Ornature

[Kora] The warmth has returned; what there is. The heaters in the little living room area - with its scattered couches and folding tables, a take-out pizza cooling on one of them. Sofie has a beer if she wants one. Kora's drinking a hot chocolate and eating a bag of baby carrots dipped in baba ganouj, eschewing the pizza for the moment. The snow has stopped by the out beyond the reach of the heaters is still cold enough that you can see your breath when wandering down the nave to the chancel.

Kora retakes her seat, pulling a blanket around her shoulders as she reclaims both mug and carrots from where she casually left them on the stone floor, with its marble inlays. There's a subtle pause, Kora's dark eyes touch on Sofie's face. The kinswoman had received a note at the Brotherhood that said simply: "Let's talk. Kora." in clear, precise handwriting, more angular than one expects from a young woman.

There is a certain directness about her, the way she studies Sofie openly. Her face, her eyes. The knuckles of her hands, wrapped around a beer bottle if she has accepted a drink, and then flicker back to her face. "I'm not sure where to start with this. Is someone mistreating you, Sofie?"

[Sofie Janssen] Two nights ago Sofie had been in a minor brawl. She had told Roman the details the day after. Her cheekbone and jaw show a little discolouration from bruising, and her right knuckles have heeling gashes from someone's teeth cutting through the skin. Otherwise she's perfectly fine, and doesn't seem bothered by it. The story was simple. Took a swing at a guy who actually hit her back. At a pub in the Mag Mile. She bailed before authorities could come or anything of the like. She didn't make a big deal of it and hoped nobody else would.

Now she is sitting, not with a beer, but a water or a tea with the Jarl of the Get of Fenris. The question has her brows hitch an fraction and drop again. Her gaze is direct, too. "The definition of mistreating hard to pin down," she tells the other woman quietly. "But not really, no. I don't feel mistreated. Not respected, yes."

[Kora] Kora makes a low sound in her throat. It's quiet. She's not eating now, but the bag of carrots sits open in her lap, the plastic torn out rather than simply and efficiently cut, to get at the vegetables. She has a mug in hand that smells sweet and still faintly warm, a leg tucked under her body, the other on the floor. Her boots are set beside the couch, and she's in her stocking feet.

A cant of her pale head, that alert look, the movement of light across dark eyes. "Why is that?"

[Sofie Janssen] "The views on kinfolk. The very poor views on Kinfolk from some," Sofie answers and take a sip of her water. There's caution in the way she's talking and in her features, which are tensed. Lowering her water, she rests it on her thigh and quiets, to see where this is going.

[Kora] If Sofie had seen her two nights past, pacing the nave in furious repetition, so soaked in anger than her brother - her Godi - tugged her away and nudged her to hunt, to spend some of that rage before it unbalanced her somehow; or worse, did some injury - physical, psychological - to her unburn child, she might be all the more tense. Aware. Concerned.

That's gone. Soaked away, sewn back underneath her fine pale skin. There's a flicker, blonde lashes over dark eyes, a subtle movement of her chin that seems to say, go on.

"What views are those?" - asks Kora, her voice low, and even.

[Sofie Janssen] "That we're lesser. That we don't even deserve the smallest bit of respect. That it's okay to poke and prod at us until we're angry and frustrated, and then it's all turned around on us for talking back. That it's us with the problem." Sofie's words are low, but not soft. They are even.

"You know where I'm from, we're seen as more then playthings, or paychecks, or whatever. You know? We're the ones that look after Garou, take care of them, teach them, until they come into their skins. And it feels like, for some Garou I've met here, they forget all that. That we're just, I dunno, second class."

[Kora] Kora breathes out, once, soft and quiet. A half-withheld breath a repressed - something, neither a laugh nor a sigh, but a sound that was formed somewhere between the two. Dark eyes remain rapt on Sofie's features, watches as the young kinswoman speaks. There's a certain tightening in Kora's jaw; like a spasm, a pull of muscle beneath skin - tendon against bone.

"I'm aware of what our kin mean to us, individually, as a tribe, and as a Nation. I don't think that you are second class; but there is a hierachy I cannot undo. We've wolves. You know this. I need to know what makes you think this, Sofie - specifics. Which Garou treat you disrespectfully? What offense have they offered? A slander against your honor is a slander against mine, and I take that seriously."

