Ornature

Our General Scene Guidelines:

1. Try to keep posts to within like ten minutes. I practically never set that as a for reals hard rule, and I don't need it to be today, but try. :)

2. This scene, like pretty much always is non-lethal. If any of you really want to kill off PCs, I am very sorry you are disappoint.

3. If your character has any merits or flaws you think I need to know, please let me know.

4. If there is anything I should not put in this scene for OOC reasons, please let me know.

5. Um? Have fun....?

Relevant merits: natural channel and ancestor ally. She also has a 1 point numen that she shares with Erich (it is a pigeon spirit).

Relevant flaws: insane ancestor - who takes over in hte presence of non-Fangs wielding klaives since they are obs not noble enough to have them.

The neighborhood bristles with traffic and low-rent stores and fast food restaurants and former fast-food restaurants become taquerias and ex-Conoco stations become strip clubs and everything in between. Nail salons and hole in the wall specialty groceries and wig shops and wireless stores and guys selling knock-off designer handbags from wire racks in empty, weedy parking lots and folks selling plastic flowers to leave behind on the graves of your dead and among the early afternoon traffic is one singular girl on foot. Tall(ish), wearing a ringer t-shirt and a worn pair of remarkably expensive jeans, the hems of which have been chewed or walked through, the waist of which sits rather low on her negligible hips, and Charlotte (for this girl is indeed Charlotte) also has a messenger-bag, battered brown leather, slung across her body, bisecting the logo on that tee, the weight of it against her right hip, and she is occasionally eating kernels of kettlecorn from a paperbag she purchased from a street vendor and she is occasionally tossing pieces of kettlecorn to the small birds that dart from scrubby tree to telephone wire to neon sign to nest in the soffit of a slowly disintegrating brick building and back again.

Paying more attention to the birds, or perhaps (a real perhaps) to a half-dozen other things, she rounds a corner and gets a sense of something, a supple tug through her skin, like a rope braided through, following a little black-tailed gnatcatcher as it darts, quick and sure, from an old NITECLUB sign through a nest of wires into an alley.

Keisha is the kind of girl who throws herself into her duties. And she has had a lot of duties lately: to pack, as Keeper of the Land for Cold Crescent, her school work. But luckily her school is basically done with and so she has a little free time. What is she doing in her free time? She's walking down Colfax. Nothing big, just taking a walk. Keisha enjoys exploring the city, whether the good or the bad parts. With this Child of Gaia, everything bad has some amount of good to find.

And so there she is with her staff, a pair of sandles on her feet and a calf-length white skirt with a green T-Shirt. Her backpack is slung over one shoulder and she seems to be in a relaxed, calm mood as she wanders in the general vicinity of the alleyway, watching the people and the businesses and everything else.

The afternoon is grey, then sunny, then grey again as thick, billowy clouds slide across a pale blue sky, obscuring the sun before coyly revealing it again, only to hide it once more. The air is still until it's not, a fresh breeze sweeping through, sweeping away the stench of rot and decay and life-at-the-edge-of-society for a moment before it all comes crashing back in again.

There'll be a storm later, or so they say. Phoebe is in the area because there is something that she needs. Her Vespa is parked along the street somewhere, the vehicle nicer once, but worn with age and use. The Black Fury is walking out of a new age store, paper bag in one hand, a black leather satchel put over the opposite shoulder. She's dressed in shorts and sandals and a grey t-shirt with the outline of a cloud on it.

Charlotte she notices first. How does one not notice that bright, shining breeding of falcon? But her attention isn't held there, because she knows her sister is nearby, as well, can hear the telltale step step tmp as the Child of Gaia moves closer, staff tapping the ground every other step. Phoebe lifts a hand to wave and moves to her vehicle, to lock her purchases away in the storage beneath the seat.

It is warm for now, but the cold will come back soon enough. Some people are already scurrying to buy supplies, in advance of tomorrow's rain and eventual snow. The streets are full of people on the way to places and on the way back from them, people loitering and leaning against walls, people waiting for buses -- just people. There are creatures that live in densely packed conditions in a fashion beautiful in its complex harmony. Humanity is not among them, Colfax is a crawling, uncoordinated mass of near collisions between people on the sidewalk, honking horns, and the occasional shout.

