Ornature

[Paul] His hands clasp together in a single clap. Leaving that guitar to rest and linger in his lap. "Cordelia, you are the world to me. How that you know me best and can explain me so quick is beyond words. Bridget...hold your knickers...I'd fuck you simply just to make you quiver. But we're not talking about how shallow I am or how undeposed to decorum I should be. The simple truth...dear Kristiana... As Paul now looked to her "Im the bad guy..simple and true..I realish the part that I play..its my role and mine alone...Though I love the compainionship it brings. Im Paul, the Cad as your sister of flock so says...known to the nation at the moment as Thats Great...but Im sure it'll be Cad shortly...Bound to Coyote and really a horn dawg. I poach kin, I love women..and Im just a simple tom of Unicorn..It's truly a pleasure to meet you"

[Kristiana Coleman] "I didn't do anything with him. I don't know what he's told everyone, but I didn't." She levels Paul with as cool a gaze as she can muster, which unfortunately isn't much.

[Bridget] "Well at least he is honest," she mumbles, trying to look to Kristiana's obviously horrified face. She may faint. Bridget braces herself to catch the fragile swanling.

"That's Great," she repeats.

Kristiana says something completely confusing. "What's this?"

[Paul] "Oooo, who's he? And what dear fille did you nawt do?"

[Kristiana Coleman] "Whatever you heard, I didn't do" She's regained her composure, adding a hair toss to her words for good measure, eyes flickering to Cordelia.

[Ivers] Without a churning cauldron of Rage inside of him, when the darkening of the moon has brought with it a darkening of his mood, Howard is capable of entering a social gathering without drawing every single pair of eyes in the vicinity to him with his outbursts. Last night he had done it by simply arriving quietly; that was enough of an anomaly to quirk Bridget's eyebrow and have her climb over the back of the couch to investigate.

When he shows up tonight, it isn't as though he's stepped out of the Umbra or emerged from a shadow. He walks down the shore, dressed in the same--comparatively--boring black outfit he'd had on last night, Guns N Roses swapped out for a black t-shirt with a silver impression of Debbie Harry emblazoned across his lower left quadrant. Sunglasses are clipped to his neckline rather than clapped onto his face, leaving his green eyes visible.

The first thing out of his mouth is directed at Bridget and Kristiana: "See, I fuckin' told you."

[Cordelia] "Paul," she says, and her voice is infinitely patient, "it's probably for the best you don't press right now. You ease into these questions. She's probably just shaken up over last night. Kristiana's a good kid."

Her gaze flickers over to her briefly, but goes back to Paul without much fanfare.

[Kristiana Coleman] "What did you tell me?" The composure crumples like newspaper when she sees, then hears Howard. Gaia, what else did she forget?

[Paul] His hand thrusted out in gesture towards her. "For you fine fille..." Obviously he were addressing Cordelia "...I'll mind m'manners, staple m'mouth shut and think only of me you and five other possibles if that only makes you happy...I am, and shall be your slave...tonight at least" Chuckling before unclasping his hands with a nod of understanding and wink casted to the Fang. His gaze swept then upon all those now seemingly gathered.

[Bridget] The Canadian nods her head and gives a suspicious, "Mmmmkay."

Her tribesman emerges from nowhere like some distant echo from Punk Nights Past. The Canadian's eyes light up. She abandons Kristiana with Cordelia. They're pretty girls. They can handle it. She migrates to the Afrikaan (or whatever nationality he claims) and does exactly what she told Cordelia about Quebecois and The Cold: they cuddle. Bridget links an arm around her tribesman, then looks back towards the others.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, also being oblivious as Kristiana to Howard's topic of conversation.

Her pouty bottom lip that met his last night has a nice fresh cut on it. It doesn't look like teeth marks, doesn't look like it is chapped. It is definitely a scratch from something sharp. The blood is fresh, but dry. Not a greivous injury, but a curious one indeed.

[Kristiana Coleman] She leans into Cordelia a little, linking her arm with the other Fang's when Bridget abandons her.

[Hatchet] The chain link fence at the edge of the bawn creaks, cold metal curling, and it leaves a soft shriek on the air that goes easily ignored, pressed like a flower into the background noises of the area. Someone climbs through, at first just a mass of shadow

and rage

that unfolds into the figure of a man, broad-shouldered and tall, carrying a rucksack over one shoulder. He starts to walk, and that walk takes him along the water's edge, til he comes towards the docks. There are people standing there, and the people just drip with breeding, enough to make you lightheaded, but the man doesn't faint. He just keeps walking, and then his booted feet fall with surprising lightness to each step on the boards of the dock.

He's wearing a thick black hoodie, and even if it's lined with fur or shearling it wouldn't be enough to keep a human being warm on a night like tonight, this close to the water. His hood is up, covering his hair, but the light beard on his jawline is a reddish-gold, more the latter than the former. His eyes are concrete, but not quite as cold as rock like that.

Two women with breeding of silver, cold and pristine and mad. One of stag's, snuggling up to the scrawny fellow that just sauntered his way over. The new one, the tall man with the gray eyes, tips his head. "'Scuse me," he says, his voice a baritone that's warmer than the weather and smoother than he looks, "either of you know if Reuben and Jenny Coltrane still run The Brotherhood of Thieves?"

[Asha Singh] The fence surrounding the Caern rattles sharply in the cold air. Warm enough even tonight that some of the snow is beginning to melt, leaving behind little piles of garbage, stones, cigarette butts in its wake like the moraine of some moving glacier. This slight creature emerges from underneath the fence. There's a spot or two of blood on the otherwise crisp cuffs of her white blouse - bright against the rich black wool of her finely tailored military-style coat, crisp rows of buttons gleaming up and down the both sides of the double-breasted coat like some Napoleonic officer's dress uniform. Standing, the dark-skinned, sloe-eyed little thing - takes the time to tug neatly at the cuffs of her blouse, pulling them into some order before she gives over her full attention to her kinswomen and the -

Hmmph. Asha gives Paul - who appears to be flirting with her blood the stink eye, then glances around. She wants to interrupt, but thinks that for the greater dignity of all, she really should be announced.

[Kristiana Coleman] Kristiana looks at the large man with wide eyes, clearly and obviously working her way in quick leaps from being slightly unnerved to being outright terrified.

[Ivers] "Course you don't," Howard says, after he's wound an arm around her shoulders. As far as bodies go, the Theurge's doesn't afford others much warmth; his Rage is not hot enough to burn through his flesh, to radiate outward from his clothing, and his mass is only worth mentioning due to how much of it there isn't. Paul, several inches shorter and a No Moon, could beat his ass without breaking a sweat.

His eyes are cast over her head, back towards the group, his interest not so much waning as simply bottoming out. When he looks back at the shorter woman, it isn't the vibrant red that catches his attention but the darkness of it against the pale of her lips. A frown creases his brow, and his free hand comes up to grasp Bridget's chin between his thumb and kinked index finger.

"That blood?" he asks, a second before a press of Rage comes out of the distance.

Neither Fiann has the purity of blood, the shock-red of hair, or the lilting brogue of accent, to identify them to each other. The Philodox's bearing, his carriage, his presence speaks of a rank that Howard will likely die before attaining, but the Cliath doesn't quaver. He does release Bridget from his dissecting attention and turn towards the newcomer.

Either of them know if Reuben and Jenny Coltrane still run the Brotherhood of Thieves.

"They were last night," he says, as though it's entirely possible that's changed in the last twenty-four hours. His accent, while not dripping green with Ireland's influence, could not be mistaken for North American unless he put forth effort.

[Paul] Paul rose his hand, almost dropped it. Yet his finger folded out in gesture. Towards Hatchet. "Hey buddy...I haven't seen you in awhile...tink last tiame I saw you was when you, me, Joey and oh hell what was that Gee Dubuwa bitches' name was? Doesnt matter..anyways..we got all a shit faced and were riaghtfully fucked. Howya doin and no good Monsuier..I can't answer that query cause I really have no diea who runs the place..Since Im seldom there..but niace to see ya again Bon'cade"

[Kristiana Coleman] Her hotel room isn't looking so bad suddenly. Her lonely hotel room. But her lonely, quiet, safe hotel room. She presses into Cordelia a bit more without even realizing it, trying to keep everyone in sight without moving too much.

[Hatchet] The man that is currently terrifying Kristiana does, in fact, have that effect on several people. If one had to guess -- and guessing is about all most of them can do -- he feels like an Ahroun. A Galliard at best, at most pleasant. To the gathered Garou he gives off a sense of authority, even without his name or rank given yet. You can almost smell it on him -- not just the strength, but the history. The ability to lead. The utter lack of need to prove it.

His rage does, in fact, radiate. It warms him. It warms those who get close enough, but no one is. He flicks his eyes over at Kristiana and Cordelia, sniffing the air once, then swivels his head back around to the Blondie fan and the girl whose breeding crawls up the back of his neck and grabs him by the hair.

He keeps his eyes on Howard. "Good enough for me," he says dryly, and gives him a nod. "Merci," he adds, and moves to head that direction. Paul goes off on a blue streak and Hatchet does pause, looking over at the single face he sort of remembers. Stares for a second, as though trying to place him, then gives a small upward nod. "Her name was Echo. Still is, if we're lucky. You wouldn't know if Joey's still in Chicago, would you?"

[Cordelia] She had a whole host of things she could have said in reply. A whole slew of things. There's a list, an absolute laundry list of things she could hae said, and she oepened her mouth and was ready to fire when, at right about that time she noticed a man who was tall, scarred, and had a nice voice coming up. He's polite enough. Makes her shut her mouth and smile something with closed lips.

"They do," she replies, "and they still have the best food on this side of town."

She casts a look around. Surveys. Kristiana is pressing into her, so she stands taller and a little more confident. She presses back, and notes... Asha. Who she hasn't met before. Who looks very nice and very, very, very intense with a mighty powerful stink eye that Cordelia didn't want to be on the receiving end of.

"I'm Cordelia, and this is Kristiana, it's a pleasure to meet you both," making her introductions (their introductions), with a distinctly not-from-'round-these-parts voice.

[Kristiana Coleman] Smile, Krist. Where are your manners? She manages a nearly full smile, nodding to Cordelia's words. "Yes. A pleasure."

[Paul] "Shit man I wish...If she is..that woman has my claws, breast, heart n soul...to follow in whatever massacre she liakes. She is my Evagalien..." With a snicker as his hand fell over his heart. But unlike many of the other garou, and much to his own chargin. Paul were perceptive. But only in moments he cared to reveal to others. "I tink we're scaring the young new fille's...nawt a good thang I assure ya. Cordelia" As he turned his attention towards her..probably to her dismay even. With a snigger. "Ya'll fine cheri's are safe despite the angst ya miaght feel from the liakes of he" With a definate point towards Hatchet, even unapologetically. "So don't be squirmin off just yet..we'ze got ample tiame and festivities to make any n all relax on such a blissful niaght of our mother Gaia's tranquility...meaning I got some E if that helps"

[Bridget] A man and woman full of rage come through the fence of an area she's never been allowed to traverse. But for now her eyes lock with her kinsman, whose rage echoes a recognition of her slight injury. She makes a small noise that might be a confirmation, or simply a natural response to the sudden flux of rage all around her.

She speaks with a very slight Quebecois accent on occasion. Only in summer when she's gotten too much sunlight does her hair ever reveal any slight reddish tone. But she certainly knows how to fry like a fair-skinned Fianna. The Welsh heritage is almost completely dominated by her father's side, who migrated as fur traders. It is very possible she may have very, very distant Algonquin cousins, which is likely why her breeding doesn't shine nearly so clearly as a majority of Silver Fangs. But it is still dizzying.

Bridget gets a good look at either of the other Garou that none of them have met yet. Bridget recognizes the woman from the cafe. She doesn't offer her hand, but pushes her hair to one side and lowers her gaze. Probably the most respectful gesture the part-feral moonbrain could give.

"Bridget Geroux... of the Red Deer sept," she offers. Identifying with her father's sept is a wise choice when you are a lone female kinfolk of significant breeding.

[Ivers] "All I got out of that was 'E,'" he says, quite possibly to himself. He gestures to Kristiana with a lazy finger that quickly decides remaining raised isn't worth the effort, his left arm still wound about Bridget's shoulders, "Which I would keep very, very far away from her."

[Kristiana Coleman] She's so obviously, painfully clueless, and doesn't appear to be following the conversation at all. "What? Keeping what away from me?"

[Paul] Paul quickly swung around, pointing his finger at Ivers. "Oh so you want some?"

[Asha Singh] Asha's eyes remain fixed on Cordelia and Kristiana. There's something about the way she does it, the way her black eyes are staring straight ahead as if some sort of invisible anchor kept her attention glued to the pair of them while she moves as she does not, with a soft, unerring sort of grace that offers absolutely no quarter.

"If you give my kinswomen drugs, I will see you hung from the bridge of the Hestia," Asha, quick and sure and soft - with this sharp winging glance at Paul, naming one of the larger hulks in the Caern full of abandoned ships. " - by your small intestines, with the large intestines stuffed into your mouth to ensure that you don't starve to death."

It is a relief, at least, for Kristiana and Cordelia from the intensity of Asha's dark-eyed stare.

Then she resumes her advance on the linked pair. "He's very common," she tells them, quiet-like, her dark eyes flashing. "If he offends you tell me and I will flay his skin from his bones and make you a purse of it." This makes her smile, sudden and savage - this fine-boned, fine-handed, fine-featured girl - full on to both kinswomen. "I'm - " a frown creases her brow. " - well, we should be properly introduced. I'll have to find Thomas first, though - he's much better at it than I am." - and so saying she will soon disappear blithely into the dark, absurdly looking for her herald in the ruins of the old docks so that he may announce her nineteen names and teeming ancestors to strangers in the middle of the night.

[Asha Singh] (Otherwise known as the: LIST HAS TO GO TO BED post. :) )

[Asha Singh] (LIZ CAN SPELL HER OWN NAME POST.)

[Kristiana Coleman] She makes a tiny squeaking sound, standing absolutely still under Asha's gaze.... is she holding her breath?

[Kristiana Coleman] (Which just proves you need sleep!)

[Hatchet] A gesture comes his way, apologies made by a Unicorn to two of Falcon's for one of Stag's. Hatchet doesn't so much as blink. He just stares at Paul for a few seconds longer until about halfway through the Ragabash's tear he turns and gives his attention back to those of his blood. Which is when he meets Bridget's eyes, at least for a moment. He is paying attention. It is not easy, being the focus -- however momentary -- of his attention.

"I've been there," is all Hatchet says to that, to the name of her father's sept. There's a beat of consideration before he adds: "I've met your father."

