[C.J. Nash] His arrival would not be a surprise if he had left some sort of note any of the times he had come past in the last three days. When one is capable of sensing the strength of a Kinfolk's ancestors, of telling how far down the lineage the great heroes stand, the purpose of a purebred man's arrival on the front step can't be too great of a concern.
Taint, though, possession, mental deterioration are not announced along with the fact that one's distant relation was a minor hero. These are the sorts of things that paranoid warders and guardians have to consider when they welcome a stranger into their fold.
It's mid-afternoon on a dreary yet comparatively balmy March day when a battered yet returned-to-rights early-90s Ford Ranger growls down the street where it had originally broken down earlier in the week. A tall, long-haired man whose age falls into that wasteland in the middle of his thirties steps out of the cab, flicking a cigarette to the asphalt and blowing a thick plume of smoke into the air.
He regards the looming, antiquated church with wariness on lupine features, then coughs and slams the truck door. Easy, long-limbed strides carry him up the walkway to the stone steps, slowing only to give him a moment to observe the yard before he continues on.
A knock sounds on the timeless doors, and he stands with his hands behind his back. That's how he is when whoever answers the door, answers.
[Kora] Wood, banded in iron - those doors, set deep in a wide portico. The ragged overgrowth that surrounds the church is starting to come alive again. Some of those bare-armed bushes have nubs of soon-to-be-sprouting leaves. In places the sere, dry grass is greening until the ragged hummocks of last year's dead tangle. The sidewalk and wide steps are clear of both weeds and debris. A few half-melted patches of snow refreeze in the shadows at the side of the steps.
It's cold tonight; not bitterly cold, but still winter. Enough that he can see his breath burst out of his lungs when he coughs. Some minutes after CJ knocks, the doors to the church open. Two inches at first: an impression of a woman in the sliver of visible interior - the sheen of light across a dark eye, a moment's recognition - not of him, but of the blood under his skin; the sense of solidity and strength it gives him.
Then she opens the door fully. Old as the place is, the heavy door's hinges are well-oiled, silent. The huge structure is mostly dark inside. The light of a lantern is visible about twenty feet in, lighting a nest of blankets on one of the derelict couches scattered underneath the choir loft. Beyond that, smaller flickers from kerosene lamps mounted to the columns lining the nave. There is the suggestion of space beyond her, vastness - light near the half-ruined (slowly repaired) ceiling - orange light sweeping in through the clerestory.
It's hard not to look up in a space like this, no matter how ruined. And it's easy to pray.
"You're new," says the blonde, a narrow, quiet twist to her mouth. A certain wryness that makes mockery of her own (rather obvious) observation. Tall, pale-skinned, long-limbed - seven months pregnant, or more - unbalanced enough by her stomach that she's developed the beginnings of a pregnant-woman-waddle. "I expect you're looking for me." She tips her head back toward the couches; the nest of blankets and book she had abandoned to answer the door. There are coolers under the make-shift tables, and a pair of pizza boxes atop one. "C'mon in."
[C.J. Nash] The kinsman who shows up on Kora's doorstep is dressed in a manner that leaves little room for negotiation as to his chosen profession: though he doesn't wear a badge on his hip, he wears black boots and tan slacks and a pressed button-up shirt underneath a black leather jacket. His face sports several days' worth of stubble, the majority of it gray whereas the hair on his head is a light blond; his eyes are a light green, and he holds himself in a fashion one would expect from a military man, or a police officer, someone for whom order and disciple is paramount.
He's slipping, though. His spine isn't locked, his jaw isn't set. He moves fluidly rather than stiffly. It's been a while since he was in the service; he looks as though he's rapidly approaching forty if he hasn't hit it yet, and given his scruffy jaw and jaw-length hair, one wouldn't expect him to find much use for churches.
Just like one wouldn't expect the leader of the Fenrir Nation to be a tall blonde heavy with child.
He doesn't bat an eye, though, give him that.
"Yeah I don't mean to take up too much'a your time, ma'am," he says, stepping forward when there's room for him to do so. The license plates on the Ranger are obscured by distance and angles, but his accent announces it for him: he's somewhere from the Deep South, likely Mississippi or Alabama if the drawn out drawl of it means anything. "I don't know if I'm passin' through or not."
A beat, and he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet.
"Take it you're Kora?"
[Kora] "Mmm," she returns, the sound a supple sort of agreement. She's leading the way back toward the couches, straight shoulders pulled back just a few degrees past neutral, as if that might help her support the weight of pregnancy. Her pale hair is half-loose, pulled back into a loose twist a the nape of her neck, secured by a chopstick she stole from some storefront Chinese restaurant.
"I am. Fostern Skald, and Jarl, as you've heard." She pauses by the tables, then bends over - carefully - lifting open one of the coolers there, glancing back over her shoulder long enough that he can see her the supple, edged twist of her curving mouth as she shoots him back that look. "And it's just Kora, yeah? Kora Eyjólfsdóttir if you want to be formal about it, at least in private.
"You want a beer?"
If he says yes, she unearths one for him from the half-melted ice inside.
[C.J. Nash] His eyes are on her by virtue of the fact that she, while carrying a child, is still the predator of the two of them. Heavier than the weight of her unborn heir is her Rage, resting over the exchange like a veil. He doesn't shrink from it, doesn't become a hopeless wreck in her presence, but it tempers things, brings a sharper focus to their interactions.
The threat of frenzy is a powerful motivator. Negative reinforcement has kept many a kinsman alive. Even bearing such a burden as the one she does, Kora Eyjólfsdóttir can still succumb to frenzy.
He is hardly frozen from fear. As Kora opens up the cooler in preparation to serve her guest, the kinsman pulls a white business card from his billfold and returns the leather instrument to his pocket.
She offers him a beer, and he considers.
"Since you're down there already..."
After she unearths the bottle, he moseys on over to where she is, exchanging the beer for the card. Printed on its surface is a wealth of information that goes beyond his breeding and his accent, but doesn't tell her anything about what he thinks he's doing here or how long he suspects he'll be.
C.J. Nash
Certified Legal Investigator
8035 Tanner Williams Road
Mobile, AL 36608
Tel: (251) 432-3520
Fax: (251) 432-3528
"A little bird-spirit," he says, as the exchange occurs, as she reads, "told a not-so-little Godi there's a Trueborn around these parts shares blood with me. Now, this is news to me, but he went on to say it's a she and she ain't got a name the spirit recognizes. Led me to believe she's a Cub. Spirit was mighty insistent but the Godi couldn't tell me why, so I hightailed it on up here to look for her."
[C.J. Nash] [!!!]
[Kora] (!!!!!!!!)
