[Kora] The park system hugs the shore of Lake Michigan - a square here, beach access there - a fountain gleaming underneath the ugly orange street lights. Across the boulevard, couples stroll hand in hand, window shopping or bar hopping or looking for a chic little restaurant that doesn't have a 45 minute wait for a table for two, crowding into the foyers and the little bars to avoid the waiting in the heat. There is the threat of thunderstorms on the horizon, and it is closing in on dusk, but the lake still glimmers with reflected light of the setting sun, for all that the eastern horizon is little more than smoked shadow.
Adrian had a voice mail from Kora sometime during the week. She wanted to see him next time he was in Chicago. Here, she's waiting for him, seated on the retaining wall overlooking the lake. Behind her, the Lake View neighborhood rears up - all those find condos and shopping streets, the organic markets and the specialty bars and restaurants illuminated against the humid summer night. Her hair is pulled back sharply from her face, twisted at the nape of her neck. She's wearing a tank-top over a racer-backed sports bra, both white, old jeans and her heavy Doc Marten's, which thud against the retaining wall with every swing of her feet.
[Adrian] Being on the dig agrees with Adrian. His smile comes easier from being with people who understand what he does and share his interest, with people who converse freely on things about which he is passionate. He's picked up a bit of color in the sun, and not all of it is pink - instead of that baby-pale he tends to maintain in the city, he's downright ruddy. As ever, he's the height of fashion but this is more casual than most of what he wears - designer work boots in the place of fine shoes, rich and still somehow utilitarian pants that call out to be touched, a similar shirt. It's a lot of khaki and beige, but it's likely to be expected when one spends almost all of one's time in the sun, digging for goodness only knows what.
Somewhere on his way to meet Kora, he's stopped to pick up a late dinner - a chicken salad croissant cut in half to share, and two paper cups of coffee, the better to facilitate the conversation of two maybe-friends who could almost be normal people, fellow students at the same college, something.
She senses his breeding before she senses him - not overpowering, but subtle, and there.
"Hej," he says, his actual native accent coming through - no need to hide behind London down in southwest Illinois, where he's playing in the dirt. "Everything is well with you?" One of the coffees is handed over before he sits, and once he's settled, her half of the sandwich is handed over.
[Kora] Whether or not she's eaten, Kora accepts the half-sandwich and paper coffee with a sort of grace at odds with her youth - with a formality at odds with her rage. There are traditions she does not take for granted, and the Skald accepts Adrian's gesture of hospitality both gracefully and with a lingering formality that lends to her otherwise worn clothing and haphazard grooming an air of old things, long since passed.
"Adrian," she says, her mouth curling upward at the rightmost corner, the expression catching out the gleam in her dark blue eyes. At dusk, it is impossible to tell the color: just that they are dark, an abiding contrast to her pale skin and hair - and intent, fixed on him when he closes the distance between them.
Fixed on him: taking him in, head to toe. Noting both the change in demeanor, accent, and - even clothing, for all that she lacks the language for the last of it. She had three outfits to her name in the world - half a load of laundry - before someone bought her more, and delivered them to her across a table at the brotherhood, months ago.
She sets the coffee aside, just behind her right hip, and gestures toward the empty space on the wall beside her. It was built for people to sit here and have their lunch, overlooking the gentle slope toward the lower jogging path below. There is a certain hum of insects in the air, but she pays them no mind beyond a vague wave of her hand in front of her face. "I'm well, and you look well. Your work suits you, yeah?"
This is not precisely an answer to his question, but some of her lingering tension has passed, now. "Have a seat."
[Adrian] Some of her lingering tension has passed, but some remains; an eyebrow raises as he makes himself comfortable, and he does not yet sip his coffee or bite his sandwich. It's her moon, or near, and the tension could be left to that. Or . . . "Trent's alright? And Moira?"
That comes first. The rest - whether or not his work suits him, whether or not he looks well - can wait. There are more important things.
[Kora] "I wouldn't keep you in suspense over news like that, Adrian," Kora's voice is low and rich as it always is - never quite musical, so much as musing, thoughtful, considered. She speaks carefully and clearly, rarely hunting for words. There's a certain intimacy to the tone, a lack of distance shaded by a faint hint of reproach - at the thought that she might make him wait for such news. "Trent's healing. I talked him out of working bar security, too. And Moira's fine.
"This is - " here, she gives him a faint curl of her shoulders, the architecture of the joint visible under her skin as she moves them. She has some summer color too, though not deep, lingering brown. The contrast is apparent, though - since the tan lines are defined by the t-shirt she usually wears when hunting rather than the tank top she's wearing tonight, out of deference to the heat and sun. " - closer to official business, really. And I wanted to see how you are.
