Ornature

[Ruinee] The shoes are killer.

That's what drew her in - fuck me red pumps displayed on roman-style columns in the winter - one shoe at a time - with impossible narrow stacked heels that come to the most impossible points and a shape more elegant than the curve of a woman's spine.

The tony little shop does not have a sign hanging out on the street, and the Christmas lights lining the windows are tasteful little white ones. There's no kitschy Christmas decor - just sleek, minimalist, rather glitzy little acknowledgments of the season.

No one would wear shoes like that out on the streets on a night like this. Or rather: no one ordinary. It's sixteen degrees and getting colder, and there's already six inches of snow on the ground. Still, shops are open late on the Mag Mile on these blustery December evenings, even those so high-end that you have to search for the name, posted in tiny comic sans lettering on the top left corner of the frameless glass door that opens onto the narrow shop floor. Blonde wood floors and stark white walls complete the sense that these is a gallery space rather than a sales floor. On a wall of mirrors back agains the back wall, more shoes are displayed in stepped rows. Scattered clothes on narrow racks flank the walls, and a central display counter has perfumes and jewelry.

A handful of shoppers are inside, a clerk who leans against the counter in a nonchalant manner, holding a bottle of perfume in old-fashioned gold atomizer, and a bored boyfriend sprawled across one of the few chairs in the shop.

[Luana Kirchmann] It's cold outside and that's alright with her. She doesn't mind the cold, nor the snow, or the way that people huddle together in shops for warmth and the glow of the lights. What better way to spend a cold night then browsing shops and looking for pretty things to blow money from a bank account on.

Dressed in a pair of jeans, some comfortable boots and a peacoat over a cashmere top, layered with a camisole beneath and a nice scarf around the neck, Luana walks into the store. She unwraps the scarf from around her neck and unbuttons her jacket the moment the warmth from the heaters hits her face. Her gloves are being peeled from her fingers next, while she walks the shop in a slow meander, taking not only in the items for sale but the few others already in the store.

The bored boyfriends gets a faint smile from the corner of her mouth.

[Ruinee] He's a big guy, no older than twenty-five, maybe not even that old, wearing a peacoat himself, and a scarlet and gray scarf loose around his neck. Blonde hair cropped short, with wintry blue eyes set in a face that is tanned despite the season, with cold dark nights descending early and staying all night long. The chair's gilt - upholstered in white and gold brocade, and he's sitting in it like a jock sprawling on the bench, trying to intimitate the opposing team by expanding to fill whatever space he can. Legs apart, one arm sticking out.

The door opens and he looks up, catches the edge of her smile.

And he: smiles back and gives her a little nod up as his eyes travel down her body as she begins to unbutton her jacket. There's no skin, but he smiles appreciatively anyway - the motion of her fingers as she pushes each button down and through, down and through, down and through.

"Pheremone, miss?" - says the clerk, holding up the ball of the atomizer as Luana begins to pull off her winter gear. The bottle itself is crystalline in a diamond shape. " - it's the latest thing. We just have a few left - " Then she twists her shoulders. "Or if there's something else I can help you find, just let me know."

[Luana Kirchmann] Her gaze swings across to the clerk that captures her attention. Even in her boots, with the small and suitable heel for snow, Luana isn't the tallest or imposing of persons. She looks from the clerk to the bottle that's being held out, and her mouth, still in a part curve from the mild flirt with the jock in the white and gold throne, curls wider. A laugh is held back, but it's there in the undercurrent of her voice. "I think I have enough of my own." Pheromones that is. The idea amuses her, especially when she recalls the Garou sniffing at her neck and growling at her ear.

"But let me have a smell." Gesturing with her free hand towards the bottle, and searching across the counter for any of the small cards in which to have it sprayed. She doesn't want to smell it on her wrist, even if its the best way to see how a scent mingles with her own. Some of these stink awfully and the last thing she wants to do is walk around smelling like garbage disposal.

[Ruinee] There are a handful of cards tucked under the blotter near the register, and the clerk - who still manages to look both bored and engaging - flashes a half-smile back to Luana for the withheld laughter in her voice, the undercurrent of the private joke she's offered. "Yeah? - " the clerk laughs the way she smiles - it never reaches her dark brown eyes. She lifts up the bottle and gestures behind her toward the sprawled jock. "He seems to think so. Still, we all could use a little help - "

So saying, with a dead-eyed wink, the young woman spritzes the perfume on a paper card for Luana to sample. The scent is immediate, a rich undercurrent of musk and vanilla, with overtones of sandalwood and bergamot, a dry-berry note that reminds her of a fine red wine. " - we can't keep it in stock."

The jock is still watching Luana; her ass now, what he can see of it beneath the bulk of her wool peacoat - or maybe the angle of her jaw, visible through a downfall of hair. It's not clear what he's watching, but even looking away, she can see his attention linger in their dual reflections, wavy against the back wall, interrupted by the stair steps of stillettos, boots and party shoes.

[Luana Kirchmann] "Speak for yourself," the Austrian had said to the clerk with a tone that may have been intended to be insulting under the mildness of it. Taking the card from the clerk, she waved it several inches away under her nose and scented it delicately, breathing it in rather then sniffing at it.

While she's aware of the man still watching her, she's not paying obvious attention to it. Small, brief glimpses of him in the reflection or the occasional peripheral glance is all that she gave. She also kept an eye out for anyone that was meant to be with him, the girlfriend, mother even, or otherwise. At least now he hardly looked bored.

Lifting her olive coloured eyes to the clerk, she questioned; "How many bottles do you have left and what size are they in?"

[Ruinee] "I beg your pardon?" - says the clerk, straightening her body through the spine, this subtle sort of reigning in evident in her dark eyes, as her languid posture is dropped in favor of something - rather more alert, silken. She stares at Luana steadily as the other woman scents the card, directly enough that the look is nearly (though not quite) rude. A Garou, Luana knows almost by istinct, would take such a look as a challenge. Would make a challenge with such a look. Some test of dominance.

- then it ends. Luana asks how many bottles are left and the clerk forces her painted mouth to smile, a small one. "We have two one-ounce left, and another half-dozen of the quarter-ounce. All pure parfums, not cologne or anything watered down. Which can I get for you?"

--

Then a seam in the display wall opens, the cleverly-hidden door to the dressing rooms, complete with its own display of impossible heels. A (bottle) redhead, a slight girl with a cute figure comes parading out in barefeet, wearing a fitted one-sleeved black dress, the tags obviously visible at the neckline. The jock's attention snaps back to the door as it opens -

"Hey," he says, "I like that one, babe. Can we - " go now is on his lips.

Except that something snaps in the girl, and she turns, goes still, quick as a striking snake, a flash of white sharp teeth as she snaps her jaw together " - What the fuck were you doing?" There's a pause where he's speechless, not even conscious that he was checking out another chick. That's what he does, and his bafflement is so evident. The girl, however, is steaming - "[i]were you fucking looking at her?[/i]"

[Linus] Aches and pains.

He sits on Church steps regarding skies, painted clean gray. The grays of ash, burned pure, if useless. The grays of ghosts, mere echoes and harmless. The grays of imagination, fortitude and mental states devoid of fuel to give substance to thought. It is a welcome fugue and a hideously addictive quality that he seems to delight in taking advantage of.

It helps keep his mind off the pain that riddles ribcages and stomach, if his clutching hands and wrapped arms over gray coats not entirely necessary in the warm(ish) night, are any indication.

A quasi-permanent grimace seems to line his face while the curling presence he projects upon those gray stoop steps before those aging oak doors, is hardly one of power, strength or attitude. It speaks more of pain, displeasure and 'Ow' over anything else.

Still...

His eyes remain above, watching the clouds as if in search of something.

[Luana Kirchmann] She's moving along the street a block, having come down the steps from an apartment condo across the road. Dressed down means Luana is in a pair of jeans, some ankle boot and a closed jacket over a camisole. Dirty blonde hair is loose and layered with a kink to it. The woman isn't very tall, even with the extra inches the heels afford her, and is as petite as they come. But she walks through the neighbourhood as though she belongs, as if the threat of gangs and bad men didn't cross her mind.

At the church, she's paused to light a cigarette with a cheap, plastic lighter, which is dropped into the deep pocket of her jacket after. Inhaling, she plucks the cigarette from her mouth and casts a glance over to where Linus is sitting on the church steps.

From the distance her gaze flicks over him, and the quiet rhythm of her feet on the side walk is slower now, moving at more cautious, or curious, stroll.

"I do not think there are any services held there anymore," she offers with a distinct accent.

[Linus] "Gee, Really?"

It's the beginning.

"...And here I thought I was waiting around for a fucking priest to come along and bless my sinful ass, 'cause it's been kicked up and down the street by a fuckin' hedonistic Carnival Clown who thought it was fuckin' funny to spit for lube!"

A hand lifts, flailing around in the air wildly.

"...And low and fucking Be-hold! I come by the stone steps looking for a little sympathy and what does he tell me?"

A finger jabs into his own chest, eyes thinning to slits at the stopped Blonde.

"That my fucking ways are in the devil! My shit stinks too much and oh yeah? I got circumcised and God's all pissy 'cause I snipped the hood and wear red on Sundays-Yes! I'm pretty fucking aware there's no damned service here...."

He snorts. Hard. Enough to expel a considerable gob of mucus from one nostril, the clear and red spotted excess wiped along the back of a fingerless gray glove, his after-murmurs lost in a hum drug of mumbling and murmurs.

"...It's a free country ain't it?"

[Luana Kirchmann] He rants and she watches, the lift of her eyebrow is far too slight to be seen over the distance, her attempt at keeping a neutral expression is successful enough. The cigarette is smoking away down by her side, where her hand rests loosely.

"It is," she agrees.

The mucus is what did it, turning the possibility of someone just having a bad day to a possible drug abuser. There's a big difference between the two, however misunderstood it may be, and her better knowledge tells her to move along. Experience, at her age, is what keeps her alive.

This doesn't stop that her senses, her gut, is pulled in two directions.

If it were a club, more would be said, a joke about the situation. But it's the street and a rather desolate one at that. Which leaves her taking another drag from her cigarette and resuming her walk, fully intending on leaving him to his own devices.

[Linus] "Oye."

Like some cockney chump. He leans forward slightly, wincing with the movement, crouched now, chin to tucked up knees, eyes still thin as slits in regard of the young woman wandering by. A hand moves out, bouncing in the air, stretching short the sleeves of the gray long coat. The pair of tails from a similarly coloured scarf pull free of his neck to dangle on one side of him, even as he grunts it again.