[Sofie Janssen] "I didn't say that it was you, Jarl," the Kinfolk answers a little flatly, her mouth turning down with disapproval. "I think this whole thing is being out of context." It takes her a lot not to fold her arms and sit there like some sullen teenager. This is not who she is or what she fights for, or tries so hard to make a stand on.

"I spoke with Roman and Erek about the way that Kinfolk have been treated, what I've witnessed here with my own eyes. It's very different to home, and I get that it's going to be. This is the whole reason why I'm here in the first place, to experience the world out of the isolated upbringing of being with a certain .. . uh class? No, that's the wrong thing, but you know what I mean.

And, I've been here when Linus mouths off about Kinfolk. That night when he was giving lip about a Kinfolk being able to make a fire not only shoot or fuck. Or Remy giving shit to Rain and Jackson, wasn't it? because they weren't too happy about him. Hell, even Remy when he mouths off about how he hates Kinfolk knowing the Litany."

"And," here she's sitting upright, almost leaning forward with the way her spine straightens and her shoulders squared out. She's getting a little fired up now, her blood coming to the fore, "then there's Erek, and he's not the only one that does it. But he specifically states he's coming out of his way to annoy me, and then he starts poking me, and won't listen when I tell him to quit it. Like he has every right to do what he wants, just because Kinfolk can't fight back. Because there's a hierarchy and so, we're nipped at, shoved at, and generally treated like we can't do shit, because we're effectively lower than omegas."

Breathing out, she sighed and scrubbed her hands over her hair. "I'm just frustrated, Jarl. I'm really just frustrated. Because it's like most Garou forget that, well, I already told you what I thought before."

"It's just a simple lack of courtesy and it pisses me off."

[Sorrow] Kora sits there, dark eyes trained on Sofie as she begins her story. The expression is reserved; maybe there's weariness there, the barest hint of it. Maybe there's tension in the unusual flatness of her mouth, the way she holds her lips together. The way she breathes, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Then she reaches up, rubs a fine fingered hand across her brow, eyes closing as she considers the charges Sofie has laid out, one by one. A rueful twist of her mouth when she mentions Linus turns grimmer when she mentions first Remy, then Erek.

"Sofie," a lifting glance, finding the kinswoman's features. "Erek, Linus, Remy - they are all cliath Garou. At a traditional Sept, they wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a kinswoman like you. Not until they've managed to prove themselves worthy of a name greater than the one they've each earned, of rank, of the right to challenge for and claim a kinswoman. Not unless you were a sister, a cousin, and even then - " a gesture, out toward the city. "Not like this.

"Linus - he's a Godi. Spends 23 hours a day on the other side, haranging Hrafn and trying to outwit or outrun Surtur. Fenris' brood isn't sweetness and light, and he wasn't made for courtesy. He carries it with him back here - but it shouldn't matter to you what he thinks about you or other kin. If it bothers you, you have the chance to show him wrong.

"If he goes too far, let me know and I'll deal with it. But otherwise - think of it as a boxing match. He can't hit you to see what you're made of, but he can toss shit back and forth. Like those - insult games, you know? That people play. It's another way of measuring you, wit for wit.

"And if he goes too far, remind him where his next or last meal came from. Or just feed him, and he'll shut up long enough to get a word in edgewise. It's not that Linus or Remy don't respect kinfolk.

"They don't respect anyone. Remy's looking for a beating, he's itching for it. Pushes whereever he can and reacts like a - like a cub trying to be king of the litter. Maybe there's more to him that that," a faint shrug; he's been on her mind. The way he looks at her in her own territory; the glitter of disrespect in his eyes because she has not responded to provocation with violence.

There's this - narrow spasm of anger that crosses her features, here. Dark, even.

"And Erek," a flicker of a look, back to Sofie here. Assessing. " - said that you provoke him. That you claim that Garou here all think that you're trash, and treat you like that, so -

"I can't beat courtesy into them all."

[Sofie Janssen] "Wait, that's just an excuse." Oh yeah, some of what she says really stirs her ire. Sofie sits up and had even went to lift a finger to point then curled it, remember who she was speaking to and lowered her hand down to her thigh, restrained. She breathes in and looks somewhere else, jaw filled with tension and eyes glittering in hardness.