"It's been awhile." Her generous mouth remains curved into a considered smile, and sheen of light gleams animal across the surface of her eyes.
[Adrian] "I would hope not. Thank you," he says, and this is with a hint of smile - almost fond. As fond as he dares get of a Fenrir Garou, anyway. "It's good to know, both that my faith is well placed and that my friends are well."
And now? Now, he can answer the rest, before turning to that 'closer to official business' part. "I love my work. And I'm good at it," he says with a shrug - not feigning indifference as he's clearly pleased with himself and how things are going right now, but recognizing that there are more important things to be discussed, and not everyone is interested in history and its trappings as he is.
"So, yes, I'm well. And relieved - I fretted. And also curious as to what this official business might be, now that I know everyone is as well as I am, more or less. What's happened?"
[Kora] "Joe's gone." This is simply spoken, and tightly spoken. A handful of weeks ago she'd lashed out, called him a coward to anyone who would listen. Now, she says - Joe's gone - with this sort of quiet tension underneath.
"There are not many of us left." Fenrir, she means. Some are in the ground. Others have moved on to other fights. Her smile, here, turns faint and wintry before warming back into something wry and self-away. "There was a challenge, and I won. I'm Jarl."
[Adrian] [why no, we're not relieved to hear that Joe's gone at all, what can you be thinking? (Manip + Sub)]
[Adrian] There's a momentary something at mention of Joe being gone, but it's fleeting and then there's simple concern for the Garou who is closer to a friend than any other trueborn has been in quite some time. Joe was her packmate, after all, and while Adrian's never had that sort of intimate connection with someone else - will never - he does know about losing people who seem almost a part of yourself. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Fenrir are hard, Fenrir are tough. They're the first in and last out. But they, too, get hurt. Sometimes they, too, need a friend to lean on if just for a moment.
And then the last settles, and eyes go wide for a moment - there's a low whistle, perhaps just a hint of teasing, as a friend might do. Yes, Adrian dares.
"I'm proud of you. Congratulations."
[Kora] Adrian asks if she's alright; Kora gives him a look - one that is both direct and wry. She has consumed half of her half of the chicken salad croissant - big bites, chewing briefly and swallowing quickly, licking both her fingers and her lips for stray bits of mayo and chicken.
Then he offers his low whistle, and she repeats the look, though this one seems rather more personal, intimate. The light has changed in the time they've been sitting her, the shadows are deepening and darker, but the sun blazes in the west, cutting long, bright lines between the high-rise condos fronting the lakeshore and the little park.
"I'm not being modest when I say that this is more a measure of the tribe's weakness than my strength, Adrian. I'm a cliath Skald. We follow strength: rank, or at least the Modis of the tribe. But I stand as Jarl until someone defeats me in a challenge, and I will defend you and the rest of our kin as if you were each my own until then."
[Adrian] "I know what we follow," he says, just a hint sharp - he knows all to well. "And if you are the strongest of us left in the city - Cliath Skald or not - then you are the who. In this city, from what I've seen . . ."
He trails off, though, and remembers: she is Garou. He is brave, and he is strong, but he does not speak against any of hers - because the trueborn are hers, regardless of whatever else - without a damn good reason.
"Maybe there's a reason," he says by way of shifting from whatever he'd started to say. "Maybe it's time to try something new."
[Kora] Kora's dark eyes are fixed on Adrian. She doesn't waver, she doesn't look away. She doesn't indulge him by looking away, politely when he trails off, when the sharpness bleeds into remembrance of what she is: of who she is.
There is a certain stillness to her then. The sandwich is half-eaten in her right hand, largely forgotten now. After a moment of silence between them, she twists and sets it back beside the paper cup of coffee, carefully folding the paper wrap over it.
"I want you, Adrian, to understand what I expect of you. If you are threatened by the Wyrm or another Garou: I expect you to send them to me. If another Garou wishes to claim you, be she Fenrir or otherwise, send her to me. Your protection is my duty, as is your discpline, in the eyes of the Nation."
Her voice is soft, now. And, somehow, relentless.
"If another Garou seeks your aid and you wish to give it, you should. If you do not trust them or do not wish to aid them, if they insist on assistance from you that you cannot render, send them to me.
"I will not interfere in your personal life. You are a man of Fenris, and I will treat you as such. If you meet any other Fenrir, trueborn or kin, send them to me."