"Oye!" And the hand bounces with it's flickering fingers.

"Gimme a smoke."

[Luana Kirchmann] Having stopped when he hollered at her, she glanced towards him again. "Please," she says. "The word is please." Her tone is dry and humourless, but she's sticking her cigarette to her mouth and fetching her packet of cigarettes from her jacket pocket along with the lighter.

Approaching with both in one hand, she offered them out to him, not bothering to give him just a singular one like some Scrooge, but allowing him to fetch out his own while she waits for him to return it. Her own cigarette is back in hand by then, and she's exhaled a stream of stinking smoke up into the night air.

Her eyes are a dull olive green, still paler then the shadow of her eyes and brows. She doesn't look away from him as she waits expectantly.

[Linus] He waits for her to get in range and plucks the pack from her expectant hand. Not greedily, or even fiercely, as if they were going to be stolen. It is much more comfortable and irritably hurried, suggestive of a need for one faster than she had offered, the 'Please' comment given over to little more than a flap of the tongue out in some childish split second.

He doesn't use both hands. Simply grips half of the pack's opening and turns it upside down, dumping out three of the Cancer deliveries onto the stone steps beside his booted feet. He rights the cigarettes, flips the top shut with his thumb and then hucks the pack back toward her with a distracted nod and reaching fingers seeking out the first of the three.

"Thanks." The wince creeps back again in again, as he takes the lighter up next and flicks a flame beneath the white stick, sucking back gingerly, until he's satisfied it's a cherry and not a spark. The first inhale is minor, as is the exhale. The thin slit eyes catch up to her again though, now through a vague miasma of mist clouding his features and head.

"...Name's Linus..." One eye closes, allowing the other to open a tad wider. Compensation in action. "What's with the accent? You new?"

[Luana Kirchmann] She watches him use only the one hand but doesn't offer to aid him in any way. Impassively observing, she takes her cigarettes and lighter back from him, dropping them into her jacket pocket again. Having stepped back, there's a small distance between them, enough to continue speaking but not making her very personable. Maybe she's aware of how the doors aren't that far from where she is and how easily she could be carted off into the darkness.

"You're welcome, Linus."

Taking a drag from her own, she leaves her other hand to wrap loosely about her waist, fingers clinging to the inward curve of her waist. "New?" she repeats, raising her brows as her mouth curves upward, "Do I look new?" Bemused at his choice of word, the slang of it.

[Linus] A flick of a glance, up and down.

Then a second time, slower and openly appreciative if we're being courteous about our terminology.

"Sure." A flash of a grin, broad and shameless, followed by a quick secondary drag that has him wincing again, cheeks puffing slightly in an attempt to resist a cough and the resultant pain that would no doubt erupt from it. A moment or two and he breathes outwards shakily, the last few wisps of smoke a collection of unintelligible mutterings.

"New enough anyway. Maybe some russian model? Slovakian? Czech-" The last, spoken like some up-tight executive irritably seeking out the restaurant bill, complete with a flick of a hand writing with an imaginary pen.

"fresh off the boat and looking for the great Amerikaan dream she heard so much about in her small village in Podunk Koleshnakov?"

Another drag. Another exhale.

"...Or whatever you call it."

[Luana Kirchmann] He looks her over, and she doesn't change or shift her posture. It doesn't make her uncomfortable and nor does she preen like a peacock.

"Vienna, actually," she corrects him, secretly enjoying watching him flounder around. He's amusing her, better then most of the dreary bums around. He has a sense of humour that's as dry as her own, it seems, and she can appreciate that.

Then: "Austria." Her mouth quirks before she takes one of the last few drags from her cigarette and drops into an easy crouch, balanced in short heels boots to smother out the filter.

"Are you hurt, Linus? In need of some help?" Flicking her gaze up at where he sits as she makes sure the cigarette is no longer smoking, and uncurls herself from that temporary ball.

[Linus] "That too." In answer to 'Vienna'.

"That's somewhere in the south, right? One of the big islands? Kangaroos 'n shit? Funny I thought you'd sound more like this guy I saw in a movie once. Croc skins 'n knives like the teeth of a Kraken." In return to 'Austria'.

"Yeah, a little. My girlfriend broke up with me a couple of days ago and i've been aching ever since. Nothing seems to help, Doc I gotta say..." A 'schucks' sort of grimace creeps onto his features, followed closely by a sigh that fails only marginally to hide the 'fucking with you' smile.

"Any advice?" A peek from out of the corner of his eye, the cigarette hung from his lower lip by it's saliva adhesive filter.

[Frost] It's a chilly night and her black duster is buttoned, silvery hair a stark contrast to the dark clothes. She tugs her fedora a bit more towards her brows as she strides down the street, her booted feet clumping softly on the pavement, long stride eating up the distance even though she's not walking especially fast.

[Luana Kirchmann] Brows draw faintly together as she tries to figure out what he's going on about when he's talking about Vienna being an island and croc skins come into play. Kangaroos more or less seal the deal but it's not as funny as his earlier remarks, and it earns him one of those classic deadpan looks and a glance away.

Sweeping her gaze across the street, she takes in her surrounds before looking back towards him, as he's going on about girlfriends and calling her doctor. He didn't need to give her such a smile, though, it didn't take Einstein to figure it out.

"A bottle of cheap vodka, or two, should sort out any of your problems."

[Kora] The church - cathedral, really, given the size, the neo-gothic splendor of it - has been abandoned thirty years or so, and looks it. There are trees crowding the sideyard, the leaves changing now, falling, yellow and brown, but still concealing the sand-colored stone. Two days ago the trees were bristling with leaves. Now, after a day and a half of wild weather and whipping winds, only a quarter remain.

There's a chill in the air, rain and the promise of more. Wind and the promise of tornados here in the middle plains, blizzards in the north.

Those doors not far behind Linus open. Despite the building's long-abandonment, the hinges do not creak or squeal warning. The heavy wooden doors, banded in rusting iron, swing open. There's a girl behind them - young woman, really - wearing old jeans, heavy black boots, and layer of clothes, the hems of a black t-shirt and white thermal visible underneath a cotton hoodie with horizontal bands in varying shades of saturated blues, a few hues duller than turquiose but still in that family. She has the hood pulled up tonight, her hands in the front pockets, adding bulk to the layers of clothing wrapping her narrow shoulders and lean torso. Wisps of blonde hair escape from the hood.

Her footsteps are far from silent, and there's noise from the movement of the doors even with the silence from the well-oiled, recently repaired hinges. Two steps and she's nudging Linus, her knee against his shoulder, before shooting a brief, weavering sort of look at Luana.

"Didn't know you smoked - " she tells Linus, low-voiced, reaching over him familiarly to try to steal the cigarette from his mouth. There's a curl to her mouth, a certain archness as she finishes with, " - filthy habit, that."

[Linus] "...You ain't the only Rebel, bay-bee..."

He says with a squint eyed Clint Eastwood flare, glancing over his shoulder at Kora as she enters the moment with a clap of heels and rippling glance from turf, to territory, to intruder(s).

Linus, for his part, snaps a glance back toward Luana, those his head is still tilted back to encompass Kora as she plucks the smoke from his lip for her very own. Linus, the gentleman that he is, picks up one of the remaining two by his feet and pops it into the corner of his mouth, a hand roaming back out toward Luana with a flicking thumb over a curled fist; The International sign for 'Lighter, please'.

"I was just sharing my woeful woman troubles with the lovely Ms. Austrian Model chick here who in turn was informing me she couldn't wait to share a bottle of Vodka by way of a cure to said woes."

He flicks a grin over his shoulder at Kora.

"Ain't that smart 'n sweet of her?" And then a wince as he stretches a little too far, eyes closing against some internal pain that has him wrapping and arm more snugly about his mid-section.

"...Ain't that..." A hand lifts, pointing toward the leggy creature wandering down the Sidewalk a block or so down the way, Frost given a brief, attentive glance of semi-recognition (the only kind Linus seems capable of) before. If the lighter appears somewhere in the midst of all this, he would only now take it and flick it's flame beneath the cigarette in his mouth.

[Frost] The tall woman's steps fall silent as she steps off the pavement and into the grass to walk a bit closer to the river. Her eyes follow the reflection of the half moon and a hand goes up to steady her hat when gusty breeze threatens to steal it away. She idly wonders if there are any fish in the water or if its too polluted for them. She pauses for a few minutes to observe what the city considers a scenic view. Maybe it's more scenic in the spring.

[Luana Kirchmann] When the doors open, she looks up to where Kora emerges. If she's surprised it doesn't show, and she watches the interaction between the two of them, slipping her used filter into her pocket just as Kora is telling Linus that it's a filthy habit.

She doesn't refuse Linus a lighter, or even bother correcting anything about sharing vodka's, because that actually sounded like a decent idea. Not around here, of course, there wasn't any bars that would do her well. Now that Kora had shown up, Linus clearly familiar with her, the bars here sounds more possible. If there was trouble, surely, the Garou would step in.

"Hello Kora." The Kinswoman offered her a small smile, inclining her head in this short, slow nod. There's a dim gleam of mirth in her gaze as she regards the two of them.

[Kora] Now she's holding a lit cigarette, neatly, this gesture, between her thumb and forefinger. No matter how many years go by between smoking and not-smoking, one's body still remembers those long-ingrained gestures. And she quit, years ago one dark night underneath the city of Edinburgh. Never touched another except to pluck it out of another's mouth.

She holds that damn cigarette like she remembers how, though, her curving mouth twisting up at the right corner, wry. When Linus plucks up another smoke, lights it, she flicks him familiarly on the crown of his head. They are intimate with each other, that old familiarity returning, but it's the intimacy of rival, cousins, sibling, maybe just packmates.

"Models are taller, I think," Kora informs Linus absently, still holding (not smoking) her cigarette. "Also - " now that Linus has another one lit in his mouth, she just pinches off the cherry of the smoke with a neat scissoring of her fingers, lets the burning embers fall to the stone steps before she stomps them out. " - I quit." Four years ago, more than, though she doesn't say that.

The deployment of her name brings a sharper look from the Skald. Maybe it is the failing light, but recognition swims across her face a moment later. "Luana," Kora says, both as a greeting, and an introduction. Handing the now-extinguished cigarette back to Linus, she continues, " - kin. And Frost - " looking up over Luana's shoulder, lifting a hand by way of greeting, or invitation. " - ditto, but Fenrir."