[Harrow] [Private scene?]
to C.J. Nash, Kora
[C.J. Nash] [Psh, no. Get in here.]
to Harrow, Kora
[Kora] (Oh gosh,
I'm going to stop talking to Damon. Hah. Get in here!)
to C.J. Nash, Harrow
[Harrow] You drive and drive until you can no longer tell the difference between road and dream. Highway and truckstop nightmare, fingers shaking as you seek to light just one more cigarette, shoulders hunched against the gaze of strangers. The moon demanding that you howl on up at it, let loose that fire that burns in your belly, to find sweet surcease from that fever, to let it loose, to let it all slip from your tightly gritted hands. But no, that ways lies madness, bodies rent and torn, the humans up in arms, so you play it cool, you drive and drive and pause only to dig the dirt out from under your nails.
The feel of the faux leather steering wheel beneath your callused hands. Stale beer on your tongue. Hair grown greased with night after night on the road, no shower, no cleansing balm. Face stubbled. Shaking and shivering. Riding that demon down that unhallowed road, racing even as the Abyss opens up behind you, yawning to let you slip back down its ribbed and hungry maw. Driving to beat the devil.
Don't underestimate the things that I will do.
Church building, hallowed ground. Banded doors, steeple high against the night. Truck pulling up to the road before it, engine idling, fingers drumming. Watching. Listening. Heart doing its erratic heathen dance in the confines of your chest. Deep breath. Deep breath. Here we go. Yanking up the parking break despite the damned level plane of the road. Door kicked open and out, boots on the broken asphalt. Deep breath. Faint tincture of rancid rage riding on the night air.
Up the path. Toward the portico, the recessed doorway. Pause. Scabbed knuckled fist raised, and then pounded, one two three. Not knocking, but punching, cracking against the ancient wood. Hard enough to shiver the portal, but no intention to shatter. Stepping back, arms crossing over his chest, chin lowered, huffing, waiting, gaze slanting to the side to watch the street.
Waiting.
[Kora] Straightening, she pulls out a pair of bottles from the slurry of ice and water in the cooler. One of them is beer, a Goose Island stout, dark as pumpernickel bread. The other one is rootbeer she drinks not for flavor, but for the remembered feel of the long-necked brown glass bottle between her fore and middle fingers. It's not a twist-top bottle, but she hands it to him anyway, without an opener, reaching to take his business card in the same gesture.
"Alabama," she murmurs quietly, the pad of her thumb sliding thoughtlessly over the text. Her rootbeer is left on the table then, as she tucks CJ's business card into the worn pages of an old passport, the US seal in embossed in faded gold on the blue cover. Then slides the passport into her hip pocket, glancing back up at him, dark eyes clear, intent on his features in the dim light of the ruined church.
When his story is finished, her generous mouth twists, the expression subtle, a quirk of the corners, the right higher than the left. "We have a cub here, Gwen, yeah? She's a Forseti, or should be when she's ready for her rite of passage. Unless she renounces. Though I was pretty sure she had parents here. Kept pretending she was still in high school, you know. Like she could be a part-time werewolf.
"My pack-mate's training her. If you're looking for a reunion, I can have her back by morning."
Then: another knock. Not a knock - a punch, loud enough that it echoes inside, off the old stone walls. Bounces in the corners where the empty pizza boxes are left as an enticement to rat, before its lost just beyond, where the wooden ceiling of the choir loft ends and the space opens up, soars.
"One sec - " the Skald says, holding up a single finger to belay any further thought. Already walking back toward the front doors of the abandoned church. Her awareness is sharpened in that moment; something about the force of it has her pulling her shoulders back to neutral, has her walking like an animal rather than a woman in the last trimester of pregnancy.
The door opens silently: two inches. There's no blood speak for her; but the miasma of his rage sparks against her own, brings it up through her blood. Somehow she had shaken off that caged feeling from this night last - now it returns with her sharpened awareness, pulling open the door another inch as she flicks the stranger a dark-eyed look, up and down all at a go.
"You're not a Jehovah's witness." Her voice is low and rich, the accent ordinary, middle American. It's dark and she's visible in a three-inch slice. Pale face, dark gray sweatshirt over jeans, zipped half-way up. Tall and blond, chin high, eyes direct through that sliver of open door.
[C.J. Nash] He laughs at that, the sound muted and uncharacteristically respectful. Perhaps it's the religious aspect of the place, lessons ingrained in childhood: don't swear, don't run, don't laugh, don't hit your sister. Don't do these things in the Lord's house. He has that air about him though, a combination of backbone and bruises that suggests he didn't have that sort of upbringing. It's as though he knew what he was, what they were, from his earliest substantial memory.
He uses words like 'Godi,' for starters, doesn't have to ask what the hell a Forseti is. Speaks of the spirit world both as though it's a given part of their existence and something he can never entirely understand.
"She ain't mine to--"
At which point a slamming of a fist sound against the door, one two three, interrupts the conversation. Nash hadn't moved to open his beer yet. He doesn't startle at the sound, but his posture, his gaze, become sharp, precise, as he turns to look at it over his shoulder. She bids him to wait one sec, and he nods, eyes not leaving the door.
The angles of his face, the way his green eyes darken, that make one wonder if he isn't part wolf. With none of that animal attraction that some of the more primordial of their kind carry, it's just the intensity in his gaze in moments like this. His beer is forgotten without being cracked; he sets it down and moves slightly closer.
[Harrow] "You're not a Jehovah's witness," she says, and good lord no he ain't. He stands at her doorstep, looms, a rangy frame of flesh and bone, rawhide, the length of stubbled jaw, the lank black hair, the broad shoulders, the bony wrists. He's standing there, arms crossed over his chest, and even as she speaks he shifts his weight, drops his arms, then reaches up to cross them once more. Unable to stand still, to find peace, to embrace stasis.
He turns then, attention summoned by her voice, and his eyes brush her own, a sparking touch, a hint of veridian green flecked through with errant gold, eyes of a drowned god, shot through with red, a testament to a fortnight without sleep.
He might have been good looking once. Might have once possessed the youthful fire of an adonis, but now he is a herald of glory ruined, the sun glimpsed on the horizon through banks of endless fog, shorn of his corona.
Full blooded yes, and there is in his might and mien that which calls to her own blood, Fenrir, son of Ragnarok, child of Loki and Odin and Fenris all, though the apple has fallen far from the tree. He gazes at her, body half turned away as if loath to commit, and then bares his teeth to show her yellowed canines, a feral expression, annhilating that which might have been human in his bearing and form.
"Heard I could score a beer here," he growls, his voice a low rasp, uneasy energy, distemperate and dischordant. Pauses, and then tries a smile, an attempt that he rapidly abandons, turning to scan the road. Flashes a look back at her, "Safety from the night, surcease from the moon. You got a smoke?"