Her dark eyes linger on the kinsman's face the whole time. "These things do not change because I am Jarl rather than another. I know you understand this."
[Adrian] As his eyes - considerably paler - linger on her, though they don't meet hers; he is almost painfully proper sometimes, this kin, in things both human and not-so-much. "I do understand this, yes. And I will do my best to live up to your expectations, as I would any Jarl's." As he always has, frankly, whether or not he's presented himself as he should. Whether or not he was considered Fenrir in the time and place. To whom he reported in times of trouble may have been the leader of a different tribe, but Adrian has always behaved as a Fenrir kin.
"Still," he says and amidst all that seriousness - because he is, very much so, when talking about such things. "For all that you winning the challenge may say about the tribe as a whole, it also says things about you. And for that, and other reasons, I'm proud to know you."
He doesn't call her friend - in another universe, under other circumstances, maybe he would. This is the best he can offer, and in some ways? Maybe it's better.
[Kora] "C'mon," the creature says, quietly then, rising. She turns to retrieve the sandwich and coffee cup, gesturing back toward the lively strip of bars, restaurants, and coffee shops across the street. "I'll buy you a beer, yeah?"
Then, as they walk toward the bar, the Jarl of the Fenrir glances up at the young kinsman beside her, her dark eyes lively on his face. "Adrian," she says, as they are heading away into traffic. This is casually spoken, almost easy after the rest - her rich, low voice and the noise of the traffic buzzing around them. "I know you're gay. It doesn't bother me. All I ask is your continued discretion."
She says nothing more about it; he could almost have imagined it as they slip into traffic, toward one of the pubs along the strip for a beer or two.
[Adrian] "I think I owe you one, don't I?" Again, friendly ribbing despite that careful distance maintained . . . at some point, he's finished his half a sandwich and most of his coffee, so both wrapper and cup are thrown away so that he can light a cigarette as they walk. And then.
Then.
Then.
(Shit.)
He chokes on the smoke he's inhaling for the first time since his first cigarette, to the point of flushed face and wet eyes; it takes a moment to get past 'I know you're gay', to not wait for the hit, be it verbal or physical. There's both stress and the second moment of relief in one conversation; to know for sure that she knows is a weight lifted, but the reactions he's had to this revelation from other Fenrir have, as a general rule, not been good.
All I ask is your continued discretion. When he's recovered, he nods. "Of course." And then! He's so bold as to put an arm around her briefly, on their way to the bar of her choice. It's appreciation, that. And then it's drinks, traded back and forth.
Adrian had a voice mail from Kora sometime during the week. She wanted to see him next time he was in Chicago. Here, she's waiting for him, seated on the retaining wall overlooking the lake. Behind her, the Lake View neighborhood rears up - all those find condos and shopping streets, the organic markets and the specialty bars and restaurants illuminated against the humid summer night. Her hair is pulled back sharply from her face, twisted at the nape of her neck. She's wearing a tank-top over a racer-backed sports bra, both white, old jeans and her heavy Doc Marten's, which thud against the retaining wall with every swing of her feet.
[Adrian] Being on the dig agrees with Adrian. His smile comes easier from being with people who understand what he does and share his interest, with people who converse freely on things about which he is passionate. He's picked up a bit of color in the sun, and not all of it is pink - instead of that baby-pale he tends to maintain in the city, he's downright ruddy. As ever, he's the height of fashion but this is more casual than most of what he wears - designer work boots in the place of fine shoes, rich and still somehow utilitarian pants that call out to be touched, a similar shirt. It's a lot of khaki and beige, but it's likely to be expected when one spends almost all of one's time in the sun, digging for goodness only knows what.
Somewhere on his way to meet Kora, he's stopped to pick up a late dinner - a chicken salad croissant cut in half to share, and two paper cups of coffee, the better to facilitate the conversation of two maybe-friends who could almost be normal people, fellow students at the same college, something.
She senses his breeding before she senses him - not overpowering, but subtle, and there.
"Hej," he says, his actual native accent coming through - no need to hide behind London down in southwest Illinois, where he's playing in the dirt. "Everything is well with you?" One of the coffees is handed over before he sits, and once he's settled, her half of the sandwich is handed over.
[Kora] Whether or not she's eaten, Kora accepts the half-sandwich and paper coffee with a sort of grace at odds with her youth - with a formality at odds with her rage. There are traditions she does not take for granted, and the Skald accepts Adrian's gesture of hospitality both gracefully and with a lingering formality that lends to her otherwise worn clothing and haphazard grooming an air of old things, long since passed.