[Kora] "And," back to Linus. " - if you really need to forget, I'd go with Scotch if you've money enough for a decent one, or tequila if you don't. Who are you drinking to forget, anyway?"

[Linus] "Don't be so stereotypical." In reference to 'Models are taller'. Accompanied by a grin.

Then-

Luana. Kin-

"Oh for fuck's sake..." Grumpy. Cranky. Irritable. The Rage plumes off him, like some ice sheet skating abruptly from a slanted roof. He huffs, head shaking, jaw pushed forward and down like he might grow tusks at any moment.

"I swear to Gaia's great fucking bounty, Kora, every girl I hit on in this fucking city is a nether-hexed Kin!" He throws up his hands, in time to look at the cigarette Kora hand's back, spitting another cloud of cancer smoke in retrieving it. The (now) lit cigarette, bounces perilously on his lower lip, the wince returning to his features, stuffed angrily into the corner of his mouth and left there to hang like he were caught on a fishhook.

"Hi." Cheery in that 'Fuck My life' sort of way, he smiles broadly at Luana before returning to his sulking settle of chin on tucked in knees.

[Frost] Her detour is short and soon her boots find the pavement again, pale eyes picking out the trio in front of the old abandoned church. A suspicious sight if ever there was one. The wind ruffles the hem of her coat as a hand is raised amongst the group and she replies with an up nod, her path taking a more direct approach towards the small gathering. "Evening," she says as she draws near. She doesn't raise her voice although many would with still some little distance between them. There is no doubt n her mind they will hear her.

[Frost] "Bad timing?" she asks, eyes skating down to the fuming gentleman on the ground. Isn't his ass freezing? A hint of a smile for Kora and a curious look at the woman she hasn't met yet.

[Linus] "...Fucking Nether-hexed! The lot of you!"

He shouts it. Loudly. At Frost. Then continues muttering to himself while the three women stand about.

[Luana Kirchmann] Lowering her head, glancing down to the steps at Linus' feet, she had laughed under her breath, smiling openly as he starts to cuss out and his Rage spikes upward. When she looks up, that mirth is brighter yet, lingering in the depths of eyes more then anywhere else on her lean, pale features.

Gesturing to the step, "Mind if I sit?" Now that she's figuring out he's not some drug addicted moron sitting on the church steps, and that there's a Garou right here that she has met, albeit briefly, before, Luana is comfortable enough to ask to make herself comfortable in their territory.

Presuming they don't have a problem with that, she's moving over to claim a seat, neither close to Linus or blocking Kora's way. She sits down, dusting her hands off after she braced herself to ease comfortably. Legs cross, even sitting out here in some shitty neighbourhood in the cold, and she fixes her jacket to fit neatly instead of bulk in her lap.

Casting a glance to Linus' broad smile and cheery hi, she had chuckled. "It's good to meet you Linus." This seems a little more formal from her, before she's glancing up at the very tall, very blonde Frost, finding herself nodding in greeting.

Nothing like a six foot Scandinavian to make her feel tiny. Thankfully, she's comfortable in her own skin, confident even.

Linus shouts, Luana casts a glance over to him, raising her brows. "Bit dramatic, aren't you?"

[Linus] "Shad up."

Muddled at Luana, like some mob boss with an bad accent and everything, out the corner of his mouth.

[Frost] Netherhexed is she? No doubt. She smirks. "Got dumped huh?" Her eyes move up to Kora, checking her stance and queuing on her body language for hints to what's going on.

[Kora] "You poor thing," Kora says rather patly to Linus, as if he had just informed her that the grocery store was out of his favorite flavor of ice cream, and he had to settle for second best. She's standing, one foot on the top-most step, one foot on the portico of the old church, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together to get rid of the last clinging bits of tobacco from the pads of both, after pinching the burning end of the cigarette she filched from her brother. That acrid scent of half-burned together is sharp against her fingers, in the cold air.

"Frost, this woebegotten creature is my brother, Linus. Linus, this is Frost. Say hello." As if he were four years old. " - he's having romantic troubles, or a lack thereof. I'm not sure which." Another familiar nudge, her knee against her brother's shoulder, not minding his hidden aches and pains. " - and this is Luana, also kin. And this," a tip of her head back toward the church behind him, " - is our packhouse. You're both welcome. There's beer in there, and a thermos of hot chocolate if you need to warm up."

[Kora] (brb folks!)

[Linus] He elbows Kora in the knee at the 'nudging', pulling a face (like a four year old) before turning to Frost and offering a nod and a two-finger wave from the top of his brow.

"You kidding me? We're not allowed to-Ow..." He's half-standing, bowed slightly and gritting his teeth. Both hands fold over his mid-section, even as he straightens. Slowly. Breathing outward with each increment of motion. Frost is the tallest amongst them, though Linus seems only an inch or more less.

The long gray coat dips to his ankles, unbuttoned and hiding the trailing remains of a gray scarf wrapped enigmatically about his neck and shoulders. His head is shaved near down to the scalp, a thin layer of dark brown stubble remaining, though this is hidden suddenly by the donning of a dark black cap, slanted slightly left.

"We weren't allowed to Mate, Fuck, Date, Sleep with, Hold hands or buddy up much with the Kin back home. Was considered a 'Waste' on the low ranks." He says it not with scorn or displeasure, but firm faith and acceptance.

"Those of us fresh off the bus shouldn't be tied up like that when we're still learning how to Die properly."

He shrugs his shoulders, more an indication of the cold than a sudden lack of caring, features thrusting into a scowl.

"Doesn't say much about normal girls though I'm beginning to think this entire fucking city's one big Kin festival meant to convince me that Metis' have the right idea."

[Luana Kirchmann] Leaning forward, she extends a hand upwards to Frost. "Nice to meet you," she tells the other politely. She has a clear accent, the sort that comes right off the boat. Her English is excellent though, being that English is taught through the education system as one of the most universal languages there is.

After shaking hands, she tucks her own back into a pocket to keep warm, left to glance up now that everyone is standing and she's the only one sitting. Linus talks about how it is for Garou and Kinfolk, the lines that have crossed here and Chicago, and there are plenty of those.

She doesn't offer comment, perhaps wisely.

[Frost] She offers a gloved hand to Luana and shakes briefly. She has a grasp that fits her stature although it's not crushing. With the delicate woman sitting Frost can't really avoid towering over her. "Pleasure to meet you Luana." She meets her eyes to give the comment meaning then glances over the gathering, raising a brow at this man being Kora's little brother. "Well, I'd say the gents are out numbered tonight. I'm up for something warm to drink. How about if we gals get together inside and drown poor Linus here in estrogen?" Giving Linus an amused look as she responds to his mini-rant.

[Linus] "I'd comment here, wryly, I might add..." His hand begins to pinwheel in the air before him, eyes shifting upward in thought.

"Something about kitchens and your place, but then you're Tribe-" He grins and flicks his eyebrows up, before casting a glance around the trio "-So yeah. Her suggestion. Warm drinks with generous booze inquiries and the like and-...wait, do we have any Booze?"

He turns around at Kora, frowning openly. Honestly, for once.

"Oh say we do, dear sister?"

[Linus] (flicks his eyebrows up at Frost^)

[Kora] "Chicago's different," she replies, her voice a layered alto, neither husky nor intimate, just easy, just confident. There's a casual lightness to her tone that belies the discussion, and now she at last - sits down, on the steps, at the top. Her feet are planted two steps lower, and though her spine is straight, her shoulders level, she's leaning forward to rest her forearms on her lower thighs, just above her knees, presenting a lower profile to the cold wind.

Those clouds are clearing out now. Kora glances up once, at whatever she can see of the living sky beyond the glare of the city's (neglected) streetlights, until she picks out a single, riveting star - the brightest in the sky, and a planet though she does not know that - then looks back at them. "Here, you don't have time to learn before you die properly." - there's a certain solemnity to that. "Even Fosterns are few and far between. Except for Kemp-rhya and Lila," humming around the word. Kora's been looking for the Child of Gaia. If she doesn't find her soon, she's going back to someplace like home to challenge for rank. "I've not seen the rest of the ranked Garou outside of moots, or the odd challenge at the Caern.

" - so things are different. It's not like the Sept of Vindur und Ringing either. And - " a faint, wry glance at Frost, then Luana, " - you needn't mate, sleep with, fuck, date, or hold hands with every kinswoman you meet, Linus. Only the really exciting ones." Standing, then, with a fish-hook grin, half for her brother, half for the kinswomen.

" - there's booze. We're Fenrir. C'mon," and so saying, she pushes herself to her feet and turns back to the church.

[Frost] "Alright then. Welcome to dysfunction junction," she chuckles as she climbs the steps and heads in out of the cold after Kora.

[Luana Kirchmann] Instead of offering her own thoughts on it, she throws her lot in with the idea of booze, and pushes herself up from the steps after Kora has. Luana had listened quietly and without interruption, absorbing the ways of the Get of Fenris, their thoughts on Chicago, and kept hers to herself.

Dusting off her jacket and jean behind, she made her way up the steps and into the abandoned church, which mustn't be too abandoned given the fact that a pack of Garou has taken up residence, complete with places for booze.

Inside, she looks around as she wanders after the others, not minding to trail behind. She glanced up to admire the architecture. Nothing was quite like home, of course. Nothing was near as grand on this side of the world, but little places like this had its own charm.

[Linus] "Everyone's all chuckles 'n shit tonight." Sarcastic, eye-rolling. "S'fucking hysterical, lemme tell ya."

He catches Kora's grin and snaps off one of his own in response, gingerly clutching his ribs again whilst following her inside.

[Kora] A handful of salvaged tables are arrayed around beneath the shelter of the choir loft. Deeper in the structure are fire places they've cleaned out for use in the bleak midwinter. For now, though, with the temperatures still well-above freezing, they make due with a handful of heaters, an electric one with an extension cord snaking away into drkness is set among the tables. After heaving open the wood doors, holding them long enough for Linus to play host to the kinswoman, Kora walks deeper into the church and flicks it on. The ceramic coils heat up quickly, going from beige to a sort of molten orange in a matter of seconds, with the low hum of the fan behind to spread the heat.