It would be difficult to say for the Garou that there was much, if anything, right about the scene on Colfax, but it doesn't seem any more wrong than usual. Charlotte is chasing her gnatcatcher. Keisha is wandering.

[Go ahead and Perception+Alertness at me.]

[percept+alert]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 6, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

Perception + Alertness

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

[[Per+Alert, Uncanny Instincts]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

There are a million things to notice in the city if one looks past the people and beneath the wires, the constriction of the Weaver's stultifying presence. Sometimes Charlotte is aware of the pavement beneath her feet and sometimes she is aware of the earth, even deeper, the way it must be shivering for want of the sun. Sometimes she is too stressed by the noise and the press of humanity all around, and sometimes she finds some means of zoning them all out, and seeing a different sort of world beneath their world.

The small bird takes wing in zig-zag patterns, alights on a the crenelated crown of an old brick storefront, then soars for a moment before landing on the spine of a small, stripped-down billboard. Charlotte follows behind, light on her feet, otherworldly in her way, graceful enough as she darts in pursuit of the small bird that she does not upend or upset her bag of kettlecorn.

There are raised voices in the alley. Charlotte doesn't notice at first, intent on her stalking, but quickly enough she and Phoebe hear the sounds not only of the argument, but of someone being hit and a muffled cough on impact. Keisha hears the angry tones, though not the blow.

Charlotte can see both of them for a few seconds, teenagers, a boy and a girl. They both stand like they are angry for a a second, briefly frozen by what just happened, but then the boy catches the girl by the shoulders, pushes her back, away from him, and starts heading out of the alley. The girl stays where she is and glares after him.

The storage beneath the Vespa's seat isn't much, but then Phoebe doesn't need much space for storage. The bag is small enough to fit without getting crushed. She drops the seat, and when she feels it lock into place she turns to Keisha. Or starts to.

The commotion in the alley gets her attention right quick. Is that where Charlotte is headed in her pursuit of a bird? Regardless, Phoebe looks at Keisha, catches her eye and tilts her head sharply toward the alley.

She reaches its mouth in time for the boy to be coming out of it. Phoebe has time for a quick glance, sees the source of the raised female voice, and then she's reaching for the boy's arm.

"Hold on," she says sharply, and if she isn't able to grab hold of him, perhaps the note of authority in her voice and in her bearing will give him pause until Keisha arrives, as well.

[charisma (captivating) + leadership]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1

Strangers in the alley, humans, all that noise pull Charlotte out of her small and strange reverie. She is a scarecrow of a creature, strangely - almost inherently - noble all that fine, mad blood in her veins, even to humans, though they perhaps do not understand why her profile, the lilt of her chin, or the curve of her cheek strikes some note of accord deep inside them.

But listen: Charlotte stops a few feet in. Draws herself upright, her pale blue eyes darting from the boy to the girl and back again. She is watching the boy, tracking him with her eyes without moving her head, and there is something entirely avian about that look, the raptor-stillness of it so inherently animal.

Then the girl: she's the next recipient of that glance, and then there is Phoebe. Charlotte was inhaling to say something, but Phoebe grabs the boy's hand and tells him to Hold On with the sort of natural authority that makes the girl want to sink back into her skin.

Luminous, moon-mad thing: she seams her mouth and says nothing.

Nothing.

Shoulders curling inward, pale eyes darting upward to see if she can catch another glimpse of the gnatcatcher scrabbling against the brick.

But no:

it's gone. It's gone.

How does one not notice the shining beacon of Falcon? If one is distracted by observing everything else. That's how Keisha doesn't notice Charlotte until she realizes her packsister is nearby. Maybe it was their bond that gave her the heads up, or maybe she's just more used to seeing Phoebe. She can count on one hand the number of times she and Charlotte have had a conversation more than a word of greeting at a moot or the like. Whatever the reason, she sees Phoebe first and smiles to her, raises her hand to wave and then notices Charlotte heading toward an--

Wait, what was that? She hears the voices, and she sees Phoebe's head jerk that way. The teenager (okay, three months past being able to be called a teenager, and way past that in terms of how she acts but still) furrows her brow and starts to pick up the pace, jogging over so that she can catch up to Phoebe. She gets there as Phoebe is bearing down on the boy and takes a moment to look in the alleyway. Charlotte's already looking after something else, so Keisha looks at the girl in the alleyway as she asks in a general sense (directed more to the Garou, of course),

"What's going on?"

