Ornature

[Twilight] [Last Post!]

[Twilight] [Roman Turner]
"I'll certainly do my best. Ya can count on that Rhya."

He was already puzzling over the woman, because she was one of those Grandmother types and those were always tough nuts to crack, at least to someone his age.

[Twilight] Bob Marley's Ghost gives Roman an appraising look. He has pale blue eyes in a long, tanned face, the whisp of a beard evident on his jaw and chin, and a crooked smile that cracks the surface of his long, otherwise mournful face just at the end.

"Well alright then," the other Garou returns, reaching out to clasp not hands but forearms with Roman. "Like I said, I'll give you three days. You need anything else from me, you let me know. Kosher?"

If Roman has no other questions for him, the other No-Moon leaves with a wink and a nod toward the gathering house. "Now, I'm gonna see if I can figure out where Myrna's hiding the left over biscuits. I'd say, if you can't find me, my Alpha's nearly always near the Caern's heart where you came in.

"But you're a no-moon," he continues. "If you can't find me when I'm not hiding, something's wrong."

With that, off he goes.

[Roman Turner] "Alrighty."

His own clasp was just as firm as his Gray-Blue eyes met Kevin's pale blue ones. Clean shaven himself, his hair far from long dreadlocks. Infact, he tried not to look at those locks because he always wondered if things were hiding in there. Pushing those thoughts away, he watched the Fostern leave before turning back for inside to locate his host or a way to her home.

He wasn't sure exactly what made Kevin believe the older woman was hiding something from the Sept. There were lots of things Kin didn't tell the those of the Sept. Heck, there were lots of things Kin tried to hide from their own families. He was going to have to pry in the woman's home and follow her around when he wasn't talking to her to try and crack this nut.

[Twilight] Roman finds JoEllen standing in the dining room with both Myrna and Doc Hauser. The air is sharp with the scent of pine cleaner and dish soap, the lingering scents from breakfast and the underlying - new - scent of a roast someone just slipped into the oven. Myrna sits at one of the tables, spilling over the arms of the chair, regaling JoEllen and Doc Hauser with some story funny enough to have the balding professor guffawing and openly wiping tears away from his eyes.

The group falls silent as Roman walks back in, though JoEllen looks up brightly and gives the young Garou a benevolent sort of smile, her round face bright with reflected good cheer, muted by that underlying mournfulness that seems to define her mien.

"Well," she says, straightening, dusting off her cardigan and reaching for her handbag. "Here's my houseguest, then. I'm going home, Roman. If you're staying in the Sept I can just draw you a little map and leave you my phone number for you to come after. Or if you need a rest you can come on now."

[Roman Turner] "Don't let me chase ya off from your friends. Though if ya are going home, I might as well come along so I don't got to bother no one else when I need to find the place. Bad enough I'm pushing in on your home as it is."

For a moment he wondered if the melancholy from the woman was the reason Kevin thought she was keeping something from them? Maybe she hadn't always had this air of loss laying under the bright smiles? He shifted from booted foot to booted foot while these thoughts went through his head.

"What I mean is, if ya want to stay and visit, I wouldn't mind sitting a spell."

[Twilight] "Oh no, I have got to get back home. Have all the chores to do, and like I told Myrna I'm hoping for a letter from my granddaughter. She does try to write home every week, even if it's just a postcard. She's a good girl." JoEllen reaches down to pick up her handbag. "Doc - you let me know if Howard an them need a break from Rosie. I have Sunday and Monday off work. And tell Gail I wanna see her at the Gallery opening. There's on of the student sculptors I know she'll like.

"Myrna, I'll see you Thursday. Y'all talk care."

While JoEllen is making her excuses to her fellow kin, Myrna smiles up at Roman, the gesture deepening her multitudinous chins. "Don't you worry about puttin' no one out, young man. S'what we're here for, you know? Does a body good to be of use. S'what community's all about."