Two pizza boxes, one with one cold slice, another with two slightly warmer slices, top one of the tables. Three or four coolers are scattered around, and Kora searches out two of them, toeing them out from under the old tables with her toe. One is full of beer, a variety from pale eyes to Oktoberfest to deep, richly colored stouts. Mostly local, all microbrews or imports. With all the money they save in rent on this place -

- the other has two or three bottles of hard liquor, whiskey, rum, and tequila. The beer is sunk is ice, but the liquor bottles are not iced. Just kept inside the cooler to keep the vermin out, to keep the birds given free reign through the rafters by way of chiminage from stealing a shiny lid and smashing them on the stone and marble floor.

The needn't sit on the cold stone floor, though. A pair of salvaged pews are set out, like couches, and someone has hooked a hammock from one of the stone niches over to the balustrade. A recently salvaged giant bean-bag chair completes the haphazard ensemble. "We need a fridge, man - " Kora tells Linus, absently as she shuttles through the coolers, naming off the brews, then leaving the coolers open for them to have their pick.

She pours herself a mug of hot chocolate from a large thermos into a heavy ceramic stein that doubles as a mug, and offers the rest to whoever wants it.

[Linus] Linus grabs one of the beers, a lager with nothing terribly heavy in it's brew or reputation. He does a quick grunt (pain) shimmy of the bottles from the cooler to the table top, until six rest near the pizza boxes, each of varying quality and kind found within. Linus grunts again, standing once more from the Coolers.

He eyes the pews-

"-And some fucking throw pillows or something-" Followed closely by a glance toward the stainglass and windows.

"You have any idea how cold it's going to get in here during winters? You won't need a fridge, Sis."

The beer is popped open and Linus takes a seat on the pew, shifting uncomfortably before grunting, bearing it and taking a slug of the brew.

"How's Trent by the way?"

[Frost] Frost takes the thermos and fills the cap setting the cannister on one of the tables then taking a long look around at the arrangement. Somehow there doesn't seem to be anything blasphemous in the use the garou have put this place to. What better use than to shelter the defenders of creation? If anything, they've given the place grace and meaning where it had none after standing empty for how long?

[Kora] "I know," she says, her mouth curling, that mug in hand as if she were quaffing some strong, traditional brew rather than a cup full of milk and chocolate. Then, tipping her head back, she glances up at the ceiling defined by the choir loft. " - I figure, see, we can hang some blankets or something, tarps, yeah? all along there. We'll have a couple of electric heaters, and that'll make this area - not warm, but tolerable, right? Then there are all those old classrooms and the priest's apartments and whatnot toward the back. Easier to keep those warm, between the fireplaces and whatever heaters we can scrounge up."

The faintest of shrugs, as she studies the stained glass set high in the stone walls, a hint of light shining through from the city beyond, casting strange shadows on the stone floors. " - The walls are pretty thick, sturdy. I don't think it'll be impossible to heat enough rooms to keep us warm. Last winter," another curl of memory, " - I lived in this storage unit that Kemp-rhya had rigged up. After that, in this junkyard, before we came here. And gods, Li," on learning that he's wanting throw pillows. " - you're Fenrir. Suck it up."

She's grinning, though it stills a bit when he asks about Trent. "He's fine," quiet, that, followed by a glance at Frost. "How are you settling into your assignment here?"

[Luana Kirchmann] Helping herself to one of the stout, Luana finds herself sitting on one of the chairs closer to where everyone has gathered, listening to Linus and Kora talk. The two kinfolk seem relatively quiet for the moment, looking over the packs choice of homes in the neighourborhood. Now that was done, she's watching the two Garou, both Fenrir.

Drinking from the beer washes the taste of stale tobacco from her mouth, a welcomed taste that she swallows down with a single, slow gulp. A glance down checks over the label, fingers turning the bottle so she can read it over, remember the name to match it to the flavor another time. Whether it was to have another or avoid it wasn't very clear.

"Don't you have any Kinfolk that support you?" Luana finally speaks up, glancing from Kora to Linus and back again.

[Frost] She purses her lips, wondering over the struggle for basic survival and protection from the elements, finding Luana's question apt. "I'm settling in. They have me on a gang warfare team at the moment. Still setting up contacts and such."

[Luana Kirchmann] Glancing over to Frost, Luana asked, blatantly. "What is it that you do?"

[Frost] "I'm FBI." Keeping it short and to the point.

[Linus] "...So she gets us the good drugs when we need 'em and fixes our parking tickets when we need to throw a honda at a Spiral, wrecking Madison and Fifth..." In reference to Frost's occupation.

He continues supping at his beer, eyes flicking up to Kora.

"Fenrir does not equal Suffering for the Rush, you nit. You do whatever you think it is you need to do. Personally, I'm gonna see if I can get one of the Fire giants to invest...in...the...build...ing..."

Linus eyes are steadily beginning to narrow as that sentence peters out, almost as if he were remembering something or...trying to. He leans forward, slapping his beer on the table, hard enough to slosh some over his hand and the table's surface. The narrowed eyes are growing thinner as the moment ticks by and then-

"...Fuck me."

And suddenly, just like that, Linus is standing, face a storm cloud, mouth clapping off curse words and phrases wholly unsuitable to the ears of Female, Male, Child or any kind, really. At one point he seems to be speaking in the crackling of fires and snapping of logs turned to brittle tinder in Heat. A spatter of Spirit's tongue and then-

Pop!

He's gone, a vacuum of air sucking tenderly at lungs and lips as reality seeks to fill the space he left so suddenly behind...

...and oddly enough still, the air in the Church seems to have grown a touch warmer. Enough to unbutton the coat or doff the sweater. Comfortable, if a little strange.

(Gotta get to bed. Work tomorrow folks. Thanks for the Scenage!)

[Kora] "Kemp was pretty insistent on paying his own way - " a brief, sweeping glance at Luana, a quiet look as her dark eyes drift down from the soaring architecture of the place. Kora - whose names is also Sorrow - has this musing look, remembrance wreathing her sharp features, her fine jaw, her mobile mouth, making her seem both softer and somehow more distant. "I'm not.

"But I think pack should stay together in a city like this, have a home base that isn't - " and here, a flashing sort of distaste across her features, shoulders twisting underneath the hoodie, the hood falling down and bringing with it the architecture of her twisted hair. " - weaverbound. We have some kin to help us, yeah. I like this place, though. The splendor and the ruin of it. Sometimes - on the other side - you can hear echoes of old prayers. The belltower's high, too, with a great view of the territory, and the building is old enough, memorable enough, to be solid in the spirit world, or close to it. The pack that was here before us had a different packhouse, but the old Alpha warned us away. I figure," a glance here at Linus, " - Silence-rhya still sees that as his territory."

Then, as she finishes off her hot chocolate,

"Listen, you can stay as long as you like. I gotta track down Roman. We have some talking to do."

[Luana Kirchmann] Since the two Garou head off to do their own thing, it makes no sense for her to be hanging out in their pack territory. Not long after, with an appreciative murmur to Frost about her line of work, Luana will be heading off on her own way, exchanging numbers for those that want them.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] The late evening dinner rush is mostly over, but the café is open for another hour or two or three. The beer and wine license has finally come through, which means that the diners are more likely to linger over their meals, sharing a bottle of wine, drinking a beer. Maybe ordering coffee and a dessert to share after because they're feeling mellow, expansive after sharing alcohol.

The license is new. There's a sign in the window - Now serving wine and beer! - underneath the menu posted there, affixed to the picture glass. With the lull in orders, JB set Ernesto to expediting the remaining meals, and wandered out into the dining room. Maybe half the tables are full, most people on the tail end of their meals, coffee and a cookie or a cupcake, a slice of pie. The desserts are easy and unpretentious, baked goods made from scratch every morning, early. Today's selection - rather depleted - are displayed in the pastry case near the front register. While his staff handle the paying customers scattered about the tables, JB serves one who eats free at the counter - a little girl her hair wet from a bath, dressed in warm flannel pajamas. She's sitting on one of the stools, finishing up her evening snack - pear wedges, a chocolate chip cookie, and milk.

Organic, naturally.

JB leans over the counter talking to her - some old joke that has her laughing and him smiling, while Cindy the waitress tends register and the place buzzes with faint conversation, music in the background, indie rock and alt-country, the eclectic mix from a local college radio station.

[Luana Kirchmann] Luana's been there for awhile, sitting at a table by her lonesome. There's a sleek laptop on the table, and her cheese platter for two, being eaten by one, somehow is made to fit there too. She's been drinking white wine, is on her third glass just now, but hasn't become one of those loud, obnoxious drunks. In fact, she's looking quite well put together still, occasionally letting her fingers fly across the keyboard on the wireless connection plugged out the usb socket.

But now, as she catches sight of someone semi familiar over the opened screen of her computer, she finds herself watching the man with the little girl at the counter. Her train of thought flees her as she's momentarily distracted by the sight. She knows John instantly, remembers with vivid details. Olive eyes shift to the girl, watching the back of her hair, taking in the pajamas and the way the two interact.

She smiles, surprisingly warmed by the affectionate display.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Cheaper to buy a bottle," Cindy - the hostess/waitress noted to Luana cheerfully when she ordered her third glass of the house white. " - you know, if you don't drink it all, we can shove the cork back down in there," a wink there, as she set the glass down on the table with a neat motion. " - and you can take it home." Even if that's technically not legal. They aren't a retail establishment, but no one would really care. "Anything else I can get you?"

-

And so on. The banter is light but engaging; Cindy's mastered the waitstaff art of being friendly and personal without being obtrusive. She doesn't glance at the screen of Luana's laptop, and never asks her single customers if someone is going to be joining them, just in case someone isn't.

--

The vision is charming; though he's cleaned up tonight in an chef's jacket over a dark t-shirt, the first three buttons unbuttoned to show the leather cord and silver chain around his neck, the old dog tags on a longer popcorn chain fall longer and are tucked away underneath the unbuttoned shirt, this big, rather rough looking man bends down to the girl's level, engages her directly, as if they were the only two people in the universe. Her legs dangle, swinging, and she's finishing up the milk and cookie. As Luana watches, it becomes clear that it is storytime. Sometimes he moves, turning the pages over, dark eyes darting to her face as the story unfolds. The girl is seven or eight, so storytime is not a picture book but a proper one that they read together, the book flatted on the bar top between them.

