Ornature

[Kora] The warmth has returned; what there is. The heaters in the little living room area - with its scattered couches and folding tables, a take-out pizza cooling on one of them. Sofie has a beer if she wants one. Kora's drinking a hot chocolate and eating a bag of baby carrots dipped in baba ganouj, eschewing the pizza for the moment. The snow has stopped by the out beyond the reach of the heaters is still cold enough that you can see your breath when wandering down the nave to the chancel.

Kora retakes her seat, pulling a blanket around her shoulders as she reclaims both mug and carrots from where she casually left them on the stone floor, with its marble inlays. There's a subtle pause, Kora's dark eyes touch on Sofie's face. The kinswoman had received a note at the Brotherhood that said simply: "Let's talk. Kora." in clear, precise handwriting, more angular than one expects from a young woman.

There is a certain directness about her, the way she studies Sofie openly. Her face, her eyes. The knuckles of her hands, wrapped around a beer bottle if she has accepted a drink, and then flicker back to her face. "I'm not sure where to start with this. Is someone mistreating you, Sofie?"

[Sofie Janssen] Two nights ago Sofie had been in a minor brawl. She had told Roman the details the day after. Her cheekbone and jaw show a little discolouration from bruising, and her right knuckles have heeling gashes from someone's teeth cutting through the skin. Otherwise she's perfectly fine, and doesn't seem bothered by it. The story was simple. Took a swing at a guy who actually hit her back. At a pub in the Mag Mile. She bailed before authorities could come or anything of the like. She didn't make a big deal of it and hoped nobody else would.

Now she is sitting, not with a beer, but a water or a tea with the Jarl of the Get of Fenris. The question has her brows hitch an fraction and drop again. Her gaze is direct, too. "The definition of mistreating hard to pin down," she tells the other woman quietly. "But not really, no. I don't feel mistreated. Not respected, yes."

[Kora] Kora makes a low sound in her throat. It's quiet. She's not eating now, but the bag of carrots sits open in her lap, the plastic torn out rather than simply and efficiently cut, to get at the vegetables. She has a mug in hand that smells sweet and still faintly warm, a leg tucked under her body, the other on the floor. Her boots are set beside the couch, and she's in her stocking feet.

A cant of her pale head, that alert look, the movement of light across dark eyes. "Why is that?"

[Sofie Janssen] "The views on kinfolk. The very poor views on Kinfolk from some," Sofie answers and take a sip of her water. There's caution in the way she's talking and in her features, which are tensed. Lowering her water, she rests it on her thigh and quiets, to see where this is going.

[Kora] If Sofie had seen her two nights past, pacing the nave in furious repetition, so soaked in anger than her brother - her Godi - tugged her away and nudged her to hunt, to spend some of that rage before it unbalanced her somehow; or worse, did some injury - physical, psychological - to her unburn child, she might be all the more tense. Aware. Concerned.

That's gone. Soaked away, sewn back underneath her fine pale skin. There's a flicker, blonde lashes over dark eyes, a subtle movement of her chin that seems to say, go on.

"What views are those?" - asks Kora, her voice low, and even.

[Sofie Janssen] "That we're lesser. That we don't even deserve the smallest bit of respect. That it's okay to poke and prod at us until we're angry and frustrated, and then it's all turned around on us for talking back. That it's us with the problem." Sofie's words are low, but not soft. They are even.

"You know where I'm from, we're seen as more then playthings, or paychecks, or whatever. You know? We're the ones that look after Garou, take care of them, teach them, until they come into their skins. And it feels like, for some Garou I've met here, they forget all that. That we're just, I dunno, second class."

[Kora] Kora breathes out, once, soft and quiet. A half-withheld breath a repressed - something, neither a laugh nor a sigh, but a sound that was formed somewhere between the two. Dark eyes remain rapt on Sofie's features, watches as the young kinswoman speaks. There's a certain tightening in Kora's jaw; like a spasm, a pull of muscle beneath skin - tendon against bone.

"I'm aware of what our kin mean to us, individually, as a tribe, and as a Nation. I don't think that you are second class; but there is a hierachy I cannot undo. We've wolves. You know this. I need to know what makes you think this, Sofie - specifics. Which Garou treat you disrespectfully? What offense have they offered? A slander against your honor is a slander against mine, and I take that seriously."

[Sofie Janssen] "I didn't say that it was you, Jarl," the Kinfolk answers a little flatly, her mouth turning down with disapproval. "I think this whole thing is being out of context." It takes her a lot not to fold her arms and sit there like some sullen teenager. This is not who she is or what she fights for, or tries so hard to make a stand on.

"I spoke with Roman and Erek about the way that Kinfolk have been treated, what I've witnessed here with my own eyes. It's very different to home, and I get that it's going to be. This is the whole reason why I'm here in the first place, to experience the world out of the isolated upbringing of being with a certain .. . uh class? No, that's the wrong thing, but you know what I mean.

And, I've been here when Linus mouths off about Kinfolk. That night when he was giving lip about a Kinfolk being able to make a fire not only shoot or fuck. Or Remy giving shit to Rain and Jackson, wasn't it? because they weren't too happy about him. Hell, even Remy when he mouths off about how he hates Kinfolk knowing the Litany."

"And," here she's sitting upright, almost leaning forward with the way her spine straightens and her shoulders squared out. She's getting a little fired up now, her blood coming to the fore, "then there's Erek, and he's not the only one that does it. But he specifically states he's coming out of his way to annoy me, and then he starts poking me, and won't listen when I tell him to quit it. Like he has every right to do what he wants, just because Kinfolk can't fight back. Because there's a hierarchy and so, we're nipped at, shoved at, and generally treated like we can't do shit, because we're effectively lower than omegas."

Breathing out, she sighed and scrubbed her hands over her hair. "I'm just frustrated, Jarl. I'm really just frustrated. Because it's like most Garou forget that, well, I already told you what I thought before."

"It's just a simple lack of courtesy and it pisses me off."

[Sorrow] Kora sits there, dark eyes trained on Sofie as she begins her story. The expression is reserved; maybe there's weariness there, the barest hint of it. Maybe there's tension in the unusual flatness of her mouth, the way she holds her lips together. The way she breathes, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Then she reaches up, rubs a fine fingered hand across her brow, eyes closing as she considers the charges Sofie has laid out, one by one. A rueful twist of her mouth when she mentions Linus turns grimmer when she mentions first Remy, then Erek.

"Sofie," a lifting glance, finding the kinswoman's features. "Erek, Linus, Remy - they are all cliath Garou. At a traditional Sept, they wouldn't be allowed anywhere near a kinswoman like you. Not until they've managed to prove themselves worthy of a name greater than the one they've each earned, of rank, of the right to challenge for and claim a kinswoman. Not unless you were a sister, a cousin, and even then - " a gesture, out toward the city. "Not like this.

"Linus - he's a Godi. Spends 23 hours a day on the other side, haranging Hrafn and trying to outwit or outrun Surtur. Fenris' brood isn't sweetness and light, and he wasn't made for courtesy. He carries it with him back here - but it shouldn't matter to you what he thinks about you or other kin. If it bothers you, you have the chance to show him wrong.

"If he goes too far, let me know and I'll deal with it. But otherwise - think of it as a boxing match. He can't hit you to see what you're made of, but he can toss shit back and forth. Like those - insult games, you know? That people play. It's another way of measuring you, wit for wit.

"And if he goes too far, remind him where his next or last meal came from. Or just feed him, and he'll shut up long enough to get a word in edgewise. It's not that Linus or Remy don't respect kinfolk.

"They don't respect anyone. Remy's looking for a beating, he's itching for it. Pushes whereever he can and reacts like a - like a cub trying to be king of the litter. Maybe there's more to him that that," a faint shrug; he's been on her mind. The way he looks at her in her own territory; the glitter of disrespect in his eyes because she has not responded to provocation with violence.

There's this - narrow spasm of anger that crosses her features, here. Dark, even.

"And Erek," a flicker of a look, back to Sofie here. Assessing. " - said that you provoke him. That you claim that Garou here all think that you're trash, and treat you like that, so -

"I can't beat courtesy into them all."

[Sofie Janssen] "Wait, that's just an excuse." Oh yeah, some of what she says really stirs her ire. Sofie sits up and had even went to lift a finger to point then curled it, remember who she was speaking to and lowered her hand down to her thigh, restrained. She breathes in and looks somewhere else, jaw filled with tension and eyes glittering in hardness.

This passes though, or at least some of it, by the time she looks back. "You want me to reward bad behaviour? Shove food into their mouth when they're mouthing off? Oh here, its okay that you're talking trash about your own Tribe, but have a muffin? The fact that they have rank, should mean that they actually have some sort of honour and don't act like cubs, if you ask me - which you're not, but I'm just saying."

"Clearly I am from a different Sept, and I have to accept that. I get that, too. I even get that this is my hardship and journey and just what my folks set out for me to learn. But if I'm going to be pulled in front of the Jarl anytime I disagree with them, I'm gonna end up shutting my mouth. Because I'm in no place to say shit, or do anything other than accept the place of where they aren't getting beatings, where they can just mouth off to the point where folks won't come around here, in this safe place you have, because they won't even feel welcomed."

"I don't want my words twisted around to something they are not. I am not set out to whine and bitch, I'm trying to bring up a point. That you can't have a welcoming wagon on one hand and saying that all is fine and good, and that we're all family and look out for each other when, so far, the Garou here of my own Tribe are treating me worse than Bone Gnawers would. That's got to say something in general, don't you think? I'm not even talking about breaking biscuits over tea, Jarl, I'm just talking about respect. And don't even say anything about earning." Her breath had sighed out at the very idea that they might even go down that path.

"As for Erek? I provoke him did I? He follows me around Jarl. I have been nothing but nice towards him and when shit doesn't go his own way and I tell him to back the fuck off, he goes and storms off and tells you I provoke him? That's a load of shit if I ever heard it." Her tongue licks over her front teeth and the flint is back in her eyes. Her gaze is more direct now. "I have said that Garou here treat Kinfolk like trash, maybe not in those words, but yeah, I won't deny that. I told him what I'm telling you now. How that is provoking I don't know. But why don't you ask him about showing up to my apartment, and how he left the moment I told him he can take his hand off my shoulder. Or how I walked out of the Brotherhood common room because he wouldn't stop trying to touch my feet when I asked him, several times, to stop it."

"That's the problem, Jarl. There's Garou that push Kinfolk like that, and then they turn it all around and say that Kinfolk can't take a joke. Or that we hate all Garou. I have a right to my own personal space, and I have a right to be respected, too, don't you think? If someone was going to annoy you, you'd bite them and they'd back off or you fight. What are we meant to do? We ask someone not to do something or treat us that way and we get scoffed at. This is my issue here."

[Sorrow] There's a certain - patience - about Kora, rare among their tribe. Her features are still, the tension still written there, though mostly the signs of it are unreadable for Sofie at least, who does not know her well.

Here and there are moments of reaction. A twist of her hand in the nap of the blanket pulled around her midsection, a flash of teeth behind a generous mouth, a half-withheld, mostly subsumed suggestion of a snarl that settles back into that - watchful stoicism and gradually decants into stillness.

When the whole of Sofie's passionate speech is finished, Kora sits forward on the couch, unfolds her legs, plants her stockinged feet on the cold stone floor and leans forward, elbow on her thigh, pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and middle finger, index finger touching her brow, just this sound like a sigh exhaled as it flares her nostrils.

She sits like this - almost like surrounder - for a solid minute, the knot of her hair falling over her right shoulder, half-uncoiled, the fine strands catching on the teeth of the open zipper bisecting her hoodie.

Just breathing.

At last, she straightens, pushes herself up from the couch, this little rocking motion at the beginning to get the momentum necessary to stand. Then she's standing, moving, pacing, letting her blanket unfurl on the floor before she tosses it aside, careful not to left the trailing end brush against the bright hot ceraminc element of the electric heater.

"You haven't been pulled in front of the Jarl for disagreeing with anyone, Sofie. I heard that you had concerns about the tribe; I thought that someone might have been mistreating you. I wanted to hear from you what they were, whether I need to intervene with the Garou.

"I - "

A pause, she opens her mouth and closes it. Breathes out again. "I am going to speak with Erek. He isn't welcome to touch you unless you invite it or he offers an honorable challenge for you, and I will remind him of that.

"But beyond that - " a gesture, nearly helpless, a brief spasm of her hands opening. "There's nothing here for me to do. Sofie, Garou - are not - always nice. They aren't always respectful. Some of them are honorable, and some of them are cruel. Some of them are so bound by rage that they stink of it.

"If one of them offers you offense - impugns your honor, whatever that may be - you should bring that to me. Your honor is mine, and I will defend it. The rest," a twist of her mouth. " - you have to be stronger than that. You have to be strong enough to weather the bullshit that Garou throw about. You cannot control what they say to or around or about you; just how you react to it. Strength isn't loud, Sofie. It's - "

A frustrated, narrowing movement of her mouth. Kora shakes that away. She's still pacing, frustrated, moving about the narrow space like an animal on a leash. "Listen. This, where you take a handful of things you don't like and make it into something else - Garou treat you like trash, or you've not been welcomed here - This is a choice you make. How you take things it, how you make them bigger than they start off being. It's like a snowball turning into an avalanch. You make them part of you, or you make your judgments and then you let the rest go.

"I'm not angry, Sofie. I'm just frustrated. I hear you, here, now, and I think in 20 years you're going to be like Izzy, volatile, reactive, alive to every possibility of offense. I don't want that to happen," a twist of her mouth, " - but if you are so ready to make judgments, so ready to read deeper into the trash talk of a bunch of adolescent male cliaths, I don't see what else can happen."

[Sofie Janssen] "No. It's fact. I never said that they treat me like trash. I have said that some Garou treat Kinfolk as lesser and that somehow that means that they are not deserving of respect. I really don't think you're hearing what I'm saying."

"I am strong. But I am also opinionated. I have a voice and I use it. I am not afraid to say what I see. How is that weakness? That does not mean that I do not weather what is said or how I am treated. I am not turning anything into an avalanche. A spade is a spade, and I'll call it a spade. I won't give it an excuse.

"And you've said so yourself, that they don't respect anyone. How can you let that stand? Someone needs to put them into their place if they are wrong. If nobody does that, then they will keep doing it, and if you're fine with that, then that's your business. You want me to shut up about how I feel, tell me why I should."