This passes though, or at least some of it, by the time she looks back. "You want me to reward bad behaviour? Shove food into their mouth when they're mouthing off? Oh here, its okay that you're talking trash about your own Tribe, but have a muffin? The fact that they have rank, should mean that they actually have some sort of honour and don't act like cubs, if you ask me - which you're not, but I'm just saying."

"Clearly I am from a different Sept, and I have to accept that. I get that, too. I even get that this is my hardship and journey and just what my folks set out for me to learn. But if I'm going to be pulled in front of the Jarl anytime I disagree with them, I'm gonna end up shutting my mouth. Because I'm in no place to say shit, or do anything other than accept the place of where they aren't getting beatings, where they can just mouth off to the point where folks won't come around here, in this safe place you have, because they won't even feel welcomed."

"I don't want my words twisted around to something they are not. I am not set out to whine and bitch, I'm trying to bring up a point. That you can't have a welcoming wagon on one hand and saying that all is fine and good, and that we're all family and look out for each other when, so far, the Garou here of my own Tribe are treating me worse than Bone Gnawers would. That's got to say something in general, don't you think? I'm not even talking about breaking biscuits over tea, Jarl, I'm just talking about respect. And don't even say anything about earning." Her breath had sighed out at the very idea that they might even go down that path.

"As for Erek? I provoke him did I? He follows me around Jarl. I have been nothing but nice towards him and when shit doesn't go his own way and I tell him to back the fuck off, he goes and storms off and tells you I provoke him? That's a load of shit if I ever heard it." Her tongue licks over her front teeth and the flint is back in her eyes. Her gaze is more direct now. "I have said that Garou here treat Kinfolk like trash, maybe not in those words, but yeah, I won't deny that. I told him what I'm telling you now. How that is provoking I don't know. But why don't you ask him about showing up to my apartment, and how he left the moment I told him he can take his hand off my shoulder. Or how I walked out of the Brotherhood common room because he wouldn't stop trying to touch my feet when I asked him, several times, to stop it."

"That's the problem, Jarl. There's Garou that push Kinfolk like that, and then they turn it all around and say that Kinfolk can't take a joke. Or that we hate all Garou. I have a right to my own personal space, and I have a right to be respected, too, don't you think? If someone was going to annoy you, you'd bite them and they'd back off or you fight. What are we meant to do? We ask someone not to do something or treat us that way and we get scoffed at. This is my issue here."

[Sorrow] There's a certain - patience - about Kora, rare among their tribe. Her features are still, the tension still written there, though mostly the signs of it are unreadable for Sofie at least, who does not know her well.

Here and there are moments of reaction. A twist of her hand in the nap of the blanket pulled around her midsection, a flash of teeth behind a generous mouth, a half-withheld, mostly subsumed suggestion of a snarl that settles back into that - watchful stoicism and gradually decants into stillness.

When the whole of Sofie's passionate speech is finished, Kora sits forward on the couch, unfolds her legs, plants her stockinged feet on the cold stone floor and leans forward, elbow on her thigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and middle finger, index finger touching her brow, just this sound like a sigh exhaled as it flares her nostrils.

She sits like this - almost like surrounder - for a solid minute, the knot of her hair falling over her right shoulder, half-uncoiled, the fine strands catching on the teeth of the open zipper bisecting her hoodie.

Just breathing.

At last, she straightens, pushes herself up from the couch, this little rocking motion at the beginning to get the momentum necessary to stand. Then she's standing, moving, pacing, letting her blanket unfurl on the floor before she tosses it aside, careful not to left the trailing end brush against the bright hot ceraminc element of the electric heater.

"You haven't been pulled in front of the Jarl for disagreeing with anyone, Sofie. I heard that you had concerns about the tribe; I thought that someone might have been mistreating you. I wanted to hear from you what they were, whether I need to intervene with the Garou.

"I - "

A pause, she opens her mouth and closes it. Breathes out again. "I am going to speak with Erek. He isn't welcome to touch you unless you invite it or he offers an honorable challenge for you, and I will remind him of that.