His eyes leave her then, though, perhaps a bit mercifully, as Paul and Ivers face off. E! Keep it away from her! Want some! Hatchet watches the two of them for a moment, then Asha's speaking up and he seems vaguely relieved and vaguely wary and entirely exhausted for a moment. He hangs back, as though waiting for someone to throw down a glove or some such, and then... Asha turns around and goes to look for her 'Thomas'.

Hatchet blinks.

"It is too fucking cold for this shit," he mutters, and starts walking off the docks. "I'm getting a beer."

[Bridget] "Le sacrament qui était en calvaire a calissé dehors l'ostie en tabarnac."

The Albertan has a potty mouth. It doesn't quite translate to the pristine French the girls are used to, nor the murky Creole influence of Paul's French. There's some reference to sacred items of a church.

[Kora] Mykonos - a diner on 103rd Street and Carver Boulevard - is something out of NYC. Half Greek restaurant, homestyle, half greasy spoon diner with the usual suspects on the menu. The neon sign in the window that just promises -

Food - 24 Hrs

The sun a good hour ago, and the sky is choked with clouds. There's a chilly wind rising from the north that chases away the stagnant feeling in the air. Some homeless man in a wheelchair walks himself slowly forward. The footrests are turned up, his feet move on the pavement. The smell that rises from him is a revolting combination of body odor and urine, sharp enough that the Skald gives the man a second look as the pair step around him, heading for the diner. "They have the best gyros here, man. The best."

[Roman Turner] He could smell the man before it registered he saw him. For a moment hunger was chased away by the stink. But he was raised where wheat grew in the fields and folk were different than the closed guarded way they were in the city. Maybe one day what made him different would be worn out of him, for now it wasn't. So as he walked along with his Alpha, listening, he was watching too. And when they went around the homeless man in his wheelchair, a deft as pick pocket, something green was dropped in the man's lap and a hand patted his shoulder as the pair parted and moved on.

"What's a year oh?"

He pronounced it just like it was said, though when he saw the menu there was going to be a debate on Gyros.

[Linus] (Whoop. Fack. I may have to drop in later if you guys are still around. If not, splargh! I gotta take care of some stuff alas. I'll lurk for now)

[Imogen] (don't wait for me, I'm waiting for you guys to enter the restaurant!)

[Kora] The man - a mangy speciman with a headful of wild hair knotted, thick with grease - has his head down, his arms braced on the arms of the wheelchair, concentrating on the movement of his feet. One after the next after the next on the sidewalk, with the sort of precision and concentration an amputee might give to relearning to walk. He's wrapped in three or four layers of filthy clothes, with a thick, matted beard obscuring his face. Kora glanced at him with that inherent brace of suspicion; Roman dropped him some cash, discretely acknowledging the homeless man's humanity. He looks up, gives Roman this gap-toothed sort-of smile as the kid walks by. Drops his head again, and makes that dollar or five disappear into the folds of his filthy coat. The whole tableau plays out in reflections on the plateglass windows, beneath the neon blare of the sign.

"Roasted spiced lamb," Kora informs Roman, the scent of the man behind them now, her appetite returned. " - with veggies and this sauce in pita bread. Seriously delicious." This bell rings as she pushes open the front door. A waitress and a short order cook are behind the counter, talking. The handful of other patrons look up, and conversation briefly dies. Then the waitress pushes away from the counter to show them to a table.

"No," Kora says, " - that one," and indicating a corner booth with views of the diner and street, farther from the rest of the patrons than most of the other tables.

[Imogen] Imogen is in the restaurant when they enter - not seated, but leaned against the counter, in a conversation with a greasy, balding man, his wifebeater straining over his paunch, his apron stained.

The conversation is direct, intense, the older man appearing belligerent defencive, though his eyes flick sharply toward the door as it swings open, admitting Kora and Roman into his establishment. He stares at them suspiciously before turning back to Imogen, shaking his head.

Whatever she says next stops him, causing his brow to furrow. Realizing with a certain cold satisfaction that she's won, Imogen straightens from the countertop, holding out her hand, palm up, though the abrupt pull of her fingers toward her palm, makes the gesture demanding rather than supplicating.

"C'mon, then." The word is barely heard.

He stomps away - and stomps back, an envelope palmed in his large, meaty hand. Passing it over, despite his obvious belligerence is a subtle affair, and Imogen slips it into her pocket. If at any point, either Garou approaches or appears to consider it, she'll shake her head sharply at them, her awareness now split between the two.

"Could I ha' a coffee, please?" this deliberate, quiet. The cup is nearly smashed down, the coffee slopped in. Imogen pays him with his own money, taken discretely from the envelope inside her jacket.

A little later, she is walking toward the corner booth, the restaurant's proprietor returning to the kitchen with a baleful glare.

[Roman Turner] "This one of them places where they spit in your food? Put bugs in your pity (pita) bread?"

His question came because of the glaring man, though there was miss Imogen looking like she got a pay off or something. So in his mind, she got to be the food taster, just in case.

"Howdy Miss Imogen!"

He wasn't shy about calling out and waving his arm.

[Paul Kellogg] Luck? No perhaps it were just Kismet. Coincedince didn't just happen according to most of the Garou nation. And if it did, they'd after the fact say it were destiny but never before hand.

Anyways, Paul...having done his sheit for the day. Which including self indulence and whatever else floated his boat for a typical Coggie...found himself saddling up upon a Greek resturant. Why? Well anyone who's anyone can tell you grape leaves are f***ing awesome!!!

So He entered the estabilishment, with the idea to order just that...Wearing jeans, his five finger vibrams, and a simple long sleeve tee.

[Kora] That exchange - the sharpness of it - draws the edge of Kora's attention. The Skald folds herself into the far bench seat of the booth with a fair view of the diner, the counter, the front door, the patrons, the bloody glow of that red neon light, and keeps her dark eyes forward, Imogen and the restaurant's owner in her peripheral vision.

"I have no idea if they spit in your food, Roman," Kora returns, with this quiet sense of inexorable logic. "And since I'm hungry for a gyro and some spiced fries and maybe a baklava sundae, I'm going to write that thought out of my head here and now."

Imogen returns then, her coffee cup, the bottom ridge crushed in two places from the force with which the proprietor set it down on the counter. "Doc - " Kora says, lifting her chin in greeting as she pulls the menus up from between the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin dispenser. " - the hell was that about?"

Her voice is always low, a hint of richness underneath. When Paul Kellogg walks in, Kora lifts the edge of a laminated menu in a brief, semaphore wave of invitation.

[Roman Turner] He added a wave towards Paul but his attention locked on Imogen as he stood to offer her a seat.

"Did ya call him a yella belly sap sucker or something? I don't think he was too pleased with serving ya coffee."

[Frost] Nothing like spending the day exploring the underbelly of the city. Although she seems to have made her way into neutral territory here. Hell, it may even be safe to grab a bite to eat. She settles her eyes on the Greek restaurant across the street, pursing her lips. Ah hell, why not? Checking traffic the tall blonde strides across the street. Supper is way over due. Adjusting the collar on her duster, she steps into the restaurant.

[Imogen] Imogen had ignored Roman's greeting, effusive though it may have been while she'd finished her business. When she approaches the booth, she greets them both with a flick of the eyes.

"I did him a favour," she says. "He owed me money."

A brief glance to Roman, ignoring his comment. "Do me a favour - next time ha' a care before shouting out my name. Sometimes I'd prefer others not know it."

[Paul Kellogg] Did Paul see that invitation? Why yes!..Hell he went straight for their table. Despite the fact a hostess got upset that he totally dismissed her.

Beaming bright, he settled at the table with a glance about those in attendance. Yet that did not stop him from slapping his hand down prominately upon it's hard (the table) exterior. "Women are nucking futs..thats all I have to say about them. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never again know a pack..Im ok with that..I'll make do with does of the blonde persuasion...all being kin of this or that for sure..but still. Anyways...I want to thank you Kora, for being the only fucker here in Chicago to have taken an interest in August's well being....thank you...I owe you big...gyro's for everyone? Do they serve more than beer in alcohol?" He inquired before looking about the establishment

[Imogen] Imogen regards Paul as he speaks, a long series of phrases, before she merely answers one part out of - well, however many.

"They ha' ouzo."

[Roman Turner] "It's supper time Paul and we got lady folk with us. And while I'm sure either one could curse ya under the table without thought, I think it's best we don't start cursing at the supper table."

Imogen mentioned ouzo and had already corrected him, so his next words to Paul were.

"Ya see, they have Ouzo, let's get a bottle and preceed to get friendly with it."

[Frost] The little bell on the door chimes as she steps inside and looks over the place, inhaling deeply of the aromas before she decides if she wants to eat here. Mmm... it does smell good. The hostess seems a little put out after being snubbed by someone and sighs dramatically when Frost doesn't respond right away to her greeting and question of 'one?' Instead she peers a moment towards the group in the back of the restaurant. Finally she looks at the waitress, pinning her with cold blue eyes. "Yes. Seat me near the back."

[Kora] "Never would've figured you for a mob boss, doc," Kora replies, her voice low, her dark eyes on the front door. There's that little bell that rang when Paul walked in. It's getting a workout tonight, and dings - this tinnysound - as Frost walks in after Paul. " - doing favors and getting payoffs." It's not approbation in Kora's voice, it's admiration, when she finishes, " - that was some fucking shakedown," - this hint of humor underneath.

Paul arrives, Kora makes room. For the moment, though - she's distracted by the woman who just entered.

There are a good two or three empty tables in either direction from the corner booth, but the group that sits there is a strange one. The blonde Skald is recognizeable even from a distance, pale hair an distinctively sharp features. Her eyes ae still, settled on Frost until the latter returns the look. The Frost receives the same semaphore gesture of an invitation - a lift of the edge of the laminated menu, and a lift of the creature's sharp jaw by way of invitation.

[Kora] Then and only then does Kora look back at Roman, the edge of a half-smile curving her mouth, before at last returning her attention to Paul, dark eyes sheening in the flourescent light of the diner. The edge of a curve to her mouth. " - you don't owe me, Paul. I'm glad you're back, though. And that your mate's well."

[Frost] She gives a slight up-nod as Kora gestures and steps past the waitress, who is batting a thousand tonight in the impertinent customers category. "I can set myself," she tells her, heading towards the colorful group in the back.

[Paul Kellogg] "Ouzo is great, cept in large quanties and without Tuaca..." And it was then that he finally seemed to notice and even accept the fact that Imogen were among his company. Which brought a huge smile to his lips. "Hey Doc...how you doin? Would ya liake a Sambuca Shot with me? If they ave it?"

Sharply making a gaze to Roman. Simple were it really...an expression that said..Sssshh..just go along. Yet his chesire grin remained the same. "Little brother, would you be more happier with something of a darker persuasion? Im of the mind to say..yes...Shall I order for you?" Turning to Kora, he simply shook his head, a frown forming on his lips

"No dear fille, while I love you most of all of your and their Get..I must say this..my mate has bid me to be an ass in the next company meet. She thinks her condition has been sullied..agree or not..Im afraid to make her happy I must be blunt..and who better than I? He without friends or pack...Hey Doc...how's tricks?" Glancing back at Imogen with a playful wink

[Imogen] Imogen scoffs faintly and perhaps had a comment to make, but Frost's entrance distracts her. When she speaks, it's a voice low, meant for Kora, though it is not as if the others at the table could not hear her, "Met her yet?" she asks.

The group is definitely ragtag. Imogen sits straight, poised in the booth, a to-go cup of coffee in hand, taking up a small corner of one far edge of the bench, closest to the exit. A slight woman, she barely takes much space to begin with. Her hair is brilliant, bright, red, and swept back from her face, twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Roman, a teenager. Kora, a woman with blonde hair, doubtlessly knotted. And Paul, talking a mile a minute.

"I hope yeh like black licorice," this to Roman, before glancing at Paul. "Well enough," she says, and he invites her to drink with him, "I'll pass," she says, "thank you."

[Roman Turner] "Why? They give black licorice out with dinner?"

He wasn't sure what Paul meant about something darker. Was he talking food, drink or women?

[Imogen] "Ouzo," Imogen lifts her coffee, black for a sip, "and sambuca, fer that matter, is flavoured wi' anise." A beat, then she adds a clarification. "Tastes like black licorice."

[Kora] "Her?" Kora says, breaking off as Frost steps around the waitress, begins down the narrow aisle toward the ragtag little group. She looks up again, though. Finds and fixes Frost with her dark gaze, mouth curving into the edge of a half-smile. " - I met her once, yeah." There's a brief pause, as Kora breathes out a flaring breath. Still quiet, a sidelong glance at Paul briefly as a sort of stay, really, an acknowledgment, a sharpening of interest. She's heard him. She'll come back to that, later. " - is she what I think she is?"

Then a brief highlight to Roman, a quick negation, a twist of her pale head. "Ouzo's the Greek vodka. Tastes like liquorice." She does not add, So I've heard, but does glance back at Paul, briefly. "I'm having unsweetened iced tea. X-nay on the Sambuca, sorry."

[Imogen] "Kinfolk," this still in undertone. "One o' yours."

(and now Mei is not allowed to post anymore for a bit, holy crap)

[Paul Kellogg] All three, whenever Paul spoke. But Obviously Roman hadn't yet learned or truly picked up on that.

A nod to Imogen, he hadn't expected her to acquiesse, actually he'd been surprised had she actually said yes. So when he turned his lucid smile to Roman he simply nodded. Adding with a wink. "Pay attention my friend...." Glancing to Kora...then to Roman..and back again. Were he the only one oblivious to who they were stalking and watching with their eyes? Well...yes.

"Hey..fuck you..are ya'll drinking with me or not damnit?"

[Frost] She arrives at their table and her pale eyes take in the gathering. "Evening," she says, and she could be greeting any of them or all of them; although the two women get a nod. "Nice to see you again Imogen. Kora."

[Roman Turner] He didn't know the tall woman and at that moment he had Paul in his face offering exotic drinks. "Yah, I'm up for trying your drinks."

[Paul Kellogg] HOLY SHIT!! As Paul twisted, turned and saw. Well the most exquiste blonde he'd seen thus far. I mean for real...she were akin to a teen's porn fantasy and more.

Blinking twice he now understood why his buddy Roman were so distracted. Actually even turning towards Roman and smiling. "Dude...why didn't you nudge me?" Chuckling before righting himself and returning his gaze to the newbie...a shake of his head and he were solidfying the walls of 'NO..I am NOT Trouble' as those who mattered to him had made his latest mantra.

[Kora] "Cool," Kora returns, this quiet acknowledgment to Imogen. Roman, beside her, can feel the way that knowledge relaxes her, relieves that hint of tension in her spine, in her body. "Not me," Kora returns to Paul, " - it's a work night. The kid might be good for a few drinks, though," she continues, with a fond, sidelong glance at her packmate, sixteen years old. Going on twenty, maybe, like the rest of the Nation.