She's still sitting through all this, and her voice has lost the anger. She's sounding more reasonable as she goes along now, defending a concept rather than herself. "I don't know whether you're insulting me by comparing me to Izzy or not. I suppose in that light of sense, maybe I should compare you to the other Garou I'm talking about then. That's about as fair judgment as you're giving me here."

"I don't hate my Tribe. I'm disappointed that they don't remember who raised them before they grew fur and balls. And I'm allowed to have that opinion because you can't tell me that I'm wrong. That a Garou gives more respect to their family and Kinfolk before they change. And maybe I don't understand cos I'm not Garou, and I get that. But that doesn't mean what I say is invalid."

[Sofie Janssen] "I don't hate all Garou. I don't even hate these Garou. I think less of them compared to those Fenrir I do know, that act way better than some that I've seen here. I know you don't like that and I don't expect you to, or any of the others. But that does not mean I am holding you responsible for that, I think the others should be held to their own actions. But you are the Jarl and you did bring me here to question rumours whispered in your ear by a Garou that has went out of his way to, and these are his words, annoy me."

[Sorrow] "I let it stand because there's a limit, Sofie, to what I can do. Whether or not a Garou - in your opinion - shows you proper respect is a minor issue. We're a Sept at War. There's a Hive in the north. I have territory to defend, a totem to appease, a tribe to lead, and a baby that I would like to give my mate the chance to raise, without tearing open a Garou's throat for the perceived disrespect a kinfolk sees in a Garou's actions and chancing a goddamned frenzy from a cliath in return.

"This stuff - half of it is bullshit. Linus blows off steam, makes a crude remark, and you decide based on your vast experience that he has has no respect for kin, that he doesn't remember where he came from. You take it and you put it into a pot, and you wait for something else and you let it simmer. That's what I hear from you right now - grievance after grievance in a handful of weeks, in a few passing nights.

"Listen to yourself, your judgments are as rigid as his, and just as based on - what? An overheard remark, a passing conversation." A sharp exhale, breathed out again. "We're done, Sofie. I will speak with Erek. In the future, I expect you to come to me if a Garou - Fenrir or otherwise - takes unwelcome liberties. Offers you some offense. If I don't know about it, I cannot correct it."

[Sofie Janssen] "Hey, Erek." The words aren't flat, and they are quiet, but not necessarily soft. Soft isn't something that's associated with her other than the feel of her skin, or the promise of underlying organs.

Her pale eyes drift over his face, back over his clothes and to the ink peeking out along his stomach, and slowly flit back up along his clothing to look at his eyes again. It's strange, watching someone that's effectively upside down. For the first time, Sofie's expression is harder to read. There's a small etched frown between fair brows and the edges of her mouth are neutral rather then shifted up or down.

Then she breathes in and lifts her chin, looking away and over to the television to see what it is he's watching. "I thought someone left the tv on," she says, in way of explaining why she's just come to stand there. She hadn't expected him or anyone to be in the room.

Her sweatpants are comfortable, loose, the sort worn for actual running or working out. The colour is a light gray, and her t.shirt is a baby blue, and even in its soft shade, her eyes are still paler than it. Neither item is meant to flaunt a figure she may or may not have any them. But its less clothes than he's seen her in yet. She's tall and lean, with a definite curve of a hip and bust that heavy winter jackets hide.

[Erek Skulason] *He's got the Cartoon Network on (which may or may not be typical of him), animated figures flicker across the screen in speed lines and outlandish body types. It figures that he would have a secret fondness for anime. But Erek wasn't paying attention to it, he was focused on Sofie, he actually misses the highlight of the story's plot line that it had been building up to for the past twenty minutes.

She hadn't been expecting him, or anyone's presence for that matter. It turns the corners of his mouth down, he removes his gaze from her frame, tosses it back on the television as he shuffles his position on the couch, attempting to get comfortable. He finds it difficult to do so, uncertainty budding up inside of him*

You probably saw me get my ass kicked last night, I imagine that must've been pretty exciting to see. Two against one. Felt like I got pummeled by a freight train with that fucking Gnawer rearranging my organs.

*There's a bittersweetness resounding in his words, the humiliation of what happened to him still hanging in the air. He rolls his shoulders into the cushions*

Don't have any place to stay and figured the couch is better than sleeping in the snow.

[Sofie Janssen] Swinging her attention back to him, she watches his face as he recounts what happened the night before. It makes her brows hitch a fraction of an inch. "Nah," she murmurs with a thoughtful purpose of lips, "I didn't see it. I caught the tail end of you being carted out the back door when I was coming in."

"John snarled at me to get going, so I didn't stick around." This is added with less thoughtfulness and a little bit of flint. "Glad you're alright though."

Moving from where she's standing, she steps so that she's facing him, between the table and the couch, but lower so she's not blocking his view of the television and is actually now looking up along his body at him. "You wanna talk about what happened, or leave it there? And you can always stay here at the Brotherhood. If there's no spare rooms, you can camp out in room seven." Where she is.

[Erek Skulason] *Erek had braced for the worst with Sofie, anticipated a conflict to stir because of the way they had been around each other in past encounters. He coughs, surprise edged into his features, pulling his eyebrows up, making his eyes widen and his jaw drop when she offered to allow him to camp out in her room or what he presumes is hers. He knew she was staying here and had been wary about running into her.

He lifts his head off his arm, legs pulled inward to bend as he swings them down to plant socked feet on the carpet, his torso swung as he sat up. Hands run through his hair, shaking it out, causing it to lay any way it wanted to on his head. He leans back raising his chin to look up at her*

I really don't want to discuss it. It's kinda one of those embarrassing guy things we don't want girls to know about. Doesn't look good getting my ass kicked, not very impressionable.

*His chest lifts, air exploding out of his mouth in a husky laugh as he speaks* I wouldn't mind a place to put my stuff. I'll remember to keep my hands to myself.

[Sofie Janssen] Following his movements with her eyes, she didn't say anything until after he had, speaking about impressions. A shoulder lifts in a quick shrug. "Can't always be the big wolf." She doesn't know what happened and doesn't go and try and figure it out. He had said he doesn't want to talk about it and so she doesn't. Instead she had offered that some battles had to be lost and said in such a way that it was a fact, that there isn't any need to be ashamed about it. At least that's how she meant it.

Nodding once, she accepts that and begins to walk out from between the couch and table, back around the edge of the couch where she had first appeared. "I reserve the right to kick you out of the room if you don't behave," she calls out quietly.

"Going to put my washing on." He could come. He could go and put his stuff in room seven, or stay where he was. Either way the Kinfolk was walking into the hall to pick up her laundry bag and turn left into the laundry which was just by the common room.

[Erek Skulason] *Some battles were meant to be lost. Can't always be the big wolf, she says to him. Erek sucks in a deep breath, feeling as if his nuts just crawled up inside his body. She says it in a way that tells him not to be ashamed, and yet it's still there under the surface. He was a Get of Fenris, shit like this would've been considered a sign of weakness. His uncle would have taken him out back and beat him to near death for losing*

Deal.

*It's the only thing he can come up with, agreeing with Sofie about reserving the right to kicked him out if he misbehaved. He watches her exit the commons, leans down until his chest touched his knees to stretch a hand out to grab his bag and boots in one hand. The other plants down on the couch, supporting his weight as he rose up and begins to follow after her*

[Sofie Janssen] In the laundry room, Sofie is pulling out clothes and stuffing them into a washing machine. She goes through the motions of adding some detergent, not much and only after she's checked what sort of detergent it is that they use here. "If you have anything that needs washing, toss it in here with these. I don't have any whites." Which means she's not worried about running colour dying her clothes.

If he puts clothes in or not, the lid is shut after and her laundry bag is set on top to show that it's being used. Brushing her hands over the back of her sweats to get off any detergent residue, she turns away from the washer to look back at him. "You want to put your stuff in the room? You can see with the folks that run this place if there's any spare rooms or beds tomorrow. Bit late to annoy them now."

[Erek Skulason] *Erek stands in the entryway of the laundry room, his eyes on her to take in her movements, even the most domesticated thing she does seems to hold his attention. He inclines his head to the side, resting it against the wall. The strap of the bag rests mostly in his palm as it dangles against his knee, his fingers hooked into the boots of the same hand that holds the bag. He shakes his head, almost cringing at the idea of throwing his own clothes in with hers.

It felt too personal*

Nah, they're clean. I'd done some washing before I was thrown out of the other place I was staying at. Figured the Broho was warming than staying at the Church. I grew used to living indoors with an actual bed instead of a wood pew with snow for a mattress.

[Sofie Janssen] "Where were you staying before?"

Since he's standing in the door way, she hangs back for the moment. Leaning into the washer behind her, she sets the heel of her palms on it, with her backside resting against the side. The sound of the water pouring onto the clothes is dimmed by the closed lid, but it's still a background noise that's a little louder than she expected in this small room.

She's watching him. Her gaze is steady, locked onto his face. For all their previous run-ins, there's only a mild tension in the back of her mind, and an expression that's he's come to know as hers being quieter in the background. Like that time at the Church when there were people talking and he was throwing her looks.

[Erek Skulason] *Sofie finds herself trapped in the laundry room, she would have to walk past him, likely get close enough to brush against him in order to exit. He doesn't take his eyes off of her, not with the way the intensity of their color seems to shift, almost darken. Erek isn't good at hiding his emotions, sometimes he can joke around them, play the idiot and be unpredictable, but when's he troubled. He's transparent.

The young Get of Fenris becomes tight-lipped, he doesn't want to answer the question as he assumes it'll bring conflict*

I was staying with a kin that was kind enough to take me in. Her tribe felt it was inappropriate for me to be there as she's unmated, it wouldn't look right with just us there living together. Even though, I never touched her in any intimate way. She was like a sister figure to me.

*He pushes off the edge of the wall, stepping back into the hallway and turns to look around, he jerks his head off to the side* You want to show me the room, Tyr?

[Sofie Janssen] There's a snort from her, and a smirk that she can barely suppress. "So you were staying with Drew." Seems that the word about that Kinfolk has got around easy enough. The Tribe isn't many numbered and there's some gossip on the grapevine. Her eyes glint as she pushes from the washing machine and begins to walk towards the doorway to walk after him.

She doesn't say anything else, just moves past him if he was waiting on her to do so, or nods with her chin down the hall of he doesn't, giving direction of where to go. Room seven was at the end of the hall and around the corner, behind the bathroom.

"We're gonna be leaving the door open," she adds, as an afterthought, letting down some ground rules.

[Erek Skulason] *There's a fire in his eyes that lights up when she says that. He arches his eyebrows at her, staring after Sofie as she walks past him. He pushed away from the wall, shaking his head as he keeps pace behind her, never overcoming her speed as they walk down the hall to room 7. She starts to on about ground rules and Erek clucks his tongue loudly, interjecting*

Just tell me when your work hours are and I'll sleep when you ain't here. I'm sure as fuck you ain't going to want to see my naked ass anyway, and obviously don't want me watching yours.

*He can't help it, it just comes out. His eyes skirt away to the other doors, not bothering to lower his voice as they make their way down the hall*

[Sofie Janssen] "I sleep here at night." When most Kinfolk sleep. She's not out hunting things at night. "But I wouldn't sweat it," she goes on to say, pushing open the door to room seven, which was already left ajar, "like I said, I'll ask tomorrow about spare rooms."

The light is flicked on as she walks in. Aiden hasn't been around anytime she has. He may as well not exist. It's Sofie's suitcases at the end of her bed, stacked neatly side by side. Her jacket is on a neatly made bed. The blankets are folded down at the top, pillow in place without a head crease on it. Hiking boots are tucked under the bed, side by side, and next to them are some jogging shoes. Her scarf, hat and gloves sit on a suitcase and anything else of hers is packed away.

"Put your bags down somewhere."

[Asha Singh] Someone's stomping up the stairs. Walking down the hallway, with a deliberately heavy tread. Maybe it's an excess of energy, this deliberate choice the slight creature makes to make so damn much noise. Maybe she's just childishly pleased with cowboy boots she's wearing. Complete with spurs.

Some people have more money than sense, and Thomas will ensure that these new shoes have disappeared tomorrow.

For now, though, the dignified, long-suffering butler endures, with dignity as he always does. The pair sweep by the open door to Sofie's room, trailing the scent of cold and something sharp and sweet underneath it, with a hint of wooded musk. There's a door somewhere down the hall, open and shut: "SORRY!" shouted. Another door, "I think that's the bathroom, ma'am - " and finally, what seems to be the correct room.

Some whispered conversation, some foreign language.

Five minutes later, they're going the other direction. "I don't know that they'll agree it to, ma'am, but of course I will ask whether we can replace all the furniture."

"It's so - "

- and, stomp stomp stomp, the jungle of fucking spurs on the rises of the stairs, stomp stomp stomp through the kitchens, stomp stomp stomp, out the door, into the bitterly cold night.

[Sofie Janssen] A small huff is amused. She watches him take off his jacket, and while he's leaned forward, takes the opportunity to shift the way she's sitting so that her knees are to one side, resting into the back of the couch, and her spine is straighter so she doesn't feel like she's eating a kneecap. While there had been plenty of room for the Garou to sit elsewhere he had decided to sit right next to her, which doesn't bother her as much as it might others, understanding that Garou have different boundaries to humans.

"Yeah, more or less. Some of the girls here give that impression to tell you the truth." Shrugging a shoulder, she's back to watching his face, his grin. Her own doesn't come then, though, because she doesn't think much of folks like that.

[Hunter] He raises eyebrows to that comment, lips curling with incredulous amusement despite the fact that hers do not. It has been awhile since he heard a kin-folk talking about the others around her like that.

"They ain't so bad, I mean not all of em'. Some good ones n'here for sure. I ain't ever seen not a single orgy in here before if it makes ya' feel better."

[Sofie Janssen] "Really?" The look she gives him is complete disbelief. Not at the orgy comments, but at the not so bad part. Her look is wry, and her low chuckle matches it. "Please. The first time I walked in here, you remember that girl giving you and John the eye? I know you saw her. Pretty as a doe."

This sort of talk needs beers involved.

"But I'm glad to hear about the orgies. Even if there was, at least I have a decent headset here." Lifting the player for emphasis then tucking it into her sweatpants pocket with a chuckle. Sofie certainly does not seem to be the type like plenty of others. She hasn't given out a single come hither vibe to anyone. Then again, don't Fenrir go about it differently? Probably punch someone in the mouth before kissing them.