[Kora] "No," she tells him simply through the sliver of the door, one moment extending into the next in measured beats. The night air is bright with cold now, the sky covered with clouds. The city's background, radioactive glow does not intrude much here. They're cast in shadows from the broad columns, the thick planks of the old door.
Which she's opening now; a slit-second's thought, the calculation of it evident as she meets his eyes. Her own are lost in shadow, simply dark - shadows against the pale planes of her northern features. Sharpened cheekbones and jaw softened by a generous mouth that twists into something brief, wry - all too human when measured against his yellow-toothed grin. "I have that beer though. C'mon."
Lifting her chin with the last, a physical invitation, she opens the door wide enough that he can shoulder his way into the dark shadows of the ruined church, shutting the door behind him.
Her pregnancy was easy to miss through the ribbon of her frame visible through the crack in the door. It's impossible to ignore, now. The sweatshirt she wears was made for a much larger man. It sags around her shoulders, is shapeless over her chest. The sleeves are too long, and the waistband falls below her hips. It's just large enough for her stomach, though.
"You got a name?" she asks, when the door is shut, looking back and finding CJ's eyes; letting her own trace down him, taking in the alertness of his stance with that steady animal awareness as she leads the stranger seeking surcease of the moon back toward the ramshackle collection of couches and broken pews, folding tables and coolers, pizza boxes and sighing, gently deliquescing bean bag chairs.
The ceiling's lower here, wood, the choir loft above. Beyond, though, the space soars in ruined neogothic splendor, patches of orange-tinted night sky visible through the broken spires of the vaulted roof.
[C.J. Nash] [Ack, crap, don't wait for my ass to post! *Kinfolk in a room full of Garou dilemma*]
[Harrow] "I got a name," he says as he shoulders his way past her, rough swaying as he comes, into the ruinous sanctum. Leaving the night and toxic orange of the city behind, moving into this enclosed space, the walls pressing in close, breathing and throbbing about them, closing and constricting. He pauses to cast his gaze about the fastness of the church, chapped lips pulling back from his teeth as he does so, and then he fixates on the coolers, locks his gaze as a drowning man might his attention on a floating spar, and strides over, power and lost grace manifesting in that direct approach for but a moment before he sinks into a crouch, tosses back the cooler lid and salvages a bottle from the icy murk within.
Rises, turning to consider CJ now, and with a sharp whip of his hand he cracks the neck off the bottle, knocking it against the wall, spilling beer as it fizzes and spurts like blood from a severed aorta onto the floor. Raises the raw neck to his mouth, drinks, uncaring of the lacerations that appear on his lips and heal just as fast. The blood that mixes with the alcohol. Drinks, eyes moving from side to side as he considers each in turn, and when the bottle is drained he drops it to the ground, draws his forearm across his mouth.
"Name's Harrow," he says, and that rasp, that burned out wreck of a voice. Begins to prowl, moving about the confines of the church. He's easily six feet tall, but from his hunched manner, crouched as if to spring, he seems no taller than five foot something.
That pent up fury. That tension riding shotgun. Hands flexing into fists. Hands flexing into claws. Release. Deep breath. Release.
"I'm the vanguard," he says at last. "The eye of Rorscharch. The Samsarra Bastards here yet?" Takes another gulp from his beer.
[Linus] He'd been physical this time.
The fireplaces were lit and scouring the insides of their respective hearths. He'd been leap-frogging back and forth between each one, scooping out old detritus and scrubbing down several of the internal walls with emphatic even zealous desire. Sigurd's gift and a small munition depot of steel wool was ensuring much of the interior was gotten to without much issue or trouble. The amount of detritus and fuel that had been gathered and placed next to each hearth was minimal for the time being. He hadn't had much time to break the bits and pieces down since returning from Patrol.
Still, small piles had been constructed next to each hearth and with them the fires would burn into the night. He could tackle the garbage pile outside for spare pieces soon enough. His stomach warbled a complaint, the Godi's jaws clapping shut as he ducked out from the inside of the hearth, layered in a thick black film and spitting soot out onto the fire which crackled in response.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." It's murmured, left to hang behind him, a damp dish rag plucked up from the Kitchen counter to begin the steady process of wiping down exposed flesh. The clothes couldn't be helped. He'd just have to smell like a fireside for a while, until one of the Kin snuck his clothes into a laundry pile while he was sleeping.
The Godi creeps through the church on bare feet, cargo pants and thick black hoodie smelling of cinders and ash as he passes through the hallway and into the main Church interior, nothing but squints and a vague murmur on his lips. His first instinct is to regard Nash with something like recognition (and a curious perk of the brow) followed closely by the upswing toward Kora, the baby and onto the hunched over creature prowling a slow circle around the Church grounds. He pauses in place, gaze keeping Harrow for a moment before traveling to Kora with a question on his face.
[Linus] (Sense Wyrm on Harrow: Per 3 + Occ. 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Hunter] The knocking is plentiful tonight. Here comes another passer-by, stopping at the top of the steps that lead up to the front door of the church. A heavy fist; two heavy, dull blows and then the Gnawer waits. He has seen others simply open the door and walk in like they own the place; he has seen others make no attempt to announce themselves. Hunter has never been one of these people. He always knocks. He always waits.
When the door is opened they'll see him, green-steel for eyes and a firmly set jaw. But at least he has shaved; at least he doesn't smell like a corrupted funeral pyre.
[C.J. Nash] What he thinks he's going to be able to accomplish if the visitor turns out to be a rampaging madman, some twisted testimony to the power and perversion of the Wyrm, he doesn't exactly say, but that watchfulness doesn't dissipate once Kora invites the stranger inside for a beer. He relaxes, sure, but the flint in his eyes would suggest he's more projecting an air of zen-like calm than he actually feels it in his core. That metal weight holstered at his side does little to give him the illusion of preparedness, but when Kora looks his way, takes in his stance, he looks back at her.
Even as she is, she stands a better chance to survive whatever could come through that door than he does, but it isn't her the man seeking a daughter he's never met is concerned about.
None of this is spoken, though, so when the visitor comes barreling into the church, he gets the hell out of the way without hiding. He's near enough that he can still be spotted by those incoming, near enough that when he watches Harrow bite the neck off a beer bottle he has to bring a hand up to scrub at his jaws so it doesn't look like he's trying not to laugh.
He coughs, clears his throat, and here comes the kid from the motel room. Without teenage Modi blood all over him, there's no outward cause for alarm, but Nash actually manages to smell the sooty Godi before he sees him; turning his head, he returns that brow quirk without speaking. And then there's another knock at the door.
Thus begins that awkward moment where he attempts to extricate himself from the church without looking like he's fleeing. For now, he waits.