Her eyes return to Paul, then. Linger, the edge of her mouth turning upward as she corrects him, almost gently, " - you're not without friends, Paul." The firmness is underneath, that uniquely animal confidence, the ease she has in the space she inhabits. "What's this about August feeling sullied? When and by whom?"

Then, Frost arrives. Or rather, Frost arrives in the midst of that and Kora doesn't bother to censor herself, Imogen's knowledge emboldenin her. "Frost," Kora says, her generous mouth curving into an easy, expressive sort of smile. There's not a false note to it, though there's a sort of quiet there. " - have a seat, or pull one up. It's good to see you again. We need to talk, I hear we share a common heritage."

A brief pause. "I heard you know the doc. This is Roman. And Paul." Indicating each with a tip of her pale blonde head.

[Frost] Her eyes slowly glide towards the man who has taken oggling to a new level and she arches one brow at him, then Kora is speaking and she settles her attention on the woman. "Yes, Imogen and I have met. Nice to meet you gentlemen," she says, dragging a chair over from another table and turning it backwards to straddle it, sitting in the aisle at the end of the their table. Kora> "I always have time for... family." She smiles.

[Roman Turner] "Nice to meet ya. We're Paul and Roman, ya know, from the Beatles, only we were frozen so we wouldn't age and just recently thawed."

[Frost] Smirks at Roman. "That explains a lot."

[Roman Turner] "Ya see?" He leaned towards Paul was he spoke. "If you say it with conviction and present it as fact, they believe anything."

[Kora] "Ringo," Kora corrects, quietly. "There wasn't a Beatle named Roman. He was Ringo. Unless you've changed your name?"

Frost's acknowledgment of - familial - ties draws the right corner of Kora's mouth up. The lopsided half-smile would be a smirk on another face, but there's that hint of awareness there, self-awareness that does not devolve to self-consciousness - that keeps it ironic without sinking into a smirk. The dark-eyed blonde studies Frost now without interruption, this close-eyed sort of attention as the kinwoman sits down, backward, in a chair at the edge of the booth.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul just laughs and give an expression of surrender with his hands. "Thats sooo you buddy, sooo you" Though he did turn to Kora, about to speak his mind, but thought better of it and just sat silent for the time. Instead ordering himself a very stout drink and one for Roman..even if he were underage, he made it so it seemed to be ordered for himself

[Frost] She leans towards Kora, speaking in a conspiratorial tone. "See? If you pretend you believe them, pretty soon they start believing themselves."

[Paul Kellogg] Paul quickly pssst Frost. Pointing an indirect finger at her. "Hey..I miaght be attracted to blondes superficially, and always end up with brunettes...but don't let that confuse you to the fact that I know what you fuckers are about..being blonde myself..Im ahead of the game. You best at least make my boy Roman feel special.or the very least..Kora..I don't care whatcha think bout me...I got a harem full of blondes..and they all hate me..so whats one more?" Laughing before returning to Kora. "Seriously Kora...sexy, darlin, baby...what do I have to do to win your patronage or admiration?"

[Imogen] Imogen casts Roman a brief glance. "Let's here you sing 'Here Comes th'Sun'." She says, arching an eyebrow as she lifts her coffee cup back to her lips.

[Roman Turner] He accepted the drink from Paul and though his breath caught with the first sip, he finished it all. And turned a smile on Imogen, singing sweetly. "Little darling, it's been a long long lonely winter." In which he had to stop and burp.

[Frost] Paul manages to get both brows raised as he goes on a blonde rant. "Dude, take your medicine, I think you missed a dose." She grins at Imogen's challenge then laughs when Roman steps up to the plate and gives them a verse. She waves at a waitress. "Beer. Closest thing you got to black."

[Kora] When the waitress finally gets up the nerve to venture close enough to take Paul's drink orders, Kora requests a gyro, with fries, and a side of spanakopita. Doubles the order for Roman, perhaps - and requests not an iced tea as she'd thought, but a coke with a slice of lemon. Thank you, she says as the woman leaves, though the woman is unlikely to hear it, really. She just wants to remove herself from the space they all inhabit.

"So that's your strategy," Kora replies to Frost, that spark of interest gleaming in the creature's dark eyes, the movement of her head inhuman there. Just the sharp lilt of her chin upward, the way she tips her head away, the way she watches, unabashed, all speak to the animal inside her body, the wolf under her skin. There's humor there, not lilting, quiet and perhaps a bit dark, though it brightens when Imogen demands a chorus of Here Comes the Sun from Roman. And that stills as Roman sings, even sweetly.

" - well," Kora's attention returns to Paul then, lingers there as she shakes her head, rueful, and this gesture is almost limitlessly human. " - you can stop calling me sexy, for starters." The faint hint of a burgeoning smirk is a bit weary. She's tried that before. Then, that half-smile filters away, and there's something still about her. "You've got my friendship, Paul. You fought with me to avenge my kin. That's not something I'll forget."

[Imogen] "Long cold lonely winter," Imogen corrects him. "Sorry, 'Ringo', but you've been caught out."

Imogen shakes her head slightly at the waitress, taking another drink of her coffee, instead.

[Roman Turner] .In the worse English accent he said. "I didn't have me bleedin cards."

[Frost] Imo> "You gotta give him points for trying," she chuckles, although her ear is more closely tuned to what Kora is saying to Paul.

[Paul Kellogg] He looked to Frost...quickly gestured with his hand towards Kora. "Yours...not touching it..not interested even." Chuckling. It were obvious he had a few drinks before coming here. But was that out of the norm for Paul? Not really. A gaze to Roman, another Imogen. The sexy self indulgent Doctor, how he could only wish she'd treeat his illness...

Turning back to Kora he wickedly smiled. "I got an Egyptian doe staying with me and August...I miaght even have in a day or so, a Falcon's feather, both blondes. Im telling yah cause well..I liake ya.:" Smiling again, though he spun to Roman. "Im gonna need your help brother...I can't say on what or why just yet..but be forewarned..I'll be looking to you on a tribal matter here shortly..and I hope you'll be there for me, even if it's drama both you and I can otherwise have done without..but who knows the will of our opposites? Not I..not You...and thus comes our curse...how say ya? Other than hit me with another shot?

[Roman Turner] "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait." He shook his head, trying to figure out what Paul was talking about. "Ya got yourself a pack of women and ya need help with their drama?"

[Frost] She can't help laughing at Roman's response. "Yeah, get in there and help him," she encourages. "It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it."

[Roman Turner] "Oh I ain't never been much for drama and I learned real young if the drama involves a bunch of women, a man's place is as far away from that hen party that he can get."

[Frost] The blue eyes glitter with amusement. "You're not going to tuck tail in your friend's hour of need are you?"

[Roman Turner] "If he done dug himself a hole with a bunch of ladies, I will give him the advice that ya choose one and stick with it. That's about as far as I can go with that."

[Kora] Imogen correct "Ringo" and Kora huffs out this quiet laugh. It's still, except in the way it moves her shoulders, her bdy underneath. "Touche, doc," that hook-curve half-smile, here, the glance is sidelong, brief and intent. " - remind me not to let you test my knowledge of the Beatles' songbook. There's this look that Kora gives Frost, this acknowledgment of her interest, this awareness of her at the table. Then Paul's discoursing drunkenly on the state of his harem, and Kora picks up the bottle of sambuca that waitress has just brought to the table -

- along with Frost's dark beer and Roman's drink and Kora's coke and maybe even her gyro, damnit, with fries. Her gaze remains on Paul, brief and glittering. Readying herself to repeat the question she's still not had answered. A brief, lilting look toward Frost. Then back to Paul, " - why does August feel sullied?"

[Paul Kellogg] He pointed a finger at Frost. "You..shush...this is familie business..nothing to do with you blonde big wigs from the Balkains and nethers..." Swiveling on Roman, he couldn't help but laugh. "Yes...NO...Yes...but no.../b] Slaping his hand upon his knee before stealing a sip of his drink. Shaking his head again as if to re-itterate the issue. [b]"No..not drama as you miaght think...but drama simply because..yes..they are ladies. It's actually quite simple really...I can break it down for you if you liake...but frankly in the open..among well...other folks of other cultures and triates...Im not sure we'd want to do that just yet"

[Frost] Her eyes meet Kora's briefly, a silent acknowledgement... a statement of interest... things to come. A public place. A bit of banter. Most of the real talk will come later, she knows.

[Frost] Paul gets an amused look, but she eases up. "California actually," she inserts when he dresses her up in her own heritage.

[Paul Kellogg] He spun on Kora, hands open in gesture. "Im gonna talk to my battle Roman here alone in a moment..or perhaps later on a Coggie issue thank you...that you or no..yes..that means no one outside of our tribe has business with save me and him...deals with... Laughing before shaking his head, he then seemingly directs his whole attention upon Kora. "August is very upset about the fact that while pregnant many a Garou decided to see it fit to kick her from lodging at the Brotherhood..and even protection from pack because and I qoute from she...'Infants aren't good with Garou'...to the point that she would liake to take it to the voice of the Goddess of our Triabe...which in effect Kora..isn't good.."

[Imogen] (FYI, folks, I gotta start working. I'm going to be really sporadic in my posting!)

[Frost] She listens to this bit of news, lowering her eyes as Paul talks about an issue of strange interest. She's never really spent much time around this side of the family. She had always imagined they would be particularly protective of pregnant women and the very young. Apparently she imagined wrong.

[Imogen] Imogen glances up as Paul speaks, an eyebrow arching slightly. Her gaze rests there several seconds, her expression unreadable, silent, cool.

After a moment, she gets to her feet. "Goin' t'ha' a smoke," she says to everyone and no one in particular.

[Frost] She watches Imogen rise and retreat. Paul's news, unaccountably brings a flush of shame to her, for those who would put out a pregnant woman. Her eyes trail the redhead and she rolls her lips then glances at Kora.

[Kora] "If you and Roman want a moment alone, go ahead and take it." Kora replies, her voice low, as she leans over her plate of gyro and fries, peeling back the layers of the sandwich to make sure everything is as she wants it. "Frost and I have a few things to discuss along similar lines, so I would not be offended. As to the rest of it," a brief, sharp glance at Imogen, a faint gesture of her head by way of acknowledgment before her attention returns to Paul, her dark eyes even, her attention direct, easy and assured. " - the Brotherhood, and your mate, I have advice for you, if you want to hear it."

[Kora] (FYI: Blu fell off AIM, so I'm guessing he's gone for the night since it is laaaaaaaate fo him.)

[Paul Kellogg] "Its not a question of do I want to hear it, or should I? It's a matter of politics. I left my mate in the care of a Sept who set her out on her own because of her pregnancy, considering unsafe for the 'Garou' in attendance? That only you and your pack came to her aid? Who among the nation would rally behind such packs or sept if such workd were made namestay? You and I both know noone...noone would back a single pack from Chicago, no totem, no Garou for such a blatant disregard of our kin, yet it happened. Thus I can ake our charge to the Nation..and be branded here by those seeking to be well..unadmonished...or I can simply ignore my mates viable protests and keep them to myself in the hopes to secure Sept Politics.....what is more important to Chicago Kora?" With a raise of his brow to his friend. "Im asking you as my friend...

[Paul Kellogg] (wow..sorry for all the misspells lol)

[Frost] Her eyes rest on Paul as he speaks, her expression serious. This is her first direct interaction with any sept and what she's hearing does not bode well, in her mind. God she hopes Kora tells him to kick ass and take names. Her eyes flicker back to her kinswoman.

[Kora] "I don't live in the Brotherhood, Paul." Kora begins, this is quiet. There's this undertone there, a storyteller's patience written into the rhythms of her speech. Kora has an expressive face, dominated by dark, reflective eyes and an expressive mouth, this stillness underneath, this assurance, a deeper confidence. "I never have. In my home Sept, there were some lodges for cubs, for packs passing through, for unpacked Garou. We took care of our own - yeah? But nothing quite like the Brotherhood. Temporary quarters, sure, but I couldn't live there long term."

A pause. "They offer hospitality to anyone. I heard a story that Silence-rhya fell through the gauntlet wrestling a giant wyrmsnake in the common room. Garou of all manner pass through, and the place could easily be compromised at any time. Information given to the enemy. The doc's phone number - and a few others, maybe the Brotherhood's location - were compromised like that, when Joey Oliver's cousin was kidnapped, and tortured by the Wyrm. I heard that she rescued him once, then left him alone and he was taken a second time, never recovered.

"That's where I start. I don't think the Brotherhood was a good place for your mate, for your pregnant mate. There's not a pack of Garou. There are two packs, sometimes, maybe there. Ahrouns, cliaths, even cubs barely controlled - I might've advised her to seek shelter there, but I do not think they were wrong to suggest that she find another place to live. For her protection, and the child's sanity, if nothing more."

Here, Kora pauses, still, her eyes level, an undercurrent of anger in her voice, this deeper thrum of it. " - if you are telling me that the Garou of Maelstrom and the Brotherhood kicked her out without provision for her, without assuring themselves that a pregnant kinswoman - a pregnant kinswoman alone in a city at war - was safely sheltered somewhere, though. Then yes, I agree wth you - but when you level your charge, when you make you challenge, focus on the egregious failure of hospitality, not the perhaps wise thought that a child would be in danger among so many Garou."

[Paul Kellogg] "This is why I ask you Kora...because I were not HERE..I were not available to rightly take care of the mate I claimed at that time. But I hear the horror of her predicament..and a horror and complaint I can't ignoe. Thus why I give you so much regard. For according to she, you and only you..not pack..not Sept..not tribe or whatever other affliaction beyond the singular were hopitable to she in a manner that had not hating and loathing thoe of this sept and Caern but seeing them rather as the focus of her angst and energy. A woman scorned if you know what I mean. However, a woman who is my MATE...and one who were likewise seemingly turned out upon the streets. Alone...without aid....a crime to our senses, of all tribes and all auspices fille. Hence, hy I speak this to you..my concerns, reflecting what I have hearead...and what I've learned. I ask you now. were it not for yourself, would my mate have survived?"

[Frost] She sips her beer, taking this all in. There's a loaded question. One likely without an answer. Frost remains quiet, her expression schooled to a careful neutrality. She has no voice here, and she knows it.

[Rain] Maybe there's a bell on the door of the Greasy Spoon. Maybe there's a squeak in the hinge, an irritable little sound that eases-aches as the door opens. Maybe there's nothing but the rush of street sound and cooler, damp air. The door opens, and a young woman enters, holding an scrap of paper in her hand and looking around as if she expected to find someone she recognized here.