[Quinn] It's early yet for the owner of The Winchester to be returning to The Brotherhood, but then she went in earlier than usual. And on a slow, cold winter night like tonight, they didn't need so many people manning the tavern.

So Quinn bundled herself up against the cold, and she made the trek north to the place that, for now anyway, is home. She's been around for a while, has already showered away the smell of the bar and changed into clean, dry clothes. Voices in the common room, faint enough to be acknowledged but not loud enough to be understood, draw her out at last.

The two out there hear a door open, and then there she is, dark hair twisted up into a clip, dressed in a t-shirt and black cotton lounge pants. They can see the trail of birds winding its way up her right forearm. Hunter may notice that her ears are bare.

She stops in the doorway leading into the common room with a, "Whoa hey." Then she frowns, wears an expression that openly wonders if she's intruding, especially when she catches orgies. She quirks a brow at Hunter, an unspoken question there.

[Amunet Trujillo] She doesn't exactly stomp, but she's no graceful thing either. A career as a ballerina is definitely not in her future. Coming down the hall from her room, she glances around the gathering area and scowls deeply as something is muttered just under her breath.

[John] John comes up the stairs not like an ogre or another mythical beast but like a soldier, his steps controlled and purposeful, boots clomping but not crashing against the wooden stairs as he ascends. Behind him, there is little din from the kitchen. His Rage is half its normal strength, hardly the overwhelming wall of anger and nerves that it tends to be. It doesn't cause the senses to scream and the ironclad to shy away, though humans, the majority of them, still cannot tolerate him.

This is nothing new. He cannot even understand humans, let alone begin to know how to tolerate them.

It's cold as hell outside, cold enough to kill, and when John arrives at the top of the stairs, he looks somewhat frozen. Compared to last night, he does not look as though he wishes he were dead; his lips still have a bluish tint to them, and his skin is pale as the moon overhead. There are blisters on his hands that he popped hours ago, draining into the bathroom sink at the warehouse while he scowled, leaving flattened patches that would likely grow infected if he were human.

He didn't bandage them. Rinsing them off with whiskey is the only thing he could have done to possibly make his own self-inflicted first aid manlier, but he hadn't wanted to waste alcohol.

So, when John appears, he looks cold. He is cold, but he isn't here to warm up. He's here because he finally had the chance to look at his text messages and realize what it is that Amunet was going on about last night. Hunter, at least, is aware that his packmate has arrived before he has to turn around and find him with his eyes. The Modi doesn't acknowledge anyone out in the common room, save for a cursory flick of his eyes and a shrugging out of his jacket. He tosses it over the arm of the sofa, revealing his uniform of boots and jeans and a tame-colored thermal shirt, and keeps walking.

Whereupon he nearly runs right into Amunet.

He doesn't stop, and he certainly doesn't speak. He takes her by the upper arm, the expression on his face hidden from the congregated by his direction, and urges Amunet to walk with him back down the hall. His grip is so light it's barely worth mentioning; but he is also far stronger than he looks, now, which ought to be a frightening prospect for most people.

[Hunter] A Fenrir would most definitely be more likely to punch someone in the mouth than kiss them, a fury too perhaps, another reason why their tribes are not as different as they claim to be. This Fenrir talks about a girl and Hunter narrows eyes, trying to recall a girl who had made eyes at him. Truth be told he had been intently focused on recruitment rather than relaxation, the girl had probably escaped his notice. Maybe she had, but he has seen her since and he knows with a sudden realisation that blooms on his face of which girl Sofie is talking about.

"Ooohh.. makin' eyes at me?" He blinks, "Really? Don't remember that.. I seem ta' recall she was--"

He pauses, Sofie can see the slightest motion of his nostrils taking in a breath before his head turns and his eyes fall upon the Fiann in the doorway. Whoah she says, hey. An eyebrow is raised at Hunter in question but he isn't looking at her eyes, they have found their way to her ear and its lack of jewellery. She might notice a difference with the Gnawer too, the way his shirt bunches on his body and the strength of an arm that curls up along the back of the couch in her direction.

"Quinn." He says in a rumble and seems lost in thought for a moment before he continues. "Was just tellin' Sofie bout' tha' serious lack'a orgies here." A smile that reaches his eyes, something warm yet amused. Just then there is another girl behind Quinn, scowling and muttering.

Hunter isn't watching her though.

"Have ya' met?" He flicks eyes back to Sofie then to Quinn, questioning glance. He barely even looks at John though he knows what is occurring outside his line of sight. They have a totem phone now, he doesn't have to say anything out loud.

[Amunet Trujillo] Her mouth opens, then closes again. Scowling just slightly, she allows herself to be propelled down the hall without as much as a grunt of protest.

This is not good....

[Sofie Janssen] Giving a glance over to Quinn and Amunet who's came in behind the tall woman, Sofie watches them a second and takes in both their expressions before giving a quick look to Hunter. Her voice drops, but it's certainly not a whisper. "One of those your girl?" Unable to help herself, her teeth flash in a sudden and rather fierce grin.

Suppressing her chuckle.

Then John comes in, dumps his jacket and walks out to take Amunet by the arm and off down the hall. "Oooo," she whispers softly, then does make a snicker of a laugh under her breath. "Someone's got to tell that guy we're supposed to have better taste." We being the Get of Fenris, of course.

Quinn gets a nod and an actual smile from Sofie, though it doesn't make her expression soft by any means. Gentle and soft doesn't mix with this Kinfolks features. Her eyes aren't the sort that can get all bedroom nor pleasant either. "Hey," she greets.

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] The Strider comes from the hallway, freshly dressed. her hair is wet and somewhat tangled, having just showered and gotten her still-healing wounds from the other night cleaned up. She's wearing a black tank top and jeans, and generally seems to be in a good mood. Even if she is walking a bit gingerly. She heads down the hallway to the common room, pausing only briefly when she sees John and Amy heading in the opposite direction. She locks eyes with her half-sister, an unspoken message passing between them before she smiles and nods to John and continues on her way.

Once she makes it through the door into the common room, she looks around at those present and grins. "Hola, chicos and chicettes. What's shakin' like bacon?"

[John] Now, he hadn't made a scene last night though there are plenty of other men, let alone Garou, who would not have taken kindly to being toyed with, whether it was merely his perception or whether there was anything rooted in reality to substantiate the notion, nor being walked away from. John, however, is not a hot-headed young buck who has something to prove. He does not attempt to intimidate or dominate every other male Garou he comes across, though with his height, his breeding and his presence he would likely be capable of it without much trouble. Beyond that, he actually seems like he has a decent sense of humor, takes very little that doesn't require seriousness seriously, and actually has respect for someone other than himself.

It's a rarity, given what has been blowing through Chicago in recent years, but given that he can't talk, he doesn't do a lot of blowing up of his own ego.

So, last night, John had just laughed at what had happened because he didn't understand it and walked out. It wasn't until after sobriety hit him like a bucket of water that it occurred to him that wires were crossed, perhaps. Lord knows what he was thinking.

Passing by Sarita, John looks somewhat amiable considering he's pedaling her sister down the hallway towards their room. He gives her a lift of his eyebrows and a nod, the light in his eyes seeming to say Oh hey what's up! as though they're in a park in the middle of June on a sunny day and not the halls of a hostel.

They continue around the bend of the hall, and a moment later, a door opens and closes.

That's when he lets her go.

[Quinn] She laughs when Hunter says he was telling Sofie about the lack of orgies here. The sound is low, more of a huff through her nostrils than anything so defined as a hah. "Hi, Amy..." is all she gets before Guy strongly insists the other kinswoman head back down the hall with him. She steps out of the doorway, fully into the common room.

"Is that a bad thing?" she asks, and heads for one of the chairs rather than the sofa.

"Quinn," she gives as introduction.

[Hunter] Eyes follow the movements of Quinn intently and it wouldn't be an illusion if she saw his jaw clench and his lips press together in a flat line when she drops herself down into one of the chairs. But he doesn't say anything and although that eyebrow of his threatens to raise questioningly, it doesn't.

Sofie has a question, a low murmur as this is all happening, not a whisper at all but not normal tones either. She wants to know if one of those girls is his and Hunter just straight up does not answer her.

"I dunno, depends on ya' point'a view. Orgies in here though? Ain't no place for them sorta' games."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "Okay, seriously. If I'm getting left out of orgies, I'm gonna start kicking some serious ass." She grins and moves toward the couch. "S'bad enough that my sister gets laid more than I do, but I gotta at least have the opportunity to be competitive."

She sits carefully down on the couch and sighs. "So we're all exciting, being shut-ins on Friday night, huh?"

[Sofie Janssen] "Well met, Quinn." Sofie doesn't move from where she's sitting in the corner, back to the arm of the couch and knees pressed together, resting against the back of it. The t.shirt she wears is a simple navy blue and it's loose enough to sleep in. Her sweatpants are a lighter shade of gray. Bare feet are tucked in with toes curled between the cushions, separating herself and Hunter.

Looking back and forth between the two, and then to the woman that enters calling them names of another language and talking about shaking bacon, Sofie decidedly stays out of any further talk about orgies and sex, especially with the more explicit talk about being laid. There are some lines she doesn't cross, though these aren't clear cut.

[Asha Singh] Someone is coming up the stairs. Two someones, actually. There is the sound of some - crazy foreign tongue, that sounds functionally like nothing anyone in the room has every heard before. Like a spider-scrawl of a tongue, seventeen accents and an extra umlaut per vowel that you cannot even tell from the consonants.

One of two people is stomping.
The smaller one of the two.
Actually.

[Quinn] "Nice to meet you, too, Sofie," she replies with a polite incline of her head. Quinn draws herself up into the chair, wraps an arm around upraised knees, curls a hand around an ankle. She's friendly, open, not exactly gregarious, but she tries not to leave people out.

"Ah hah, yeah, if any orgies break out spontaneously, Sarita, you can have at it. I'll be the stick making a beeline for the door."

Someone is stomping up the stairs. The Fianna kinswoman lets go of her legs, lets her knees drop down so that one presses into the arm of the chair, and she twists to get a look at the stairway. Before anyone appears, though, she looks back at the gathered, casting about a confused Do you know what that's about? kind of look.

[Asha Singh] And soon enough: a girl emerges. Dark-skinned, slight, with coils of crisp black hair falling in elegant, shampoo-ad worthy waves around her exotic features. She's wearing a strapless gown of bronze sequins that falls perhaps four inches above her knee, and a single gold bracelet liquid around her wrist. Her feet are bare.

She is carrying a doughnut.
It has sprinkles.

In her other hand, a plastic sandwich bag, the kind that ziplocks closed, smeared with a gelatinous red. It could be cherry pie filling oozing out of a deep-fried crust. It could be an ear.

God only knows.

Behind her a tall, well-dressed man in a tailored suit, crisp lines, black and white. A cravat, subtle diamond cufflinks through the cuffs of his monogrammed white shirt. He has a stick.

At the top of the stairs, she takes a survey of the people in the room, checking them off against some mental list. She pauses when she sees Hunter, waves, rather peppily, and turns to the tall, dignified gentleman with gray curling at his blond temples. Says, leaning as if she were whispering, for all that she is perfectly audible to all. "He's one of the ones I need a proper introduction to!"

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She shrugs a little to Quinn's unspoken question. She seems intensely curious as to who it might be herself, and she glances to the stairwell before she looks back to the kinfolk.

"No clue, but we may wanna call an exorcist. And suggest that they put split pea soup on the menu for tomorrow."

When Asha and her companion arrive, she looks back, examining the two. Each of the participants in the room are summarily dismissed by the newcomers, except Hunter. That brings a cock of the eyebrow, and Sarita leans back a bit to watch with a grin that can only be described as Cheshire-like. And possibly worrisome.

[Hunter] "Yo' Sarita." He throws it out casually with a nod of his head.

Stomping is heard, voices, or what are presumed to be voices. The only thing that marks them as such is the phonetics that vaguely resemble some unknown language and the audibility of it all. His eyes drift past Sofie, past Quinn to the stairs and he actually steps up off the couch to wander over to that exit almost protectively of the kinfolk.

He doesn't get very far though and he stops before she even emerges. Ancestry strikes him like a blow to the head and causes his lip to curl but it relaxes a moment later into a smile for the woman when she makes her way into the room. There is someone at her side, someone Hunter has never seen before and he looks the man over.

He's one of the ones I need a proper introduction to!

One brow lowers, the other rises and his lips quirk at the corners, he crosses his arms over his chest. This is unusual. He waits to see how it all plays out.

[Sofie Janssen] There's little talk that follows the new arrivals into the common room, where Sofie had been listening to her player not but ten minutes ago, alone. Now coming up the stairs is someone speaking gibberish to someone else equally qualified in the language, and moments later Hunter is up to go and see what it's all about after Quinn's partially worried glance and Sarita's quip.

Sofie merely glances over and watches the woman enter along with the man, both of which are dressed in a set of clothes that costs more than her whole closet stuffed in her closet. Its this she notices more than anything else, and the way the woman speaks to the man. Brows raise. Eyes stare.

And her mouth quirks at Hunters stance.

[Asha Singh] "His name's Hunter," Asha tells Thomas. The kinsman - whose blood is rather less fine than his rather young mistress' own - has a certain dignity of purpose about him that makes up for what he lacks in raw breeding. He inclines his well-groomed head to listen as Asha "whispers" to him. "Burnout." And gives her a smile of approval when she manages to refrain from informing Thomas that Hunter Burnout is very common.

Good girl!

The gruesome little package in her hand is sealed firmly, dark against the striking brilliance of her dress, which sends dancing motes of light all across the floor around her as she moves. "Yes ma'am," Thomas says, pronounce it mum in his oh-so-posh British way. Then he smiles, magnanimous, toward Hunter.

And raps his stick, once, against the wooden floor. (Asha loves this part, so much.) As if everyone in hte room were not already staring at her. "Mr. Hunter Burnout, sir. I believe you have been casually introduced before. However, do allow me to make an informal introduction.

"I have the deep, abiding, personal pleasure of introducing you to Her Eminent Highness Arundhati Sunyana Elevarisi Asha Priyamvada Natajaran Singh.

"Daughter of Alexander Harrison, Vision of the Fall, Scion of House Wyrmfoe.