"Adrian," she says, her mouth curling upward at the rightmost corner, the expression catching out the gleam in her dark blue eyes. At dusk, it is impossible to tell the color: just that they are dark, an abiding contrast to her pale skin and hair - and intent, fixed on him when he closes the distance between them.
Fixed on him: taking him in, head to toe. Noting both the change in demeanor, accent, and - even clothing, for all that she lacks the language for the last of it. She had three outfits to her name in the world - half a load of laundry - before someone bought her more, and delivered them to her across a table at the brotherhood, months ago.
She sets the coffee aside, just behind her right hip, and gestures toward the empty space on the wall beside her. It was built for people to sit here and have their lunch, overlooking the gentle slope toward the lower jogging path below. There is a certain hum of insects in the air, but she pays them no mind beyond a vague wave of her hand in front of her face. "I'm well, and you look well. Your work suits you, yeah?"
This is not precisely an answer to his question, but some of her lingering tension has passed, now. "Have a seat."
[Adrian] Some of her lingering tension has passed, but some remains; an eyebrow raises as he makes himself comfortable, and he does not yet sip his coffee or bite his sandwich. It's her moon, or near, and the tension could be left to that. Or . . . "Trent's alright? And Moira?"
That comes first. The rest - whether or not his work suits him, whether or not he looks well - can wait. There are more important things.
[Kora] "I wouldn't keep you in suspense over news like that, Adrian," Kora's voice is low and rich as it always is - never quite musical, so much as musing, thoughtful, considered. She speaks carefully and clearly, rarely hunting for words. There's a certain intimacy to the tone, a lack of distance shaded by a faint hint of reproach - at the thought that she might make him wait for such news. "Trent's healing. I talked him out of working bar security, too. And Moira's fine.
"This is - " here, she gives him a faint curl of her shoulders, the architecture of the joint visible under her skin as she moves them. She has some summer color too, though not deep, lingering brown. The contrast is apparent, though - since the tan lines are defined by the t-shirt she usually wears when hunting rather than the tank top she's wearing tonight, out of deference to the heat and sun. " - closer to official business, really. And I wanted to see how you are.
"It's been awhile." Her generous mouth remains curved into a considered smile, and sheen of light gleams animal across the surface of her eyes.
[Adrian] "I would hope not. Thank you," he says, and this is with a hint of smile - almost fond. As fond as he dares get of a Fenrir Garou, anyway. "It's good to know, both that my faith is well placed and that my friends are well."
And now? Now, he can answer the rest, before turning to that 'closer to official business' part. "I love my work. And I'm good at it," he says with a shrug - not feigning indifference as he's clearly pleased with himself and how things are going right now, but recognizing that there are more important things to be discussed, and not everyone is interested in history and its trappings as he is.
"So, yes, I'm well. And relieved - I fretted. And also curious as to what this official business might be, now that I know everyone is as well as I am, more or less. What's happened?"
[Kora] "Joe's gone." This is simply spoken, and tightly spoken. A handful of weeks ago she'd lashed out, called him a coward to anyone who would listen. Now, she says - Joe's gone - with this sort of quiet tension underneath.
"There are not many of us left." Fenrir, she means. Some are in the ground. Others have moved on to other fights. Her smile, here, turns faint and wintry before warming back into something wry and self-away. "There was a challenge, and I won. I'm Jarl."
[Adrian] [why no, we're not relieved to hear that Joe's gone at all, what can you be thinking? (Manip + Sub)]
[Adrian] There's a momentary something at mention of Joe being gone, but it's fleeting and then there's simple concern for the Garou who is closer to a friend than any other trueborn has been in quite some time. Joe was her packmate, after all, and while Adrian's never had that sort of intimate connection with someone else - will never - he does know about losing people who seem almost a part of yourself. "Are you sure you're alright?"
Fenrir are hard, Fenrir are tough. They're the first in and last out. But they, too, get hurt. Sometimes they, too, need a friend to lean on if just for a moment.
And then the last settles, and eyes go wide for a moment - there's a low whistle, perhaps just a hint of teasing, as a friend might do. Yes, Adrian dares.
"I'm proud of you. Congratulations."
[Kora] Adrian asks if she's alright; Kora gives him a look - one that is both direct and wry. She has consumed half of her half of the chicken salad croissant - big bites, chewing briefly and swallowing quickly, licking both her fingers and her lips for stray bits of mayo and chicken.