[Kora] There's a moment of distance, her attention drawn back, attenuated to insubstantiality. The look is familiar to anyone who knows Garou: dark eyes focused but just off to the side, the movement of her mouth so subtle that it looks more like an already-dying expression than the muscle memory of mouth and tongue as she pulls back her focus into herself. Linus appears among the marching rows of half-busted pews.
The creature cuts him a glance, just one as he appears. It's unerring. She knows where he is because she can feel him underskin; tied into her, wrapped around the fibers of her being.
"They're not here yet," her voice is quiet; low and rich but not velvet. It isn't that soft, see. There's steel beneath the nap. She's looking back at Harrow now, standing against the wall, surrounded by the shattered neck of the beer he drinks too quickly to appreciate the hoppiness. Bet the blood kills some of that anyway, the already healing lacerations on his mouth. A dark-eyed, flickering glance over him, up and down, and she's picking her way back to her abandoned rootbeer. "I wasn't expecting them." An undercurrent, that - still and dark-pooled.
She picks up the IBC bottle, long fingers draped around the (not-shattered) neck, but does not lift it to her mouth. "Your pack?" Then, when he's finished his broken beer bottle, she lifts her chin toward the cooler. "Have another."
A flicker of a look back to CJ, a supple twist of her mouth. "I'm laying odds that this one is finally a Jehovah's witness. Care to wager?" This as she walks back toward the front door, opens it a sliver, then opens it wider, "Hunter," she offers, verbally and mentally to her brother via their shared link. "C'mon in."
Her shoulders are pulled back from neutral, counterbalancing the weight of her pregnancy now. Underneath the feral grace of her animal self - she's developing the early stages of a pregnant-woman-waddle she refuses to acknowledge by word or deed. There's an underlying tension there; a certain sharpness that only her brother, maybe Roman can read in her, that comes from being nearly-locked in this form for a handful of days, and the gods only know how many more to come. "Help yourself to a beer. Meet Harrow."
[Harrow] Harrow rises to his full height, spine elongating, articulating, popping. He rises to his full height, and gazes at where Linus stands, before raking his gaze across the church, losing focus, losing intensity, so that when his gaze finally passes over Kora he's looking through her, distracted, looking inward. A subtle flick of his tongue over his lips, licking away the last of the blood, and then he shakes his head, once, twice.
"They're not here," he says, voice low, that undercutting shark rasp. "Fine. I'll keep moving. They'll catch up soon enough."
He ignores Kora's offer for more beer. Ignores introductions, recent arrivals. Moves across the church, out the front door, and toward his truck. Digging out keys as he goes, swinging them once twice thrice around his index finger before snatching them tight in a fist. The church left behind, but another pitstop, and then he's in the truck, lights flaring, gun roaring to life, pulling off into the street, going going gone.
[Harrow] [Thanks for the rp, guys.]
to C.J. Nash, Hunter, Kora, Linus
[C.J. Nash] [Thanks, Phil!]
to Harrow, Hunter, Kora, Linus
[Kora] (NIGHT PHIL! :) )
to C.J. Nash, Harrow, Hunter, Linus
[Hunter] nighty night!
to C.J. Nash, Harrow, Kora, Linus
[Hunter] And C'mon in he does. Hunter Matthews waits for her to step back and allow him room to enter before he steps inside. One hand closes the door for her -- one hand attempts to close the door but there is a Garou storming past and Hunter watches his exit. Clink, this time the door actually does close.
Beer was offered and beer he accepts by strolling on over to the cooler and fetching himself one. His head turns and eyes settle on the unknown Kinsman but he doesn't halt to say hello beyond the acknowledgement of his presence. This Ahroun doesn't crack open the bottle in his teeth, he pries it off like he would should he be using a lighter.. except he doesn't use one, just his hands.
"John's dead," he announces, more words lingering on his lips but being bitten back. He decides to take a swallow of his beer instead.
[C.J. Nash] Someone's dead.
For the second time in Linus's presence today, Nash makes the move to let himself out of the room without drawing too much attention to himself. He doesn't wave or thank the Jarl for her time or say anything at all, for that matter; he gives her a nod, should Kora look his way, but the expectation that she would is not present. That door barks slightly as he draws it inward, and then he's slipping out into the gray afternoon, leaving an unopened beer on the table and a business card in Kora's passport.
[C.J. Nash] [Thanks for the scene, y'all!]
[Kora] "Mr. Nash," Kora flicks a sidelong look at CJ, so controlled. Rigid through the shoulders and the spine now, exhaling a singular sharp breath. "You don't have to stay for this. Come back tomorrow and we'll talk."
Then she turns her full attention back to Hunter. Asks one, quiet question. "How?"
[Hunter] How?
Two days ago he would have answered that question in a heart-beat. Two days ago he did answer that question in a heart-beat. I killed him. Now the answer is not so simple.
"Wyrm.. I think.. m'not really sure.. He was..dead, but alive."
[Linus] Linus' attention flicks from the departing Harrow's back toward Kora. The sudden collective flicker of events happening in rapid succession do much to keep the Godi rooted in place and simply...watching as things unfold. Nash's departure is greeted with a brief glance that is both mistrust and concern. Moreso for the fact that Harrow had just left and the Metis creature was more of a threat then he was a friend at this juncture.
Then Hunter is entering with news of John. A brief moment of confusion wraps itself around the Godi's features before he's making his way slowly toward Kora and the Bone Gnawer, stopping just outisde of twelve feet to listen to what's to come.
[Kora] Here Kora cuts a sidelong glance at Linus; it's a passing look, the dark edge of her eyes, the faint softness of her profile. The curve of her cheek against the shadows of the church, her mouth curved beneath, flattening now, a certain tension in her frame - that deadly combination of rage and inaction, the feral drive underscoring both.
Linus can see the strain; feel it like a backlash against the shared system of their awareness.
"Tell me what happened," she instructs Hunter, dark eyes flickering over his features. "Start at the beginning, and go to the end." Her nostrils, flare, near the end.
[Hunter] And so he does.
They hear about how John became unstrung, how Hunter couldn't get to him before he severed the totem bond and left the city. Skip ahead two or three weeks -- the time-line is blurred -- Hunter followed blood from a car crash in Bronzeville and found John. The story becomes robotic the more times he repeats it and by now there is little expression in his tone. He repeats facts. John attacked and Hunter put him down instantly. Then he moved again, then he stood up when he shouldn't have, in his birth form, and attacked again.
An arm, in the end his entire head was removed and none of it slowed him. Hunter blew them both up in the wreckage of the car John had presumably crashed.
"There's nuthin' left." He adds sombrely.
[Kora] "He became - " Unstrung, Hunter explains, and this earns a frisson of something from the Skald. Her mouth flattens, and she listens to the story with a relentless sort of attention, darkeyed, straightforward.
In the end, all she says is, "Thank you."