'"Great grand-daughter of Sri Padmanabha Dasa Vanchi Pala Karthika Thirunal Rama Varma Dharma Raja Kulasekhara Natajaran Singh, Svatantrya to the Nation, of the Sept of the Broken Sky.

"Descendent of the Maharahajadhiraja Bahadur, Great Prince of Princes, Elder Philodox of the Silver Fangs, House Blood Red Crest."

All this for a "Cliath Ahroun, House Blood Red Crest, kalaratri to the Nation. Which means both night of death, and death of night, in your own human tongue." Asha beams at Thomas, all approving. Apparently, that's all she wanted.

Flashes a glance at Hunter. "Hi!" And takes a bite of her doughnut, the ear swinging casually from her hand, blood contained, but dripping against the sides of the bag. Then, she glances back at Thomas. "I've been thinking about moving in here."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] Her mouth drops open. There's no other reaction that is remotely attainable for the Strider than a jaw-dropped, googly-eyed stare at the pomp and circumstance of the whole thing. It's not pure shock, though...the corners of her mouth are upward turned. Her eyes are both disbelieving and glittering with mirth. Either her usual grin has been sublimated by the stunning introduction, or the whole sequence that just unfolded is so funny to her that the wires in her head have crossed and she can't quite express it.

It takes several moments before her voice finds her again. "Holy fucking hell, I gotta stop doing drugs. Or at least the ones that cause flashbacks. Because I swear, it looks JUST like that actually, seriously happened."

[Sofie Janssen] The Kinswoman looks like she's swallowed a fly. Her features do this weird contorted sort of thing, where she's really trying to stop her eyes from bugging out their sockets, while trying to keep her tongue from flapping and all the while trying not to do what she really wanted to do and bust out laughing. She is going to give herself a hernia with the effort, to be sure.

She can't be serious. He can't be serious. Sofie looks between them, and sure enough, they are.

Leaping off the couch, like her pants are on fire, Sofie pads barefoot around the back of the couch and takes a direct path towards and through the hallway door. The moment she's out of sight, she's jogging down the end of the hall, biting the heel of her hand as snorting starts to come out her nose.

[Quinn] There is no worry, no concern drawn into the kinswoman of Stag's face, merely confusion. She doesn't recognize the language, not even enough to say that it's one or another. And she doesn't recognize the young woman who steps into the common room with an escort, though she does recognize what she is.

Hunter rising is noted, drawing her attention pointedly away from the girl in the pretty dress that's probably worth more than her bar. Blue eyes travel over the Ahroun, lingering a touch longer than necessary before shifting back over to the girl and her announcer.

An intro begins. Quinn turns in her seat to watch. Though she knows she and the other females in the common room have been dismissed with just a glance, she is patient and respectful and not at all wishing to get up and walk out of the room to read or break into a bottle of bourbon.

Her eyes, though, are starting to glaze by the end of it. These aren't names she needs to know, and yet the kinswoman will remember them, the ones she hears anyway, the ones she pays attention to.

Asha's looking to move in here, well fantastic. "I must've inadvertently shared whatever you had," she quips to Sarita, unfolding herself from the chair and rising. "I think we're having the same hallucination. I think I'm going to go walk it off." And the third kinswoman of the evening makes her exit. This one reappears a few minutes later, bundled up for the winter cold despite the hour and the neighborhood and all of it. She bypasses the Fangs, heads down the stairs, and disappears into the night like a goddamn ninja.

[sorry guys, it's 2am and I can't handle life @_@ thanks for the play!]

[Lukas] The thing about Asha's introductions is -- even if you're, say, in your room, kicking back in your bed, reading a book or writing a letter or something -- you still have plenty of time to get up and get over before it's finished.

So by the time Thomas is done, Lukas is leaning against the doorway that leads out to the halls and the rooms. His arms are folded across his chest. Or well. They are, until he raises one hand -- very gradeschool -- and asks in apparently utter seriousness:

"I'm sorry, your Eminent Highness, but I've forgotten my table of genealogies. Could you remind me of the full ancestry of His Royal Majesty Maharahajadhiraja Bahadur?"

[Simon Zahradnik] Have you ever stabbed your own mother in the back with a rusty knife again and again while listening to her scream I love you so much why are you doing this to me?!? all the while twisting the knife around and laughing? Well neither has Simon and yet why does he feel dirty. Like the kind of dirty that doesn't wash off? The kind of dirty that clings to the soul and cannot be erased. Simon has always done what was necessary... He has always stood ready to put his duties and responsibilities before himself. Yet the stench of betrayal hung heavily around him. Rage coursed through him and yet it was an entirely unsettling kind of rage. A kind of bitter self hatred that he still couldn't seem to chase away.

He could still taste the chill of frost upon his tongue. The kiss of freedom... Of boundless, limitless power wanting to be unleashed only to watch it whimper and fade as the Garou turn their backs upon the very forces that feed their inner rage. Their boundless destructive potential, the churning belly of the mother who gave them life... Her skies, her seas, her beautiful mountains.

Funny... Simon has never been a part of such an impressive victory and yet was left feeling like it was a complete failure. In the end though this was the kind of thing that hardens the heart and helps awaken the Shadow Lord to the true nature of the world right? He was learning that sometimes you had to destroy hope cause... Your elder doesn't like it? What the fuck does that even fucking mean!?!.

"Before you can truly understand what you are fighting for you must stab it in the face Simon! That will teach you the value of... Something something..."He mutters as he swings the door open and makes his way upstairs.

He needed something to calm himself, so why in the fuck did he come here?

Eyes scanned the area. Looking about the Common area. Pool... Pool will help. Right? The darkly clad Ahroun made his way towards the tables. Who in the hell knows what he needed. He should be out smashing something evil's face in that's what he fuckin' should be doing.

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She looks over when Lukas is suddenly there, and he asks Asha to go through this full ancestry. Her eyes widen to silver dollars, and she looks back. She looks back at Asha and Thomas, smiling like a little kid on Christmas day. It's not often she looks this giddy, 'cause it's not often she gets to be this amused.

...no. No, she's not normal.

[Hunter] A commoner takes part in something he has never before been subjected to in all his years under Luna's smiling face. If there are words to describe the thoughts that run through Hunter's heads in this moment then they escape this writer like sand through a sieve. Outwardly he smiles at first when it all begins, this ageing gentleman speaks like it is an honour for Hunter Matthews to receive this special attention and effort from the undoubtedly royal Ahroun at his shoulder.

But it all begins to fall apart because let's face it, Hunter is no member of the court, he is no Prince of Persia or even the stable boy of such a man. He is a Jackal, a Gnawer of Bones both proud and yet without the restraints of believing that pride is worth anything. His arms go slightly slack, one falls to his side before the other and he stands there lop sided with a hand tucked to his ribs and his mouth slightly open in shock.

It doesn't end, it really never ends. He wants to scream out HELP HELP IM BEING OPPRESSED , but he really doesn't have the energy or the cognitive ability to form words right now. She is the daughter of some Indian dude with a name consisting of more letters than the alphabet and all Hunter got out of it was that somehow this is meant to mean something, that this doesn't happen for everyone.. surely.. she surely doesn't do this to every person she meets. His eyebrows raise in alarm and confusion How does she get anything done??

About halfway through it he stops looking at the man and starts studying the female at his side, she preens and beams and smiles like this is exactly how things should be all the time. No Asha, this is not how things should be all the time. The look is written all over Hunter's face and he barely gets a chance to react before all the kinfolk in the joint go running for the hills, hiding faces and bellowing out their sudden disarray at this assault on their senses.

"I.." He stumbles and then Lukas is there, goading her on. The look Hunter flashes him is not one of kindness at all, it is a look a bro might give another bro when he just set him up with a particularly disgusting blind date in order to score the hottie. Hunter growls and his lip curls but his eyes go back to Thomas.

His face says one thing to Thomas, I swear ta' god if ya' keep talkin' imma' rip ya' god damn throat out. But somehow it is without simple anger, more frustration and amusement and a totally dominating sense of pleading. He begs, don't do it!

[Asha Singh] Asha snorts, part-way through her bite of the doughnut. Which is sugar: with sprinkles in multicolors scattered over lavender icing. Then she chews, with a sort of prim precision, like she were listening to some childhood governess in her ear telling her that it's not polite to slip treefrogs into the folds of your obnoxious sister's sari before she's meant to go meet the the eligible young men of whatever is the latest Sept to which she has been paraded for the purpose of Catching a Man's Eye and Making New Babies for a Dying House while she sits there trying to figure out how to produce more fucking tree frogs now that all the cliath Ahrouns in the Sept slew the ones she had with their stupid little swords (which: mind, were not nearly as cool or bejeweled as her own pata.)

"-rhya" says Asha, with that bored emphasis on the word. "I only wanted an informal introduction. Why, Thomas has his stuck, but he doesn't have his sword OR his hat." Neither of which Lukas himself has ever seen. "Anyway, it takes like three days and nights to recite so it's not very practical, is it? If you want, though," conceding, at last, something to Lukas' greater rank. "I can have Thomas write it down for you so you won't forget. Or he can come by, uhm, if it's three hours every evening, it will take one turn of the lunar cycle, so maybe 8 p.m. tomorrow?"

Then she wiggles the bag at Lukas.

"Has you see the other one of these? I had a matched set."

"Maybe you left it in the car, ma'am," Thomas suggests. Steers, giving Lukas as much of the eye as he dares. "Shall we go have a look?"

"Oh, bother," declares Asha. "I did not. I suppose I'll have to get another one."

AND before you know it, our heroine and her entourage are trooping back down the stairs!

[Sofie Janssen] Down the hall, room seven has busted its door open and partially shut, and a Kinfolk has barely made it to the bed when she's howling out laughter, with sinuses burning from the previous, snorting effort. She knows don't laugh. Don't laugh in front of Garou, which is why she had tailed it out of there the moment she felt it coming on. It's that bewildered laugh that has turned into something hilarious because of the effort of being suppressed. At least she has mind to roll and bury her face into her pillow to muffle anymore and tries hard to get it under control, while practically crying.

What the fuck was that!

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She watches the whole thing with a look of amazement. This is the most surreal thing that's probably ever happened to her, and considering that her half-sister likes to pretend she's a Garou from time to time, plus other random misadventures, that says a lot. She blinks when they bloody ear is waved about, and she looks around the room, as if asking them if they're seriously seeing the same thing. Then she looks back.

And then, like they were never there, except for the dumbfounded faces, Asha is headed back down the stairs. Sarita is speechless for a couple of moments until finally she nods.

"Yeah. Totally gotta stop doing the flashback drugs."

[Lukas] "I -- "

before Lukas can tell her that no, no, it was quite all right, he doesn't need the full introduction, and no, he hasn't seen the other severed ear she left lying around someplace, Asha is turning and trooping out again.

"If you want to move in," he calls after her, "I think the only room left is nine!"

Also, following her in mind if not in body: Weren't you Her Exalted Highness before? Did you get demoted?

[Asha Singh] Stupid Anchal had a baby. Asha grumbles back in his mind. Maybe she has been demoted. It looks like a wizened monkey's shriveled head.

Then, moments later when he can feel them wandering through the kitchens.

Hey! Do they have a blender down here!

[Izzy Montoya] Speaking of cussing...

Her car is not exactly her car. No, it's police issue, unmarked, and only 'hers' as long as she is on the force. It's a 'perk' of the job, though today? It seems anything but...

It's already been a week of upheavals, and it seems her run of 'luck' is not gonna ease anytime soon, because as she rounds the corner, on her way home after a long ass day at a precinct not her own, through the storm of the ages... the car sputters.

stutters.
stops.

"MotherFUCKER." She yanks the wheel to the side, too quick, too sharp, and ends up too close to a pile of snow and... stuck. She leans forward and rests her head against the steering wheel, and mutters words that would make a sailor blush bright red and pray for forgiveness. She reaches down and tries to turn the engine over again... "start you bastard or I'll turn you in for fuckin scrap metal, you piece of shit..."

...unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. And then, in her irritation, and intense desire for it to STARTALREADYOHMYFUCKINGGOD - she kills the battery, too. She bangs her head against the steering wheel a couple more times, before she leans back and digs for her phone. She dials, waits, and then cusses again. "goddammit Dabney, where the fuck are you? Call me." She stuffs her phone back in her pocket, makes sure she has her weapons, her keys, and steps from the car, locking it up behind her. A glance around, and with another curse, she starts toward the church.

Twice in one week. There is no justice.

[Linus] "....Heyyyy. Fuckers are worth more than a shot and a fuck, afterall..."

He climbs to his feet and shakes off some snow, grunting absently. Linus' gaze drifts off briefly. Very briefly, into other worlds, a static unfocus leaping across his eyesight before it's blinked away a moment later. His gaze is narrowed and his teeth barred with the return, hands emerging from his blankets to rub infront of him furiously, seeking heat.

"Fuckin' Hrafn's off his fuckin' rocker. Entire god damn Murder is hunkered in the Fuckin' Belfry, scared shitless. Thunder's clapping their wings 'fore they can take off and the snows too heavy to fly." A grunt of displeasure, errant fluctuations of odd energy and tension riding the Totemlink of the Last Watch.

"We're pretty much blind at the moment, both sides."

His agitation refuses to let him sit still. He's pacing to keep warm, eyes on the Bonfire as it begins to trickle into life and being.

[Roman Turner] "They ain't the only ones."

Muttered in reply to Linus' comment on Hrafn off his fucking rocker. Clearing his throat as he turned to go drag a pew closer to where the fire was starting.

"Y'all take a seat, relax. I'll get some blankets. And I'll be sure to make contact with home Miss Kora about a lawyer. I bet whoever owns this place is sick of paying taxes on something that's falling down. It might also be up for a tax sale, never know. City will be happy to have someone clean it up."

[Sofie Janssen] It's very rare that Sofie has felt unwelcome at the Church. Even when she had Remy coming into her face that time, she still felt as though this place was okay. But as she sits there and listens to Linus mouth off, and assuming that he's talking about Kinfolk like he does - which isn't the first time he's referenced Kinfolk with such derogatory inflictions - , Sofie finds herself watching the Get of Fenris and debating how satisfying it might be to drive him through with a spear.

That, and, well, what the fuck she is doing out here on a night like this.

"Jarl," the Kinfolk lifts her voice, turning fierce eyes in her direction, "I came by to let you know I'm staying at the Brotherhood." Ironically, where she felt more welcome then by the mouthy Get of Fenris.

