar and the shadows tonight are deep, broken by the soft orange glow of the snow-wrapped city and the bright, distinctive flare of an oil lantern. The real thing, that sends flickering flares of guttering light licking up the gray stone walls.
If she notes the way he looks at her, the way his eyes lingering on her frame, on the glowing pallor of her skin, she says nothing of it. "No trouble," she informs him, a glance case over her shoulder, the bulk of her hair caught up in her hood, her profile awash against the dark reaches of the church. " - not here, anyway. Linus found this - trap - that the pack left behind. Some half-finished ritual, not far outside our territory. We did a cleansing but there was something - "
He cannot see her, but Kora's features look briefly drawn, her mouth still, her eyes distant, pausing as they reach the couches, illuminated by the coiled glow of space heaters and the flicker of that lantern. "Well, I was out for much of that. You might get more details from Adam or Hunter though."
There's a pizza box on the nearby table, an open bag of oreos and a tall carton of whole fat milk set on the cold stone floor. A book is open, face down on the couch, a blanket unwound onto the floor. Before Kora returns to her next of pizza and cookies, though, she stops at a cooler. "Have a seat. You want a beer?"
[Simon Zahradnik] He looks around as they enter."You know if I were you I would think about sealing up some of the exits... Maybe adding a heavy duty wall opposite the heavy doors there, properly reinforced that shit'll stop a mac truck."He says with a nod of his head as he looks about the place."I mean technically speaking this place could be a fortress in the event you all need to hole up."He adds with a little nod of his head as he follows her into the other room.
His hood was pulled back soon enough and soon an array of light and shadow was dancing off his face as they moved through the church. He kept himself at a distance that spoke of comfort though also a hint of respect. She was both his elder and this was her territory.
He seemed to perk up and his head nodded slowly."I will ask more about that. Can't be leaving any loose ends, bad for business and all."He says as he eyes her spot near the chair. There was a slight smile, after all the woman was a terrifyingly dangerous woman and yet here she was holed up in her own little fortress of comfort and solitude.
He looks up with her question then turns to face her before nodding."Sure whatever you got is fine."He says back to her before looking around and picking out a seat to settle into while he waits."So umm... I am thinking I would like to call for a Convocation of the packs at the next moot. Not a moot... But a formal planning session so we can get our asses together and start formulating plans in this whole war thing. I mean what we're doing is fine and dandy but I think there could be a lot more cooperation and planning in this whole thing. You know what I mean? I don't wanna step on my elders toes or their plans but this is something I think we need."
[Kora] "Here." she says, fishing a bottle up from the slurry of half-melted ice in the cooler and tossing it lightly towards Simon. He's a Garou, an Ahroun. She doesn't bother with the bottle opener. There's a curve to her mouth, mild, wry - that does not entirely chase away that sense that she's drawn, spent for the moment. Emptied in some vital, invisible way that is not physical - because all the cues of fullness are there, all the secondary signs of fertility, pregnancy, even were it not for the obvious swell of her stomach against her thermal undershirt. "Drink fast. I want you to have an extra one for me."
Apparently, she is not taking chances with alcohol and her pregnancy, no matter what her mate says about the latest research, no matter what she knows about her own metabolism.
"I'm stuck with cookies and milk."
Then she's walking past him to her coccoon on the counch, foldering her long legs underneath her body. The flannel pajama bottoms are huge and loose; probably large enough to expand until she's nine months along.
"I'm all for coordination," Kora returns, low and serious as she sits down at last, pulling up the unwound blanket over her shoulder as her dark eyes find him in the shadows. Her voice is low, direct, and after the remark about cookies and milk, absolutely serious. " - trust me. Though I think informal ties are as important as formal ones. We have to fucking talk to each other in order to work together."
Then, she frowns briefly, pale brows drawing together on her fine features. "Lukas might take offense, if you made that call. He might consider that his territory as Alpha of your tribe and his pack. And your - " a brief, twisting little half-smirk. " - auspice."
[Simon Zahradnik] He catches the bottle in hand and his smile shows as he takes the time to press the tip of the bottle against the nearest table and with a sudden pop he opens the bottle. His eyes shifting back up to her as he tips the beer back. He wasn't about to disobey his elder's orders!
When the bottle is lowered his eyes drop to the cookies and he grins just a little."You say that like cookies are a bad thing..."His eyes never leave her, face as she returns. He was drawing in her words and his smile only grew at the mention of Lukas. He was his Elder, both in Auspice as well as Tribe, though there was an apparent shrug of his shoulders when he heard this.
"People are dying... Step up or get out of the way. We should be having weekly if not monthly meetings on this shit. We should be directly and actively coordinating. Sitting around waiting for our elders to come up with a plan is well and good but it does not seem to me that it is the best path."He tilts that beer back once more to take another long drink.
He looks around and then down to his beer which he settles on his table before him."We're on the defensive, hiding and running when we should be out there taking an active role in our fate. I stand ready to die for this nation so why then should I be afraid my elders would take offense to saying what needs to be done?"He asks as his attention drifts back to her."We need a plan of action. We need a course and a direction which, so far as I can tell, we do not have. I respect my elders but I also respect the soldiers in this war. A man needs to be ready to stand up for what he believes in right? Especially when he feels his elders are not doing what they are supposed to be doing."