[Kora] (sorry, I am so not in the zone for the scene. I feel awful, heh.)
[Hunter] [Don't worry!]
Taint, though, possession, mental deterioration are not announced along with the fact that one's distant relation was a minor hero. These are the sorts of things that paranoid warders and guardians have to consider when they welcome a stranger into their fold.
It's mid-afternoon on a dreary yet comparatively balmy March day when a battered yet returned-to-rights early-90s Ford Ranger growls down the street where it had originally broken down earlier in the week. A tall, long-haired man whose age falls into that wasteland in the middle of his thirties steps out of the cab, flicking a cigarette to the asphalt and blowing a thick plume of smoke into the air.
He regards the looming, antiquated church with wariness on lupine features, then coughs and slams the truck door. Easy, long-limbed strides carry him up the walkway to the stone steps, slowing only to give him a moment to observe the yard before he continues on.
A knock sounds on the timeless doors, and he stands with his hands behind his back. That's how he is when whoever answers the door, answers.
[Kora] Wood, banded in iron - those doors, set deep in a wide portico. The ragged overgrowth that surrounds the church is starting to come alive again. Some of those bare-armed bushes have nubs of soon-to-be-sprouting leaves. In places the sere, dry grass is greening until the ragged hummocks of last year's dead tangle. The sidewalk and wide steps are clear of both weeds and debris. A few half-melted patches of snow refreeze in the shadows at the side of the steps.
It's cold tonight; not bitterly cold, but still winter. Enough that he can see his breath burst out of his lungs when he coughs. Some minutes after CJ knocks, the doors to the church open. Two inches at first: an impression of a woman in the sliver of visible interior - the sheen of light across a dark eye, a moment's recognition - not of him, but of the blood under his skin; the sense of solidity and strength it gives him.
Then she opens the door fully. Old as the place is, the heavy door's hinges are well-oiled, silent. The huge structure is mostly dark inside. The light of a lantern is visible about twenty feet in, lighting a nest of blankets on one of the derelict couches scattered underneath the choir loft. Beyond that, smaller flickers from kerosene lamps mounted to the columns lining the nave. There is the suggestion of space beyond her, vastness - light near the half-ruined (slowly repaired) ceiling - orange light sweeping in through the clerestory.
It's hard not to look up in a space like this, no matter how ruined. And it's easy to pray.
"You're new," says the blonde, a narrow, quiet twist to her mouth. A certain wryness that makes mockery of her own (rather obvious) observation. Tall, pale-skinned, long-limbed - seven months pregnant, or more - unbalanced enough by her stomach that she's developed the beginnings of a pregnant-woman-waddle. "I expect you're looking for me." She tips her head back toward the couches; the nest of blankets and book she had abandoned to answer the door. There are coolers under the make-shift tables, and a pair of pizza boxes atop one. "C'mon in."
[C.J. Nash] The kinsman who shows up on Kora's doorstep is dressed in a manner that leaves little room for negotiation as to his chosen profession: though he doesn't wear a badge on his hip, he wears black boots and tan slacks and a pressed button-up shirt underneath a black leather jacket. His face sports several days' worth of stubble, the majority of it gray whereas the hair on his head is a light blond; his eyes are a light green, and he holds himself in a fashion one would expect from a military man, or a police officer, someone for whom order and disciple is paramount.
He's slipping, though. His spine isn't locked, his jaw isn't set. He moves fluidly rather than stiffly. It's been a while since he was in the service; he looks as though he's rapidly approaching forty if he hasn't hit it yet, and given his scruffy jaw and jaw-length hair, one wouldn't expect him to find much use for churches.
Just like one wouldn't expect the leader of the Fenrir Nation to be a tall blonde heavy with child.
He doesn't bat an eye, though, give him that.
"Yeah I don't mean to take up too much'a your time, ma'am," he says, stepping forward when there's room for him to do so. The license plates on the Ranger are obscured by distance and angles, but his accent announces it for him: he's somewhere from the Deep South, likely Mississippi or Alabama if the drawn out drawl of it means anything. "I don't know if I'm passin' through or not."
A beat, and he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet.
"Take it you're Kora?"
[Kora] "Mmm," she returns, the sound a supple sort of agreement. She's leading the way back toward the couches, straight shoulders pulled back just a few degrees past neutral, as if that might help her support the weight of pregnancy. Her pale hair is half-loose, pulled back into a loose twist a the nape of her neck, secured by a chopstick she stole from some storefront Chinese restaurant.
"I am. Fostern Skald, and Jarl, as you've heard." She pauses by the tables, then bends over - carefully - lifting open one of the coolers there, glancing back over her shoulder long enough that he can see her the supple, edged twist of her curving mouth as she shoots him back that look. "And it's just Kora, yeah? Kora Eyjólfsdóttir if you want to be formal about it, at least in private.
"You want a beer?"
If he says yes, she unearths one for him from the half-melted ice inside.
[C.J. Nash] His eyes are on her by virtue of the fact that she, while carrying a child, is still the predator of the two of them. Heavier than the weight of her unborn heir is her Rage, resting over the exchange like a veil. He doesn't shrink from it, doesn't become a hopeless wreck in her presence, but it tempers things, brings a sharper focus to their interactions.
The threat of frenzy is a powerful motivator. Negative reinforcement has kept many a kinsman alive. Even bearing such a burden as the one she does, Kora Eyjólfsdóttir can still succumb to frenzy.
He is hardly frozen from fear. As Kora opens up the cooler in preparation to serve her guest, the kinsman pulls a white business card from his billfold and returns the leather instrument to his pocket.
She offers him a beer, and he considers.
"Since you're down there already..."
After she unearths the bottle, he moseys on over to where she is, exchanging the beer for the card. Printed on its surface is a wealth of information that goes beyond his breeding and his accent, but doesn't tell her anything about what he thinks he's doing here or how long he suspects he'll be.
C.J. Nash
Certified Legal Investigator
8035 Tanner Williams Road
Mobile, AL 36608
Tel: (251) 432-3520
Fax: (251) 432-3528
"A little bird-spirit," he says, as the exchange occurs, as she reads, "told a not-so-little Godi there's a Trueborn around these parts shares blood with me. Now, this is news to me, but he went on to say it's a she and she ain't got a name the spirit recognizes. Led me to believe she's a Cub. Spirit was mighty insistent but the Godi couldn't tell me why, so I hightailed it on up here to look for her."
[C.J. Nash] [!!!]
[Kora] (!!!!!!!!)