[Kora] Heya Banx. Our characters are in an abandoned church? it might make sense for Seth to see it as a .... squat? in which to crash mid-snowstorm, if you need an entrance to the scene. :)
to Bridget, Fire Claws, Izzy Montoya, Linus, Patrick Llewelyn, Roman Turner, Seth Cohen, Sofie Janssen

[Izzy Montoya] Sometimes, she wonders why she left Florida to come back home. It's cold, it's wet, it's snowing, it's...

jesuschristonacandlestick - THUNDER?

....crazy. She definitely misses the sunshiney streets of Miami about now, though she makes her way toward the packhouse of the Last watch, checking her phone to see if Dabney has called back yet, and sighing to see he hasn't. Leatherwrapped fists knocks at the door, as she hunches her shoulders against the cold.

[Bridget] "We live to please," the sarcasm is thick between bites of maple glazed yum and a mouthful of hot coffee.

She has a smidge of knowledge of Garou doings that she knows enough that Linus is talking Business. Bridget decides not to speak to the ungrateful, insane one any longer. She is perfectly happy to be out of the vicious weather with a hot cup of coffee and something to eat. She's been losing weight lately, and this is probably the first thing she's had all day.

What Sofie says reminds her of something, so she looks to Patrick.

"So... Uh... I guess I should tell someone I'm thinking about moving out of the Roost. That Owen guy's looking for a roommate, so..."

She's not asking permission, she doesn't report to anyone. But Owen expressed interest in Not Getting His Face Pummelled by a Meat-Fisted Fianna. A cop knocks on the church door and draws her attention towards the sound.

[Linus] "Enter and Be Known!"

[Seth Cohen] Hey thanks! Good lookin' out. (g)
to Kora

[Roman Turner] The door was whipped open quick as could be, one hand went out and snagged Izzy's arm, gently pulling her inside.

"Howdy Miss Detective Montoya, Ma'am. Come in quick before the heat gets out."

He promptly closed the door after her and went about tugging another pew closer to the fire. He heard what Sofie said and kept his mouth quiet. Linus was Kora's brother and Sofie was her Tribe.

[Izzy Montoya] Linus tells her to enter, and Roman opens the door and scoops her into the church. She pauses there to kick the snow off her boots, and arches a brow at Roman. "...what heat?"

But she moves inside toward the rest of the group, shoving her phone back into her pocket.

[Seth Cohen] "Heyheyhey hold that door!"

But it's slammed shut before he could be heard. How the hell he allowed himself to be caught in this brutal weather is beyond Seth. Typically he knows better, but his cousin was entertaining and apparently Seth passed out on the couch was a turn-off. So now he's looking for a warm place to hole up. The church is in sight, and a perfect option...Christians love helping out. He picks up the pace just a hair, slips twice, and immediately returns to a quick shuffle. In moments he's pounding on the door much the way Izzy just had. "Hey open up!"

[Patrick Llewelyn] Patrick has taken up residence on the edge of a pew, resting a foot on the seat and sitting balanced on the back. There's a steaming cup of coffee beside him, and a piece of half eaten pie in hand. When Bridget addresses to him she's moving out, he's trying to dig a packet of cigarettes from a pocket.

Cuts a glance at Kora; and lets the notion go. "Well, I mean I'm not the Fianna Elder," he says reasonably, then adds, "But I can pass it on to Buried Hatchet." Another sip of coffee, Izzy arrives, and another refugee from the storms.

[Roman Turner] He blinked when someone started banging on the door he just slammed shut. In an instant the door was whipped open again, one arm shot out and snagged Seth to tug him inside before the door slammed shut once more. Seth found himself facing Roman who was giving Seth a puzzled look.

"Who are you? Don't matter, it's too cold out to be strangers. I'm Roman. Welcome to the Church of Wandering Souls."

[Kora] "If the murder's grounded by it - " Kora remarks, low-voiced to her brother, stepping back as the bonfire begins to catch flame.

"Then so's the enemy, I imagine." She isn't sanguine, though, a sharp glance up at Linus, then back at Roman, Patrick. "We don't usually worry about setting watches, but if we don't have eyes out in storm to warn us about what's coming down, well," there's that spark, hiss in the flames among the detritus piled in the chancel, and snow drifting down from the rafters. "Let's make sure nothing takes us by surprise, yeah?"

"Detective - " Kora says, craning to look back as Izzy comes inside, her voice rising, echoing through the vast sanctuary. Then, she looks back at Sofie, buried in her layers of winter things.

"The Brotherhood?" Pale brows rise over her dark eyes; her breath is a cloud, nostrils narrowed with whatever she's holding back. The tip of her nose and her cheeks are reddened from the cold, but there's enough - relief from the wind here, thanks to the solid walls, enough lingering heat from the electric heaters that she can stand still, without shivering, fingers twisting into her blanket. "I thought you were staying with other kin."

Then Kora shoots a dark-eyed look back over her shoulder at Roman, when someone else comes pounding on the door. And Roman, Coggie that he is, opens the door and invites the stranger in.

It isn't a working church. There are holes in the ceiling, snow drifting down from the rafters, the strangest assortment of people, torches on the walls and a bonfire built on the alter. An assortment of couches and tables, an apple pie in a box from a diner, old beer bottles and pizza boxes are scattered over the tables there. The place looks - well, lived in, beneath the ruin of it. The high vaulted ceiling with holes in the roof. The old stained glass windows, half-intact, half broken.

[Linus] "Hey Roman! When was the last time you did a Circuit 'round the Turf? You notice any Transformers down or power lines 'n shit?"

He continues pacing, watching the bonfire grow, already shedding two of the flannel blankets and shucking them onto one of the nearby pews for others to pick up at their leisure. The last is a pale blue thing, slightly ratted at the edges. He keeps it at his shoulders, dressed in his cargo pants and jacket still. The hood on his sweater is drawn back while he stares at the Ragabash.

Cause if shit's down here and the neighbourhood to, might be a while before we can actually get back power A pause along the totemlink, vibrating with vague anxious energy, the Godi pointing an index finger at Patrick, while staring off at Kora and Roman with a frown of...scrutiny?

And who the hell?

[Sofie Janssen] "I was. Until they decided to throw a party this passing weekend and some jackass went through my things, tried to feel me up, and then I got a mouth full after I broke his nose." The Kinfolk stats back to Kora, not with anger but a little flatness to it. Clearly she wasn't impressed with how the weekend turned out for her and her plans in Chicago.

"I checked with the Brotherhood. I know it's seen as some Frat thing, but the way I look at it, it's got some Garou there that so it's protected ground, and it won't cost me much," she tells Kora, giving a small lift of one shoulder. "The food there's meant to be good. I've yet to ask about the whole hormonal free meat and all that shit, but it's got to be better than any meager supplies my savings can account for."

"So is it alright if I stay there awhile? I can look for somewhere else to stay soon as I get myself a job."

[Bridget] Detective Montoya and a stranger enter the church. Bridget realizes looking down that she has practically inhaled her maple covered pastry. She swallows it down with the coffee and blinks a frown. The Canadian goes to pick up one of the flannel blankets shed by the crazy Godi.

Her eyes go back to Patrick. "Yeah, well. I didn't think it mattered, but he was askin' questions about guardians and shit because," she bundles the flannel over her shoulders, raising her gloved fingers in quotes, " 'I don't want to have some meat-fisted Fianna bust the door down getting the wrong idea'."

"Besides," she adds. "If I stay at the Brotherhood, I'm just going to drink and get into trouble."

[Seth Cohen] He grins broadly at Roman as he's dragged in, taking a quick glance around with sharp eyes. "Sounds like my kind of place. Name's Seth, and holy fuckballs it's cold out there. You guys squatters?"

The young man wanders around the derelict church casually, as if he'd been here a thousand times before. He is careful to avoid passing too closely by the other occupants. All the while his gaze moves across the room, the litter and those wandering souls who have taken shelter within. Anyone with a nose for it can see he is casing the room. Judging people on sight and looking for quick ways out. Typically two kinds of people do that; cops and criminals.

[Izzy Montoya] "Kora." She returns the greeting, before settling to sit on a pew close to the bonfire in the making. She crosses her legs, and does her best not to seem like she's freezing her ass off. Not much in the way of insulation, of padding on Izzy.

She watches Sofie ask permission to stay at the Brotherhood, and the muscle at her jaw flexes briefly. She doesn't add anything to the conversation though, simply watches. Listening. Finding her gaze following Seth as he explores, and checks for exits. Only two kinds of people do that, after all...

[Kora] Kora's attention sharpens when she senses the stranger's pure breeding. Knows him to be a strider. Takes him, for the moment, to be a Garou. She's not particularly remarkable, is closer to the bonfire, farther from the entrance than most of the rest - Izzy and Sofie, Patrick, Bridget, Roman - but when she turns around there's a certain sharpness to the look.

She's backlit by the fire; looks absurd in her winter coat, with a blanket over it, hood still half-up, her scarf unwound and a mug of coffee in her hand. And animal, too: a sharpness. A moment's alarm evident in her eyes, in the way she (for the moment) leaves behind the conversation with Sofie about the Brotherhood and her blind as a bat brother about the Fianna and - and - and -

Crosses the church in long, sweeping steps. "You're a Strider." She tells Seth, a sharp glance. "We're Last Watch. I'm Sorrow. What's happened?" That alarm - that alacrity, heightens the woman's intensity. She's tall, pale-skinned; her body beneath the bulk of the coat - which hides the fact that she's six months pregnant - seems bulkier than her limbs. There's that animal alertness, though, trained on his face.

Who died.
Who fell.
Who's coming after.



Prayers to Broken Stone

[Sofie Janssen] As Kora goes off to question Seth, Sofie notes the presence of Izzy with a small nod of her head, glances across to Bridget and Patrick to tune in to their conversation and generally falls into silence herself. She's a little less animated than times before. Her mood is sour.

When there's a space in conversation, she asked Patrick in a lower voice: "Are you joining Last Watch?"

[Roman Turner] "Seth, ain't seen ya in these parts before. And no, ain't squatting. Why, we own this fine establishment."

He waves an arm at the big room and people within.

"We were once lost, but now we are found. And I'm the reverend Roman, also known as Doctor Night. That there is the Reverend Miss Kora, also known as Doctor Knock Heads Together. Over there is the Reverend Linus. Also known as Doctor Foul Mouth. And there's Reverend Patrick. Also known as Doctor Who's Buisness is it anyway?"

He pointed to each in turn.

"The others are Reverends in training. Also known as, don't touch em."

He then closed his mouth and stepped away to address Linus while Kora spoke to the newcomer.

[Roman Turner] "I didn't see any transformers down. I saw a murder scene up the road, power worked there. I felt the charge in the air too. Maybe it's a combination crappy old wiring and the stuff on the otherside that's got things messed up? I can go scout around if ya want me to make sure."

[Seth Cohen] He freezes, momentarily a deer in headlights when Kora says "Strider". Dark eyes are wide enough to blow any facade of calm he might try to sell.

"How the fuck do you know that? What's a 'Last Watch'?"

The female cop in the room was bad enough. Said cop being friends with a group of what he hopes are werewolves was just the last thing he needed in this world. Actually, the last thing he needed was to be trapped with that aforementioned group in an abandoned church during a blizzard. Though his posture remains tense, he begins edging his way almost imperceptibly towards his chosen exit.

[Izzy Montoya] She watches Seth, and watches his reactions. He starts to inch toward a chosen exit and she arches a brow, slightly. The tension in her jaw shifts to quirk her lips in something leaning more towards amusement, now, though she doesn't let it come completely to light.

[Patrick Llewelyn] The Galliard called Prayers to Broken Stone -- because of his manner, because of his often realistic view of War, and fighting and their Nation as a whole doesn't change his stance much as Linus points a finger in his general direction -- he just raises his eyebrows in silent retort and turns his attention on the newest arrival.

Listening in, then letting his gaze shift to Izzy, there's something there, a softening around his mouth for an instant; it's in his voice, too as he calls to her: "Free pie in the box, help yourself to coffee if you want it." Then, blue eyes flick to meet blue and he says quietly: "Thinking about it, depends on -- " Kora. Linus. Roman.

Himself.
" -- you know."

[Linus] "No no, I wouldn't recommend that."

He's shaking his head. Roman's not the only one feeling...tense. The Godi's connection and inherent interest in the flipside is evident in a moment like this. The Mirror was a bit of a mess with the Storm's efforts, the elementals gleeful and the snows thick enough to obscure the Hunters only a moment before the lunge. His head rocks back and forth, trying to be rid of some of that tension riding his spine.

"I'm just restless. I don't like this..." He continues pacing around the fire, which has grown to near full blaze, though the dampness and freeze of some of the wood keeps it lower than expected. His gaze keeps with the flames and their lick and tongue, pulling the blanket further around his shoulders.

"Kora's right though. If we're shut down, enemy's gonna be the same. Ain't like they're used to this anymore than we are..." And his gaze flicks off toward Kora, a brow perking in brief confusion.

"What the fu..." He settles on Seth a moment, eyes narrowing a second later.

"Strider? Here?" Confusion blooms once more. "Hey Kor'? That a Harbinger?!"

[Izzy Montoya] She hasn't taken notice of Patrick. Not overtly, though she is certainly aware of his presence on the other side of the church pew she sits on. There's a softening in his voice, and she turns to look at him. She arches a brow, just a bit, and then her lips curve briefly into the briefest of smiles - hidden from the rest with a well timed lift of her hand to brush her hair back from her face.

"Softening me up for a rematch?"

Her expression clears, though there's amusement in her gaze, before she reaches for a cup of coffee. Her attention returns to the retreating and clearly nervous Seth.

[Sofie Janssen] Nodding once to Patrick, curiousity sated, Sofie falls quiet again. She goes to watching Kora and Seth, taking in the way the latter is looking to pack up. Can't blame him really. Kora's a pregnant Garou and this is her territory, that's some serious pressure to stand against when she's walking around and talking cut like that, in demands.

[Bridget] Bridget is forgotten in the business of things, and she seems happy with it. The Canadian retreats towards the comfort of the flames. She coaxes them to stay going despite the dampness. Note that unlike most urban folk, Bridget doesn't try to get the flames to climb higher, brighter. Nimble fingers and attentive care coax them to burn hotter, slower.

"Not to disagree at all, and not that I'd know anything about shit, but they seemed eager and ready enough to start an ambush on the Solstice."