"But beyond that - " a gesture, nearly helpless, a brief spasm of her hands opening. "There's nothing here for me to do. Sofie, Garou - are not - always nice. They aren't always respectful. Some of them are honorable, and some of them are cruel. Some of them are so bound by rage that they stink of it.

"If one of them offers you offense - impugns your honor, whatever that may be - you should bring that to me. Your honor is mine, and I will defend it. The rest," a twist of her mouth. " - you have to be stronger than that. You have to be strong enough to weather the bullshit that Garou throw about. You cannot control what they say to or around or about you; just how you react to it. Strength isn't loud, Sofie. It's - "

A frustrated, narrowing movement of her mouth. Kora shakes that away. She's still pacing, frustrated, moving about the narrow space like an animal on a leash. "Listen. This, where you take a handful of things you don't like and make it into something else - Garou treat you like trash, or you've not been welcomed here - This is a choice you make. How you take things it, how you make them bigger than they start off being. It's like a snowball turning into an avalanch. You make them part of you, or you make your judgments and then you let the rest go.

"I'm not angry, Sofie. I'm just frustrated. I hear you, here, now, and I think in 20 years you're going to be like Izzy, volatile, reactive, alive to every possibility of offense. I don't want that to happen," a twist of her mouth, " - but if you are so ready to make judgments, so ready to read deeper into the trash talk of a bunch of adolescent male cliaths, I don't see what else can happen."

[Sofie Janssen] "No. It's fact. I never said that they treat me like trash. I have said that some Garou treat Kinfolk as lesser and that somehow that means that they are not deserving of respect. I really don't think you're hearing what I'm saying."

"I am strong. But I am also opinionated. I have a voice and I use it. I am not afraid to say what I see. How is that weakness? That does not mean that I do not weather what is said or how I am treated. I am not turning anything into an avalanche. A spade is a spade, and I'll call it a spade. I won't give it an excuse.

"And you've said so yourself, that they don't respect anyone. How can you let that stand? Someone needs to put them into their place if they are wrong. If nobody does that, then they will keep doing it, and if you're fine with that, then that's your business. You want me to shut up about how I feel, tell me why I should."

She's still sitting through all this, and her voice has lost the anger. She's sounding more reasonable as she goes along now, defending a concept rather than herself. "I don't know whether you're insulting me by comparing me to Izzy or not. I suppose in that light of sense, maybe I should compare you to the other Garou I'm talking about then. That's about as fair judgment as you're giving me here."

"I don't hate my Tribe. I'm disappointed that they don't remember who raised them before they grew fur and balls. And I'm allowed to have that opinion because you can't tell me that I'm wrong. That a Garou gives more respect to their family and Kinfolk before they change. And maybe I don't understand cos I'm not Garou, and I get that. But that doesn't mean what I say is invalid."

[Sofie Janssen] "I don't hate all Garou. I don't even hate these Garou. I think less of them compared to those Fenrir I do know, that act way better than some that I've seen here. I know you don't like that and I don't expect you to, or any of the others. But that does not mean I am holding you responsible for that, I think the others should be held to their own actions. But you are the Jarl and you did bring me here to question rumours whispered in your ear by a Garou that has went out of his way to, and these are his words, annoy me."

[Sorrow] "I let it stand because there's a limit, Sofie, to what I can do. Whether or not a Garou - in your opinion - shows you proper respect is a minor issue. We're a Sept at War. There's a Hive in the north. I have territory to defend, a totem to appease, a tribe to lead, and a baby that I would like to give my mate the chance to raise, without tearing open a Garou's throat for the perceived disrespect a kinfolk sees in a Garou's actions and chancing a goddamned frenzy from a cliath in return.

"This stuff - half of it is bullshit. Linus blows off steam, makes a crude remark, and you decide based on your vast experience that he has has no respect for kin, that he doesn't remember where he came from. You take it and you put it into a pot, and you wait for something else and you let it simmer. That's what I hear from you right now - grievance after grievance in a handful of weeks, in a few passing nights.

"Listen to yourself, your judgments are as rigid as his, and just as based on - what? An overheard remark, a passing conversation." A sharp exhale, breathed out again. "We're done, Sofie. I will speak with Erek. In the future, I expect you to come to me if a Garou - Fenrir or otherwise - takes unwelcome liberties. Offers you some offense. If I don't know about it, I cannot correct it."