[Harrow] [Private scene?]
to C.J. Nash, Kora
[C.J. Nash] [Psh, no. Get in here.]
to Harrow, Kora
[Kora] (Oh gosh,
I'm going to stop talking to Damon. Hah. Get in here!)
to C.J. Nash, Harrow
[Harrow] You drive and drive until you can no longer tell the difference between road and dream. Highway and truckstop nightmare, fingers shaking as you seek to light just one more cigarette, shoulders hunched against the gaze of strangers. The moon demanding that you howl on up at it, let loose that fire that burns in your belly, to find sweet surcease from that fever, to let it loose, to let it all slip from your tightly gritted hands. But no, that ways lies madness, bodies rent and torn, the humans up in arms, so you play it cool, you drive and drive and pause only to dig the dirt out from under your nails.
The feel of the faux leather steering wheel beneath your callused hands. Stale beer on your tongue. Hair grown greased with night after night on the road, no shower, no cleansing balm. Face stubbled. Shaking and shivering. Riding that demon down that unhallowed road, racing even as the Abyss opens up behind you, yawning to let you slip back down its ribbed and hungry maw. Driving to beat the devil.
Don't underestimate the things that I will do.
Church building, hallowed ground. Banded doors, steeple high against the night. Truck pulling up to the road before it, engine idling, fingers drumming. Watching. Listening. Heart doing its erratic heathen dance in the confines of your chest. Deep breath. Deep breath. Here we go. Yanking up the parking break despite the damned level plane of the road. Door kicked open and out, boots on the broken asphalt. Deep breath. Faint tincture of rancid rage riding on the night air.
Up the path. Toward the portico, the recessed doorway. Pause. Scabbed knuckled fist raised, and then pounded, one two three. Not knocking, but punching, cracking against the ancient wood. Hard enough to shiver the portal, but no intention to shatter. Stepping back, arms crossing over his chest, chin lowered, huffing, waiting, gaze slanting to the side to watch the street.
Waiting.
[Kora] Straightening, she pulls out a pair of bottles from the slurry of ice and water in the cooler. One of them is beer, a Goose Island stout, dark as pumpernickel bread. The other one is rootbeer she drinks not for flavor, but for the remembered feel of the long-necked brown glass bottle between her fore and middle fingers. It's not a twist-top bottle, but she hands it to him anyway, without an opener, reaching to take his business card in the same gesture.
"Alabama," she murmurs quietly, the pad of her thumb sliding thoughtlessly over the text. Her rootbeer is left on the table then, as she tucks CJ's business card into the worn pages of an old passport, the US seal in embossed in faded gold on the blue cover. Then slides the passport into her hip pocket, glancing back up at him, dark eyes clear, intent on his features in the dim light of the ruined church.
When his story is finished, her generous mouth twists, the expression subtle, a quirk of the corners, the right higher than the left. "We have a cub here, Gwen, yeah? She's a Forseti, or should be when she's ready for her rite of passage. Unless she renounces. Though I was pretty sure she had parents here. Kept pretending she was still in high school, you know. Like she could be a part-time werewolf.
"My pack-mate's training her. If you're looking for a reunion, I can have her back by morning."
Then: another knock. Not a knock - a punch, loud enough that it echoes inside, off the old stone walls. Bounces in the corners where the empty pizza boxes are left as an enticement to rat, before its lost just beyond, where the wooden ceiling of the choir loft ends and the space opens up, soars.
"One sec - " the Skald says, holding up a single finger to belay any further thought. Already walking back toward the front doors of the abandoned church. Her awareness is sharpened in that moment; something about the force of it has her pulling her shoulders back to neutral, has her walking like an animal rather than a woman in the last trimester of pregnancy.
The door opens silently: two inches. There's no blood speak for her; but the miasma of his rage sparks against her own, brings it up through her blood. Somehow she had shaken off that caged feeling from this night last - now it returns with her sharpened awareness, pulling open the door another inch as she flicks the stranger a dark-eyed look, up and down all at a go.
"You're not a Jehovah's witness." Her voice is low and rich, the accent ordinary, middle American. It's dark and she's visible in a three-inch slice. Pale face, dark gray sweatshirt over jeans, zipped half-way up. Tall and blond, chin high, eyes direct through that sliver of open door.
[C.J. Nash] He laughs at that, the sound muted and uncharacteristically respectful. Perhaps it's the religious aspect of the place, lessons ingrained in childhood: don't swear, don't run, don't laugh, don't hit your sister. Don't do these things in the Lord's house. He has that air about him though, a combination of backbone and bruises that suggests he didn't have that sort of upbringing. It's as though he knew what he was, what they were, from his earliest substantial memory.
He uses words like 'Godi,' for starters, doesn't have to ask what the hell a Forseti is. Speaks of the spirit world both as though it's a given part of their existence and something he can never entirely understand.
"She ain't mine to--"
At which point a slamming of a fist sound against the door, one two three, interrupts the conversation. Nash hadn't moved to open his beer yet. He doesn't startle at the sound, but his posture, his gaze, become sharp, precise, as he turns to look at it over his shoulder. She bids him to wait one sec, and he nods, eyes not leaving the door.
The angles of his face, the way his green eyes darken, that make one wonder if he isn't part wolf. With none of that animal attraction that some of the more primordial of their kind carry, it's just the intensity in his gaze in moments like this. His beer is forgotten without being cracked; he sets it down and moves slightly closer.
[Harrow] "You're not a Jehovah's witness," she says, and good lord no he ain't. He stands at her doorstep, looms, a rangy frame of flesh and bone, rawhide, the length of stubbled jaw, the lank black hair, the broad shoulders, the bony wrists. He's standing there, arms crossed over his chest, and even as she speaks he shifts his weight, drops his arms, then reaches up to cross them once more. Unable to stand still, to find peace, to embrace stasis.
He turns then, attention summoned by her voice, and his eyes brush her own, a sparking touch, a hint of veridian green flecked through with errant gold, eyes of a drowned god, shot through with red, a testament to a fortnight without sleep.
He might have been good looking once. Might have once possessed the youthful fire of an adonis, but now he is a herald of glory ruined, the sun glimpsed on the horizon through banks of endless fog, shorn of his corona.
Full blooded yes, and there is in his might and mien that which calls to her own blood, Fenrir, son of Ragnarok, child of Loki and Odin and Fenris all, though the apple has fallen far from the tree. He gazes at her, body half turned away as if loath to commit, and then bares his teeth to show her yellowed canines, a feral expression, annhilating that which might have been human in his bearing and form.
"Heard I could score a beer here," he growls, his voice a low rasp, uneasy energy, distemperate and dischordant. Pauses, and then tries a smile, an attempt that he rapidly abandons, turning to scan the road. Flashes a look back at her, "Safety from the night, surcease from the moon. You got a smoke?"
[Kora] "No," she tells him simply through the sliver of the door, one moment extending into the next in measured beats. The night air is bright with cold now, the sky covered with clouds. The city's background, radioactive glow does not intrude much here. They're cast in shadows from the broad columns, the thick planks of the old door.