[Roman Turner] "Ok, but ya need to relax some son, cause you're making me nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."

He stared to pace with Linus. Snagging pizza boxes and chicken buckets to toss in the fire as fuel, though he was sure as heck paying attention when Linus asked about Seth. All the needed at the moment was something else to set everyone's nerves on edge.

[Fire Claws] Cold. Windy. Snowy. Horrible. It was no wonder that the monkeys were always so annoyed, this freezing cold only made him hate this city and this skin even more. The heavy wool coat was barely able to keep out the chill and snow that seemed to hammer away at the very will of the city. Hunting always made the lupus a little warmer, fueling the blood with rage and purpose. That and using more covered forms in the Umbral helped kill the chill. However while chasing down one of the fleeing wyrmlings, he felt oddly out of place. Dangerously close to passing through the Jarl's territory. Possibly even coming into their domain.

When he was finally able to return to the physical world, the wind and snow has not abated in the slightest. Coming down in blankets of whiteness, blinding those around. Finding the church would be difficult, but not impossible. Slowly moving to the steps of the run down old church were the pack now takes up residence.

Knocking hard, the lupus with some black blood stained hands, waits. Snow already covering his coat and hat in a white blanket.

[Linus] "Ten bucks says it's a Jehovah's Witness! Persistent little Twats aren't you?!"

[Roman Turner] "Holy Moley, I'm starting to feel like a cross between a doorman and the Welcome Wagon. I'll take ya up on that bet."

He started towards the door again.

"I got it, I got it."

Fire Claws was treated to the same welcome as the ones before him tonight. The door was tugged open, a hand shot out to take hold and tug the newcomer inside before the same door slammed shut with a thud.

"Too cold to stand out there, hurry up and get in here!"

[Patrick Llewelyn] "Well, unless the Wyrm has learned manners." Patrick calls, idly amused.

[Kora] "Your blood." Kora explains, giving Seth a sharp look for the ghost of alarm written across his features. "A cub, blind deaf and dumb, could smell it from a mile away in a storm like this one." Her own features are relaxing, her mouth opening from the tight, narrow line into which it formed when he walked in the door. "You're not a Garou, are you? Kin, yeah?"

Her features are lost in sharp, moving shadows cast by the torches, the bonfire. Kora turns around, finds Linus in the distance, and shakes her head when he asks if Seth is a Harbinger. She shakes her head once, no, and her packmates can feel the instant rush of relief that unfolds itself across the shared link.

When Seth begins to edge toward the exit, she shakes her head once. "You're not walking in here and then leaving like that, though. Not in the middle of a blizzard." Not when he might be - something other than his blood. Fallen. Broken. Something. She lifts her chin toward the rest of the group. "Last Watch is my pack. These are Garou, and kin. I'll introduce you. Seth, yeah?"

Li, you got some way of checking him out?

[Kora] (gah! it stopped refreshing on me!)

[Breeze] His hands were buried deep in his pockets, the only part of his coat that didn't seem to get covered in snow. Intent with waiting, he stood there only a few moments when Roman opened the door with that coggie energy and politeness.

He doesn't say anything when invited in, just stepping passed the doorway letting Roman close the door behind him, as if that was the source of the cold inside the church and not the holes in the roof or the stone walls as insulation. His voice coming out, guteral and butchered.

"Is Kora 'ere? I need ta speak wit 'er."

It came out as southern, if understood at all.

[Linus] "...Dude, this one time, I met this guy who used to eat molars right out of the backs of mortal mouths. Just the molars. Was this traveling dental hygienist selling some product or other...Fucker would knock and say 'How do!' every time..."

He snorts half a barking laugh at the flames, kicking another plank of wood into it's mix, before turning to regard Bridget, the humour draining out of his features briefly.

"Solstice marks a particular time. Lots of ugly can be cooked up on the season turn. This ain't theirs, though. Wyrm shit'll get licked just as easy as any of us out there..." And then back at the fire, with another snort.

"Only thing out there s'probably a bunch of Wendigo, wankin' themselves and singing Winter Wonderland at the top of their racist lungs..."

The totemlink buzzes gently, murmuring. Not immediately. Not with shit on the otherside, south stepping us. Best I got right now is a sharp eye.

[Roman Turner] "Ya owe me ten bucks!"

He called across the room to Linus, then he turned to point out Kora in the flickering light.

"Yessiree, she's right over yonder sizing up our last visitor before ya came to call. Maybe ya could give him a looksee too?"

Talk about inviting trouble.

[Patrick Llewelyn] His attention shifts to Izzy, then, as she answers him with the suggestion of a re-match. There's something briefly brighter; like the hot flare of a newly lit candle in the way Patrick watches the Kinswoman for a beat as she crosses to claim a coffee. Humor curls in his throat; warms it.

"Maybe, Detective. Maybe."

He leans forward, framing his elbows on his knees; the wooden bench beneath him creaking in dismay. He finds Sofie's eyes, nods toward the Fenrir Detective. "Kicked my ass at Lego Indiana Jones, not sure my manliness will recover."

[Seth Cohen] ((Ah man, I didn't refresh! I was sitting here like "Why the hell isn't anyone posting?" Sorry guys))
to Breeze, Bridget, Fire Claws, Izzy Montoya, Kora, Linus, Patrick Llewelyn, Roman Turner, snowstorm, Sofie Janssen

[Bridget] "I guess," she replies against her own intentions to not speak to the crazy dude. "I guess you people don't get weather like this a lot around here. I guess I'm used to the racist Wendigo country, then."

Finally, Bridget notes the drifter who seems uncomfortable in his own skin. She waves him over to the fire with a warm smile.

"Hey, come have a seat. I'm Bridget."

[Sofie Janssen] Turning her attention away from the constant newcomers to the door and the Seth saga, she finds herself looking back at Patrick as he draws her into conversation. Flicking her gaze to Izzy and back again, she looks between the two of them.

"How'd she kick your ass building blocks?" she asks the two of them, confused.

[Izzy Montoya] She lifts the cup of coffee to her lips, hiding the brief flash of an amused smile behind it before she takes a sip. Then, her expression schooled, she arches a brow.

"A ten year old could have beaten you." Then, to Sofie. "It's an xBox game. He might have had more luck with actual building blocks..."

Somewhere, somehow, that bemused little smirk has returned, and taken a turn toward warmth. Someday, somewhere, it might actually become a smile. [...but not likely...]

[Linus] "Probably..."

Is his distracted reply to Bridget, turning to scowl at Roman and belt out a "Bullshit! I want a Do over!" Before the seriousness claims his features again at the appearance of Fire~Claws. That guttural tongue and speech are recognizable if only because of Gwen's descriptions. She was fond of talking about her Mentor. Enough that the Godi can pick up the specifics without much trouble.

"...Not exactly what I'd expect."

and he sheds the last blanket, this one on a pew not so close to the fire and separate from the Crowd. The Bonfire continues to burn and crackle, smoke drifting up and out the various holes and windows in the Church's designs even as the wind and rumble of falling snow and gale continue unabated outside.

[Seth Cohen] He pauses his escape, watching Kora carefully and forcing himself to remain calm. After all, if they were going to kill him they probably would have gotten to it already. Still, he's not ready to be best friends. "Yeah. Seth. Look, I don't mean to be rude, but whatever you guys have going on in here I'm not interested."

[Roman Turner] He vanished, making several trips out of the main room to return with blankets, air mattresses and sleeping bags, obviously setting up for one big ole slumber party. The last trip back he had a couple bags of chips and lo and behold, was dressed for bed. Red long johns complete with a back flap and a pair of fuzzy slippers that looked like bear's feet.

"I got munchies. We might as well make the best of this."

He plopped down near Patrick, Sofie, Izzy and Bridget.

"Chips?"

[Breeze] He leans over to the side, passed Roman as he points out the image or Kora against the firelight. Black stained hands move up to his rub at his nose as he takes a couple of sniffs of the air around him. Those who don't know him would think he was catching a cold, however he was already taking account of those around the room. Some he knew, many he didn't.

But duty needed to be taken care of first. He moves towards the fire first and foremost. His attention solely on Kora. Moving directly to her. His eyes focused just south of her own when he speaks.

"May aye speak wit ya.." his eyes cast over those he didn't know yet; Izzy, Sofie and Patrick "...kora?"

[Bridget] "We're all just folk, Seth. I don't think anyone's gonna make you stay but Kora. We're just having coffee, staying warm. I'm from a part of Canada where even the wolves stay in the den."

She sighs, looking to Roman, then back to Seth. "Nice slippers. Look, I know that's not really anyone's scene. We've all got better things to do than sit on our collective duffs, but it is what it is."

The brunette scoots closer to Roman, who has food to share, and she takes out her harmonica, the one belonging to her father. She polishes it with the corner of her jacket, smirking. The lupus she's met before stalks towards Kora while Bridget raises her eyes to watch him. Last they met, he literally ran away from her because she played so well. Which is odd because that's usually the opposite effect.

[Bridget] [in the den in this weather*]

[Kora] "I don't care." They're standing inside the front vestibule, underneath the choir loft. Close enough that Kora can hear Fire Claws ask for her, and lifts her chin in acknowledgment of the Forseti's request. Her expression says: one minute, two. She's let go of the blanket, now, deeming it beneath her dignity in this moment. Her expression's still, her eyes dark. "You're a stranger; you wanted into my pack's home in the middle of a terrible storm. I'd fail in my duty of hospitality to you to send you back out there. And I'd fail in my duty to protect them - " a tip of her head toward the motley group gathered at the edge of the fire. " - if I just take you at your word, and let you go. I'm Kora. Roman - there, and Linus, there are my packmates. Patrick's Garou, looking to join us. The rest are kin, mine and others. Go sit. Have a piece of pie. Give us a chance to check you out and make sure you are what you seem to be."

There's no edge to that anymore, just a clear, quiet direction and a sort of dismissal.

Keep an eye on him. Find out if he has any local references. If he checks out, we'll let him go. A moment later.

If he doesn't.
That part's wordless.

"Fire Claws," Kora greets her tribesmate, then, turning her attention back to him, her generous mouth twisting, faintly - without showing teeth. He can see his breath here. "Of course. Let's talk." Wisely, she refrains - at the last moment - from using the idiom I'm all ears with the feral-born Forseti.

[Sofie Janssen] Izzy explains that Lego Indiana Jones is an xbox game, and Sofie has heard of that, at least. She nods once and gives a brief lift to her mouth at the jaunt directed at the Fianna Garou. "I've never played the xbox." Just to keep the conversation going, really. She's not terribly interested in computer games.

When Roman makes a reappearance he's ready for bed, has out mattresses and blankets, and is offering her chips. Her nose wrinkles distastefully. "No thanks. You know how much artificial shit is in those? Potato laced with chemicals and no nutritional value whatsoever."

[Kora] Also: Roman better not be eating Kora's Bacon Double Cheeseburger Pringles again.

She shoots him a look across the sanctuary, from a distance, hearing that distinctive crunch.

[Roman Turner] He just grinned at Sofie and as if saying the weather was wonderful asked.

"Ya know how long I am likely to live? It won't be the artificial and chemicals that kills me first."

Soon as Seth got close he held out the Pringles to him.

"Pringles?"

Offering hospitality with Kora's favorite treat.

[Seth Cohen] Wonderful. A guy named "Fire Claws". That should do a lot to put Seth at ease.

Kora walks away from him dismissively and he sighs. He begins to pace again, discomfort evident on his face. Constantly his eyes move from face to face, exit to exit. He is calculating odds and angles with every moment that passes. Seth stays close to the fire with his pacing. No sense in freezing.

And he will take the offered Pringles, because there's no sense is starving either. "Thanks. Bacon Double Cheeseburger Cheeseburger, huh? Nice."

[Sofie Janssen] "That's why you can have them all to yourself," Sofie tells Roman with a brief flicker of humour in her features. She understood why the Garou ate whatever they want. They weren't likely to get sick. It still didn't stand to reason, really, but whatever. "You know, buying that shit just encourages the company's to make them."

[Fire Claws] His eyes turn to look in the direction that Kora turns her own, looking back at the ragabash a few moments before returning his attention on her. It seemed he was trying to find the proper words for whatever he was trying to say, especially considering he was somewhat unsure of some of those around him. Even if they wore the mystical cloak of breeding about many of them.

"Jarl... I.. am 'ere cuz' I wanded onta ya land while 'untin'. Killed wat shuld'a been yas. I am 'ere ta make... right."

[Linus] He's a Strider, Kor', what sort of local ref you expecting?

But he's moving already, shaking out the thickness of his dress and attire, stuffing gloved hands into the hoodie front pocket as a slow pace and saunter is made toward Seth. The features are vaguely grim and the eyes, scrutinizing. He sticks his jaw out slightly and flicks a brief glance at Kora. He'd keep an eye, easy enough.

His stare turns to Seth, narrowing fractionally. It isn't angry. More dissecting then anything. As if he could cut to the Wyrm heart possibly beneath with that stare. That stare remains until Seth takes up a pringle. It has him nodding briefly, like that one little gesture was enough of a sense wyrm for him. Or at least a sign of normalcy. (Who the fuck doesn't like Pringles?)

He follows after Fire~Claws and Kora. A distance yet, but in the Church you didn't need to be close to hear a conversation. He remains somewhere off to one side, quiet in the thick shadow and dark of the Church's outer realms, beyond the bonfire.

"

[Roman Turner] For the first time Roman sighed.

"You are right Miss Sofie. Infact, I think ya should tell Seth here all about them chemicals and encouraging companys and all that stuff."

He was already handing off the chips to Seth and slipping off towards the kitchen again to get more eats that might send Sofie off the chemical deep end.

[Bridget] A smirk comes from the Canadian after she digs her paws into the pringles and takes some. Seth says nothing at her little encouragement, but he comes over to share some food. Bridget takes a few and moves back to a spot by the fire with her harmonica.

Before she stuffs some into her mouth, however, she decides to play a scale or two, just practicing. Patrick might know by now she has to do something to express those instincts when surrounded by all this latent Rage. Her behavior is not surprising, but her relative silence is.

[Sofie Janssen] Looking from Roman to Seth, she glances the man over from head to toe and then eyes the Pringles like it's a box full of maggots before turning away. She reaches up and finally takes off her knit cap, brushing her other hand through her hair. A blue scarf still winds its way around her throat, the blonde strands caught in it at the back. Small tugs get it all out, and toss hair down her back.