Then he offers his low whistle, and she repeats the look, though this one seems rather more personal, intimate. The light has changed in the time they've been sitting her, the shadows are deepening and darker, but the sun blazes in the west, cutting long, bright lines between the high-rise condos fronting the lakeshore and the little park.
"I'm not being modest when I say that this is more a measure of the tribe's weakness than my strength, Adrian. I'm a cliath Skald. We follow strength: rank, or at least the Modis of the tribe. But I stand as Jarl until someone defeats me in a challenge, and I will defend you and the rest of our kin as if you were each my own until then."
[Adrian] "I know what we follow," he says, just a hint sharp - he knows all to well. "And if you are the strongest of us left in the city - Cliath Skald or not - then you are the who. In this city, from what I've seen . . ."
He trails off, though, and remembers: she is Garou. He is brave, and he is strong, but he does not speak against any of hers - because the trueborn are hers, regardless of whatever else - without a damn good reason.
"Maybe there's a reason," he says by way of shifting from whatever he'd started to say. "Maybe it's time to try something new."
[Kora] Kora's dark eyes are fixed on Adrian. She doesn't waver, she doesn't look away. She doesn't indulge him by looking away, politely when he trails off, when the sharpness bleeds into remembrance of what she is: of who she is.
There is a certain stillness to her then. The sandwich is half-eaten in her right hand, largely forgotten now. After a moment of silence between them, she twists and sets it back beside the paper cup of coffee, carefully folding the paper wrap over it.
"I want you, Adrian, to understand what I expect of you. If you are threatened by the Wyrm or another Garou: I expect you to send them to me. If another Garou wishes to claim you, be she Fenrir or otherwise, send her to me. Your protection is my duty, as is your discpline, in the eyes of the Nation."
Her voice is soft, now. And, somehow, relentless.
"If another Garou seeks your aid and you wish to give it, you should. If you do not trust them or do not wish to aid them, if they insist on assistance from you that you cannot render, send them to me.
"I will not interfere in your personal life. You are a man of Fenris, and I will treat you as such. If you meet any other Fenrir, trueborn or kin, send them to me."
Her dark eyes linger on the kinsman's face the whole time. "These things do not change because I am Jarl rather than another. I know you understand this."
[Adrian] As his eyes - considerably paler - linger on her, though they don't meet hers; he is almost painfully proper sometimes, this kin, in things both human and not-so-much. "I do understand this, yes. And I will do my best to live up to your expectations, as I would any Jarl's." As he always has, frankly, whether or not he's presented himself as he should. Whether or not he was considered Fenrir in the time and place. To whom he reported in times of trouble may have been the leader of a different tribe, but Adrian has always behaved as a Fenrir kin.
"Still," he says and amidst all that seriousness - because he is, very much so, when talking about such things. "For all that you winning the challenge may say about the tribe as a whole, it also says things about you. And for that, and other reasons, I'm proud to know you."
He doesn't call her friend - in another universe, under other circumstances, maybe he would. This is the best he can offer, and in some ways? Maybe it's better.
[Kora] "C'mon," the creature says, quietly then, rising. She turns to retrieve the sandwich and coffee cup, gesturing back toward the lively strip of bars, restaurants, and coffee shops across the street. "I'll buy you a beer, yeah?"
Then, as they walk toward the bar, the Jarl of the Fenrir glances up at the young kinsman beside her, her dark eyes lively on his face. "Adrian," she says, as they are heading away into traffic. This is casually spoken, almost easy after the rest - her rich, low voice and the noise of the traffic buzzing around them. "I know you're gay. It doesn't bother me. All I ask is your continued discretion."
She says nothing more about it; he could almost have imagined it as they slip into traffic, toward one of the pubs along the strip for a beer or two.
[Adrian] "I think I owe you one, don't I?" Again, friendly ribbing despite that careful distance maintained . . . at some point, he's finished his half a sandwich and most of his coffee, so both wrapper and cup are thrown away so that he can light a cigarette as they walk. And then.
Then.
Then.
(Shit.)
He chokes on the smoke he's inhaling for the first time since his first cigarette, to the point of flushed face and wet eyes; it takes a moment to get past 'I know you're gay', to not wait for the hit, be it verbal or physical. There's both stress and the second moment of relief in one conversation; to know for sure that she knows is a weight lifted, but the reactions he's had to this revelation from other Fenrir have, as a general rule, not been good.
All I ask is your continued discretion. When he's recovered, he nods. "Of course." And then! He's so bold as to put an arm around her briefly, on their way to the bar of her choice. It's appreciation, that. And then it's drinks, traded back and forth.