"Now then, Roman, my truck is parked down at the bottom of the hill - " continues JoEllen, waving once to Myrna and the Doc, patting herself down for her keys as she continues, with a sort of brisk, efficient gait certain on-the-go grandmothers develop. All practicality. "You'll be scandalized that it's not a hybrid but I do need the room!"

[Roman Turner] "Thank ya ma'am."

He smiled down at Myrna. Then nodded to both the Doctor and Myrna before leaving with JoEllen.

"Your car don't bother me, ma'am. Compared to Chicago the air is so clean here I can feel it."

For a few moments he walked with her in silence before piping up again.

"Your Grand child that ya hope to hear from, is she the same one that ya said might challenge for rank soon? I take it she's not here at this Sept but at another?"

[Twilight] "Well," JoEllen says, shaking her head. "I don't know about that. I read that we have pretty bad air around here because all them coal-fired power plants. Course, the coals a bit to the east of here, but it gets into the air anyway." They're out the door, climbing down the steps to that chalk-green pond. JoEllen's dressed in practical clothing - jeans, tennis shoes and a soft blue cardigan that mirrors the color of her eyes. Her hair is gray, shot through with strands of brown, cut short but pulled back from her face with a headband.

"Oh, yes. Emma Jean. She's a full-moon. She and her pack, they travel all around the country. Come back sometimes but they don't never stay long. Always on the trail of something. 'Course I figure you know all about that don't you?"

[Roman Turner] "Honest ma'am? I stick close to my new home. I mean we don't travel around much, not like you're talking about. We got ourselves an old church where we live and where some of our Kin stay. We got us another home we're fixing up for them kin that don't want to stay with us. And well, most folks stop in and stay awhile, visiting now and then. But I ain't been back to my birth family since Christmas."

When they reached the car he climbed in the passenger seat and belted himself in. It wasn't till they were on their way that he casually continued.

"When I first met ya, ya said ya hoped to live long enough to see Great Grandchildren. That mean Emma Jean got herself a fella?"

He frowned slightly.

"Am I gonna make your mate or children nervous with turning up at your home like this?"

It was his way of prying about her situation.

[Twilight] "Naw," JoEllen says, shifting the old Chevy into gear with a familiar gesture, easing the compact pick-up onto the curving asphalt road. The valley opens up in front of them - a sudden vista, the curve of a looping creek hugging the sides of a sloping bottom land. He can see the small cluster of houses where the kinfolk live, a small sign announcing SIDEBOTTOM, UNINCORPORATED as they drive past and through.

- a sideflash of a look at Roman here, as she's glancing over her shoulder at the turnoff from Sidebottom Road onto Route 313, looking both ways before getting onto the main road. There's no view of the little settlement from the road, concealed as it is by the ridge of land. "She doesn't. I'm not expecting great-grandchildren from her. I have another boy and a girl. My son's in graduate school at UVA and my other daughter's in the Peace Corps right now. Hope she'll be home soon, maybe settle down here.

"Do me good to have family around again. My husband, he died near about ten years ago, now. So the only one you'll make nervous is my cat Millie, and she's an ornery thing."

[Roman Turner] "Okay help me here. Ya have a son in graduate school and a daughter in the Peace Corps, so I'm assuming both of them are Kin, though it would not be impossible for either to be where they are and True. So, where's the momma of the grand daughter full moon? Ya must have some spread in the ages of your children for ya to have a grand child old enough to have gone through first change."

He alternated between looking at her and watching where they were going.

"Me, I got cousins out the tail end, but no living siblings."

[Twilight] "Not so spread out as all that," the kinswoman says companionably. "Mara's my oldest. Mara had Emma Jean real young. She was hardly more than a baby herself. Fifteen, you know? Had herself a true-born like Emma, a full moon, who died too soon like you all seem to do. Wouldn't have no other, just stayed there in Sidebottom raising up Emma Jean. 'Course, I made sure she got through school eventually, though she couldn't keep up with the college here. It's a real good one, you know?