"Are you staying here tonight?" She asked Patrick, who was as quiet as she was, it seemed. Then it occurs to her she's only assuming other details and decides to get that clarified while she's at it. "Or do you live at the Brotherhood?" Where they had met last night.

[Kora] "The only good hunting in the city is Wyrm, Fire Claws. Otherwise it's just vermin," there's a brief twist of her mouth, wry. The heat of the fire is starting to permeate the structure. Up close, it's warm enough to sleep. Here, well - Kora starts unbuttoning her winter coat. " - hardly worth the time you take to run them down."

A pause, then; she looks back at her brother in the shadows at the edge of the fire he's constructed. Curves her shoulders in a brief, helpless sort of gesture when he asks her what sort of local reference she might expect a strider to have, then looks back to Fire Claws. "Are you still hunting alone?"

[Izzy Montoya] She watches the banter between Roman and Sophie, and then lets her gaze rest heavy on Seth once more as he dares close the distance, if only in search of pringles. She waits, and then times her reach for some chips so that it brings her hand to bump against his. When he looks up - because of course he does - she's arched a brow, amusement resting across her lips.

She takes her chip, and sits back. It was very much a 'i know why you're nervous' encounter. Even if she doesn't, exactly. She's just mean.

For the most part, though, she remains silent. Watchful.

[Roman Turner] It wasn't too awful long before he reappeared, this time fully dressed once more as if he might be planning on going out. More chips were handed out and then the Coggie made himself at home on the pew, pulling his hat down over his eyes as if he were going to sleep. Quietly across the link was whispered.

I'll follow him if he suddenly ups and leaves.

Meaning Seth. In a few moments his breathing was nice and easy.

((And I must sleep. Thanks for the play!))

[Fire Claws] He listens intently to Kora when she speaks about what is good hunting, his body starting to shake a little to shuffle off any of the rest of the snow that sits on his heavy jacket and hat, familiar acts and such. His hands soon burying themselves deep within the pits of his arms, trying to warm up the tips. His attention turns once when she pauses, eyes turn back to the pair of untamed kin women sitting around the mattresses, eating at what food is offered. Distracted.

When Kora asks him if he is still hunting alone, his eyes snap back to her.

"Ya. Still 'lone."

His mind retracing her previous mention of good hunts.

"I kill'd da wyrmlin' on ya territory. Ya right. Ya 'onor, not mine."

[Patrick Llewelyn] [Sorry all, phonecalls about Cyclone Yasi! Eesh.]

[Bridget] Bridget's head snaps to attention when she feels the press of someone staring, but she's not sure at first where it's coming from. She shakes it off, then curls over her harmonica. Unlike the usual wail, the kinfolk keeps things relatively calm. The kinfolk is soon lost in her playing, making unusual coaxing noises from the metal shard rather than the blues wail.

It doesn't really matter that everyone's lost in their own thing. Bridget finds a way to get lost as well, with much more consistent company.

[Linus] Takes this shit seriously, doesn't he?

Is Linus offer over the totemlink to Kora, his own attention shifting to the small group of huddled Kinfolk and Trueborn. He allows himself a brief moment to relax, take in the sight. Family through and through, despite the baggage that came with it. A nice neat little package. He pushed his jaw forward and breathed through his nose, trying to dull the tension riding his spine.

"...Bunch of lay abouts..." Quietly and to no one, the Godi remains where he is in the dark, off to one side, returning his attention to the pair of Fenrir in Jarl and Forseti. Arms cross over chest and he begins to teeter back and forth from one foot to another, notes from a harmonica creeping into the air to lend cadence to the wind howl and snow drop outside.

[Patrick Llewelyn] Prayers to Broken Stone had not vanished, had not ceased to exist. Well, at least not physically. What the Galliard had in fact been doing was focusing on some spot on the ground; frowning. The coffee beside him was forgotten, stone cold by the time he seems to stir again, and tune back in to his surroundings.

Kora is speaking to an unknown figure, the Kinfolk are still present -- Bridget playing the blues on a harmonica -- and even Linus appears to have calmed down.

Straightening, Patrick slides from his perch wordlessly, and starts to venture around the premises; finding some shadowy nook, the Galliard takes up residence in it, and hunches his back against the wall. In his pocket, fingers worry a lighter.

[Remy] "...it's not even that cold." The door of the church creaks open on Remy's grumbling. "Just a little windy is all. Button up over your nose and mouth and you'll be fine. Don't know why you insist on stopping off here. Not like it's that much farther to the El station."

And WHUMPF goes the big ironwood doors of the Church, shutting out -- if not quite the chill -- the wind and the snow, at least. The muscleheaded Godi and the slighter, recently-widowed kin stand in the nave of the church, the former peeling outerwear down from his head.

"VISITING IN YOUR TERRITORY!" Remy bellows. It echoes off the buttresses, reflects back from the arched ceiling. "There, that ought to be polite enough for them."

[Izzy Montoya] Patrick gets up to move, and it catches her attention. Very little misses her attention, actually, his movement simply gets her to glance his direction. She tracks his movement across the room, then marks each of the other occupants once more. Roman is snoozing. Linus is rocking. Bridget is playing. Kora and Fireclaws are talking and..

Remy is bellowing. Subtle.

She lifts the coffee cup to her lips, and remains quiet, for now. She digs her phone out of her pocket, and thumbs through her messages, tension tightening along her jaw as she sees nothing from Dabney, or anyone who can come get the car. And her.

[Kora] Kora half turns, following Fire Claws' line of sight toward the kinswomen gathered around the fire. When she looks back to the feral Forseti, her eyes are bright with reflected light. "Wolves weren't meant to hunt alone." It's a truism. A cliché. And a truth. Kora's eyes are trained on his rough features, which never seem wholly human to her, as if she could see the wolf in him pushing through his skin, opening his human mouth with its blunt teeth, unbending his human posture - the straight spine, the well-set shoulders. "Who will tell your stories around the fires. Who'll bring you back to yourself when you claw you way back from death. Who'll howl for you when you die."

Her mouth twists again; some part of her knows that he cannot read it as a human would. Look, she's smiling, not showing teeth. The coat swings open and it is clear that she's pregnant, even if he does not know precisely how pregnancy looks on human women. Her one lean, narrow frame looks - not feminine, but instead: distinctively female, though she's a few months off from delivery yet.

Kora crosses her arms beneath her breasts, glances back at Linus, her features in profile, illuminated. Then, back to Fire Claws. "Well, here's the payment I want from you. Linus' Hrafn flock is grounded by the storm. We need eyes and ears in the territory, this side and the other. You'll run with us; take your turn standing watch when you haven't got duty at the Caern."

Remy and Drew walk in, the former bellowing his presence. Kora's off in the shadows beneath the choir loft, arms crossed, her head tucked, intent on her conversation with the feral. Still, she glances up when they walk on, dark eyes touching on the pair. Remy, Drew.

"Don't eat my Bacon Double Cheeseburger Pringles." Her voice carries; she needn't bellow. Call it a welcome, of sorts.

[Sofie Janssen] Getting up from the pew, she makes her way towards Izzy. It's only a few steps away, and then she sits herself down again. She doesn't know the Kinswoman, they hadn't really spoken, but Sofie strikes up a conversation quietly. It's a question, really, followed on after she watched the other woman check her phone. "Think cabs will come out tonight?" The words are low.

[Drew Roscoe] The door opens, snow and wind cuts into the building when it does so, and in through the havoc of white step a pair of Fenrir together, chattering, mid-conversation with one another. The tall, muscled, oh-so-handsome Godi is grumbling down to the Kinfolk that came along with him, a girl with her hair twisted back into a ponytail so the wind wouldn't blow it into her face, decked out as much as possible for the cold with a winter hat, gloves, scarf, coat, boots... the whole nine yards. She's got her chin lifted so her mouth is free from the scarf, so what she says can be heard over the whistle of the wind: "Just wanna check and see if he's here or not, I told'ja that. I know he's a big kid and he'll be fine, but it's been three nights." The last time she didn't go searching for someone she found out a month after that they'd been dead the whole time and no one had bothered to come tell her.

The door slaps closed behind them, with some effort on Remy's part to force it back against the wind. Then Remy's hollering into the church, acoustics bouncing the sound all about the place. Drew cringes some against the sound, then shakes her head when he muses about how polite the announcement had to be, that Last Watch of course would be content with it.

"You know they've got an open-door policy to Tribe, right?" And Drew's unwrapping her scarf from about her chin, knotting it more loosely about her neck so it wasn't strangling her, and glancing about the worship-room that they had stepped into. The sound of music was replacing the echo of Remy's voice and the ringing it left in her ear, the crackle and snap of flames as well. She's not asking right away, searching verbally for the Rotagar. Rather, she's hunting with her eyes. If he'd be anywhere, it'd likely be with the group.

[Izzy Montoya] Sofie settles next to Izzy, and she takes another drink, before looking over at the other kin. She returns her gaze to her phone, as she lifts a shoulder into a shrug. "Slowly, if at all."

There's a beat, and then. "If my car decides to start, I can get you to the Brotherhood."

[Sofie Janssen] Considering the offer, she looks back to where Patrick had disappeared to, then back around to Izzy. "Patrick, the Fianna, he's a mechanic. Maybe we can get him to have a look at it. I don't think he wants to be here either," she says what they all seem to be thinking. Nobody likes being trapped, even if it's by nature Herself.

[Linus] Linus remains off to one side of the church, bowed to his haunches whilst inspecting something along the foundation line. Carvings in the stonework done by crude claws and time. Kora and Fire~Claws conversation is left to the wayside for the moment, Linus attention picking out his name and the description of the Hrafn. His silence was approval, if not outright comfort at knowing there would be someone there to keep watch while he wasn't. The tension in his spine ebbed slightly...

...And Remy and Drew's arrival brings him around from his inspection of the glyph-work along the foundation. His gaze narrows and his jaw juts out, off to the left and in the dark of the large Church doors. The Bonfire just infront of the Dais where the altar use to be is a hotbed of Kin and True all settled in a relaxed. Several of the pews have been dragged over to act as seating.

"Got more bodies tonight than a fuckin' Brothel on 2 for 1 Tuesdays..."

[Remy] "Whatever, they want polite, this is my idea of polite. You announce yourself when you're on another wolf's turf." And then he draws in a deep breath to yell back, "NOT LOOKING FOR FOOD, JUST HERE TO LET TWINKLE TOES WARM UP."

Which isn't really the truth, but. Remy stuffs his wool cap in his pocket, then unzips the front of his jacket from top to bottom. Underneath that he's got a microfleece inner jacket; under that, a thermal longsleeve tee. All of it pads out a frame that's already -- well. Impressive is putting it nicely. Standard-dumb-jock might be putting it more accurately.

"Who're we here to check on again?"

[Linus] "Shut the fuck up already and go get warm then!"

[Bridget] "Hey, Izzy. I'd like to come with ya if you'll take me. I'll buy you a beer or something."

She stops playing long enough for that.

[Remy] Remy's head snaps around. He squints through the murk. He doesn't really dial it down very far: "Did it look or sound like I was talking to you, squirt?"

[Linus] "Did it sound like I give a fuck 'bout your Preferences, Roadkill?" From the dark, Linus pulling up to his feet and dusting his fingers down over his jacket.

[Izzy Montoya] Patrick there, is a mechanic. Something in that statement seems to amuse Izzy, for all that she comments "I know." She hasn't asked him though, has not imposed on his knowledge. After this, though, she might. Bridget asks to join, and she lifts dark eyes to the Fianna kin, then back to her phone. Perhaps it's agreement.

"Depends on the car star..."

And then Remy snaps his head around. His focus is on Linus, who stands to face the other Fenrir, but that doesn't stop the twist of tension along her spine. She refuses to show it, other then a slight clench of her jaw.

[Sofie Janssen] It has to be telling, that there's Kinfolk that would rather go out and brave it in a storm then to stay in the Church with the Last Watch. Sofie looks from where Remy is bellowing and entering with Drew, over to Bridget as she asks to get a ride out too.

Her gaze cuts across the figures at various places in the Church. The bonfire is warm, crackling over to the side and the smell of smoke drowns out that of the damp snow beyond. It could have been the slumber party Roman had seemed to want, but it's far from that ideal right now.

If the tension wasn't enough before. Now there's Get of Fenris yelling at each other in a place where sound seems to carry just fine. "Fuck it," she murmurs low to Izzy. "I'm slipping out the back door." The cap in her jacket pocket is pulled out and held in a hand as she rises off the pew.

"Comin'?" To Izzy and Bridget.

[Drew Roscoe] He bellows that they don't want food, just shelter long enough for Drew to get some circulation back into her 'twinkle-toes'. Him calling her that had her peering up at him, then grinning ironically. She shook her head a little, and looked toward the huddle of Kin grouped together, from them to the direction from where Linus's voice was ringing out, the vague shape of him, the statuesque and curved figure of Kora, and a stout, not-immediately-recognized person along with them, mostly hidden in the shadows.

Remy and Linus are calling back and forth, and Drew grunts and nudges her elbow into Remy's side, which felt an awful lot like digging her elbow into a section of beef slab, only slightly cushioned by the layers of clothing on top.

"Here for Erek. And could you not? He's Last Watch, this's their land. Why you gotta be picking fights all the time?"

[Fire Claws] He turns his attention to the Godi who seemed to be hanging around the conversation between himself and their Jarl. He watched the godi and his inspection of the foundation and the glyohs carved around the room. Turning back to the alpha of the pack, he furrows his brow.

"Oka'.

It was a pack, even if he was not dedicated to it. It was a start, something to call himself apart of. But within a few moments, his head quickly snaps back to the door, a scent he had learned of and a faint one he had found at the Sept a few days ago. Eyes turning on Drew and her guide, but the smell not the same.

Focused on the new arrivals now.

[Remy] Drew can feel Remy's rage flaring. The solid young Godi jerks his head to the left, giving his neck a quick, sharp crack. "It sound like I started this fight?" he mutters back at Drew. "Who told me to shut the fuck up first? Anyway, his territory or not, he better get ready to defend it --

"HEY FUCKFACE. Wanna come over here and say that again?"

[Patrick Llewelyn] Remy enters; in the darkness, the Fianna's eyes gleam as he lifts his face. He's taken the lighter out of his pocket and flicks it open, ignites the flame and then flicks it shut again. The slow, steady repetition might give the Kinfolk pause about checking with him about anything.