She steps in, out of the doorway, brushes her long, straw-straight brown hair over her shoulder. There's an empty table, somewhere. She may have to make her way across the room to get to it. Rain doesn't look like she should be out alone at this hour of night; she doesn't even look legal.

It takes a bit of time for the conversation to filter through to her, the slip of a girl with narrow hips and bee stung lips. It takes a little time before she realizes what and who they are.

Rain unwraps the scarf from her throat, jams it into one of her pockets. She slides into an empty chair. Runs her eyes over a menu absently. Glances around again. Keeps quiet.

[Linus] The front door jangles and the sound of muttering can be heard-

"-Think a fucking bird would be grateful every so often. Bring 'em something shiny and low and fuckin' BEhold where's the fucking gratitude? Shit in a mead horn..."

The man unbuttons a long gray coat and undoes a slate gray scarf, letting them both spread out as he pushes through the doorway and shakes out fingers, like they were wet or cold. Short buzzed hair is given a scrub, like waves of frustration bleeding off in rivulets. The sharp tang of ozone clings to him, cool and frosted like the Gauntlet smells before and after the trip.

He grunts in Rain's direction, a quick glance flashed toward the little kin, slows his gait briefly while trying to find the attached Eve that should be with her, only to speed up in dismissal as he hits the front counter.

"Two coffees, black-...Kor, you want Somethin' while I'm up here?!"

Frank and without a care for polite policy, the scruffy stubbled figure at the Diner counter, receiving glares from the late night waitress for such loud tones at this time and seven hours into her current shift (mood not helped by the bundles of Rage housed at table nine), turns toward the Table of Garou and Kin and shouts at the Jarl with as much ceremony as a Frat Brother near the Keg.

[Kora] Kora listens to Paul's impassioned speech with a stoic expression that belies the sharp - perhaps even irrational - chord it strikes in her. Her body is still, her shoulders set. She's leaning over the table, her forearms braced against the edge, her coke, the lemon slice floating in the dark liquid, marooned on a sea of ice cubes, popping and hissing with the release of carbonation. Her fingers are long, fine-boned and precise, the nails blunt, scrubbed clean, faintly pink against her pale northern skin. Bracelets encircle either wrist, forgettable things made of leather scraps and fisherman's twine that change with her body when she, she-wolf, changes.

Two tattoos are inked into her skin, nestled among those bracelets. Runes: angular, ancient.

One says thought.
One says memory.

"I think," the creature says, with this quiet, sure precision in the aftermath of his passion, this counterpoint, emphasized by the half curve of her mouth. " - that you overstate what I did, -yuf. And you needn't, not to make your point. I don't know whom you have to challenge or accuse. Perhaps they will answer for themselves when you tell the story you have to tell - be sure that they cannot be sidetracked. Your grievance is not that she was asked to leave the Brotherhood, but that they made no provision for her after, gave her no aid, offered no assistance, failed in their duty of hospitality.

Kora looks up as the front door opens, and her features shift, easy. Her half-smile deepens, she reaches for the glass and lifts it toward her brother, like a toast. "How about another Coke?"

[Frost] Still sitting backwards on the chair at the end of their table, Frost glances at the new arrivals, taking a longer look when one of them seems to know Kora.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul sat back. Quickly in his chair. More disappointed now than ever. Even moreso in hi friend. He couldn't blame her. It were a political nightmare to call injustice to an entire sept. To those who'd so eagerly turn their back on a kin. A Pregnant kin at that. Release her, no...bid her farewell into the night without so much as guidance to kin or Garou who could better care for she than they....

No, this were the first time Kora failed Paul. the first time he saw her flinch and with dismay...relent. It were an eye awakening

With a shake of his head he simply groused. "For the stability of this Sept and those I know who's hearts should be judged better than this..I shall not make this an issue. I will however say foul..and claim no Garou here my ally, nor that of my tribe. And I speak for it despite whoever claims the voice of our goddess. Kora..you are excuxed from this judgement..your heart were in the correct place..so too your honor. But not the Sept....but I'd rather see it thrive than decline by espousing the selfish natures of it's individuals..I find it lacking..and thus renounce my claim of support to Maelstrom..I protect those who Garou shall not..I protect the kin they abadone...and nothing else"

[Paul Kellogg] (wow..I really can't spell LOL)

[Rain] There's no Eve. And there's no duffel bag. And there's no pocketed twenty-dollar bill, either, for that matter. Rain has found a place to stash her baggage before finding her way all the way out to the Green. Linus will find her quite alone, and shrugging out of her jacket. She's wearing nicer clothes now, perhaps lending credence to the line she'd given him about her plans for the afternoon. These nicer clothes have long sleeves, so the markings on her left arm are obscured.

She leaves the jacket bunched into the seat beside her when she wanders up to the counter to order a coffee, and half of a sandwich. She says her pleases and thank yous. She calls the staff sir and ma'am. Perhaps, to Linus's surprise, she has money enough to cover her own tab.

With her fingertips resting on the counter, and her body turned away from them, Rain glances over at the collection of Rage and people more than once. Never at any one person. Never when any one person is speaking. She doesn't make eye contact, doesn't let it linger, but there's a nascent curiosity to it.

It'll be up in a minute, the waitress tells her.
"Thank you," she says, with a faint drawl and a slowness. It's polite. Almost sweet.

She hears the words challenge, and selfish and abandon. They send her back to her table to wait. They make her that much more wary, watchful.

[Imogen] There's a brief rap on the window - Imogen lifts her cell phone in some sort of indicative gesture - an explanation, as opposed to an exact farewell. A cigarette still scissored between her fingers - and she starts away, down the street.

(sorry, guys! I gotta work again in like 30 minutes aaaaaaaaaaaand yeah. it wouldn't be fair for me to bring back in my PC and then just fade out again.)

[Linus] "Shit rots your teeth but whatever!"

He turns to the counter and perks a brow at the Waitress who returns with two black coffees. Then he lifts a finger and points at the nearby Table, jaw pushed forward irritably.

"She wants a Coke. Put it on my tab." To which the reply is a frank hand on hip and pursed lip "Anything else, your highness?"

The gaze narrows further.

"All you people here are fucking critics, I swear." The coffees arrive just as Rain gets to the counter and he narrows his gaze when she orders. A snort later and he pushes one cup forward toward the Waitress. He doesn't take a seat at the counter. Doesn't look as if he's going to try either. He just looks across at Rain evenly, a brow perked.

"That's my Sister." A sharp head jerk off in Kora and her Company's general direction.

"She's been here a lot longer than either of us. Best person to talk to about getting you and Eve situated at this point 'cause I don't know any Rats in this Town less you found some while I was out."

He turns slightly opening the way for Rain to be able to get a good look at the table. It's an invitation of sorts. Not really a command so much as it is a piece of adamant advice.

"Where's Eve?"

[Imogen] (thanks for the RP, all!)

[Kora] Kora's rage is sharper than Paul's. Half-way through is speech, it spikes. That easy, half-smile stills on her mouth, and the Jarl of the Fenrir - who is a young woman of twenty-something with messy blonde hair, in a cotton hoodie in shades of blue, some as dark as her eyes, some a sort of muted turquoise, some a dusky hybrid of the two, and a PIXIES t-shirt underneath, whose name is Sorrow and who has a single french fry in her had sets her jaw and drops that fry and lifts her right hand, making a fist -

- that she brings down hard on the table, hard enough to jar the drinks, to slosh coke all over her gyro, sambuca all over Paul's place setting, the one that describes the Greek gods and goddesses in all their incestuous glory.

"You weren't listening." That's not a snarl, that's firm, quiet statement, with a whip-like tension built into the words with the flare of her temper. When she continues even, still, low her voice sinuous and urgent.

"I never told you to drop it. I told you to call them out. I told you to do it clearly, and directly. Leave the extraneous bullshit off your story. Understand? You grievance is not that she was told to leave the Brotherhood. It is that they made no provision for her comfort or her safety after. I didn't save her from cursed ones. I made a fucking telephone call. And whover kicked her out owed that much duty to Gaia and the child - kin or true - she bore."

[Frost] She looks towards the window and tilts her chin upward as Imo mimes she's leaving. Maybe she'll give her a call tomorrow. Her gaze shifts to the interactions at the counter, the shy girl who wants to look but never meets anyone's eyes...big brother. Interesting. As for Paul's declaration, something in it saddens her. There is shame to be had here. Although who's shame, precisely, is still unclear.

[Linus] "...As you can see, she tends to be very loud at times."

A passing remark to Rain. Part joke, part reassurance.

[Rain] Or she would have, escaped to her table that is. Except Linus is dragging her away from that. He doesn't have to touch her, or do anything more than narrow his eyes and raise an eyebrow. The girl stays put, shoves her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

She leans out a little to look past him and over at the table. At Kora. The others, who are nameless still. Big brown eyes sweep over the group before she glances back to Linus with an expression that says little more than Oh.

"Eve's, um..."

Kora's fist finds the table. Rain's eyes widen; it's an instinctive reaction, a little flair of fear. Her muscles tighten. Finding her throat suddenly parched, she swallows.

"Eve's... not here."

Rain drags her attention away from the table. Back to Linus. He's making overtures that she should join them. The kin obviously does not want to, but instead she says: "Let me just get my coat."

There's a burr to her voice, a little catch in the drawl and sweetness.

[Frost] Then the fist comes down, startled, she snaps her attention back to the table... to Kora... so collected just a moment ago.

[Linus] "Go for it."

He seems distracted, motioning a nod while maintaining eyes on the Table and the company there. Some sort of argument. Discussion. Obviously heated. He seems about to head over when he notices the Waitress standing at the counter with the Coke he'd ordered for Kora in hand.

She isn't moving an inch and the look on her face is something between fearful and annoyed. He leans forward toward the counter, tapping the counter top.

"I'll take it to her."

The Coke is set down with blatant relief and continued irritation, leaving Linus to return his attention to the Table.

[Frost] These two have things to work out. Things that don't require her presence. Rising she shoves her chair back over towards the table she borrowed it from. She looks over at Kora and taps her wrist, where a watch would be if she wore one. "I'll give you a call tomorrow." He looks at Paul and gives him a nod. "Good luck with your issues." ((Player's bedtime. Work tomorrow.))

[Paul Kellogg] His jaw set as firm as her own. Deadly how a Child of Gaia could so become as stern as even she. "This is a political issue I wish not to play. Nor you should you try even. The Sept, our totem has allowed such foul beings to hold sway. I renounce all ties and claim to it. For no honor can come from it. By playing your polticial gain in court..or by being true and me. Either way shall endear the same part. No pack would have me, I've long released this...I'll treat with kin who've been mis-used, and ill-tempted. My house and the block around it shall be mind and mine alone. Rank means nothing since I now go Ronin. I shall speak my grievance to the Sept as a whole. Make them know the errors of their ways..but by martyr or not..I shall score the heat of my words that they never forget nor sway...I shall speak for those who's voice has too long been drowned in a capcophany of shriel and fanatisism. As I said..you are excused...and you...Roman and the Lord known as Lukas only shall enter my terrority without my reprisal..and do not mock me..this Coggie will destroy those who test it..for I fight for justice this Sept known nothing about..and a farity to our kin it has too long ignored...and death will not stop with the first who tries it...for Unicorn now speaks to me as my prophet...and thus it shall be. Only you three garou shall be allowed in my territory..kin though of all types need only come when abused. I shall take them in. No longer does the nation work if such travesties occure...my words..nore yours matter if they are and will remain unheared. Someone has to remind them..those elders..why position is to serve..not be served." With that Paul stood and began away from the table

[Maya] There's always an up side to cities.

They had not the freedom of the Wylder areas that she preferred but they did come with a conglomeration of narrow alleyways, side streets and tiny little nooks where one might slip out of one realm into another and drop from seeming air to land on hands and feet like a deft cat with only the startled yowling of one of the very creatures in mention as it went scuttling behind a trash bin and peered out with glowing green eyes.

It was watching the form of a young woman uncurl herself from the balled stance she'd adopted while in motion, her wrists and feet jangling. Her head was a cloud of black snarls, thick hair that fell to her mid-back and needed tending to somewhat urgently. She turned her face in the animal's direction and for a moment they engaged in the primal watchfulness of a pair of animals in the wild.

Who would move first, attack first, flee first.
The Godi waited, her smooth skin smeared in places with dirt and debris from wherever her travels had taken her this night before the cat flattened its ears and slunk away.

Courts the Storms Eye, as she was known, departed the alleyway then, her steps musical; the necklace of painted black bones around her neck adding a duller accompaniment to her other decorations. For all that the ulfr carried with her a decided lack of typical city behavior, her clothing was nothing truly startling. Worn jeans and sneakers, a man's workshirt in flannel blue and black checkers and beneath it a plain white undershirt.

Of course; when she decides the step inside the diner, eyes flick to her.
Take in the dark hair, the kohl-rimmed eyes, the strangely regal bearing for a woman dressed as she is.

[Kora] (night! grab me - likely next week? and we'll do a proper scene. :) )
to Frost

[Rain] It doesn't take long for Rain to gather her coat. She slips her arms into it, tugs it up over her shoulders in a quiet assertion that she will not be staying long. Tugging her hair free of the collar with one hand, she makes her way back across the room to where Linus is. Toward that table. And Kora Bangs-On-Tables, Sister-of-Linus.

Hands in her pockets, she seems set on keeping her chin dipped down and her eyes low until Paul's oration erupts and draws her attention upward, sharply. She draws a tight breath between clenched teeth, steps back a bit, to put herself behind Linus. To put some extra distance between her and the quarrel between the two True.

Her attention, indeed, flicks over to Maya when the door opens. Rain studies her, perhaps more openly than she ought to. Lingers a bit. Then ultimately pulls away.

[Frost] She moves aside, letting Paul pass first, then heads out, sparing the newcomers a final glance before she slips out the door and is lost in the night.

[Linus] ...Paul stands up, ready to leave after his declaration. Linus settles into place beside the table, settling Kora's coke down on the table and inching it under the Skald's peripheral view. His attention remains with Paul, even as he feels that vague shadow behind his back where Rain stands.

Things always have to come like Avalanches, don't they?

"I gotta say, Sis. This place of yours sounds like a real treat 'n half in a massage parlour, tell you." Linus offers little more than that whilst watching the Ragabash stand, his face set in a matter-of-fact sort of frown. "Your coke." He offers down to Kora, then hooks a thumb back over his shoulder.

"Got something here that needs a lil' attention if you're done babysitting the weak..."