When the chapter comes to an end, though, he closes it firmly, shakes his head to her every protestation. "Bed." - firm and quiet can be heard through one of those strange lulls in conversation that sometimes strike even a half-busy restaurant. It is the end of the child's protestations. She knows the tone, and slides down from the stool, living her plate, her empty milk glass on the counter. They disappear into the back for five minutes, ten minutes, before he returns, alone, draws himself a beer from one of the varieties they have on tap, takes a good long drink before he starts around the dining room, pausing at each of the remaining tables to inquire about the meal, make that sort of necessary small talk the world requires.

[Luana Kirchmann] "Don't encourage me," Luana had said to Cindy, grinning all the while. She had been tempted, but paying more by the glass doesn't seem to bother her. She knows if she had the bottle there, it would be gone quicker then she would order a glass. "I'm good for now. Thanks." Cindy would be getting a good tip by the time Luana actually got out of there. She doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave.

Storytime gets a few more glances before she's back to working on the laptop. Pausing frequently she sips her wine or grabs a new slice of cheese with some bread, spreading paste, enjoying different combination as she stuffs it into her mouth and continues to eat. The woman eats like she enjoys it, because she does. While she can do the same thing at home, it's just not the same atmosphere.

Later though, she's looking up when he's making the rounds, closer to her table. "Chef, hmm?" This is from her when he's approaching, presumably coming towards her table. Her gaze flitted over his body, down then up again, focusing on his face. A sip of wine is taken before she reaches and sets it on the table, away from her computer. "I wouldn't have guessed."

[John Brendan Cavanagh] Underneath the chef's jacket, he's wearing scuffed jeans, the aged sort that some men and women pay for, and others simply - wear to near-non-existance. The jacket hides the leather belt cinched at the waist, the long sleeves most of his tattoos, though he's pushed them up his forearms now, which are broad with muscle and rope with tendons. He's carrying his draft beer as he circulates, the liquid is a deep red-amber, some seasonal brew. It's his first of the night, though, not his sixths, and his brown eyes are clear.

"No?" he returns, as he comes close, setting the glass down on the table, leaning over one of the empty chairs there, big hands folded over the smooth, curving slats. " - what would you have guessed?" The response is direct, automatic. There's this moment where his open features are blank, like he's trying to place her. God knows how many faces he sees in a day.

Then the spark of recognition hits, and his attention changes, sharpens maybe. It's not precisely readable, mostly because he's not really processed her presence until now. He's not the sort of man to ever be at a loss for words, though, and he breathes out the edge of a laugh. "Never figured on seeing you again."

[Luana Kirchmann] "Honestly?" A quick look over what she can see beneath and takes in the way he leans, he talks, recalling the last and first time she had met him. "Laborer maybe, or a musician." Her mouth quirks at that, lifting with the way her eyebrows raise in a quick arch.

Far from being dressed for the night life, Luana's in a buttoned down blouse, some silk kind, and a high waist skirt with a pair of heels. Since this weather is still warm to her, even if it's damp and likely to rain outside, she's not wearing stockings and her jacket isn't with her but in the car. A professional laptop-cum-briefcase is settled down between her chair and the wall, tucked out of the way. Her hair is rolled up in a clip, a little messy from the day, but leaves her face open. Make up is less dramatic this time around.

Sitting with her legs crossed, she leans back in the chair and watches him, her smile increasing as he laughs. "And now that you have?" There's a brief pause, where her brows raise again, "Are you wishing you hadn't?" She's holding back her own laughter, but it's there, this quiet amusement threaded through her accented tones.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Here I was hoping to be mistaken for a gentleman farmer," he returns, both bemused and direct, easy, his bulk apparent as he leans over the frame of the second chair at the table. There's a simple silver band around the base of his otherwise bony thumb, and those cheap silicon bracelets that every kid between 4 and 14 seems to wear, three or four per wrist. " - or maybe a mendicant philosopher. Manual labor wins out every time." That's wry, not bitter. Every man in his family worked with his hands. It's no surprise, really, that he came around to it after college.

After a fashion.

She leans back, and he straightens, more through the shoulders, this way of measuring himelf, for his hands are still on the back of the chair. "Naw - " he returns, when she asks if he's wishing he hadn't. It's quiet, there's laughter behind it, more conversational now - part of the banter rather than some deep signifier of amusement. " - that's a conversational trap I'm not falling into. Not by a long shot." His grin deepens with the last, though it does not quite bring out the dimple in his cheek. Then his eyes drop to her meal on the table. "Especially since I'm here in a professional capacity. Everything was to your liking, I take it? Questions, comments, complaints?"

[Luana Kirchmann] Laughing softly, then, easily. Smart man, this one, to not fall into the trap that she sets up. There had been no regret or apology for mistaking him as some other profession. Not that it mattered since he clearly isn't a dock worker, but a successful looking chef and father at that.

When he asks about comments or complaints she slides her gaze over to the cheese platter she had worked through over the last two hours, then back up towards him again. "Next time, when I order something requiring cooking, I'll let you know. But I've enjoyed the atmosphere," she admits that much.

And then, "And I like the service staff. Very pleasant without being personable." For this she meant both Cindy and now him, this latter said with a small glint in the eye. Hard to tell that she's teasing, she's not as open with it as she had been at the bar the other night. He's here professionally after all. "Something often lacking in this country."

[John Brendan Cavanagh] Success is a relative sort of thing. Half of all restaurants fail in their first year. Here, he has all the money he's saved over the years tied up into the building, the establishment. Cindy and her girlfriend, the pastry chef and baker responsible for the flatbreads on the cheese platter, the chocolate chip cookie he'd fed Lucy earlier, and even his sous and line chefs, they've all put things on hold, accepted privation, worked overtime without compensation, and so on, to get the place off the ground. Sometimes it feels like he's walking a tightrope over a precipice without a balancing pole or net beneath. Six months.

They have six months to make it work.

Mostly, he doesn't think about it. It's easier like that. It's how a practical man who learned how to plumb a sink and frame a room at the hands of his father ended up with a useless undergraduate degree in philosophy. It's how -

- none of that, he thinks of none of that. He just grins at her, reaches out over the table offering her his hand to shake. His own is broad, callused, scarred. Teflon hands, from working the line for so many years. The dark lines of his tattoo curl around his wrist and crawl up his forearm. "I'm glad to hear it. You'll let me know if there's anything we can do to improve, won't you? Dessert's on the house tonight, by the way. Compliments of the chef, if you'd like to try anything."

He keeps it light. He doesn't ask where she's from; doesn't bristle at her comment about what's lacking in the States, but he smiles, broad, sure - confident - all white teeth and brown eyes - until he's called away.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] It's well after midnight, a hole in the wall sort of place near the mile that opens onto a dark, still street. There are clubs dotting up and down the way, little herds of drunk girls in short skirts and high heels stagger between them. They have names that seem sharp, immediate - Fluid and Icon and Club Babylon which appears to promise both heaven and hell, with purgatory in between, just the way Dante dreamed it, just the way John Milton feared.

Gumby's[i] is on the same corner. The exterior is not mirrored glass and sleek, underlit neon, but planked wooden paneling. Mounted on the exterior wall is an old ship's steering wheel, from some huge old riverboat. The odd tourist stumbling drunk from one glittering dance club to the next would think it a kitschy themed seafood restaurant, the sort with a knotted net affixed to the ceiling, filled with plastic models of dungeness crabs and Maine lobsters, with swordfish and giant rainbow trout, nevermind the impossibility of their comingling in any actual fisherman's net.

It's not fish inside, but music. The blackboard mounted beside the captain's wheel lists Friday as a [i]loud and local night, and band inside is both - loud enough that the music makes the glass panes in the half-open front door shudder, local enough that they have a following even though they're without a record deal.

JB is inside, beer held loosely in one of his big hands, seated on a barstool it his back to the bar, listening. Just another guy, tall and broad-shouldered, but ordinary, really - wearing a Pogues t-shirt and torn jeans, with a scruffy day and a half beard bristling across his jaw.

[Luana Kirchmann] Well after midnight is still early in the party crowd, many of them wake at ten, dress and then head out to get drunk and high, and reek havok across the city. Luana is not quite one of them but she's similar enough and knows the lifestyle. Friday had her working, the late afternoon spent passed out on top of the bed covers catching some sleep before her weekend began. By Monday she's in sunglasses, popping advil, and a grumbling bitch.

But that's not now. Right now, the short woman is sliding up to the side of the bar, giving John the look over with a quirk of her mouth.

She's a little more dressed for a place like this, likely having come from or going to one of those clubs up the road. A pair of strapped heels up the ankles, dark, matching the dress that's a little longer on the thigh then most younger girls out there, with straps criss-crossing down the back and a decent plunge line at the front. There's a bracelet on the left wrist, a thin chain down her neck, glittering like a soft strand of spiders web, delicate and feminine. Dirty blonde hair is in back in a clip, slightly messed in the way it's been grabbed at the back. Across her hip is a small purse, its attached to the strap over her shoulder, blending in with the black of her dress.

From this she's pulled some cash, and she's lifting her accented voice to order a whiskey, of all things.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] It's not his sixth beer of the night, JB. It's not his first, either. And he's tired from a long day that began before dawn, sorting out deliveries, getting his daughter off to school, working dawn to dusk, and after, really. Friday nights in a strange new city usually find him jogging upstairs when service ends, maybe after a few beers with his staff, to tuck in his daughter while the rest of them head out for the night, to retire it in style. Tonight, though, Cindy offered to hang out, spend the evening with Lucy, give him a night off.

An hour and a half later, and he's lost most of the rest of his staff to other pursuits. Freddie's trying to score something decent weed from a dodgy connection on the northside, and Raoul followed some sharp faced, pretty little college girl out of Gumby's twenty minutes ago. "You'll be back," JB warned his sous chef as the squat little bulldog of a man left, laughing, trailing after his latest conquest.

By now, it's absolutely clear that he was wrong.

So instead, he's sitting here, listening to this loud, pseudo-punk band Either / OR made up, entirely, of philosophy undergrads from the University of Chicago. If he could make out the lyrics, he might laugh. It's all a growl of feedback loops, art school stuff, not his scene even if he totally gets the energy. The beer's good, though. They've got decent stuff on tap, and it's opening up his veins and he's taking an interest in a stranger's drink order.

"Not Bushmill's!" He tells her, and - reaching back with a sort of direct gesture, sets his hand down on her cash as she reaches it across the bar. "Jameson's cask strength is what you want if you're drinking Irish whiskey. Though you look more like a Cosmo girl."