Especially considering the way his Rage seems to have swarmed.
Especially considering the grim set to his jaw abruptly.

Remy's remark to Linus draws a snort from his corner. If Remy paid attention, he'd see the outline of Patrick, there. He can certainly smell Fianna.

[Bridget] Bridget shucks off the blanket, grabs her bag, and stuffs her father's harmonica into it, popping the chips into her mouth at last. Doubtful Kora wanted it after they've been pawed at, which happened before the warning was confirmed.

"Been out hunting in worse," she says, wiping her hands off onto her jeans. Her eyes cast towards Patrick, then the Lupus-born before she looks back to Izzy.

[Linus] ...And Linus peels out of the darkness with a narrowed eye and a flicker of something like a smile, faint and off.

"I think I know about you." A beat, eyes flicking off Remy toward Drew, finger pointing at the other Godi, his lanky frame draped in the thick Trappings of winter. "This how you have fun now?" And the smile vanishes with a flash of something distasteful.

[Izzy Montoya] Bridget and Sophie make as if to dash out the back, the sudden tension too much, to sudden too soon. Izzy doesn't move, because... well. She's a stubborn bitch, and she refuses to allow any Trueborn to think they've gotten to her. Even if said True has zero attention spared in her direction. She needs to check on the car, and ensure it starts.

"Patrick, think you could take a look?" That, first, and then to the kin.. "I'll call a cab for you guys. It might take a bit." Especially if there is a brawl, first.

[Drew Roscoe] "Choice of words aside, I don't think he was looking to pick a fight."

The Kinfolk's scowling, the bridge of her nose wrinkled up, and tugging her gloves off her hands to stick them in her coat pockets, but leaving the hat on her head anyways. How a Godi, who was supposed to be lost in Spirits and Other Worlds, calm and focused, got more riled up and strutted more than a rooster did was beyond her. Hell, Joe was friendlier and far more reasonable.

Linus comes out from where he'd been standing with Kora and Fire Claws, into more ready view, and answers to the challenge like any Fenrir would. Drew's exasperated already, and sighing heavily, but, oddly, not peeling away from Remy's side. Not just yet at least. She's just muttering to him under her breath.

"I swear I'm never going places with you anymore."

[Sofie Janssen] "It's alright," Sofie gives Izzy a nod of her head, "I've got a phone. I can call a cab."

Looking to Bridget, she nudges her head towards the door. Despite saying that she was going to slip out the back door, Sofie's going to walk right out the way she came. Quite content to walk with an unknown woman, safety in numbers and all that, Sofie begins towards the door.

As she's putting her hat back on, passing by Drew and Remy, she offered: "Hey Remy," as she's heading out.

Kora gets a small lift of her hand as she reaches the door to open it.

[Remy] Remy comes forward as Linus does. They meet amidst toppled pews and dusty, torn bibles. Hymnbooks. In this silent arena, pervaded through and through by some immaterial sense of the holy, or at least what mortals hope to be holy, Remy is a blunt weapon, a burning brand, irreverent and -- by all appearances -- stone-deaf to the secret life around him.

He puts a gloved hand to his ear, exaggeratedly mimicking a listening gesture. "What's that? Oh, that's right. I didn't hear you calling me Roadkill again, did I now."

A second later the mockery flashes dark. He takes a step forward and sideways, in front of Drew. "Hey, bitch. If you're too afraid to sling insults at the Trueborn, don't take it out on the kin."

-- his eyes flick toward Sofie. "Hey, Sofe. Where you going?" They come back to Linus, hard and dark.

[Kora] Kora's arms are crossed; the agreement's set with Fire Claws, requiring no further words. Instead, her attention narrows on Linus and Remy, nostrils flaring with a sharp sort of distaste.

"Bone-Writer," there's caution in her voice; which is to say: warning. "No." She knows the church as well as anyone; better than anyone living, and she's crossing the distance in long, moving strides. The edges of her winter coat flare out around her frame as she advances on Remy like she's going to run him down.

"Drew, shut the fuck up."

"Remy, shut the fuck up. You are going to hold your tongue or walk out that fucking door. You want to throw down; you'll do it after this fucking storm."

[Sofie Janssen] "Anywhere that's not here." Sofie shoots back and then steps out into the blizzard and the storm that's raining down on the city.

[Kora] (guys, I really, really, really need to sleep since it's 2 a.m. If this is going further than sniping, we have to pause. )
to Bridget, Drew Roscoe, Erek Skulason, Fire Claws, Izzy Montoya, Linus, Patrick Llewelyn, Remy, Sofie Janssen

[Bridget] "Bonsoir," she blinks at Remy on her way out with the other kinswoman of significant breeding. She seems to know enough of the same people, so she must be alright.

Bridget usually isn't bothered by all the tension, moreso than usual. She just isn't feeling in the mood to deal with drama, and she's got more of her own personal drama in spades.

Sofie suddenly leaves and the other lanky, wolfish girl follows into the blizzard.

"This is nothing. You been into the mountains before?" she asks the blonde.

[Patrick Llewelyn] Izzy wants him to take a look at the car.

Shk.

The flame is snuffed out again, and Patrick shifts; feet scraping against floor debris as he moves back out of the shadows, coming up alongside Linus. "Yeah," his eyes are on Remy, flick to Drew, then shift to Izzy. "I can take a look. Let's go."

He heads toward the door Sofie had just scuttled out of to escape them all.

[Remy] A clench of his teeth, muscles drawing taut from temple to jaw. Remy jerks a thumb at Linus.

"He started it."

[Izzy Montoya] Something Kora says gets a reaction from Izzy - though it's hidden as she continues to thumb through her phone. She takes an extra moment, checking another message, before she looks up again, and tucks the phone away.

Patrick agrees to take a look, and only then does she stand. She nods toward Kora, though her attention is elsewhere, and turns to follow Patrick to the door. "It's not far."

[Linus] "...And When I deem you important enough to insult a second time you'll know-"

Kora speaks. It doesn't still Linus' tongue as much as it does get his attention. Hermodr was good like that. Especially in the Jarl's hands. His head tilts away from catching Remy's gaze with that grin like suggestions and Name calling to die when he meets Kora's gaze and mention of a single, adamant word. His response is a grunt and a cluck of the tongue.

"Yeah."

And then around on Remy again. He leans slightly, regarding Drew again with that same weird smile and narrowed gaze.

"Pick 'em sweet 'n tender." A jab there. Something suggestive. "Good on ya." Before the Godi's pulling off without another word or eye at Remy, glancing at Patrick as the large Fianna goes wandering past and for the door. The party was dying as quick as it started, arrivals turning to departures without much effort.

"I'm gonna see if I can convince Hrafn to settle in. At least keep eyes on the Church outskirts." And around toward Fire~claws, a serious tone creeping into a small phrase.

"You comin' with?"

[Fire Claws] His attention is pulled in several different ways as he continues to watch the ongoing of the pair of Godi as they snipe back and forth. Watching and waiting for one or the other to go beyond words.

Back to Bridget, Sofie, Izzy and Patrick as they talk about leaving into the blizzard, about cars and other issues he had no understanding about. He just stands and watches the interaction of monkeys as they go about their situations.

Just curious.

[Sofie Janssen] "Mountains? Well, depends what you call mountains." Sofie answers Bridget, pulling the scarf up around the bottom half of her face and working on her gloves as they step out into the cold. The street is far from friendly today, but the other Kinfolk is right - there's been worse. "Most of the hiking I've done is not in the winter."

"Where you from anyway? Your accent, it sounds familiar." Because Sofie has ventured into Canada a few times, just not enough to immediately place her there. The town and Sept she was with wasn't too far from the borders edge.

[Fire Claws] He nods when Linus directs his attention back to him. Back to something he actually knew about. Spirits and hunting.

"Ya."

[Kora] "Squirt.

"Roadkill."

Trust a Skald to remember the precise series of insults tossed out. "I don't care who started it. I'm ending it tonight. You want to take it up again, when the storm's passed and we're not fucking blind, you do that. Tonight: no fucking way."

Then, another frisson of anger sparks in Kora's eyes and she rounds in an arc of motion, leaving Remy at her back, scowling at her brother. "Bone-Writer, that was un fucking called for. Apologize to Drew, you owe her a debt of honor. And you're not to say a cross-word to kin - not a stray fuck - for a week, or I will take it out of your hide. Hear me?"

[Bridget] "Red Deer Sept, some podunk place in the mountains of Alberta. We're a good two or three hours from the nearest anything. We have a cabin out there, it can get pretty rough in the winter."

Her accent isn't the form of Canadian familiar to most people in Fargo. She's got a good deal of the Quebecois in the way she speaks, more apparent when she's drunk or angry and swearing.

"What about you?"

[Erek Skulason] *There's friction afoot, the no moon can feel it in his gut as he waded through the blizzard towards what he considered sanctuary. A tall, figured covered in head to boot in heavy winter clothes, a scarf wrapped several times around his throat, jaw and nose to protect it from the cold, a knit cap slammed down tight on his skull to cover his ears. Blue eyes peer out the slit that was made for his vision, sniffling a red-chapped nose*

[Remy] Remy's eyes narrow a beat on Kora. But then Linus is moving, and Remy's pivoting in place to watch him go. When their relative positions have changed enough that Linus is closer to Drew than to Remy, the latter puts his big hand on Drew's shoulder and brushes her almost effortlessly behind him again. His free hand -- since he's decided not to keep running his mouth for now -- flaps open and shut in a distinct yappety-yap gesture. And when Kora dresses her packmate down, Remy's smirk is positively shit-eating.

He nudges Drew, "This yapper's the one you're here to check up on? We've checked on him, you wanna go now?"

[Drew Roscoe] Linus and Remy are all but at one another's throats. Remy's shifted so he's standing in front of her, spitting venom at the other Godi for insulting Drew-- though she seems to have missed how she was insulted. She's muttering, and Kora's interjecting, her voice all brass and authority.

Drew, shut the fuck up.

This was far from the first time she's heard those words, there's nearly a quip of humor at the corners of her mouth at the familiar cadence of the order. She presses her lips together, wrings her hands for warmth, and cups them up to her mouth to breathe on them, bringing circulation back to her fingertips and stepping out to the side so she's part behind Remy, part to his side now instead.

Linus's eyes fall on her, sarcasm and bitterness in them as he compliments Remy on his choice of 'sweet and tender'. The Kin frowns, hard. She doesn't look taken aback, shocked or upset like delicate girls tend to when they've been had like that. Rather, she just looks annoyed. Really now? her eyes said into his. Unnecessary.

And Kora's stomping on the fight, firm that it will not happen, not here and not tonight. She's demanding that Linus apologize to the Kin, affirming what Drew felt in her chest when the insult was made. She doesn't look haughty, though, or satisfied that Kora took her side. She just sniffs against the effects cold will have on a healthy nose and breathes further into her hands.

The doors open from behind, Erek's working his way in, and Remy's nudging her with his elbow, talking toward her ear. She glanced back toward Erek, and an expression of partial relief softened her features away from the irritation that was set there prior.

"Yeah. On both counts."

[Patrick Llewelyn] [Can I repair da car? Dex + Crafts (Car Repair)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Fire Claws] He moves over to Linus as he goes on about being blind, while he was being reprimanded by his alpha. Moving up along side of dressed down true he was suppose to help with this 'blind problem.'

His eyes moving over Drew a few moments as he takes in the scent on her. Looking her up and down a little more as he realizes what he can smell now, smirking. The grin widening even more when the scent comes walking through the door.

Then back to Linus.

"Why ya blind?"

[Sofie Janssen] "Never been to Alberta." The conversation they are having is low. Sofie walks with her hands down by her sides instead of in her pockets. Her balance is better that way. The ground is unforgiving, blanketed with snow. The hem of pants will be wet by the time they get wherever it is they are going, walking up the street.

A glance is given to the stranger, who she knows as Bridget because she had been listening earlier. "Small place, over by Montana." Top end of Idaho. Doesn't really matter where. She's not there now, but she's starting to feel a little pang of homesickness.

"You heading to the Brotherhood?"

[Linus] Linus freezes in place at that all too familiar tone in Kora's voice. Shoulders hunch and his face screws up in something like grim displeasure. Fingers curl with arms straight to either side and then he's turning with a large exhale to regard Kora. Something of a dead pan;

"Yeah, Renders~rhya. I hear you." And then he turns narrowed eyes at Drew, mouth working around something...displeased and displeasing. "When I find something, you'll be the first to hear about it. Trust in that if nothing else." A promise of something. An apology now would be rife with...well, worse than any further insults. The Debt and the Apology would come as one.

Fenrir didn't do Sorry. At least, not well.

He turns back toward the Lupus, last vestige of something human drifting away to leave behind the possibility of what was to come: Duty. Spirits and Hunting. A much needed release.

"Let's do this, Claws~Yuf." Because the Lupus was a forseti and because Gwen had said he had jaws for tradition. The Godi seems to collect himself for a moment, then Fire~Claws asks. He turns and his face splits into a grin.

"Cause of all the monkey two legs running around, I talk the most. Rarely listen."

The air collides with a Pop and he vanishes into the Umbra.

[Patrick Llewelyn] Izzy leads him to her car -- which, according to her -- was not that far. The Galliard is mostly silent as he follows her; roughly tugging the zip up his jacket outside. The storm has not lessened with the passing hours, if anything, it has worsened and before long his face is all but numb despite his hood and gloves.

He signals the Fenrir to get inside her car; and opens the front; his upper body vanishing under the hood. After several moments; a palm smacks the side of the vehicle twice through the snowy windshield she can see Patrick winding his finger. Translation: Start her up.

[Kora] "Drew." Kora's arms are crossed underneath her breasts, over her stomach. "When the storm lets up, you are going to come here and find me. We need to have a talk." A sharp look over the kin's shoulder, at Remy. "Alone."

Then she's finished, Kora. And wanders off someplace while her player collapses into a coma.

[Erek Skulason] *Erek hovers outside near the door, watching the traffic of people exiting the church, he isn't privy to what's going on inside. His head turning, tilting to the side to track his vision over Izzy as she and Patrick are getting into her car. Further away, to barely see the tail end of Sofie heading down the sidewalk, and then finally Drew with Remy, when he's swung his vision back to the doors. Shoulders rolling back in faint shrug under clothing*