[Kora] Kora listens intently, her dark eyes lingering on is features as he speaks. Not just his eyes or his mouth, but the movement of her jaw, the sharp bite of tension across that boyish face, the flare of indignance in that boyish - nearly pretty - face. She's older than he is by a handful of years, older than most of her rank. A late change, a life lived as an adult before the world and the wyrm came crashing through the half-open doors around her gives her a certain aura of stability, briefly broken when she jarred the table, returned now.

Look, she listens, not argung, her mouth snapped closed, a hint of fire behind her dark eyes being slowly banked. Paul rises, no longer drunk, no longer playing the fool. Kora reaches across the table and stays him just briefly - the lightest touch of her fingertips. "Maelstrom," she says, with a quiet conviction. This time, her voice is so low that likely only Paul can hear, though her brother can read, easily, the impassioned fanaticism underneath her skin. " - did not offend your mate. Keep that in mind, before you renounce the sacrifice you pledged him."

Then she lets him go.
Lets him go and looks up at her brother, this canted look, the weight of her hair swinging behind her head, the spark of rage bleeding away, though it leaves her aching in the aftermath, the back of her eyes, this yawning sense of otherness under her skin.

There's a moment where she breathes in, then lifts her dark eyes over Linus' shoulder, toward Rain, behind. The look is brief, rather even, a tillness underscoring it as her gaze cuts back to her brother. "Here?" She tips a look toward the counter, the irritated waitress, the patrons, looking-without-looking. " - or outside?"

Then she accepts her coke and takes a drink. "Thanks."

[Linus] "She's got a Warden. Couple of Rats. Just seeing if you know any in the city that are responsible for their number or if these two are on their own...."

Like sunday brunch. Like newspaper articles about the titanic. What a Shame, another day. Linus remains Frank, just like his middle name.

[Rain] She's an even five-and-a-half feet, slight but not bone-thin. The girl waiting, patiently for all appearances, does not look maligned or wronged that Kora can see. Off-put by the Rage that swirls in the room and uncertain, most definitely, but there is not an air of Lost Kin about her or a keening fearfulness.

There's wariness, and there's always the awareness that any of the could snap at any moment. Rain lived with that every day; it weighed on her whenever she was around them, but it was a familiar worry now, almost comfortable in its weight. It kept her eyes shadowed and downcast. She waits on them to sort this out until...

"Beg pardon," she interjects. "Eve... isn't my Tribe." Her voice is mellifluous, sweetly soprano. It's in a pleasant register and well honed. Quiet now, it could be louder than any of them would suspect when needed.

She glances up at Kora, then over at Linus.

"I'm actually --" She glances at Paul's retreating form. "A Child of Gaia."

[Maya] It's hard to place Maya's age.

She doesn't engender ease with the way she dresses, and the fact that she does not wear typical clothing items or jewelery as befit any particular age bracket. The bracelets on her wrists and around her ankles are metallic, with the reddish tinge that suggests they might be copper, or something similar.

She could easily have been in her late teens, or her mid-twenties.

Her face, while apparently one of calm, was none the less interested in what it saw before it. She was being observed by a female, and the she-wolf's eyes roved from counter-tops and frazzled wait staff to the Garou she smelled and finally to the face of the female glancing at her.

She was, after all, blocking the only exit.

"Hello, stranger." The voice was rich, husky yet melodic and underlined with an accent unmistakably European; at first hearing it seemed Russian. It gave further speculation to her ebony hair and those high crafted cheekbones. The slant of her brow. The breeding coming off of the petite Godi, however faint, was decidedly that of Fenris.

After she speaks, Courts the Storms Eye moves out of the door and fully into the establishment. She does not head for the counter, or to a table. She walks a few steps, stops and finds Kora with her dark eyes. There's a slow blink. She watches.

[Paul Kellogg] "A Totem is only as wise as it's patrons. For from they does it draw power. And from they both ignorance and agnst dictate it's honor. The Nation shall hear of this..that I promise you. Sept, including all...both Spirit and Garou alike shall be made accountable. Who better than I a Ragabash if need be sacrifice my life in order for those of lesser debasements to learn and improve or not for Gaia's sake. I love you Kora...you know I am not meek...only you may see the strength of my conviction here...at the Moot the Sept shall here my words, my conviction and complaints....and from there I shall endure the hositilies that shall reap upon me. This is my fight...a wrong has been done...and not this Sept..but the Nation as a whole shall know I stood protecting the rights of what we supposidly hold true as our burdon. You have my number...friend...till then, adiu" And with that he walks away

[Kora] " - and does your Rat, Li, have a name?"

The table is - well, there's ouzo spilled, and coke. Imogen's coffee in a paper cup, several half-eaten gyros, and fries that Kora is now eating from the plate that Roman abandoned when he dashed out of the diner to make sure that Miss Doctor Slaughter made it safe to her car.

Now there's another full class of coke for Kora to spill if she is of a mind to bang on the table again. "Used to be more of them, packed with one of ours under tweety bird, if you can believe that," she delivers, in that same low voice, pitched to stay close, careful. " - now, I don't know if there are any left excepting Marni, Sticks-n-Stones. I've got her man's number, if they need to get in touch."

[Kora] (eeek, sorry! my screen stopped refreshing!)

[Linus] Does your Rat have a Name?
I'm a Child of Gaia

"...What the fuck?"

He wheels around and looks down at Rain (inadvertently turning his back on Kora half-way through her diatribe. The irritation spikes slightly, even as eyes narrow again.

"What the hell are you doing with a Gnawer then? And please...pretty please do not tell me there's some sort of mate thing going on 'cause that's gonna cause you all sorts of shit trouble 'n giggle fit-"

A pause, sudden and sharp, he snaps his attention back to Kora.

"Name's Rain. Her Warden...who is a Rat by the Way...is called Eve. A little cuckoo on the uptake but a Judge and a Sin-kid. Fresh to town and...well, fuck I don't know what to do with 'em now."

Another pause. Another quick gesture of vague annoyance and Linus is turning back toward the Counter top for his coffee; This is about when he notices Maya's attention in regards to Kora, near to the entrance as the other Woman is. Linus takes a half step forward, clouding half of Maya's vision of the Jarl and asks with brow perked and no small amount of grate in his voice.

"She ain't a dyke, toots, just to let'cha know. Hard to tell sometimes but it's true, so quit your staring already and move on." And then he's coffee bound, all head shaking and mutterance.

[Kora] Something about Paul's response stills her, makes her set her jaw. Her nostrils flare, and it's not rage, precisely - just something else, underneath, the shadow of old death, the responsibility she has for those buried under the damp, sandy soil at the lake's edge, where the land and the sky remember, echo the wide, flat expanse of the prairies, some reminder that the horizon was once limited only by the curvature of the earth.

Name's Rain.

Linus brings her attention right back to the pair. Kora offers Rain an expressive half-smile, made brittle perhaps by the way memory surfaces underneath her skin, of the dead at the water's edge. "I'm Kora," alto to the slight kin's soprano, pale-haired to her dark. Tall, evident now when she sits straight in the booth, and narrow-shouldered but long-limbed. "Good to meet you, Rain. You will want Lila. I'm looking for her, too. I'll pass on word that she should find you when she can."

[Rain] Linus wheels. Rain's hands come out of her pockets, come up reflexively, are held out in front of her to ward him off (little good it might do). Her scarfs tumbles out of one pocket, puddles like faded color, lays like a limp snake on the floor.

"I... what?"

Her expression screws up into something patently shocked, and it's the first not half-way numb thing he's seen out of her since she wandered into the diner. There's a flash of something keener, a reaction that flared like protective instincts or sharp rebuttal or even just offense.

There's an edge to Rain's voice now that's colder and lower. It's a darker thing, however polite her words. It's practiced; like she's spun stories in her time, like she knows how to use that voice like a tool, like a weapon, like a shield. The edge fades out toward something more even keel as she explains, but the ice and the iron are there at the start.

"You don't know her. Eve was packmates with my last Warder. Things didn't go well for them, for any of us, and she's who I'm left with now. She's decent folk; at least she means well."

Rain doesn't say: It's not nice to judge people you've just met.

She breathes out a little. Glances to Kora and nods a bit, more politely. Then finds her tongue, which is less sharp again. "Thank you, Miss Kora."

[Maya] There's a decided curl to the lip. The dark eyes travel over Linus without a great degree invested in the outcome one way or another, for all that she was tiny in comparison to many of her bloodline, there was no fear in her perusal of any so far within the constrains of the building. Only some abiding curiosity, like a traveler confronted with the customs of a foreign land.

Some things were familiar, some were not.
The rudeness of strangers, it appeared from the manner she was looking at the boy, was.

"If I wished to bed her I would not stand and stare from afar, unknown one. You move your lips with great speed before a stranger." The voice was all smoke and whiskey, curling from her throat. Maya moves toward the Jarl now without much more thought toward the boy. She moves until her presence can no longer be ignored and stands; arms crossed over her chest.

There was expectancy in that stance, but also the acceptance that she must wait her turn.

[Linus] "Fuck's sake she sounds like Wisdom~in~Shade..."

An over the shoulder murmur, followed swiftly by a flash of 'whatever' hands cradled in dismissiveness toward Rain. The entire had gone quite upchuck rather swiftly and he seemed unwilling to partake of any courtesy surrounding the table. Kora could handle things. Would handle things. She always did.

From the counter:

"Fucking Coffee's gone all luke 'n shit too."

[Kora] "It's just Kora," the Fenrir corrects, direct and sure and perhaps more than a little resigned to being addressed as Miss this or ma'am that for whatever remains of her likely-to-be-short life. The corner of her mouth twists fractionally wider. "Not Miss anything. Just Kora." A brief, flash of a look, lingering and shrewd on Rain's doe-eyed face. "Kora Eyjólfsdóttir - " the foreign patronymic added with a hint of precision, after. " - if we're along and you're intent on being formal."

Miss is a human title.
She's not human.

"Do you and Eve have a place to stay?" Then, Maya. Kora reads the pure breeding under her skin, the blood, her dark eyes half-closing to chase some remnant memory, the shape of her ancestor's face, carved into her bones. Whatever it was, it doesn't rise to the surface soon enough. After a quick, dark eyed survey up and down - the stillness, the stories - a half-edged smile rising for the Godi, too. "Maya, yeah?"

It is an educated guess. "Good to finally meet you. Have a seat." A glance at Rain. " - you too, if you've a mind."

[Rain] She stoops long enough to gather her scarf up, twists it between her hands. Her attention is mostly for Kora, now, though she does glance over at the other two from time to time, mostly to make sure she still knows where they are.

"Yes'm," she answers, which is a step back from ma'am and [/i]Ms. Kora[/i]. She nods. "We've got a place in Bronzeville. I'm looking for work."

There's a little pause. She looks over at Linus, and his luke 'n shit coffee.

"I'll take care of Eve," she adds, "Don't worry." As if they were somehow worried somehow that she couldn't provide for her Warder. It's just the way Rain's always known things to go. She twists the scarf tighter in her hands, until it goes thin with the roping of it, and pulls against her skin.

"If y' don't mind, maybe I should move on?" she suggests. With a glance to Maya, who clearly had important business. Aside from a brief stint at her own table, Rain's been on her feet since she arrived. She's not touch the luke warm coffee, or the sandwich she ordered. She's forgotten about them. "But thank you. It was nice to meet you, too."

[Kora] "There's a bar called the Brotherhood, run by our kin, down near the docks," returns the Fenrir, briefly. There's that look again - direct dark blue eyes that touch Rain's, then flick up and down, head to toe, that sort of impersonal look, all-encompassing and brief. " - could be you might find a job there. Ask for Jennifer Coltrane, let her know who you are, and she might find you something."

Temper faded, now, coiled back into the core of her body, around the base of her spine, settled there where the pelvis meets the sarum, she's clear, controlled - easy for one of her tribe, one of her moon. Her curving mouth suggests a burgeoning sort of half-smile, some Mona Lisa thing, secretive, when she's still, distracted, but now that fledgeling look deepens, sparks some response in her eyes. "Sure," says Kora, with that ease. " - I don't mean to keep you." A glance back at Maya. " - and we do have a few things to talk about."

[Kora] (aaaaaaaaand, since I think Jacqui is distracted and it is INSANELY LATE here (I will hate you people in the morning. ;) I'm'a duck out. Such a wimp.)

[Rain] ((Thank you guys for letting me play! It was nice to meet your characters :) ))

[Linus] ...Linus returns, smacking his lips and trying to remove a taste from his mouth in the process. He glances between each of the three women present, unwilling it would seem to warrant an interruption. Rain mentions a place to stay and the taking care of her Warden and Linus catches the edge of Kora's peripheral with a shrug and a wide eyed 'Whadd'ya know' sort of stare.

Then he switches over to Maya briefly...and finally back toward the Waitress who is clearing her throat and tapping the counter where he left some money behind for the various articles of food and beverage. Apparently, not enough.

Linus scowls.

"Oh Fer Fuck's sake..." He fishes in his slacks pocket, fishing around for a crumpled up five that is unfolded and shown to the woman, before being tossed onto Kora's table unceremoniously.

"I can walk you to the bus stop..." It was an offer. At least that much. His gaze lands on Kora briefly.

"...Need to talk to you about a few things when you get the chance. I'll drop by tomorrow."

[Kora] (thanks for joining the scene! :) )

[Kora] The equinox has passed and the moon is full. The harvest moon. If not for the clouds, it would be low and fat in the sky now, just after sunset. There are clouds, though, a deep drifting bank of them, the promise of rain in the air and a sharp bite means football weather. That means - frost soon.

The church is still, and dark. Leaves are starting to change on the trees that have grown up around the ruin, shielding the view of the big stone walls from the street.

Kora sits on the steps, near the top, on the long, wide portico. She has a reasonable view of the street, the gates of the old chain link fencing put up by someone - maybe the diocese - to keep vagrants out years ago are pulled open, wide. They've been like that for years, rust stains the sidewalk. The fence is covered by twisting vines, and these are starting to turn colors, too. The leaves are yellow, the fruits falling off.

The earth turns away from the sun.

Her usual clothing is supplemented by a long-sleeved thermal undershirt and zippered hoodie in shades of blue, the colors are muted but saturated, receding in the darkness.

Dinner time. She searches through a white paper bag filled with take-out chinese, pushing past Roman's choices looking for her container of hot and sour soup.

[Roman Turner] He was waiting his turn at the bag while he sat on the steps with her. As usual he was in a hat, but it was cooler and night, the summer weight hat was replaced with a black Stetson. Brass buttons glinted faintly down the front of the open jean jacket he wore as he sat hunched forward, forearms resting across his thighs.

"Colder here than home. Confuses my internal clock, ya know?"

Not that the cooler weather bothered him, instead it just screwed with his memory sense.

[Imogen] She sees Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.