Which she's opening now; a slit-second's thought, the calculation of it evident as she meets his eyes. Her own are lost in shadow, simply dark - shadows against the pale planes of her northern features. Sharpened cheekbones and jaw softened by a generous mouth that twists into something brief, wry - all too human when measured against his yellow-toothed grin. "I have that beer though. C'mon."
Lifting her chin with the last, a physical invitation, she opens the door wide enough that he can shoulder his way into the dark shadows of the ruined church, shutting the door behind him.
Her pregnancy was easy to miss through the ribbon of her frame visible through the crack in the door. It's impossible to ignore, now. The sweatshirt she wears was made for a much larger man. It sags around her shoulders, is shapeless over her chest. The sleeves are too long, and the waistband falls below her hips. It's just large enough for her stomach, though.
"You got a name?" she asks, when the door is shut, looking back and finding CJ's eyes; letting her own trace down him, taking in the alertness of his stance with that steady animal awareness as she leads the stranger seeking surcease of the moon back toward the ramshackle collection of couches and broken pews, folding tables and coolers, pizza boxes and sighing, gently deliquescing bean bag chairs.
The ceiling's lower here, wood, the choir loft above. Beyond, though, the space soars in ruined neogothic splendor, patches of orange-tinted night sky visible through the broken spires of the vaulted roof.
[C.J. Nash] [Ack, crap, don't wait for my ass to post! *Kinfolk in a room full of Garou dilemma*]
[Harrow] "I got a name," he says as he shoulders his way past her, rough swaying as he comes, into the ruinous sanctum. Leaving the night and toxic orange of the city behind, moving into this enclosed space, the walls pressing in close, breathing and throbbing about them, closing and constricting. He pauses to cast his gaze about the fastness of the church, chapped lips pulling back from his teeth as he does so, and then he fixates on the coolers, locks his gaze as a drowning man might his attention on a floating spar, and strides over, power and lost grace manifesting in that direct approach for but a moment before he sinks into a crouch, tosses back the cooler lid and salvages a bottle from the icy murk within.
Rises, turning to consider CJ now, and with a sharp whip of his hand he cracks the neck off the bottle, knocking it against the wall, spilling beer as it fizzes and spurts like blood from a severed aorta onto the floor. Raises the raw neck to his mouth, drinks, uncaring of the lacerations that appear on his lips and heal just as fast. The blood that mixes with the alcohol. Drinks, eyes moving from side to side as he considers each in turn, and when the bottle is drained he drops it to the ground, draws his forearm across his mouth.
"Name's Harrow," he says, and that rasp, that burned out wreck of a voice. Begins to prowl, moving about the confines of the church. He's easily six feet tall, but from his hunched manner, crouched as if to spring, he seems no taller than five foot something.
That pent up fury. That tension riding shotgun. Hands flexing into fists. Hands flexing into claws. Release. Deep breath. Release.
"I'm the vanguard," he says at last. "The eye of Rorscharch. The Samsarra Bastards here yet?" Takes another gulp from his beer.
[Linus] He'd been physical this time.
The fireplaces were lit and scouring the insides of their respective hearths. He'd been leap-frogging back and forth between each one, scooping out old detritus and scrubbing down several of the internal walls with emphatic even zealous desire. Sigurd's gift and a small munition depot of steel wool was ensuring much of the interior was gotten to without much issue or trouble. The amount of detritus and fuel that had been gathered and placed next to each hearth was minimal for the time being. He hadn't had much time to break the bits and pieces down since returning from Patrol.
Still, small piles had been constructed next to each hearth and with them the fires would burn into the night. He could tackle the garbage pile outside for spare pieces soon enough. His stomach warbled a complaint, the Godi's jaws clapping shut as he ducked out from the inside of the hearth, layered in a thick black film and spitting soot out onto the fire which crackled in response.
"Yeah yeah yeah..." It's murmured, left to hang behind him, a damp dish rag plucked up from the Kitchen counter to begin the steady process of wiping down exposed flesh. The clothes couldn't be helped. He'd just have to smell like a fireside for a while, until one of the Kin snuck his clothes into a laundry pile while he was sleeping.
The Godi creeps through the church on bare feet, cargo pants and thick black hoodie smelling of cinders and ash as he passes through the hallway and into the main Church interior, nothing but squints and a vague murmur on his lips. His first instinct is to regard Nash with something like recognition (and a curious perk of the brow) followed closely by the upswing toward Kora, the baby and onto the hunched over creature prowling a slow circle around the Church grounds. He pauses in place, gaze keeping Harrow for a moment before traveling to Kora with a question on his face.
[Linus] (Sense Wyrm on Harrow: Per 3 + Occ. 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Hunter] The knocking is plentiful tonight. Here comes another passer-by, stopping at the top of the steps that lead up to the front door of the church. A heavy fist; two heavy, dull blows and then the Gnawer waits. He has seen others simply open the door and walk in like they own the place; he has seen others make no attempt to announce themselves. Hunter has never been one of these people. He always knocks. He always waits.
When the door is opened they'll see him, green-steel for eyes and a firmly set jaw. But at least he has shaved; at least he doesn't smell like a corrupted funeral pyre.
[C.J. Nash] What he thinks he's going to be able to accomplish if the visitor turns out to be a rampaging madman, some twisted testimony to the power and perversion of the Wyrm, he doesn't exactly say, but that watchfulness doesn't dissipate once Kora invites the stranger inside for a beer. He relaxes, sure, but the flint in his eyes would suggest he's more projecting an air of zen-like calm than he actually feels it in his core. That metal weight holstered at his side does little to give him the illusion of preparedness, but when Kora looks his way, takes in his stance, he looks back at her.
Even as she is, she stands a better chance to survive whatever could come through that door than he does, but it isn't her the man seeking a daughter he's never met is concerned about.
None of this is spoken, though, so when the visitor comes barreling into the church, he gets the hell out of the way without hiding. He's near enough that he can still be spotted by those incoming, near enough that when he watches Harrow bite the neck off a beer bottle he has to bring a hand up to scrub at his jaws so it doesn't look like he's trying not to laugh.
He coughs, clears his throat, and here comes the kid from the motel room. Without teenage Modi blood all over him, there's no outward cause for alarm, but Nash actually manages to smell the sooty Godi before he sees him; turning his head, he returns that brow quirk without speaking. And then there's another knock at the door.
Thus begins that awkward moment where he attempts to extricate himself from the church without looking like he's fleeing. For now, he waits.
[Kora] There's a moment of distance, her attention drawn back, attenuated to insubstantiality. The look is familiar to anyone who knows Garou: dark eyes focused but just off to the side, the movement of her mouth so subtle that it looks more like an already-dying expression than the muscle memory of mouth and tongue as she pulls back her focus into herself. Linus appears among the marching rows of half-busted pews.