"Then Emma Jean up and changed when she was real young, and soon's the Sept came for her, seemed like, Mara lit up and outta here like there wasn't nothing holding her back. I guess she figured on having herself a whole 'nother life afore she turned thirty. Sometimes I get a call from her now and then, too. Last I heard she was in Vegas, working for a real estate agent."

[Roman Turner] "That happens a good deal. Unfortunately our lives are sort of on speed dial compared to normal lives. I mean, we flash forward from childhood to having to grow up in a flash once the change hits. Ya go from crayons to claws and defending the world almost as soon as we learn to tie our shoes. And worse of all, our family, our Kin have to endure what no one should have to endure. They have to watch us take that flash and fall in what has to feel like a helpless flash when ya think on it."

[Twilight] It's quiet in the cab; just the sound of the highway underneath the tires. Two-lane highway, meandering through the rolling hills, descending somewhat from the heights to the bucolic little college town spread out against the dun brown hills, speckled here and there with unexpected flashes of green, yellow, white. JoEllen has not turned on the radio, so there's nothing in the space between them but their voices.

For the first time, there's a certain - give - to her round face, some loosening of the softness that shows the steel beneath. The woman takes her eyes off the road for a handspan of a moment, and shoots Roman a glint-eyed look. It's mid-morning, but the angle of the hills keep hollows in deep shadow until week after noon so the flash of sunlight through which the pick-up hurtles is unexpected, brilliant.

"You think we don't know that?"

[Roman Turner] "Oh I am very aware of it. I got folks. I know the pain they try to hide behind pride that's just for my benefit. I've seen it in their faces from my first change. I hear it in their voices. I seen them looks they share when they thought I weren't paying no attention."

His voice was soft in the cab of the truck as he spoke.

"I'm just saying, it ain't no easier for us to leave that shelter and become the shield cause we are always aware of the price too. Your daughter, Emma's ma? Like as not she needed to go when her child did because it would help ease some of that same guarded hurt I see peeking through from yourself now and then."

He cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry, I ain't meant to poke and prod where it ain't wanted, so I hope ya don't get your dander up and decide to hold my pillow over my face when I go to sleep tonight."

Trying to ease the matter a little.

[Twilight] JoEllen's eyes are already back on the road. She keeps her hands at ten and two o'clock, drives with a familiarity that is tattooed into the back of her mind. All muscle memory, now, the trip from her home to the Sept and back again. The last comment has her sweeping a glance back at the young Garou, blue eyes touching his face.

"You don't know my Mara, Roman. Not from a hole in the ground. You don't know why she left and never come back, and if you don't mind hearing it from someone old enough to be your grandma, it's wrong of you to make excuses for her. To make assumptions and excuses for her." JoEllen's voice is quiet here, low and firm. There's a levelness to it, a teacher's evenness.

"Even if you're doing it because you think I need to hear it. I never was fragile, and I'm old enough for the truth. Which ain't a part of the story you just told, like as not." This is still quietly spoken, almost gently, and not unkindly - but there's that firm undercurrent to her tone. No give, whatsoever.

JoEllen's turning onto a sidestreet, then, and another. Just like that they're in town, and she's pulling up in front of a two-story brick house. As she puts the truck back into park and pulls the parking lot, she straightens up and announces - with better cheer. "Now then, here we are!"

[Roman Turner] For a moment he forgot to look contrite when the steel shown through in the older woman. Instead there came a flash of a smile and the words.

"Eww weee, I was right, I done got your dander stirrin. I'm lookin forward to ya puttin me in my place with the truth as ya see it. I'm always willing to learn at the feet of experiance."

Then he was looking out the window at the brick house before climbing out of the truck and replacing his hat.

"Don't beat me if I come around and open the door for ya?"

Because that is where he was headed.