[Luana Kirchmann] "I'm a whatever takes my fancy girl," she responds to him, amused at the way he's put his hand over her and the cash on the bar. Olive eyes flick over his face, the humour in her expression clearly expressed. "But whatever the man says." This was to the bartender who's come to get her a drink. Content with the suggested order, she leaves her cash on the bar and slips her hand back out from under his.

With him sitting, he's still taller then her. But she lingers by his side, facing him more then the bar now, as she waits for her drink. "What makes you think I'm a Cosmo girl?" Already sharp brows arch a little higher. Her pale painted lips curl up in a direct, playful challenge. The woman isn't only looking at his gaze, but taking in his features and even the name splashed across his t.shirt. She picks up the little details as she looks him over, slow, unhurried, before meeting his gaze again.

Even alone, the woman seems far from afraid of the college students, the drunk men, even those that are telling her what she should be drinking. Her sharp angled face is proud, though quiet, and hinted with a faint playful flirt under the guise of her dark shadowed, eyes.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, with this sort of exaggerated care, lifting his beer, holding it with his blunt fingers on the rim of the glass, humor glinting in his warm brown eyes. " - that sort." Underneath. Whatever that means. Then she slides her hand out from under his, and he releases her money. When the tender comes back with her whiskey, John Brendan gestures wordlessly to the man that he'd like another round. It's an easy, familiar gesture - the sort perfected by a certain kind of guy in pubs the world over. Then he drops his right arm again, resting the bottom of his beer glass on one solid thigh.

His jeans are worn white there, the threads of the underlying cotton visible at the knee. A dark, intricate tattoo crawls up the right arm, moving whenever he flexes his muscles, otherwise still. It is all curves, sharp dark lines, crisp and clean like the edge of a blade, joined together to a whole.

Must've taken hours.

He glances briefly up; the lead singer's at the mike, announcing a break, she's dressed in sharp red, a smear of color against the stage lights, and then gone. His brown eyes wander back to her again, " - why do I think you're a Cosmo girl?" he asks her, laughing, this big gesture of it that is mostly just his face, the broad way his mouth moves, the engaging gleam of his eyes.

His gaze drops to the hem of her skirt, and his grin crests into an edge of a smirk. Then he finds her gaze again, " - because I'm giving you credit for not being a frozen strawberry daiquiri girl."

[Luana Kirchmann] "I can't," she tells him, watching his eyes as they travel down her petite frame, plenty hidden in the folds of the dress, and yet folds show just what they should. It's downright modest compared to some, and allows her into clubs and into lounge bars, or places like this, without much a problem. "I get those ... what do you call them?" Her brow creases and she makes a rolling gesture with her fingers, making motion, "... those painful headaches when you have something too cold."

There's a quick flash of teeth in a grin.

Then she's reaching for her drink and thanking the bar tender with a small smile and nod of her head. Lifting the glass, she takes a sip from it, drinking it straight without the ice. Turning from the bar now, and the man in the stool, she faces the crowd. Another inches in against the bar, making her step to the side to allow them more room. She throws them half a look over her shoulder, and turns back to John after. Close enough now, her hip is almost against the side of his leg. Blame it on being at the bar.

"You like this music?" She asks of him, looking up to where he's sitting. Her glass is held at her waist, fingers curled over the top of the glass, protecting the opened space with her fingers. Too many spiked drinks, one can assume, has her naturally wary and certainly accustomed to clubs and pubs. Her fingers and hand is small, delicate, somewhat boned along the knuckles.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Ice cream headache!" he supplies, a little loud maybe. The band was loud, and there's still this sort of afterecho of the music thrumming in his ears. Were he more sensible, he might remember to wear ear plugs to a bar like this, on a night like this. It's not something he thinks about, though maybe the ringing in his ears gives him a flash of that, some old man in a pub cupping his ear going, eh? at the end of every queston. " - those things are foul, anyway. They just use mixes at any of these places. Seventeen kinds of chemicals engineered to taste like strawberry candy, and a boatload of high fructose corn syrup, to cover up the booze. Way I see if, if you're gonna get drunk, best you taste what the hell you're drinking."

Apparently, the man has opinions. He glances down as she crowds closer, gives her the fleeting edge of a smile, the sort of look that has him holding her gaze, sidelong, sure. Maybe even cocky. Then he tosses back the rest of his beer and reaches back behind her, sliding the empty over the counter, picking up the full glass that has miraculously replaced it.

"This shit?" he says, a gestue toward the stage, followed by a glance. The band's drifted away now, though he could probably find the lead singers red dress floating around in the crowd. "It's not bad. I mean, the fucking - concept is a bit self-indulgent, but they've got the hooks and know how to crunch a fucking chord." Then, he lifts his chin at her, a flash of white teeth. Asks. "You?"

[Luana Kirchmann] He has her laughing, a sound that is lost under the thrum of people and voices, loud talkers like John. Luana isn't that way, she's more quiet, at least volume wise. She makes up plenty in other ways. The way she's looking at him may indicate that. He's been around enough to know that its a similar look that college girl had given his co worker before dragging him out of there. This woman has similar plans.

"Does it matter, by the end of the night, you won't know the difference." Seeking to encourage his opinions, throwing a little more gas on the fire, so to speak. She knows it too, by the way her brow lifts and her mouth quirks.

Shifting her grip on the glass, she brings it to her lips for another drink, swallowed down with a quick gulp of her throat and motion of her cheeks. She had looked away again, over the crowd, this time a fleeting glance, before eyes drift back to him again. Her grin is quick, eyes crinkled briefly. "Hate it."

"I came in expecting to see fisherman and pick up good cocktails." It's jest, probably. It doesn't matter anyway, she's here and talking to a nice enough man. She's drinking. The awful music has stopped, long enough that she can fill it with some conversation. Another sip is taken.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Course it matters!" God knows he's had this argument before. She's flirting with him, though, and that has him focus on her rather more directly, sitting up as he lifts his beer to his mouth. "I'm not living for the end of the night, you know - " he tells her, smiling around the edge of the beer glass as he sips off the foam from the head. " - every moment in between counts, too. What is it they say - Life's too short for - " but he frowns, furrows, chasing the idea in his head. " - fuck if I know. I think it ends with bad beer, though." The stuff he's drinking is good. She could figure that out by the price. It's not Budweiser, or one of its lesser competitors.

Then, she confesses that she hates the music. "No way! Shit, I bet you like that fucking electronica stuff. You know, Music by Computer. Give me crunch guitars and blood and sawdust, and I'm a happy man."

Make that past tense, John. Then, a flash of a grin that shows the hint of a dimple - just the hint of it - in his cheek. "Oh, like those tiki cocktails, right? The ones that come with a spear and eighteen kinds of fruit, poke your eye out, those kind?"

[Luana Kirchmann] It worked, of course. He goes on, it has her smiling more, just short of grinning. Her eyes are practically gleaming at this point. She's watching him over her glass, drinking from it as casually as one would water. A shame, really. Maybe she's not even stopping to enjoy it. It's more likely that she's just a regular drinker, though, and more engaged in conversation then the warmth flowing down her throat and settling into her belly.

"I like all sorts of music, as long as it sounds like music, and not the kids next door screaming to some blared music out of a bad stereo speaker," she confesses, waving her drink a little as if to dismiss the idea that she was just into electronica. It wasn't true, either.

Laughing softly, she shook her head and indulged him with a wry expression. "The sort where shrimps are arranged prettily on the side and you eat it from a glass, not drink it." Whatever they're called. She hadn't meant drinking cocktails. It's seems she's one of those that may have mistaken this for some gaudy restaurant. Of course the music had been a dead give away. She's merely playing.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Oh," he says, getting it now. " - shrimp cocktails. I hear they do a great one of those at Red Lobster." He deadpans. Luana is being subject to his opinions on music. Best not get him started on chain restaurants.

"Now, see - " John leans over, alcohol on his breath, a nice hoppy pale ale, actually, that smells like bread, like yeast, the fermented sugars inside it. There's something golden about it, too - pale ales smell like summer, not fall. It's cool outside, clear tonight, a huge moon hanging like a baleful eye in the middle of the sky, now that the front has moved on and left the city bare to the stars, naked underneath them. She can sense his smile as much as she can see it, an edge of it, the bristle of his whiskers dark brown. He hasn't shaved since morning. They grow back fast.

" - now," he has a professorial air, really. No, that's not it. Barroom professor is more like it. "See, kids banging in their mum's garage, screaming over feedback of the third-fucking-hand amp they picked up from the pawn shop down the corner, that's exactly what music is. Right? S'about the experience of it. People yelling, putting together chords and the like, - about participation rather than this passive shite where some bloke feeds parameters through a computer and punches out something, then test markets it on a select group of inebriated thirteen-year-old who wouldn't know a fat chord progression if it smacked them in the face.

"We've been banging drums since the cavemen times. It's a fucking - you know - communal act. Making music, s'posed to be, anyway. Like a charm against - "

He doesn't finish what he was saying. Instead, he gives a gesture, down at the surface of her glass. "You want another of those?"

[Luana Kirchmann] All the while he talks and she listens. Whether he's right by her ear or sitting back on his stool, she's listening to what he has to say and what's found under it. Closer she can pick up other little things about him, like the smell of his breath, or any cologne he's wearing. She can make out the colour of his eyes better, too, now that he's sitting closer in the darkness of the pub.

This time there's nothing much to be said, but her interest is still there, not a bright spark, but just under the surface and in the way she hasn't left him to talk about such nonsense to the next man at the bar. Truthfully she doesn't know much about music, just which she liked and what she didn't. Chords, guitars, anything else was beyond her. Other people played it, even more wished they could, and then there were those like John that thought they knew everything about it. Alcohol makes the opinion stronger, so she thinks.

But when it comes to asking about her drink, she nods to him once and downs the rest in her glass in a sweep of her tilted chin and swallows it down. The empty glass is pushed onto the bar, reaching through his body and the person still standing next to the bar next to her. She's crammed between them, a little on the outside, so she's standing closer to his knee then his side now. "One more," she tells him, "and then I am leaving for better places."

"You should come." Direct.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "Yeah?" He returns, his brown eyes gleaming, a little bit unfocused, but lingering on her, tracking the movement of her eyes. His own gaze drops to her hand, the empty glass, as she pushes it between them.

The shift arrests his rather passionate discourse on music, the nature of communal expression before he starts up again. The way he's looking at her, some shadow on his brow, suggests that he's disappointed she didn't rise to the bait, jump in and turn it around on him, offer an opinion, maybe loudly, no matter how wrong he considers it. That's there, on the surface, dissolving as he follows the line of her arm back toward the bar, the movement quiets that boisterous self that sparks with alcohol, opens in a barroom, that expansive sense of camaraderie, of rightness of the world that fills him up.