The creature cuts him a glance, just one as he appears. It's unerring. She knows where he is because she can feel him underskin; tied into her, wrapped around the fibers of her being.
"They're not here yet," her voice is quiet; low and rich but not velvet. It isn't that soft, see. There's steel beneath the nap. She's looking back at Harrow now, standing against the wall, surrounded by the shattered neck of the beer he drinks too quickly to appreciate the hoppiness. Bet the blood kills some of that anyway, the already healing lacerations on his mouth. A dark-eyed, flickering glance over him, up and down, and she's picking her way back to her abandoned rootbeer. "I wasn't expecting them." An undercurrent, that - still and dark-pooled.
She picks up the IBC bottle, long fingers draped around the (not-shattered) neck, but does not lift it to her mouth. "Your pack?" Then, when he's finished his broken beer bottle, she lifts her chin toward the cooler. "Have another."
A flicker of a look back to CJ, a supple twist of her mouth. "I'm laying odds that this one is finally a Jehovah's witness. Care to wager?" This as she walks back toward the front door, opens it a sliver, then opens it wider, "Hunter," she offers, verbally and mentally to her brother via their shared link. "C'mon in."
Her shoulders are pulled back from neutral, counterbalancing the weight of her pregnancy now. Underneath the feral grace of her animal self - she's developing the early stages of a pregnant-woman-waddle she refuses to acknowledge by word or deed. There's an underlying tension there; a certain sharpness that only her brother, maybe Roman can read in her, that comes from being nearly-locked in this form for a handful of days, and the gods only know how many more to come. "Help yourself to a beer. Meet Harrow."
[Harrow] Harrow rises to his full height, spine elongating, articulating, popping. He rises to his full height, and gazes at where Linus stands, before raking his gaze across the church, losing focus, losing intensity, so that when his gaze finally passes over Kora he's looking through her, distracted, looking inward. A subtle flick of his tongue over his lips, licking away the last of the blood, and then he shakes his head, once, twice.
"They're not here," he says, voice low, that undercutting shark rasp. "Fine. I'll keep moving. They'll catch up soon enough."
He ignores Kora's offer for more beer. Ignores introductions, recent arrivals. Moves across the church, out the front door, and toward his truck. Digging out keys as he goes, swinging them once twice thrice around his index finger before snatching them tight in a fist. The church left behind, but another pitstop, and then he's in the truck, lights flaring, gun roaring to life, pulling off into the street, going going gone.
[Harrow] [Thanks for the rp, guys.]
to C.J. Nash, Hunter, Kora, Linus
[C.J. Nash] [Thanks, Phil!]
to Harrow, Hunter, Kora, Linus
[Kora] (NIGHT PHIL! :) )
to C.J. Nash, Harrow, Hunter, Linus
[Hunter] nighty night!
to C.J. Nash, Harrow, Kora, Linus
[Hunter] And C'mon in he does. Hunter Matthews waits for her to step back and allow him room to enter before he steps inside. One hand closes the door for her -- one hand attempts to close the door but there is a Garou storming past and Hunter watches his exit. Clink, this time the door actually does close.
Beer was offered and beer he accepts by strolling on over to the cooler and fetching himself one. His head turns and eyes settle on the unknown Kinsman but he doesn't halt to say hello beyond the acknowledgement of his presence. This Ahroun doesn't crack open the bottle in his teeth, he pries it off like he would should he be using a lighter.. except he doesn't use one, just his hands.
"John's dead," he announces, more words lingering on his lips but being bitten back. He decides to take a swallow of his beer instead.
[C.J. Nash] Someone's dead.
For the second time in Linus's presence today, Nash makes the move to let himself out of the room without drawing too much attention to himself. He doesn't wave or thank the Jarl for her time or say anything at all, for that matter; he gives her a nod, should Kora look his way, but the expectation that she would is not present. That door barks slightly as he draws it inward, and then he's slipping out into the gray afternoon, leaving an unopened beer on the table and a business card in Kora's passport.
[C.J. Nash] [Thanks for the scene, y'all!]
[Kora] "Mr. Nash," Kora flicks a sidelong look at CJ, so controlled. Rigid through the shoulders and the spine now, exhaling a singular sharp breath. "You don't have to stay for this. Come back tomorrow and we'll talk."
Then she turns her full attention back to Hunter. Asks one, quiet question. "How?"
[Hunter] How?
Two days ago he would have answered that question in a heart-beat. Two days ago he did answer that question in a heart-beat. I killed him. Now the answer is not so simple.
"Wyrm.. I think.. m'not really sure.. He was..dead, but alive."
[Linus] Linus' attention flicks from the departing Harrow's back toward Kora. The sudden collective flicker of events happening in rapid succession do much to keep the Godi rooted in place and simply...watching as things unfold. Nash's departure is greeted with a brief glance that is both mistrust and concern. Moreso for the fact that Harrow had just left and the Metis creature was more of a threat then he was a friend at this juncture.
Then Hunter is entering with news of John. A brief moment of confusion wraps itself around the Godi's features before he's making his way slowly toward Kora and the Bone Gnawer, stopping just outisde of twelve feet to listen to what's to come.
[Kora] Here Kora cuts a sidelong glance at Linus; it's a passing look, the dark edge of her eyes, the faint softness of her profile. The curve of her cheek against the shadows of the church, her mouth curved beneath, flattening now, a certain tension in her frame - that deadly combination of rage and inaction, the feral drive underscoring both.
Linus can see the strain; feel it like a backlash against the shared system of their awareness.
"Tell me what happened," she instructs Hunter, dark eyes flickering over his features. "Start at the beginning, and go to the end." Her nostrils, flare, near the end.
[Hunter] And so he does.
They hear about how John became unstrung, how Hunter couldn't get to him before he severed the totem bond and left the city. Skip ahead two or three weeks -- the time-line is blurred -- Hunter followed blood from a car crash in Bronzeville and found John. The story becomes robotic the more times he repeats it and by now there is little expression in his tone. He repeats facts. John attacked and Hunter put him down instantly. Then he moved again, then he stood up when he shouldn't have, in his birth form, and attacked again.
An arm, in the end his entire head was removed and none of it slowed him. Hunter blew them both up in the wreckage of the car John had presumably crashed.
"There's nuthin' left." He adds sombrely.
[Kora] "He became - " Unstrung, Hunter explains, and this earns a frisson of something from the Skald. Her mouth flattens, and she listens to the story with a relentless sort of attention, darkeyed, straightforward.
In the end, all she says is, "Thank you."
[Kora] (sorry, I am so not in the zone for the scene. I feel awful, heh.)
[Hunter] [Don't worry!]