The boy recoils from Phoebe, taking a quick step to the side and jerking his arm away from her. He stops, although he isn't quite sure why. He stares at Phoebe, stares for only a few seconds into her eyes where there is something he has fallen, as humanity has fallen, from being able to understand there and he can recognize that something unknowable is there enough that he shifts his gaze angrily at the ground instead.

"What?" He practically growls the question, but some of the anger is muffled by the fact that is directed more at the concrete than precisely at Phoebe.

Further in the alley, the girl realizes their fighting attracted attention, and she glares at everyone. Charlotte who has done nothing but chase birds, Phoebe who is trying to touch her boyfriend, Keisha who is getting involved in things that aren't any of her damned business.

"What's going on," and she takes an angry, bristling step toward Keisha, "Is none of your fucking business." Her eyes lock onto Keisha's and hold, all incandescent fury. Hatred.

[You are welcome to pick your next rolls but I would suggest among your choices Perception/Alertness and Awareness. You can ask for clarification on what you want in the AIM chat if you like. Considering it may affect post outcome, you can roll BEFORE posting.]

[[Per+Alert]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Sense Wyrm: Perception + Occult

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

[percept+empathy on the boy]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )

[[Wits+Occult]]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

The Wyrm had sunk deep roots into Colfax, wrapped its tendrils and vines and fucking tentacles around whatever it can. This place simmers with corruption that spills across the Gauntlet often enough, the violence and the rage and the despair clawing at one side and the dark spirits clawing at the other coming into frequent, tragic contact. Those things have spilled through the girl, into the girl. They are wrapping her up into a cocoon. Claiming her as their own.

[peeking]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

Her eyes seek out the girl and that furrowed brow widens as her jaw tightens into a firm, clenched line. "Something's happening to her. She's changing."

She's saying it as she begins to rush toward the girl in question, shoving the guy roughly out of the way as she does. Her hand tightly grips the staff as she slings the backpack off her shoulder. She has ritual tools in there that are likely going to be of use if she can do it in time (if it's not already too late). And that's probably a real long-shot, because it looks to Keisha like the change that she mentioned is already in the process but she has to try. And so she calls on Gaia's gift to her in the form of Persuasion to try and talk the girl down as she opens the backpack and starts looking for her Binding tools.

"Sweetie, I need you to calm down for me. Everything's going to be fine, I promise. There's no need to go off of the rails, just listen to my voice, okay?" She's keeping her voice calm and comforting, hoping it carries through.

[[Persuasion: Cha+Subt @ 7 w/WP]]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 2, 3, 4) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

When he recoils but doesn't continue off on his way, Phoebe releases him. Despite the appearance of the scene, she has no intention of accusing the boy of any wrongdoing on the part of the female in the alley. She heard a scuffle, a strike, she wants to know what happened, but isn't jumping to conclusions.

So she lets him go when he gives her that angry growling What? Eyes narrow on him, studying the way he stares at the concrete, before she turns to look at the girl. A girl who seemed even angrier than the boy.

No, not at the girl, through the tough fibers of the Gauntlet, to see what may lay on the other side. As her eyes glaze and go blank to the vision of this side of the mirror, she says, "Nothing, get out of here, kid." Blinking her eyes clear of the film, she turns to the kid and she smiles. Except, perhaps by then he's not right where she left him. Perhaps he's been shoved aside or is currently doing as she bade him do.

Stepping further into the alley, Phoebe says, "I'm going to cross and see if I can't draw it off of her." There are some uses to being particularly intriguing to the denizens of the Penumbra. Sometimes, anyway. Looking at Charlotte, she says, because whatever the Silver Fang has discovered for herself, Phoebe will keep her informe. "Scrag."

They're humans, just humans, and there is some part of Charlotte that is just quick and aware enough of humans and human-things that she might have inquired herself were Phoebe not there, but Phoebe is there and Charlotte is quiet, body language tight, searching up the patterned brick for a last glimpse of the darting little bird she was watching, already starting to prowl, to follow, and yet the moment is strange; it is changing, it is charged in ways she does not precisely appreciate or understand. Something about the girl, that store, something about -

Her slim little mouth all open, Charlotte breathes in. Inhales, see, the sick, slimey coating of corruption all cankerous against her tongue, and she is struck by the urge to vomit, to purge, to purify, and there are rites for this, there are rituals, there are reasons.