She turns her head when she feels the Skald's gaze on her. The doctor's gaze has always been direct, and it is no different with the moon full, with the Garou's rage high.

She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.

"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' in the morgue."

[Imogen] (holy crap, I didn't see Roman log in at all! *LOL*)

[Imogen] (lemme repost real quick.)

[Imogen] They can see Imogen through the chain link fence, recognizes her because of her brilliant hair, even muted in fading light of dusk, because of her stature, because of the way she moves. Her hands are pocketed in her corduroy jacket, her back is straight.

When she senses one, or the other or both looking at her, she turns her head. Her gaze is direct even at this distance, even with the moon full, their rage high.

She steps through the open gates, her flat shoes near silent on the concrete, and moves silently until she's within speaking distance. When she inhales, she can smell the grease of the Chinese food. It reminds her of Kemp.

"Cigney's dead," she says without preamble. "I ha' her body in the morgue."

[Kora] "Never developed that internal clock, not 'til after, myself, yeah?" After changing, she means. Now, that feels innate, the seasons move under her skin like water. She knows the earth the way few humans can, or will. " - moved around too much. Arizona one year, Maine the next. That screws with your sense of the seasons."

The cup of soup is open, by then. Kora's taken her first sip, tentative, and her second, deeper when she knows the liquid will not burn her tongue. Then she catches sight of Imogen's hair like a flare against the darkness, and turns, setting her cup of soup off to the side, cinching the lid back down, brushing off her hands on the worn thighs of her jeans.

There's an instinct to stand, when Imogen is close enough. That's old, embedded - some fundamental courtesy she carries inside her. - but she stays the instinct. Imogen has stopped at foot of the steps, maybe a few steps up. Standing would just make her that much taller.

Instead, she remains seated, and stills at the news, gritting her teeth, a spasm of tendon in her jaw as her rage sparks and flares, sickening, turning her stomach. Kora swallows against her gorge and breathes out, knuckles white, her hands fisted, nails digging into her thighs.

"Fuck." she says, low and sharp, with feeling, breathing out hard. Abrupt. She lifts her chin then, looks away, down the street, scene through the scrim of overgrown trees and vines. " - how?" Quieter, her voice, but no less hard.

[Roman Turner] He was just digging in the bag for his dinner when Imogen appeared with the dead news. Unlike Kora, he was on his feet in an instant, hat removed with the brim cupped in his hand, the opening pressed against his chest.

"What happened?"

[Izzy Montoya] There are any number of reasons that would have Izzy in this neighborhood, and most of them involve doors wrapped in yellow tape, victims carted off in body bags, little splotches of blood identified with white numbered markers, strong fingers encased in blue gloves to protect fingerprints found, and other such things. Tonight is no different, and the walk back to her car takes her past a certain abandoned church.

Fate is a funny thing, after all.

Her walk is distinctive - she's been accused of walking like a man, often enough, but what it is is a stride of purpose, of intent. She's aware of her surroundings, for all her attention is on the phone in her hand and the message on it.

[Imogen] Imogen's gaze fixes on the Garou on their reaction, a wariness that is far from fear as rage sparks and reactions come, sharply restrained. Roman gets the most attention - getting to his feet as he does.

But neither lose control - she does not relax, but after a moment, she answers, replying to their dual questions.

"She was found dead in a park, a knife in hand. There were multiple sharp force injuries to the front, back and side. Claw marks. S'not Garou, s'too big t'be animal." She shakes her head slightly. "Unfortunately th'wyrm doesn't keep me up t'date on their abominations."

A pause.

"The knife was soaked wi' blood and so was her sleeve and wrist. She died fighting."

She says it without sympathy - but simply as a fact that might as well be said.

[Roman Turner] He just didn't get why Kinfolk insisted on walking through the parks and bad parts of town at night, especially knowing what was out there. At the moment that irony was pushed in to silence as the person came in to sight. Izzy was not someone that sparked memory for him so when he spotted her he stepped down from the porch and closer to Imogen. Speaking softly as he replaced the hat on his head and neared Imogen.

"That's a right shame. I'm sorry for the loss."

[Kora] The world constricts, in moments like these, to a set series of reference points. Aware of her packmate, standing, close enough that her shoulder brushes his leg, aware of his rage, her own, and the moon in the sky, hidden behind the clouds, huge and round. She is aware of the way her breath frosts out of her mouth, a quiet cloud.

Cigney died fighting, Imogen says. Kora's generous mouth flattens, her nostrils flare. In the days after the moot, Kora met one of the new-come Fenrir in the Sept, among the graves, told him the story of Lexi Jonsen's death. Read out to him the names of the Fenrir dead as she circled the monuments. She died, he said, like a Fenrir should.

A good death, he judged it.

She makes no such judgments.

"Can you show us where it happened?" She remains seated, her lean frame taut. Uncurling her fists, spreading her hands out over her thighs, staring off sharply past Imogen's shoulder, before returning her attention to the kinswoman. Briefly, her eyes touch on Izzy, nearly unseeing except for the sharp curl of breeding that sparks an animal response in her, under her skin.

Then she swallows, a winging glance back to the kinswoman, direct. "I want the body, too." That's rather more quiet. "I don't want - " what, her flat mouth whitens as she bites something back. She doesn't want Imogen's instruments underneath the woman's skin. She doesn't want her splayed open on a stainless steel table, under unforgiving lights. The mere thought strikes a visceral reaction in her. She voices none of it.

[Izzy Montoya] There's something about being watched by the Garou that is distinctly different than being watched by mere mortals. It's very much like feeling stalked, like someone - no, something is watching, deciding if someone is dinner, and deciding that yes, yum, tasty flesh. The creepy crawly feeling at the back of the neck, fine hairs lifting in effort to run away themselves, spine stiffening, muscles tensing, the sudden desire to run, run far, run now...

Izzy does not give in to any such feeling. She is Fenrir. She is a decorated Detective. She is, quite possibly, insane. Either way, when the eyes of the Garou find her, she takes a breath, and looks up from her phone to find the source of her sudden discomfort, and in so doing, discovers the unmistakeble glint of fire-red hair, and the presence of the Jarl. Her Jarl, one would say. She.. simply wouldn't say at all.

She pauses, however, outside of the gate, and nods in their direction. A hello, of sorts.

[Imogen] Imogen's eyebrow arches slightly toward Roman. "Say it to yer packmate," she says, lifting her chin slightly toward Kora. "S'a loss t'her tribe."

She turns her head toward Kora as she speaks. "I can only release th'body t' her relatives," she says. "S'in the system, now, and there's only so much I can do in tha' respect." There is a steadiness to what she says; she does not flinch from this defiance.

She pauses at the question. "I can show yeh the park," she says, "and the general area, but th'body was picked up by one o' the medical examiners; they didn't see fit t'need t'ha' a forensic pathologist come out."

Both Garou's gazes flick toward Izzy as she passes them by - in response, Imogen turns to glance over her shoulder.

She speaks, then, raising her voice to be heard. "Detective Montoya," she calls out. "C'mere a moment, will yeh?"

[Roman Turner] Kora knew what he felt in a sense as he felt the anger and loss seeping across from her across the link. For his part, his soul answered with sorrow, that sick little feeling. At his age, he was still immortal, he'd not had many close to him die yet. So accepting someone wasn't around anymore, was a vague notion. Instead he sort of replaced dead with vacation in his brain.

He remained where he was, watching Izzy, though Imogen's sort of greeting relaxed him enough to reach up to the crown of his hat where he gripped it enough to lift the hat an inch of his head with a nod to Izzy.

"Ma'am."

[Kora] "Norway," Kora returns. Her voice is low, she has a stillness about her that is defined by tense muscles, by a certain promise of motion-to-come. Her voice is low and rought, nostrils flaring with something, some underlying anger that is different than the unseeing spark of rage. " - they're in fucking Norway. Ran off and left her here to sink or swim alone."

The Chinese food is cooling on the steps, mostly forgotten now. The hot and sour soup will not be consumed tonight. Maybe she'll pour it out someplace away from their den, to feed whatever animal-things make their living in the hard-scrabble industrial territory they claim. Maybe she'll drink it cold in the morning.

Breakfast of champions.

"There's got to be some kind of release they can sign, right? Let me take care of it as her second cousin twice removed, by marriage."

This has the ghost of a smile drifting across her mouth, a still one, sick with feeling. She lifts her chin, her head moving in an animal cant as her eyes travel over Roman's profile, the emotions leaking across the link clear to her.
Abruptly she stands, "Detective," greeting Izzy when she comes closer, the word flat as a board, business-like. Dusting off her hands on the thighs of her jeans, she bends over, picks up the Chinese food, rolling the opening of the bag closed before she sets that too aside on the porch, the portico.

[Izzy Montoya] Imogen asks her to come over, and after the briefest of hesitations, during which Roman nods and calls her old ma'am, she nods. "Of course, Doctor Slaughter."

She slips past the gate, and in a few long strides joins them at the steps, remaining apart just a tough, though close enough to speak without need to raise their voice. She stops short when Kora stands abruptly, and then after a moment, she nods again, this time to the Jarl first "Kora." and another to Roman.

She stops short of calling him sir in retaliation. barely.

[Imogen] Imogen glances back over her shoulder at Kora as she speaks. Once must admit, the kinwoman appears entirely cold in this. Her expression hard but unreadable beyond that. Each word quiet and controlled.

Kora is barely leashed Rage, Roman is sorry for the loss and Imogen - well.
She is doing her duty, as she sees it, to the letter.

"I'll see what I can do," she says, "but we should p'raps find a kinfolk t'receive th'remains. Th'less visibility yeh ha', the better."

Back to Izzy.

"Ha' yeh heard about the park case?" she says. "It 'appened a few days ago. S'kinfolk, and it's a veil breech," however slight.

"I've signed out th'death certificate wi' a cause o' death as 'multiple injuries due to animal attack', but I imagine there will still be an investigation." Her head tilts slightly, indicating the detective, "Anythin' yeh can do to help support my findings or at least nudge the investigatin' detective in tha' direction would be appreciated."

[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora

[Roman Turner] (oh hey, don't go in order. I mean, don't wait for me )
to Imogen, Izzy Montoya, Kora

[Paul Kellogg] The bumble-bee yellow humvee slows as it drives up the street. Pulling to a stop and park two car lengths up from the quartet. Paul steps out. Wearing faded jeans, those simple toe shoes and a solid blue tee that was form fitting.

A bright smile on his face as he steps upon the curb, heading their way. Casting a curt wave. "Heya folks...."

[Kora] "There anything you need?" this is an aside to Roman, as Imogen turns to discuss the particulars of covering up the veil-breech. Of steering the investigation, of moving things around so that the mortal authorities will be and remain satisfied that one Cigney North, nineteen years old, surfer girl from California with eyes that will be memorialized as "gray" in her official records rather than silvery, died from an animal attack. A pit-bull on the loose, some fighting dog. Doberman or German Shepherd - something ordinary, quotidian.

Something that preserves the Veil.

Kora's question to her packmate is aloud, though. Underneath, there's a faint nudge along the link, feeling Resistance's presence out there, at the Caern, maybe, then deciding in the end that there's no point in summoning her too, in waiting any longer.

This is how you go to war: in a zipped up hoodie in gradations of blue, hair pulled back, in a black t-shirt that doesn't show blood, a white thermal undershirt for warmth, that does. Standing, she reaches back, shakes her hair loose from its knot, finger combs the curling locks free, and then begins to plait it, a French braid, her fingers running expertly through the strands. " - I'm ready when you are."

Kora waits until Izzy and Imgen have finished their exchange. Then, " - if you don't mind, Detective, come with us, yeah? Could use your eyes."

[Izzy Montoya] A brow arches slightly as Imogen gives her a quick rundown, and there's a flicker of something in her gaze, unreadable and brief. By the end, though, she nods, slightly. "I've heard of it - it's not my case, but I can see what I can do." In fact the wheels are already turning. She's owed a couple of favors, it should be easily enough to nudge them in supporting the doctor's decision.

Fortunately, she's very good at her job - both of them.

Kora invites her along to see where it happened, and she nods, slightly. "Of course." Her eyes, and possibly other talents, depending on the area in question. Not that she's ever let Kora know exactly what she could do...

[Roman Turner] He was in the midst of trying to come to terms with a pretty girl just dying like that. She had set him up and shot him down cold, but he'd not wished death on her. Now he sort of felt guilty that somehow he'd made her end up dead. Kora asked and he shook his head as he wrestled with the nearly overwhelming need to have his cousin close.

"No ma'am, Miss Kora."

About that time Paul turned and waved, greeting them and he returned the wave and muttered to Kora.

"Paul's coming this way."

Like she couldn't see that herself.

[Imogen] Imogen nods slightly. "I appreciate it." She says, simply. "I'll do th'same from my end." The conversation is a brief, transitory window into something normally kept to the background. It's there a moment, then it's gone. The women have said all they need to each other. They'll work separately now, both for the same goal.

She turns her head slightly to Kora, nodding slightly, then glancing toward Paul as he approaches.

"H'lo," she says, her accent truncating the vowel of her greeting - what might have once been 'Hullo' to almost nothingness.

A glance toward his car, "Bit conspicuous for this area o' town, aren't yeh?"

Even as she speaks, she is reaching into the pocket of her corduroy jacket, retrieving a set of car keys.

[Kora] Then Paul pulls up, in his bright yellow hummer, parks it on a mostly desolate industrial street not far from the entrance to an old derelict church, built in the neo-gothic style. The building has been abandoned for twenty five years, and is surrounded by a riot of trashy trees, locusts mostly, a tangle, survival of the fittest and fastest-growing, the deepest roots in the worst soil.

He's smiling. They aren't. Imogen and Izzy are on the concrete sidewalk leading to the wide steps that lead to the portico, proper. Roman stands close by. Kora is near the top of the steps, dressed in a worn jeans and a hoodie over a thermal and t-shirt that add bulk to her frame, her arms up behind her head, rapidly plaiting her hair.

" - yuf," Kora greets Paul as he becomes visible, offers his salutations. There's no answering smile. Kora is working her way down the steps, her hands still employed twisting her braid together. When she's close enough to Roman, she brushes past him, close physical contact, reassurance.

[Roman Turner] He brushed back against Kora and followed her till he got close enough to Paul to say in a soft voice.

"Cigney's dead."

Letting the other Coggie know why everyone was so solemn.

[Izzy Montoya] She turns as Paul says hello, but she doesn't reply. Instead, her comment is for Kora, Imogen.

"My car is one block down." An unspoken invitation for those who might need a ride, as well as a simple statement that she intends to drive herself, to make it easier to hit the station afterwards. And with that, she's following Kora back to the street.