That opens up in him.
That gleams in his brown eyes.

He gestures to the bartender to get her another, leaning back to pay, holding sliding his wallet from his back pocket and unfolding a bill, leaving behind a generous tip before he lifts her drink back over the bar, offering it to her.

When she has her drink, he picks up his beer, leans forward, and says into her ear, still maybe a hint too loud, but with a grin underneath his voice. "What constitutes better places?"

[Luana Kirchmann] Taking the drink from him has her murmuring a quiet: "Thank you." She doesn't immediately lift it towards her mouth to drink from it, but holds it down by her waist as he leans back with his own drink. It's only moments later that he's folding his body towards her, coming close enough to her ear to know that she doesn't smell like the drunks, or the cheap body sprays on super market shelves, but of some subtle higher class oil pressed into the back of her ear, down by her collarbones, again at her wrists. Not a lot, but enough to know its only the start of the night and not the end.

Her tongue licks her lip, wets it as she hears his grin. Responding in kind, her mouth curved into a slow, more sly smile. All still flirtatious, quieter, maybe playful. "Less people," she tells his ear in return, "more room to move." Her smile can be heard. This close, she's watching him side ways, eyes flicking over the side of his face.

Leaning in close has her free hand resting on his thigh, closer to his knee then higher up. It just rests there, doesn't grip, hardly even steadies her. "Doesn't have to be electronica that you detest. But ... I'm sure we could work out somewhere we both like." Suggestive lilt.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] His laughter isn't quiet. She is close enough that she can feel it, the way his lungs expand with it, the way his shoulders move. He lifts his head, that flash of teeth again, rough jaw rising, looking up and away from her, down the line of the bar maybe, behind the next guy, and the next guy down.

Toward the front door.
It's open, a slice of the streetlife outside visible, a cool current of air that slices through the retained heat inside the crowded club.

His thigh flexes beneath her hand. The big, long muscles solid in the front of the thigh, the long bands that make up the quadriceps. The denim of his jeans is soft, washed and worn and worn and washed. Brown eyes drop to her hand, and there's a certain shift, a kind of conservation of energy. "I think you have plenty of room to move," he tells her, lower this time, the hint of his dimple reappearing in his cheek. Head still, he lifts his eyes to meet hers. "Right here."

Then, he shifts his beer from his right hand to his left. Reaches up, tilting her chin up with the flat of his index finger, tipping it higher with the blunt edge of his thumb. Not breaking eye contact now, not for a fraction of a second.

[Luana Kirchmann] Lifting her chin obediently, has him looking into paler olive coloured eyes. They're made lighter by the way her eyes have been shadowed in black and grays, carefully applied only a few hours ago, accentuating the large, slightly almond shape of them. Her eyebrows cut away from them sharply, shaped. Her mouth has stilled, like her expression, and holding her like that has her staring at him.

"You think so?" She asked softly, a mere mouth moving under the sound. If the band had been playing, her voice would have been lost under it.

Her body moves, shifts so that she presses her side into his thigh, and her hand curls from the top of his thigh to the inside, still down by the knee in safe areas. Her thumb feels the muscle, rubbing across it to feel the hardness of it under the pressing pad. The chin in his grip is angular, the lines of her jaw are long, raising up to the sharp angles of her cheekbones.

"And what about the music?" She asks, tilting her head just a little more to the side, eyes still direct. "When that starts, I won't hear a word that you're saying." Excuses. Testing the waters, to see what opinions he comes up with. There's a hidden smile in her mouth.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] "You don't give a fuck," he tells her, looking at her aslant as she shifts herself to his side. The bottom of his beer glass rests against the opposite thigh, his fingers relax, loosen around the glass. Briefly, his eyes drop to her hand as her fingers curl inside his thigh - linger there, then up again, this cross-wise look accompanied by a dark, sweeping glance. His features are shadowed, a strong, bristling jaw, a broad, blunt nose that suggests it has been broken once or twice before. " - what I say, you know."

That sounds almost conversational.

He does not hold her chin up for long. Turning to face her directly, looking just down from his higher angle, he sweeps his thumb along the line of her jaw, the pad callused from work, rough against her skin. "It's all just placeholders." The touch changes, deepens. Without looking toward the stage, he indicates it with a gesture of his dark head. "The music starts up, we can just mouth the words. Same meaning, then."

[Luana Kirchmann] Surprisingly, her mouth starts to curve in a smile that widens further into a grin. She has nice teeth, either natural or afforded by a good dentist. The expression softens those sharper, harder angles of her ancestry. She has a strong nose too, broader at the base, but it matches her mouth just nicely and fits her face to make it attractive. "What sort of woman do you take me for?"

His thumb starts to take advantage. It's only fair really, her hand started it. Her drink is in her other hand, held down by her waist still, an elbow tucked closely into her body so she's not knocked around and the whiskey isn't spilled everywhere. "I give a fuck," the word sounds good on her tongue, harsher like her accent, "what you say. How else would I know it's called an ice-cream headache?"

The womans eyes are laughing around the edges, but the look in them is direct enough to be considered raw. Direct enough to upset Garou, often. She doesn't shy away. Smaller, petite she may be, but she's full of an unwavering force. Personality she has in loads.

[John Brendan Cavanagh] That's an open ended question and one that he, in his alcohol-haze, still wisely dodges. There's a shift of his shoulders before his torso tightens with laughter, some low chuckle, not really loud enough to be overhead above the ambient noise of the club, the garage band stuff they're piping in, quieter, over the sound system while Either / Or is offstage.

His hand drops from her cheek, then. Quite deliberately, he reaches down to grasp her drink, his big hands over the surface of the glass, over her fingers, tugging until she gives way. When she does so, he reaches back, sets whatever remains of her drink on the bar, not back where the bartender will reclaim it immediately, but forward, near the edge, suggesting she's not finished with it. His own drink, though, he finishes, lifts it up and drinks it down, pushes the glass onto the bar and farther back than her own, before rising, his big, broad frame filling the space, filling her space really, close. His t-shirt - The Pogues - is a bit loose hanging from his broad shoulders, just the suggestion of strength underneath.

He's looking down at her now, this look that is scouring and intent, hungry. The suggestion of intimacy turns a head or two of their nearest neighbors, but the bar is dark and they quickly look away.

Not touching her, he bends down - and down, for he's a full foot taller than she is - this seeking gesture that has a sort of energy, the sort of force that one magnet gives another, opposing magnet, then bends down to kiss her mouth, this leashed gesture, soft but rough. Held back. He is close enough that he can smell her high-end oils, the other drinks she's had, smoke lingering in her hair from some other bar. He head moves as he kisses her again, forehead close, his hands still loose, open around her body, not close.

"I think," he says at last, this close. "That you're the sort of woman who isn't used to being told no."

This time, he leans in, but does not touch her mouth with his own. His solid frame is tense, aware, alive to her closeness.

"And I think," then he smiles, a hint of regret there. " - that I'm the sort of man who has a sitter, whose sitter has a girlfriend, who expected her home an hour ago. Goodnight," he finishes, reaching back to pick up her drink, to hand it back to her. "Cosmo-girl."

[Luana Kirchmann] Her hand drifts from his leg when he shifts off his stool, stealing her glass from her in the process, given up with only a momentary hesitation. Stepping a touch back leaves him more room, only because she doesn't want to be staring him in the chest, suffocated by the largeness of him. Her head tilts more up, eyes looking through lashes from her shorter angle.

That is, until he's leaning down. He kisses her, making her head rear back at first, before she goes with it. It's not as pushy as her demeanor may have been, but it's opened mouth, softer then he may expect from her. Her fingers have found the warmth of his seat, steadying where she is in the throng of the crowd, in the corner space of the bar, other people, his taller frame.

She breathes him in when his brow rests to hers, eyes still open to look at his face from the small space that leaves her nose almost against his. "Maybe another time," she responds. It doesn't sound hopeful. It's just that, a statement. Luana doesn't offer her number or ask for his. The ball is thrown in his court for all that she's not used to being told no. How easily she can project something other then she is. She's told no quite often. But she likes a challenge.

With her drink back in hand, she lifts it in a salute. "Have a good night." She never got his name and doesn't ask for it. He's leaving after all.

[Lost - the meat of the scene, really. Cigney told Kora about her encounter with Paul, and Kora counseled her in response.]

[Luana Kirchmann] [*grins* Sorry! You're thinking Luna Ve-askdajds something or other. She's vanished from the Kinfolk list.]

[Roman Turner] (( I thought it was Luna, but then thought maybe I just spelled it wrong before LOL! Sorry! Strike all Roman said.))

So he responded to Kora about Luana.

"Nope."

[Cigney] Cigney breathes slightly in relief, smiling warmly at Kora. Thankful that she understood, and that she wouldn't make her resture the lost pictures.

"Thank you Kora".

It's quiet but very appreciative. Relief is a good for it. She then pushes her beer off to the side, having absolutely no taste for it whatsoever. She does eye the sauerkraut ball though for just a moment. She then blinks over at Luana as Roman speaks of her. Half wondering, she looks to Kora.

"I will consider this. It sounds like whatever the bank is doing, its not very good. I want to help the sept. Do you think I should? Help with these photo's?"

Her questions are posed like a little sister to a big sister for advice.

[Roman Turner] "I don't recall Paul saying this bank thing of his was to help this Sept."

He mumbled in the middle of stuffing his mouth with another fry.

[Roman Turner] "He mentioned a Sept called Sept of the King Cotton or something. But like I said to him and you earlier Cigney, if I were him, I wouldn't admit a Kin got the better of a New Moon like that."

[Cigney] "Sure he did, he quite clearly mentioned this bank thing was for the good of the sept. You know, wyrm tained money and all. He's gonna work it so far and turn it over to someone else...some other name I can't remember.

Cigney watches Roman stuff his face, then back to Kora

"He's obviouly casing the joint. The two females...let's see, one is a mulatto by the name of Candice Burke. An the other had dark hair and red lips. I think her name starte with a T...but Paul said he was some sort of legal person for the bank."

[Cigney] "Oh...maybe he did mean that sept...huh".

She nods at that, figuring she could have been wrong with her interpetation of what Paul had said. After all, his hackles were kind of raised at the time, so she had oher worries on her mind.