All she does is lick her lips. Reach over and loosen the straps on her messenger bag. Look up, oddly, dartingly alert, at Phoebe, where she has arrested the young man.

"You should go." Quietly, directly. A tip of her head towards the girl, and quietly, quietly, " - she's the one with the worms in her heart. It's not your fault. Just go."

Then Charlotte is looking up, strangely, uncannily direct, at the girl. Needling a hand into her bag. Searching for something.

(Whatever she was going to do with or to or by or for the girl forestalled, foreshortened when Keisha rushes forward to her, et cetera.)

But now, the boy.

What she pulls from her bag is a small bottle of slidingly clear water. Prismatic enough that it seemed to have captured and swallowed the sun. Simple enough that it is, really, just a sealed glass jar.

Smiles as she hands it to him, but the smile is strange, bright, nimble.

"Go on. Like she said. When you get where you're going, drink that."

(Gnosis: activating the clear water talen.)

Dice: 6 d10 TN4 (1, 2, 6, 8, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )

[But this bane makes me so angry, Keisha!!!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

The boy takes a half step away from Phoebe and then Keisha gives him a push and then there is Charlotte, telling him something that makes no real sense and handing him water. His eyes by now are a little wide, because this is a weird fucking day, but he just nods and takes the water from Charlotte.

"Yeah. Okay. Whatever." But he looks at it, the same way he looked at Phoebe's eyes for a second, as though on some unconscious level he understands that this water, like the three Theurges, are something else. Something special. Something precious.

But also nothing he feels at all ready to engage further. He gives Charlotte another awkward nod, this one less agreement and more goodbye, and gets the hell out of there.

The girl nearly lunges at Keisha. She does growl, not a growl in tone, but an actual fucking animal sound, all mad fury. The attempt by Keisha is enough to get her attention, enough to prompt her to fight with the scrag, and, perhaps remarkably, this time she succeeds.

Phoebe is able to find a nice, secluded spot to go vanishing into the Umbra.

They each have their own ways of approaching this problem. Keisha prepares to bind the bane. Charlotte first ensures the boy will be free of whatever taint the girl may have smeared on him when they scuffled. Phoebe finds a place, and when she finds that place she finds her compact mirror and stares at her reflection and then through her reflection until she finds herself on the Other Side, and she prepares to face things a little more directly.

[crossing, diff 7 -1 (reflection)]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

The boy runs. Charlotte watches him run; watches him with her solemn strangely owl-like eyes, with that note of odd steadiness, with that strange surety. Stands there like a sentinel, as if she were made not of moonlight and water, but iron and iron and earth.

When she is satisfied that he is gone; that he is wholly and entiretly gone, that there are no witnesses but the wolves and the girl, Charlotte - alert now - turns back toward Keisha and the girl.

The growl isn't particularly unexpected, but neither does Keisha seem worried. Until it starts trying to actively shred her body to ribbons, she's not going to be worried. "That it, hon," she says with a nod as she sets her tools out, starts scrawling some symbols on the ground with chalk. "Just keep it up. Don't let it win and you'll be okay. You don't have to hold out long."

She sets up the Rite as quickly as she can, then a little statue is set in the center. Something to Bind the Scrag into. And then she begins to work, hoping the Gaia, Unicorn and Themis that no one turns the corner into this alley.

[But I am so angry!!!]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

She is so angry. There is still enough of her left that she can recognize that something is wrong, and so even though she bristles when Keisha calls her 'hon' she just balls up her fists and bites her tongue until it bleeds. She stares at what Keisha is doing, setting up her weird ritual, but she knows something horrible and unnatural is happening. She knows.

And so she struggles and stays still. Stays quiet.

[command spirit: -1WP, Charisma+Leadership: Let go of her!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )

The girl stays still and that puts Keisha a bit at ease, which is good. She needs to focus on this, trusting that Phoebe is doing her thing and making the Child of Gaia's Rite potentially successful. There is a firm and unequivocal trust there; Keisha may set the possibility of her own failure (not that she's expecting it, just...well, it can happen) but Phoebe?

Phoebe, she knows will do her part.