[Paul Kellogg] A quick nod to Imogen, but his smile never wavered. "Perhaps...but I liake it" Wiggling his brows at her. "Nice to see ya gain Doc" But his gaze takes on the others. Before Roman's words even registered, his smile had wavered. Roman didn't appear his happy self, and hell neither did Kora...

Tilting his head, his smile faded to nill in an instant. []"Im sorry..what? Cigney? The blonde kin? I just saw her a few days ago...how?"[/b]

[Roman Turner] "Seems she ran in to trouble in a park. Her body was found with a knife in hand. Something tore her up, but looks like she tried to fight it off."

Went down fighting didn't sound right, that was too Wild West and didn't fit with a pretty girl dying. She'd put her fingers against his skin once, touched him. She'd hugged him, surprising and confusing the hell out of him. Then she'd set him up and shot him down another time. Still it just didn't make sense, she was too young to die, wasn't she?"

[Paul Kellogg] "Well Gawd Damn, sheit...Im sorry man..what can I do to help?" Shocked, he had alittle trouble digesting the news. Never thought he'd not see her again..or hell even get a chance to use any of her skills in aiding with his hairbrained ideas. "...ya'll got any ideas who or what did it?"

[Imogen] A brief glance at Izzy, a brief flicker of smirk, "Mine as well." She says, though there is no humour behind it. Paul said it was nice to see her again. Imogen glances his way but does not respond.

At his question, she had started to draw breath to answer - but Roman says it first.

"Not a friend of yer kind, that's fer sure," she does, however, answer the last question, mildly.

[Imogen] (okay, folks, just a heads up, I need to start doing some work, which may result in long silences from me. Kind of inconvenient since Imogen's rather embroiled in the scene, but there it is! if you don't have to wait for me, please don't!)

[Roman Turner] "Miss Doctor Slaughter is gonna take us where it happened in the faint hopes we might find some clue as to what did it. Ya want to come along? I'm sure the more eyes, ears and noses the better."

He however did look towards his Alpha to make sure he wasn't stepping on Fenrir territory with this.

[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.

"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality

[Kora] (gah! ignore!)

[Paul Kellogg] "One of the reasons I came here was to chat with Kora about this kin..but that chat wont matter now. It would be remiss of me not to aid ya Roman, or your pack...I'd like to know who's responsible and do em in. Weather we liake our kin or not...we don't let em get slain. Besides, I owe Kora for her generousity with August during my absence...so Im in if ya'll have me"

[Kora] Kora's generous mouth is still; in the amber lights, the discs of her dark eyes sheen like liquid metal as she reaches the base of the stone steps and glances up, looking from Roman to Paul, to Izzy, to Imogen.

"We're going to see what we can find, and kill it if we find it." Whatever killed the kinswoman. Kora says that with an air of finality. Roman invites Paul along, and Kora shoots him a look, her pale head tilted. By now, her braid is finished. She secures it with an elastic band, a proper hair band rather than a cheap rubber band from someone's morning newspaper. "You're welcome, but there's no acting out in this. You come with us right now, That's Great, you follow when you need to follow. If you can abide by that, you're welcome."

Then, she shoots a glance at his Hummer. "Leave your ride, here. Best not to be associated with a crime scene. Detective, Doc, Roman, Paul and I would appreciate a ride."

[Roman Turner] He looked at his Tribe's man to see how his Alpha's words set with him. Then touching the brim of his hat, he followed Kora, commenting over his shoulder to Paul.

"Hope ya ain't fond of them rims."

[Izzy Montoya] She glances around. "Alright then."

She turns then, to finish the walk she had started and aborted with the invitation of the Doc. A tip of her head invites those that are riding with her to join her, but she does not slow down. They're Garou, they can keep up.

As promised, down the block is a non-descript yet obviously unmarked police issue vehicle. Boxy, brown, four door, and likely with an engine supped up more than one would think. There's rusts in spots, the doors when they get to it creak when they're pulled opened. But it runs, and it runs better than expected. Izzy says nothing, simply presses the button on the keyring she pulls from her pocket, unlocking the doors.

[Paul Kellogg] "I've left her in worst places friend" With a soft chuckle to Roman. He only nodded to Kora. He was in, he knew the drill. He might be without a pack at the moment, but he's always been a team player. Following her guidance. He keyed his pad for the alarm and locks and pocketed it.

[Roman Turner] He was willing to pile in the back seat of the car with Paul. Hat pulled off before climbing in. His brain was still chasing it's own tail in circles as he tried to make sense of the death. It still didn't seem real because he hadn't seen her broken, dead. And he was getting that bleed from Kora that made his chest tight.

[Paul Kellogg] Climbing into the back with Roman. A slow shake of his head as he let a breath out. "Fuckin kin killers..."

[Kora] The park is small. One of those half-block green spaces built by some well-meaning philanthropist. There's a name etched into a concrete slab near the the entrance to the place, though now it is covered over in graffity and bird-shirt, because after the big gift of ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars, after the ribbon cutting and the dedication that brought out all the city's dignitaries to bask in the reflected glow of Something Positive -

- the place hasn't been visited except by the grass-mowing crew. The annuals were left to die in the planting beds, the playground equipment gradually stolen or coopted by the homeless or neighboring gangs. The grass is mowed by big machines in a matter of minutes. No one bothers to pick up the crack vials or the discarded butts of blunts. The sandbox stinks of urine from the neighborhood's stray cats, the hinged lid meant to prevent that was broken the first week the place was open. There are slats missing from the park benches, and human feces in the bushes.

And a crime scene, where the alley bisects the park, cutting it right in half.

Death by dog attack doesn't merit surveillance on the crime scene. No one bothered to call in the forensic team. Now there's just yellow tape to mark the place, wrapped around the post of a non-functioning path light, and a pair of convenient trees. The path is asphalt, solid. In the dark, it is hard to see the blood. The trees here are young, slender. Planted last summer, the summer before, before the grand opening. They're growing, because their roots are in the ground.

They're growing.

They parked down the block, away. Drifted down here in ones and twos rather than as a big knot of bodies, and now Kora stands at the edge of the tape, frowning closely, searching the dark, quiet scene.

"No other bodies found here?" This to Imogen, to Izzy.

Her hands are in her pockets. There's no ease to her, tonight.

[Roman Turner] His head turned towards Paul in the dark backseat and he spoke in a low voice to him.

"So, ya got hitched, right? Got a youngun?"

He made small talk till they got out of the car, then he replaced his hat and moseyed in a round about way towards the crime scene, taking a route across the street from it so he got a wide angle on the area while Kora got a more close up view.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul stayed out of the way, though that didn't stop him from gazing around the park. Trying to get a feel for the scene himself. Though the scents he picked up were nothing he'd care to bask in.

He'd responded to Roman's questions in the car during their ride. Yes, he claimed August as his mate...Yes the youngin he claims too. That they live in a large warehouse near the Caern that once housed his pack...but since their departure it's empty save for he and his kin

[Izzy Montoya] When they arrive, she pauses before getting out of the car to add a spare firearm to holster at her ankle. She also checks the rounds in the one at the small of ehr back, before re-holstering it as well. Only then does she step outside, and lock the door behind them as they exit. They're likely glad to get out of the car - for a cop, she has a casual disregard for things like.. red lights and speed limits. Poor unsuspecting Garou....

She's quiet when they arrive. She's in work mode now, and her jaw is determinedly set. There is very little that she misses on an average day, and now is no different. However, her methods may seem.. unconventional to those that watch as she steps under the flickering tape, and sinks to a crouch. A steadying breath and then she...

....listens.

[Echo, echo, do I hear an echo? Per+emp, diff 7, reroll 10s, COME ON KAHSEENO, GIMME WHAT I NEED!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Izzy Montoya] It comes in a wave - so much, so fast, that she actually flinches, expressions flashing across her face in quick succession. There are so few that know what she can do, that understand that she's more than just a badass detective with the ability to understand a scene better than any other. She has a gift, and for the first time in years, she's using it in front of another Garou. Willingly.

alms, alms for the poor
bless you child
that's jasper a friend...
you hurt Jasper!
Is that the best you've got?
I'm ready...
You're best shot... make it count this time...


Her breath has quickened, and her muscles tense, body falling into fight or flight mode despite the fact she remains crouched where she is. The clench of her fists give it away, the grind of her jaw, the lines that mar her forehead, as she relives what happened here through sounds and voices that happened days ago.

And when it's over

the body falls, the last breath escapes, the thud echoed with another flinch from the usually steady detective, the knife clatters to the ground, and...

She opens her eyes, and snaps her head to the left, to the alleyway. She starts to speak, but her voice won't work for a moment. She swallows, and drags a hand over her face, unsurprised (yet irritated) to find her fingers trembling.

"There. About a block into the alleyway. There were three of them - Cigney took out two. The third muttered the address to someone called he called Master. He was scared shitless."

[Kora] There are limits to hunting in the city. The park is dark and quiet, but there are building all around. The trees are something of a screen for the path form the street. Still, there's no practical way for the Garou to shift her, to give in to their feral senses without endangering the veil. Kora rides shotgun, looks back briefly, her face a ghost in the darkness, as Roman makes small talk asking about August. She doesn't ask any questions herself, about August or her child, just absorbs Paul's responses with this quiet focus, immediately, direct, still.

Now in the park, she's shifted focus. Her boots are soft on the damp grass, as she circles the crime scene tape. SOmewhere in the middle of all this, she has tugged her hood up to hide her blond hair, tucked her braid down the back of the garment, out of site. Her hands are in her pockets, the knuckles white, the thumbs out. Dark bracelets circle her wrists, snag and pull on the folds of the cotton jacket, where it bunches around her midsection.

The blood smears seem directional, the Garou can see that. The police likely wrote it off to Cigney's struggles, the direction of the "dog" as it ran away. Wordlessly, Kora points to the smear, leading off toward the alley.

Hey, there's a lead. They'll just wander down the alley until they find -

- Kora turns, her chin rising, her dark eyes narrowing on Izzy as she offers details of the scene she herself was considering battleground - or perhaps spirit awakening - might be the only resolution.

It's on her tongue to ask where or how the Detective knows. There's a moment where she's still, between-times, considering.

Then, she tilts her head toward the alley. "Show me."

[Roman Turner] He had no idea how Izzy knew what had happened and got her details, infact, no one had formally introduced the Kin so he wasn't entirely sure who she was other than the names directed her way and the fact that Kora accepted her and asked for things. Though when the two women seemed to focus on the alley, he waited for them to enter before casually crossing the street to pretend to gawk at the isolated remains of the crime scene. What he was really doing was giving them a chance to vanish off the street before he followed. Trying not to look like he was following two women in to an alley.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul just blinked at Izzy. Head falling slightly askew, if not somewhat in askance towards Roman as he pitched it in gesture to the kin. Did he know what she were doing? Or how she seemed able to know this?

Staying with Roman, when the women were heading into the alley he finally asked. "Is that kin touched?"

[Izzy Montoya] It's on the tip of Kora's tongue to ask, and perhaps Izzy would have answered. Most likely, she would have said no, not now. There is, after all, a 'master' to find. Her only expression though, is a slight lift at the corner of her mouth, a wordless acknowledgment that yeah, they'll talk about it later.

Much later.

She spreads her fingers across her thighs, then braces them there as she pushes to her feet, using that anchor to keep herself steady, to regain her normal [outward] calm. She straightens her suit jacket across her shoulders, then slides her hand to the small of her back to unholster her preferred weapon. The runner was scared shitless. She is not going in unprepared.

She thumbs off the safety. Shakes her head a moment as if to clear the last of the words from her mind, and then gives a sharp nod. "Alright."

Another breath, steady now, and when she begins to walk that way, it's with her natural confidence, her long stride, her determined demeanor. Her gun remains in hand, at her thigh, ready yet not too conspicuous. She slows halfway down the alley, hovering close to the wall, and slinking toward the door that belongs to the address muttered by the terrified runner. She turns to meet Kora's gaze, and then nods to the door.

This is the one.

[Roman Turner] "Well, I bet she is. Though it weren't me as touched her."

Then they were all following in to the alley and along the way until they stopped and the Kin pointed out one door in particular. With this he looked for signs of a sentry and another way inside besides them all rushing through one door.

"Want me to open it?"

[Kora] The alley is filthy, of course. Dumpsters overrun with trash, stagnant pools of water in the deep cracks of the asphalt, broken glass glittering wherever the pools of light from the streetlights penetrate. Mostly, though, the alleys are deep in shadow, these long arrows of darkness cutting through the blocks of flats, rusting fire escapes barely bolted to aging brick. In the summer time, despite the stench, three quarters of those windows would be open to catch the faintest breath of breeze from the night air.

Now, though, they are closed, blinds drawn, despair contained, simmering inside the slatternly apartments, the flophouses, the Section 8 dumps, and everything in between.

Maybe 60% of the buildings are occupied. The rest are empty, the windows dark and mostly broken.

They have a long, dark walk down one foetid alley, skipping the puddles. Then a street to cross, quiet at this hour, the flare of distance headlights the only shadow against the still air - cool and moist and damp - that promises fog with every breath.

By morning, the city will be wreathed in it.

- another half-block.

The door Izzy indicates is not solid, not metal. It is not even locked. Just ajar. The building from behind is an admixture of construction styles - brick with likely illegal frame additions humped on the back of it, constructed in stages, layer upon layer.

D & D GROCERY is written into the cornerstone near the back, painted onto a fading weathered board above the windows. The Grocery is long-closed, and the whole building has an aura of disuse, of riotous decay about it.

The back windows, though, are blacked out. Are painted over. Kora balances on a milk crate to try peering in, assuming perhaps that the darkness is a trick of shadow and glass. She drops back to the ground, quiet then, shaking her head.

"I'd rather not go in blind. You wanna take a look, Roman?" Kora asks. Then, a sidelong look at Paul, her mouth set, assessing. She's standing on the back steps with Izzy now, her hand on the wooden door, which is three or four inches ajar, not moving it yet.

"If you're a decent scout, go with him. If not, hang back with us, yeah?"

Close to the door, there's a certain - scent in the air, a kind of foulness one associates only with slow-rotting flesh. The scent is faint, niggling really - but distinctive and noticeable.

[Roman Turner] He nodded, removed his hat that he set on a crate and just before he shifted he whispered to Izzy.

"Ya might not want to watch, Ma'am."

And began the shift in a series of tendon popping, bone shifting, disgusting sounds he fell to his hands and knees and his clothing melded with flesh and his face elongated to a muzzle before hair sprang out along his body. In short order, he stook in lupus and shook from nose to tail, trying for Blur before nudging the door open to slip inside.