"Or should I wait for more to die before we start taking this war seriously?"His eyes meet hers."Am I being brash and foolhardy in thinking this?"One might even suspect that the Shadow Lord might actually respect the opinion of said elder. It would explain why he might come to her for such a purpose.
[Kora] You say this like cookies are a bad thing Simon grins, and Kora, well - her generous mouth curves into a corresponding smile, more than half. Closed-mouthed, no flash of teeth behind her unpainted, unglossed lips, just the deep gleam in steady dark eyes fixed on him. "I'd rather a beer," the smile goes briefly lopsided, creeping up at the right corner to punctuate the confession. Then, a slender shoulder rises in a subtle shrug. "Trent says I can have one occasionally. But the occasional part seems harder than never."
After that, she sits forward, crossing her long legs beneath her frame, tucking her back feet under the long, firm muscles of her thighs. Balanced like this, forward, she gives Simon the whole of her attention. Her pregnant stomach seems more prominent in this position, but it is mostly an illusion of posture.
"I don't disagree." she responds at last, her still mouth twisting wry at the end. "I just want you to be ready for it. Between Lukas and Katherine - " She offers another shrug, still narrow, a gesture toward the politics she does not want to touch. There's a note of something else there, so much an undercurrent that she is not wholly aware of it. "The coordination is more difficult since so many come and go; without reason, and without notice. But you're right. This disconnection, this is how we lose the war. Hell, sometimes I wonder if we aren't working at cross-purposes. Fighting only the battles we stumble into - "
Another noise, back-of-the-throat, this one low, a curl of anger to it, like smoke. "I wouldn't just go and make a call for a convocation without a plan though, Simon. You need a target, too. Someplace to direct them. Does your pack have a Ragabash?"
[Simon Zahradnik] He nods his head and his own smile is returned."Occasional probably wouldn't hurt... I think the whole Fetal Alcohol thing comes from drinking way too much mostly."He says with a nod of his head."I tell you what... Soon as you are done I'll make sure we take you out and get your ass shit faced drunk."He adds with a little nod of his head. A quiet friendly little promise. The kind of promise Garou always intend to keep... But these are also the kinds of promises that come back to haunt the Garou when death intervenes. Months is a long time to wait... So much can happen in a few months.
"Two of the Auspice Elders sit in the same pack. They have a stranglehold on decision making but local politics might be different. I strongly doubt even they would be opposed to standing up and formulating a plan for the Garou. I should hope that they would take the lead at such a meeting in organizing."He shrugs his shoulders."We are Shadow Lords... When one of our kind fails to perform he is called on his failure. Adversity serves as our guiding light..."He smiles a little and looks up at her."It is our contempt and mistrust for one another that drives us to success."He says with a nod of his head.
He then hears her mention a plan. His eyes look around and then he glances back to her."I have plans and ideas. They begin with scouting out the areas of known Hive or Black Spiral Dancer activity. Not every minion of the Wyrm directly serves the hive. However these outliers serve two purposes, they are the distraction buffer that keeps our focus off the true threat right?"He asks her before lifting his beer once more and taking another long drink."Second many serve as reinforcements and assets which benefit the hive indirectly. From cash to recon to kidnapping kin for breeding to whatever else."He says with a nod of his head."That is where I would begin this war. Find the stragglers and outliers, the ones who are not part of the fold. These will guide us to more important resources... I would like to begin working to starve out their resources in the city. They have fingers in all kinds of pies and I would like to chase after those pies. Even if we can't keep them for ourselves each external resource we cut off from them weakens the overall hive."He says with a nod of his head.
"I like to be meticulous in war. Leave no stone unturned. Starve our enemies out... One by one we cut off those fingers until we have cut them off from the outside world. Then they'll be the ones waiting as we pick them off one at a time."He laughs and shrugs.
"I mean... I'm a full moon. I always have a plan. I just don't always have the man power and support I need to enact that plan. This is why I feel a convocation is necessary."
[Kora] "I'll take you up on that," Kora assures Simon, with a quiet confidence belied by the number of bodies she has burned for the sky gods, or turned underneath the earth. "You best not forget."
Then the mood shifts. Simon begins to lay out his plans, meticulously. Point one, point two. Kora - reaching for her milk - stops midgesture and sits up, her eyes on Simon's face. His deeper voice finds the fissures in the sanctuary, the great spaces where sound echoes, where it opens up, where it blooms, and sometimes he hears his own voice echoing back at him. "The Fenrir follow strength, too," Kora tells him, where there's a break for breath. " - but we trust each other's honor. We'll break the weak, but we don't skulk around breathing contempt for each other." There's a note of mild disapproval there, more distant, professional rather than personal.
"Alright," says Kora when he's finished; her dark eyes soak up the light like a sponge and return it to him. He can see himself reflected in the optic discs, the color of her dark iris lost in the shadows. The orange glow of the city gilds her coiled hair, and snowflakes drift down from the ceiling in desultory spirals. " - you have plans." She's holding his gaze now, her eyes on his face, her long-fingered hands braced on her thighs. " - they're too general, though. When you call your convocation, you'll need more. More intel. Specific targets in the city, I think. Or even, in the hivelands. It's like a giant game of capture the flag, yeah? You need something to rally the troops around, and something to direct them again. Get them used to working together, to sharing developments, to acting as a unit rather than a loose association of lone wolves, and they'll do it again.
"If you want to rally the troops," she finishes, sitting back now. " - you need a rallying cry."
[Kora] (pause/fade!)
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