She begins her Rite, chanting softly at first as she tries to draw the spirit into the little figurine.

[[Spending 3 Gnosis to lower spirit's Gnosis. Rolling WP vs. whatever the spirit's Gnosis will be after.]]

Dice: 6 d10 TN2 (4, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

The scrag leaves the girl, and flings itself toward Phoebe.

It doesn't get far.

Keisha's binding rite catches it, draws it across the Veil and forces it into the statue.

We are left with Phoebe in the Umbra, various spirits starting to come toward her. Curious ones. Hungry ones. It may not be best to stay there alone.

And with Keisha and Charlotte and a very confused girl in alley with statues and chalk drawings. She is determined, this girl. She tried to fight off a scrag. She could not have for long, but she tried. Of course, all that drive to fight everything is what called the scrag to her, but still....

She does not really want to fight right this second. There are strange people and strange things happened and she can remember that she just hit her boyfriend and now she doesn't even know what that means for them and what the Hell because none of this should even be a real thing. She stares at the chalk lines.

The Rite completed and her own spiritual reserves significantly weaker as a result, Keisha takes a lean on her staff. She isn't physically weak but her Gnosis is less than half its normal strength because the girl, as she does in everything, gave her all. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, tired but triumphant.

She smiles to the other girl. Yes, she nearly let herself become a fomor, but she didn't. She fought it and she held it off long enough for them to do what they needed to do. This human was strong enough to do that, even if only for moments. That earns Keisha's admiration. It's the kind of thing that reaffirms a pacifist's faith in humanity just a little, being reminded that there are people out there like this.

She looks back at Charlotte, smiles a little as if to say 'all clear.' And then, with a sandaled foot, she starts scuffing out the chalk marks on the ground. "That went well. Congratulations...you've just been hypnotized out of flying off the handle and assaulting someone." It's maybe a weak cover, but Keisha is hoping that her Persuasion can back it up. "Don't worry about all that. Just stuff to trick your unconscious mind into believing that it needed to calm down. You should probably get some anger management therapy, to be honest." This is part of why Keisha takes psychology and sociology classes. It means she can use these kinds of words and sound like she knows what she's saying.

[[Cha+Subt, -1 diff for Persuasion and successes are extra-effective. WP because these dice]]

Dice: 4 d10 TN5 (1, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

[You're kidding, right?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

There are spirits moving all around, some drawing nearer to the Black Fury. Ordinarily this doesn't bother her. She is a Theurge, and a summoning one at that, one who deals more in pacts and promises with the spirits than the other aspects of her Auspice. Today is no different, except. Where a scrag has been, other dark things may soon follow.

Phoebe does not cross, not yet. There's a girl on the other side near her packmate for one thing. That girl might not have noticed Phoebe slipping into a shadowy deadend within the alley, but she might notice her walking back out of it. She might hear the pop! as Phoebe pushes and pushes and finally snaps through the Gauntlet. And besides, there is still work to be done on this side.

The Black Fury stands naked (her clothing heaped in a pile in the place where she crossed), feet braced, her posture tall and strong as she begins the summoning ritual.

[Rite of Summoning (wits+rituals, diff 5 for a Jaggling): The Misshapen]

Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )

[and a gnosis for your temperament, PLEASE BE A GENTLE GIANT]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )

Blood sluices from the girl's mouth. She bit her tongue, fighting, fighting, fighting. Fighting anything, fighting everything, fighting the Thing Inside that coiled around her brainstem and made her wretched and hungry for that point of black-out anger where she comes a whirlwind, fighting that too, the loud-scrawl noise of it, the whirlwind torrent of it, while a trio of strange women -

- well, a duo of strange women, for the blond girl hangs back, watching all sharp and sharply aware, no longer alive to the cracks in things, the places where bright little oddments shine through, but the places where darker things seep.

Even free the girl is a dark-thing.

Charlotte thinks that she must taste of sackcloth and ashes, of winding sheets and gravemust, of catacombs and a certain seeping corruption.

The creature's pale eyes flick to Keisha, the statute, the circles drawn in chalk, all the pieces of ritual that are not her own pieces of ritual; that are both an ancient language and a new accent and everything in between.

She is drawn-back, Charlotte, absolutely quiet.