[Paul Kellogg] "Decent? I wouldn't be a no moon if I were only decent. Sheesh..." Glancing to Roman. "I got your back little bro, lets go" In that moment his eyes went from blue to wolfish amber as the shift came upon him. Down into lupus, that mottled colour and patchwork pelt sprouted. He waited though for the younger's lead...

[Roman Turner] Blur
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Izzy Montoya] Roman suggests she might not want to watch, so she does. It's nothing she hasn't seen before, at any rate, and an arched brow signifies her defiance, and determination.

The stiffening of her spine suggests wariness. At least.

[Roman Turner] He also did the smart thing, he used his willpower for the gift of Resist Pain, just in case something heard him coming and knocked him upside his danged fool head. Then the chestnut colored wolf slipped inside and went to the left to make room for the wolf coming in behind him. Slinking in like a thief.

[Paul Kellogg] [blur]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg] Paul slinked in right behind him. Quietly, going to the far left...

[Roman Turner] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg] dex+stealth
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Roman Turner]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Paul Kellogg] perception+primal urge
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 4)

[Kora] Sheesh says Paul, and she gives him a look. Remembers - briefly - another battle she fought only in memory, though then, she fought it again and again and again. Her look is still, even, not skeptical but direct, written over with memory.

By now, she has a hand on the door, holding it back as the pair of no-moons slink inside. Both are lupus, now, low to the ground and the world changes around them, the scents explode against their sharpened animal senses.

While they enter the building, she reaches up, unzips the hoodie quietly but all the way, then begins shifting it from her shoulders, stripping it from her lean frame before hanging it from the concrete lintel underneath the window.

Instead the old building, a heady array of scents intertwine - blood and rotting flesh are prominent, the scent of human waste and - more interestingly - the animal musk that sings to them not of dogs but of wolves, Garou or otherwise. There's sickness in the air, rot in the bones of the building, and in between the trails that come and go the faint scent of blood that says, Cigney to Roman.

Quiet, one behind they other, the creep through the door, one behind the other. The back room is empty, an archway beyond it leads down a long hall that eventually opens up - through a hole that has been ripped in the plaster - into the storefront that was the grocery proper. Here, they catch the low sound of voices, one low, plaintative, whining. The other deeper. Threading among the empty shelves shifted all akimbo, the rows of coolers long since unused, they find at last this hint of light, the flicker of a candle, the sweep of a flashlight.

Seated in an old barcolounger that he is treating like a throne - a grizzled looking man with a terrible scar across his face, that looks like the swiping claw of a Garou, even from a distance. It gives his mouth the sinister suggestion of an unending smile. Balled, sleeping on either side of the recliner, a pair of animals, curled up, muzzles hidden under their flanks, just their animal scent - which is wrong, somehow, not healthy but twisted - suggests that they are other than dogs. Their muzzles are hidden beneath their flanks.

Finally, kneeling in front of the scarred man, a whimping man in the shapeless, filthy overcoat that is the uniform of the homeless. Even from a distance, the pair can see that his right hand is wrong, all chitinous, like a giant lobster claw. Beside him, another figure, just as human-appearance, just as filthy, head low, silent. Her scent is female, not male, blooming with both fear and rot and a sort of roiling, undercutting rage.

[Roman Turner] His fur rose along the ridge of his spine with the scents here and across the Link between himself and Kora came a mental image of all the scents hitting him along with a pure animal whimper when Cigney's blood was sorted from the others in his mind.

When they neared the front, could finally hear and see what sat in that room, he sent the message back, the location the numbers and the memory of running in to dogs that were wrong and controlled by those who were human in appearance. He had run in them before with Cigney and Imogen.

[Paul Kellogg] Eyes were focused upon the scene before him. Silent, his body stilled. Every muscle taunt with anticipation of the battle to come. The retrobution to be delievered. But as a good soldier of Gaia's arm...he waits for the command to be given.

[Kora] Kora conveys the scene to Izzy in a series of short, direct, descriptive sentences. The dogs that are wrong, the Master in his barcolounger throne. His subjects in front of them, one with a lobster's claw for a hand. She's quiet, they're still outside, in the alley.

"I told them," she says quietly, "to remain in the shadows, to get as close as they can, and attack together when we're in place, and ready to fight. If you can handle yourself, you can join us. Target the supplicants while we attack the Master. Run if things go wrong. I won't take it amiss if you choose to remain here, or - go back to your car, but if we go into battle, I'm the Alpha, and you will follow any orders I give you. You understand that, right?"

[Kora] Pick one target, Kora instructs Roman, her mind-voice clear over their totemic connection. You and Paul. Get as close as you can, and ambush them when I let you know we're in position. Imogen's not coming, but Izzy, the Detective, my kinswoman is. She's a decent shot. I've told her to target the supplicants while we take down the master and the dogs.

[Roman Turner] His eyes glinted dull amber in the faint light in here, one moment there then gone for a second as his head turned towards Paul and his ears rose to twitch and then flatten against his head again. That sleek head flicked towards the right before he split off to slink to the left, staying low and quiet as he got in to position and waited for Paul to place himself. Hoping the other wolf picked up on his signal.

[Izzy Montoya] Kora lays down the law, and the only reaction is when she suggests that izzy can't handle herself, in a round about way - and that only gets a lopsided smirk and a soft... "This isn't my first Rodeo."

It's as much agreement as anything else would be. She checks the safety is off on the gun in hand once more, and lifts her right leg so that her fingers can brush against the one holstered at her ankle. Then, a nod. She's ready.

[Paul Kellogg] Oh Paul caught the gesture. Slinking off to the right, hackles raised, teeth bared. He snuck around to ground his position where he'd leap into the conflict.

[Kora] "I just want to make sure it's not your last, Detective." Kora returns. She's serious enough tonight that there's no curving answer drifting across her expressive mouth to respond to the smirk, just a direct look of dark-blue eyes, drifting over the kinswoman.

Then, "Alright. Let's go." Like Roman, Kora shifts then. Both the t-shirt and thermal are dedicated, and she stripped off the hoodie, that wasn't, so her clothes shift and change with her, absorded into her flesh. She sinks all the way down to her lupus form, then picks her way through the back room, down the long hall way until she comes to the gaping hole in the plaster wall. There she shifts again, bulking up into her warform, the floorboards here are solid, built to hold the weight of thousands of pounds of groceries, heavy freezers, all of it. They hold undernearth her bulk.

[Kora] Kora: dex + stealth!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Izzy Montoya] [des+stealth - Kahseeno? please don't let Izzy trip on her own feet? ok? Ok.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Ancestors - Brawl!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Kora] Per + Alertness - Fagan.
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Izzy Montoya] She has no intention of this being her last - that much is said with another brief smirk, before she watches as her Jarl slips into a sneakier form, and follows as she changes to Crinos too. Izzy, for all her mouth and bravado, is a half decent sneak herself, and follows near soundlessly... finding and taking a position where she will have a clear shot or three.

[Roman Turner] Snap shift in mid-air to Hispo and flew at dog 1.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul shifts up into Hispo, leaping at dog 2.

[Roman Turner] Attack
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 10 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 17 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Kora] Dog 1: SOAK!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Izzy Montoya] inits! +7!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Kora] Dog 1: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Roman Turner] Init
+9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Kora] Dog 2: +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Paul Kellogg] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Kora] Fagan: +6 in homid.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Kora] Claw-Hand +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Kora] Stink Girl + 7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Kora] Kora: +9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Kora] Order:

Kora: 14
Roman: 12
Dog 1: 12
Izzy: 11
Paul: 9
Fagan: 9
Stink Girl: 8
Dog 2: 8
Claw-HAnd: 8

[Kora] Claw-Hand: [1. CLAW Roman.]

[Kora] Dog 2: 1. BITE Paul. Rage 1. BITE Paul.

[Kora] Stink-Girl: 1a. SPIT/HISS at Kora. 1b. RUN AWAY.

[Kora] Fagan: snapshift to Crinos! 1. Claw Kora! Rage 1: Claw Kora! Rage 2: Claw Roman!

[Paul Kellogg] 1. Bite dog Rage 1. Bite dog again

[Kora] Dog 1: 1. BITE Roman. Rage 1. BITE Roman!

[Izzy Montoya] Declare: BANG BANG BANG... and BANG! Aiming at stinky girl first, clawhand if she falls.

AKA -
1a: three round burst
1b: fire!

[Roman Turner] 1a bite claw hand
1b bite claw hand
1 r claw-claw hand

[Roman Turner] 1a bite damned dog 1
1b bite damned dog 1
1r do it again

[Kora] Kora: 1 WP - Resist Pain. 1a. BITE. 1b. BITE. 1c. BITE. Rage 1: BITE. Rage 2: BITE. Fagan, then moving on to whoever is standing.

[Kora] 1a. BITE -3
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 4

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] 1b. -4
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 5)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Kora] Fagan - Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Fagan: Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]

[Kora] Fagan: -.- (Incap!)

1c. Bite: Dog 2! -5
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kora] Dog 2: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1a bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Kora] Dog 2: Rage back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]

[Kora] Dog 2: -.- Incap!

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Dog 1: Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Rage Back!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Roman Turner] 1b bite dog
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] Dog 1: x.x

[Izzy Montoya] It is one thing to know that Garou fight. It is another to see it. They move so fast, that it blurs before normal vision, blood is flying before one has the chance to breathe, and to watch is to be distracted.

Izzy is not distracted. she steadies herself into stance, takes a breath, and fires. Three rounds in rapid burst, followed by a fourth. Under her breath she counts. "17 16 15." A pause, then "14."

1a: three round burst: dex 4 + firearms 4 + 3 = 11 - 2 (split) = 9, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Izzy Montoya] 1a: damage: damage 4 + 4 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Izzy Montoya] 1b: regular shot: dex 4 + firearms 4 = 8 - 3 (split) = 5, diff 6 (rerolls)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Izzy Montoya] reroll first damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Stink-Girl!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Izzy Montoya] 1b damage! 1b: damage: damage 4 +2 diff 6
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Stink-Gir!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Kora] Splash-back damage from acid blood - Stink-Girl on Roman
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Kora] Paul - Splash damage from Acid Blood
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] Kora: Splash Damage from Acid Blood!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak! Claw-Hand
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kora] Claw-Hand claws Roman!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] soak
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Kora: rage 1. Claw-Hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 5) Re-rolls: 2

[Kora] Damage!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[Kora] Claw-Hand Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Roman Turner] 1r bite claw hand!
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Roman Turner] damn
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Paul Kellogg] bite claw hand again with rage
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Paul Kellogg] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kora] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Kora] Claw-Hand: x.x

[Kora] A normal human being with a healthy heart in a state of moderate stress or excitement would have had 6 contractions of that powerful muscle in the time it took the battle to play out. The Garou slink through the trash that has accumulated in the den, the bits and pieces of old bodies, the array of fast-food containers and broken gatorade bottles, crushed cigarette butts, the miasmic scent in the air of animals (broken) shitting where they sleep.

Almost as one, the pair of Ragabash explode from the shadows around the mockery of a Court Fagan, the "Master" was holding with his broken ones, demanding some further tribute, some new shred of information. One takes one sleeping dog, the other takes the second, tearing them open. The animals, charged with rage and strong as Garou, will not have the chance to so much as snap teeth in response.

Sorrow charges straight across the floor, barreling into the Master, tearing him open in two-sharp bites. Blood spatters hot on the walls, soaks the barcolounger that was his throne. Rage sparks him back to life, but he does not rise again.

Izzy shoots the second of the two supplicants, twice, four rounds thudding into her body. She staggers and falls, dead, as a spray of acidic blood gouts from her veins, scoring Kora's hide. The other two have thicker skins, tonight, and are uninjured.

One by one, their opponents are put down, the dogs-that-are-not, with sharp, hinged jaws and claws like daggers, the broken human with the lobster claw. The last one is inhumanly resilient, staggering back from blow after blow that would have ended a human, even a Garou, but finally Paul seizes, and rips and his instestines come slithering out in a great, distended mass, hot and steaming on the floor.

Sorrow leaves the dog that lingers on the verge of death to Paul. She herself pads over to Fagan, Crinos now, prostrate on the floor, seizes his throat in her jaws, and rips it out.

[Paul Kellogg] Paul lopes over to the fallen dog, ripping out his throat and finishing the job. Shifting then to Crinos for the use of his thumbs. He lumbers back to the crab claw and begins twisting and turning the creatures forarm just beneath it's elbow. Eventually tearing the limb off. Wrapping it then in foul paper to carry off as a trophy should the Alpha Kora not wish it for her own.

[Izzy Montoya] Izzy does not lower her weapon, instead shifting her sights to search for a new target as they fall, one by one by one. She does not lower the weapon until after the beast that is Kora rips out the throat of King Fagan. And then, for a brief moment, her sights are on the Jarl, before she finally lowers the weapon, inch by inch, and lets her arm fall so that it hangs by her thigh, ready to reach up again.

Six seconds.

She takes a breath, holds it, and lets it out again. Only then does she holster her weapon, and turn to make her way outside for a breath of fresh air.

[Roman Turner] This place reeked of death, rot and now the sweet smell of revenge. He wanted to howl to the heavens and shook with the effort it took to hold it in. Slowly his form melted back to homid and he followed the Kin back outside to retrieve his hat while finally blows and trophy gathering took place.

"Ya done good Miss Izzy."

[Izzy Montoya] Miss Izzy. That's new. She looks over at Roman, and with less than her normal conviction and minus any and all venom, she corrects with something that's almost a smile.

"Detective."

Someone has a soft spot for southern boys - though she'd be the first to deny it.

[Roman Turner] She asked for it, just like Imogen. So as he brushed his hat off and placed it on his head, he said.

"Miss Detective Izzy, ma'am."

[Kora] There are trophies to be gathered, and corpses to clean up. Sorrow shakes her great head, wuffs softly to Paul as he takes the lobster-claw arm of the cursed man, dead now. He should take it for himself.

What follows is grim, stinking work. She harvests eyeballs from the corpses for the Hrafn, and the bones of the dead to be burned with Cigney's corpse. After the battle, she is silent, working efficiently, grimly, her eyes dry, her rage still bright inside her, in her gut, underneath her skin.

[Izzy Montoya] That gets him a huff of amusement, dangerously close to laughter. "Close enough."

[Paul Kellogg] Shifting down back into his homid form. Wrapped appendage tucked beneath his arm. A look about the place, smug with satisfaction. A glance to Kora. "I can assist with rites of cleansing....." Though an eye were given to her wounds. He'd have asked if she needed them mended...but the last time he asked a Fenrir such...he almost got struck for it.

[Roman Turner] He spent his time waiting, watching and guarding Izzy until his Alpha asked for him. Small talk, he was fair at it. And he had every intention of trying to heal Kora, even if it meant waiting till she was sleeping and denying any knowledge of it.