"Is it really supposed to be that difficult? I mean, it was pretty easy..."

Cigney chuckles a little and nudges Roman's shoulder before looking at Kora, visibly brighter now than she'd been for most of her day.

[Roman Turner] "I'm telling ya, he mentioned the King Cotton Sept. And it don't matter, he seemed pleased as punch when he was told to bring this stuff up with Kora if it concerned ya. So to my way of thinking, the entire thing was a reason to come speak to Kora. And if it is that easy to do, then he can do it himself, can't he?"

He looked at Cigney with a raised brow.

"I mean, ya did just say ya didn't want to work with him, didn't ya?"

[Luana Kirchmann] She can't really make out what they're talking about over there, and leaves eavesdropping to anyone that's sitting closer. From the waitress she orders herself a drink from the bar, a whiskey, and a bowl of wedges with some guacamole and sour cream, or whatever other trimmings it comes with. As she waited, she drummed her fingertips on the table. The nails are painted a pale, pastel blue.

[Kora] "She came down from upstairs. She'll be kin or garou most like. No breeding, though." This is all spoken quietly, Kora glances from the limp fry in Roman's hand to the stranger, smiling at him, "You could go find out who she is, yeah? Doesn't seem like she'd mind."

When Cigney eyes the sauerkraut balls, Kora nudges the basket toward her. "These things are brilliant. They sound so wrong. They taste so good. The hot fudge cake here is pretty killer, too." There's this flash of a look, then. "I know, I know, it's not organic wheat germ with added spelt, or whatever, but you can spend an extra hour running tomorrow, yeah?"

Then, Cigney poses her questions, and Kora's brows draw together, this neat little line appearing between them. She's older than Cigney and Roman both - nearly twenty-five, for all that she remains a cliath, late change, that - and rather deliberate. That deliberate pacing returns, she looks between them at their exchange, her fine brow furrowing.

Finally, to Cigney, "I'm not sure I would trust his word. Paul left August in the - rather dubious - care of a Shadow Lord who imprisoned and - worked to destroy the independence of - another kinswomannot of his tribe. He disappeared and made no other provision for her, or her child. So: we need confirmation beyond his word that he wasn't just trying to rob a bank for his own reason. I'd like to know more about your skill at dissembling. About how exposed you might be to whatever is inside the place.

"If, indeed, this place is tainted, and these pictures are necessary, and he has not backed them up somewhere, and cannot simply - describe the women in question - then," a faint curve of her smile, "yes, I think you should. As I said, though. You'll work with Roman, if there is work to be done. Is that clear?"

[Roman Turner] He wasn't so sure he wanted anything to do with bank jobs after hearing of Paul's troubles with robbing banks so recently. Still Kora mentioned the girl at the bar and he did need to go see a man about a horse. So he rose, taking his hat from the seat where it had rest.

"I'll go see about that pretty girl and send her your way. Meantime, I gotta go see a man about a horse. Ladies."

He bowed, hat held against his chest. Then turned for the bar where he paused just long enough to speak to Luana.

"Ma'am, the ladies over yonder are just dying to meetcha."

He lowered his voice to a whisper.

"They think you're some movie star or something. Go on over and make their night, will ya?"

With that he winked and headed for the restrooms.

[Roman Turner] (I gotta sleep folks. Thanks!)

[Luana Kirchmann] Roman comes over to her about the same time her whiskey is set in front of her. She tilts her head as she listens to him whisper, surprised at what he had said. Before she could answer he was already walking off, and she turned to watch him go, before throwing a longer look to where Cigney and Kora are sitting.

She picks up her drink and slides out of her seat, heading towards their booth.

[Cigney] At the mention of Roman going to socialize, Cigney looks again to the kinswoman. No doubt pretty, and she decides to get up so Roman can get out of the booth. No use in holding the guy back. It was a good time to leave she figures

"Absolutely clear".

She shakes her head at the offer of food. Though very tempted, today has left her not very hungry. Despite the fact that Kora's not angry with her. Cigney had been terribly about that. She never wanted to disappoint Kora, ever.

"Guess I'll go then. By the way, Imogen and Night were talking about this "war" thing going on. Is that for the whole city, or just Grant Park".

Her gaze watches Roman go to the woman up at the bar, and the womans look at Roman as he left her. Fingertips touching her a particular place just lower than her collarbone, absently...then drops the hand and smiles again.

No matter.

[Kora] "The whole city, Cigney. More, really. We'll have to discuss the details sometime, but for now - just know that you have to avoid, at all costs, a northern suburb of Chicago called Elk Grove. It's suburban and rural, and there's a state park there, but our enemy is strong there, and you should not ever go there." Kora's eyes linger on Cigney as she shakes her head, as she lifts her gaze to follow Roman's path through the bar, watches the brief interaction tere.

"The enemy is everywhere in the city, too," this is more quietly spoken. Despite her supposition that Luana is Garou or kin, she is careful with the stranger approaching their booth. "I assume that you take all ordinary precautions. Let's talk a bit more about self-defense another evening, I think. You've had enough worry over this, if I don't miss the mark.

"I'm glad you came to me, though. It speaks well of you."

Then, Luana approaches, her whiskey in hand. "You're a new face. Staying upstairs, are you?"

[Cigney] Cigney nods, her gaze full of fondness for Kora.

"Okay...goodnight, and take care".

She nods to Luana, but doesn't make any introduction as she's leaving. Her mind at rest now that the matter had been discussed, and she needn't worry about Paul anymore tonight. The door opens and then closes behind her as she retreats to her car across the street.

[Cigney] ((Sleep! Thanks for the scene!))

[Luana Kirchmann] Stepping aside, she watches Cigney leave, giving the other woman a small nod of her head. Her gaze, somewhere between gray and olive green, depending largely on what she's wearing or the surrounds, shift from the leaving Kinfolk to the Garou sitting at the table.

"The young man told me you wanted to meet me, the both of you," her voice is accented but she speaks around it carefully. Her English is long learned. "But I see that it may have been a little fib."

Before she answers Kora's question she takes a sip from her straight whiskey, the ice in it clinking against the edge of the glass as she lowers it back to waist height. "No, I'm not. But I had come to speak to someone that wasn't there."

She doesn't sit or make herself comfortable, but stands at the edge of the table, more towards the vacated side of the booth. "Do you stay here?"

[Kora] "Is that what he told you?" Kora replies, her dark eyes darting toward the wooden doors as they close again behind Cigney. Her attention lingers there, brief, then skims back to Luana. The table is littered with debris of the half-meal. Cigney's half-finished bottle of Coor's Light - almost an effront to order mass-produced American beer in a place where they brew their own, but what did wheat-grass girl know? - and another pair of steins, one empty, the other three-quarters full. There's a glass of iced tea, and a slowly congealing plate of french fries and cheese and chili, with a rather fresher basket of sauerkraut balls of which Kora is presently partaking.

"Well," she continues, splitting one of the balls open with her thumb, eating it with a certain savour. "I like to know who's ours, and who belongs elsewhere. I don't stay there, though. Can't get over the dorm setting. It seems like a bad movie in the making, yeah? Some B-Movie. Mind if I ask who you were there to see?"

[Luana Kirchmann] "He did," she confirms without elaborating.

Her gaze rakes over the items on the table, taking them in quickly before she looks back up to the woman talking to her. Smiling faintly, there's a quiet sound in the back of her throat at the mention of the place being like a bad movie in the making. Luana had thought something similar when she first came along, though not as creative.

"Lukas."

Taking in a breath, she eases into the seat, sitting on the edge of it rather then making herself comfortable. "Do you know him?"

[Kora] "I do." Kora confirms, quietly, watching as the stranger finally eases into the seat opposite, perching at the edge. "You and he, you're related, then?" Her generous smile rises, and then thins with a sort of withheld amusemet. "Distant cousins? Or is there some other connection?"

Luana aleady has a whiskey in hand, so Kora does not offer her another drink. Instead, she pops half of her sauerkraut ball into her mouth, then nudges the basket toward Luna by way of invitation. When she has swallowed the deep-fried appetizer, she takes a drink of her tea to clear her mouth, then, "Sauerkraut balls. They're brilliant. You're welcome to try them. Specialty of the house."

[Luana Kirchmann] Her mouth quirks again, a gesture that comes easily to her, it seems. "I suppose you could say we are, though I'm far more handsome, don't you think?" It's a quip from a conversation that Kora hadn't been part of, which doesn't seem to stop the Kinfolk from remarking on it anyway, or finding amusement in the little taunt.

She's drinking from her glass again, taking a sip from it as she's offered to eat one of the sauerkraut balls. Luana doesn't need to be asked twice. "Thank you." Despite having wedges in the making, she reaches out and picks one of the smaller balls out of the mix and carefully bites some of it off, expecting it to be hot enough to burn her lip. For someone so small she has a decent appetite.

[Kora] "For my part," Kora returns, a lingering bit of humor in her voice, "I try not to look at him like that. S'a bit incestuous, if you take my meaning. So I'll plead the fifth if asked again, I think." It lingers in the shape of her mouth, this neat, perfect little half-curve. Though it is summer's end, Kora is both blonde-headed and pale-skinned enough that she appears to spend very little time in the sun. The hint of a tan on her forearms is belied by the pallor of her inner wrists as she incises her thumb into another ball, opening it in half, then dipping it into the horseradish sauce.

"What's your name, then?"

[Luana Kirchmann] She chuckles openly and nods, catching the drift just fine. It answers the questions she had, unspoken. Being that this is a Kinfolk and Garou place, she figured that this woman and the others would have to be something of the same. It's common for Luana to be asked questions, given that she has a lack of breeding, unlike plenty of the others running around in town.

It's not until she's swallowed her mouthful and is contemplating her next bite that she answers: "Luana Kirchmann." A smile is offered with it, small, but obvious. There's a slight expectant look given to the other woman, lifted from where she watched the horseradish cling to the others food. "Yours, and the others?"

[Kora] There's an answering half-smile, the faintest huff of breath in response to Luana's answering chuckle. The way they speak around the things they are. The way they substitute human ideas and human relationships and human doctrines as stand-ins for their own, entirely inhuman.

"Kora," she supplies, low-voiced, with a direct look, tracing out the lines of the stranger's features. "I run with Roman. The girl's my kin, Cigney. I'd offer to carry a message to Lukas but I expect that you will see him sooner than I. I'll wish you luck instead, tracking him down."