She glances out of the mouth of the alley, the traffic rushing by, the mid-day sun.

She has dropped her kettlecorn without thinking about it.

The kernals are scattered all over the filthy, pock-marked asphalt.

The girl frowns. Skeptical. Because that doesn't seem right, but Keisha sounds very convincing. "Yeah. I guess." She scuffs the toe of one heeled boot on a fragment of remaining chalk line. "I should go." She steps around the summoning circle, kicks a few popcorn kernels out of her way, glances a little warily at Charlotte.

Phoebe summons the Misshapen, and it accepts her offer of Gnosis and is willing to do this thing for her.

A Misshapen arrives, huge, huge, huge. It towers between the refelctions of buildings, taller than Phoebe, taller even than Phoebe would be in her Crinos form. It is hard to see it, despite its size. Each step, each movement causes the colors of its shape to shift, change, reoform and reshape, but Phoebe sees it. She sees its horrible and twisted features, and she smiles up to it, offering it a gift of her spiritual energy if it will please just cleanse this place.

Which it does.

On the other side, something changes. The atmosphere lightens. The air seems cleaner, though it smells no better than it had before. It is cleansed. Phoebe thanks the spirit again, and it wanders off on its way back to wherever it had come from.

A few moments later, compact in hand she crosses over again, pushing through the strands of the Web until she's back where she started. She dresses quickly.

[and a gnosis to see how quickly she makes it back, let's say she dropped 2G to the spirit]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

"That sounds like a good idea," she says with a nod. Because the girl should go. She should get far away from this alleyway and hopefully to somewhere that she can get the help she needs.

She smiles and gestures past Charlotte, to where the alley empties into the street. "You should go find your friend and talk to him. I'm sure he'll understand. Mistakes happen, you know?"

She doesn't pat the girl on the back, doesn't offer any kind of touch. She suspects it wouldn't be met the way it should. She looks at Charlotte. "You saw which way he went, right?"

It doesn't take Phoebe long to make her way back over again. It takes a little longer to get dressed, but even that isn't a terribly long wait. Maybe it feels like it to the others, maybe it doesn't. A few minutes after she disappeared into that quiet side area she steps back out again, short, pixie hair hair cut barely ruffled. Her clothes are dingier than when she left them. There is a spot of questionable liquid across the stomach of her t-shirt and scuffs on the side of her shorts. Maybe it looks like she fell down, though there are no marks one her joints, her elbows or knees or the heels of her hands.

Whatever is thought, she is there again, with Keisha and the girl, and Charlotte watching the street cars pass. Phoebe looks at the girl, looks her over just the once and asks, "Do you a need a ride to where you're going?" Not that she thinks the girl will accept. Phoebe's Rage is a quieter thing than most, but it is still there, pressing up against the minds of humans and triggering danger senses despite her friendly appearance.

So here's the thing. Charlotte is quiet and ready to bolt. She stands at the mouth of the alley, hands on the strap of her messenger bag. There is a small velvet bag of teeth in there. There are a child's fingerbones.

Then Keisha speaks to her and Charlotte blinks, something quick and sharp in her pale eyes as the flash from the girl to Keisha and back again.

Solemn, affixed on the girl as she shakes her platinum-and-pink head.

"No." Her own voice sounds so distant to her but it is surprisingly, remarkably firm. On some very animal level she now thinks of the girl, the stranger, as Keisha's. Keisha's prey, Keisha's - but,

"That wasn't a mistake. That was a choice-you-made. That was a choice-you-made inside you, and you can keep making that choice or you can try to stop making it and maybe there's something inside you that makes it impossible to stop making it.

"But it wasn't a mistake, and you shouldn't go find him. Because if you go find him, I bet you'll make it again, and you'll make it worse. Someday you'll make it darker.

"So I don't think you should go find him." A brief, pale-eyed glimpse at Phoebe. This small, apologetic smile. This lilt of narrow shoulders beneath that ringer-tee.

"You can if you want. But maybe you oughtta go find something brighter instead, in yourself."

Charlotte likes the way those words slide together. There's a knot between her brows as she considers them, which smoothes away a spare second later. She flashes Keisha another small smile, glances at the girl and remembers her face, because, Charlotte thinks, she will probably need, someday, to be killed, then turns around and slips out of the mouth of the alley and heads off down the street,

alone.