Monday, November 30, 2009

nikodemus.

[Danicka Musil] Transit is in one of the rougher areas of Chicago. The train ride to get there is nervewracking, the club itself is carved out of the interior of a warehouse, and despite the brick and concrete the place is made of, the bass almost seems to make the walls shudder. It's not a place you go alone -- most clubs aren't, truth be told.

Danicka is not here alone. Danicka is with a group of graduate students and upperclassmen, most of them dressed in their Saturday Night Finest. For the majority of the group -- including Danicka -- that means jeans and flashy tops, heels on pedicured feet.

She's dancing with a guy from her history class. He's a business major.

Because of course he is.

[Genevra de Provence] Genevra had had a long day, and needed a night off to relieve her stress. Much like home, she would hit a club once in awhile to do just that.

Arriving in a green satin one shoulder dress straight off Paris' runways, she came inside and went straight to the bar.

((Yes she is wearing the pillowcase! HA!))

[Theron Locke] Theron had returned from SoCal earlier in the day, so had spent the day unpacking and in quiet contemplation. Things had gone as he pretty much expected them too, not that he was upset by that fact. The decision he and Anezka had reached was probably the best for both of them. The loss of their relationship however still weighed heavy on his heart.

He had gotten a call from Lukas inviting him out, he hadn't much felt like it but ended up resigning himself to it. Dressing in a white t-shirt and semi-formal suit. He headed to his car and headed in the direction Lukas had provided him.

Stepping into the club, his eyes searched the throng of club goers. Not initially seeing anymore he recognised, he headed towards the bar where he ordered a drink.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Not really the sort of place to have a Serious Discussion, this. At least, not if you were human and relatively unworried about eavesdroppers. Lukas is not, however, human. He's also tired of the scenery around the Brotherhood and the Caern. And this particular club has semiprivate booths around its periphery, far enough from the wall of bass that it's possible to be heard. If you shout, anyway.

Nikodemus receives word by way of note, email or cell phone: an address. Appended: Meet @ 11pm?

Lukas arrives a few minutes after Theron does, parking down the street in a pay lot that has a night attendant. The line outside is relatively short. It's early. It's a school night. The Shadow Lord doesn't enter immediately, though the proximity of his packmate is a tangible presence in his mind. He waits outside for Nikodemus to arrive, his coat collar turned up against the wind.

[Nikodemus Arslanovic] He has been waiting outside for an hour. Most of the clubs patrons would hurry in as quickly as possible, seeking shelter from the cold Chicago night. Neither the weather nor the "dangerous" locale are of any real concern to Nikodemus. The chill air is an inconvenience at best, and he certainly considers himself among the most dangerous things in the area.

The only other dangerous thing he is aware of has just arrived. Nikodemus approaches the Shadow Lord Elder with a slow enough gait to ensure he is spotted. Once the distance is closed, he offers a small bow of his head. Imperceptible to any but the one it is intended for. There is no spoken greeting. Instead he silently awaits direction.

[Danicka Musil] The blonde surrounded by people between two and four years her junior does not have the supernatural sense of one's closest companions that Theron and Lukas have for each other. She does not have the ability to sniff out her own kind amidst the throng as the Garou do, picking up on the breeding of kinfolk with senses both mundane and extraordinary. What she has, however, is an attention to her surroundings so ingrained in her that she notes changes without even trying, without -- sometimes -- wanting to.

Danicka notices nothing. Genevre is at the bar; Danicka is not. Lukas is outside and Theron is just inside the door; Danicka is in the middle of the dancefloor.

Eventually, however, the song she's dancing to ends and another one comes on, and not one that compels her to move to it. She pushes her hair off her face, sweating slightly, and disentangles herself from dance partner and classmates to half-walk, half-dance her way to the bar. She's dressed in a pair of nearly-black jeans that are tight enough to be almost painted on, zippers up the ankles, the seams at the hips fashioned to look like lightning bolts. Her top -- red, shiny, silk -- barely covers her shoulders and drapes low in front, revealing a deep V of fair skin between small breasts.

She gets a bottle of water and opens it immediately, taking a long drink and a deep breath.

And then she sees Genevre. Her lips curl into a half-smile.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] They haven't met, these two. They know of one another's presence through word-of-mouth, and perhaps the occasional glimpse at the Caern or the Brotherhood. Blood tells, though, and Lukas has little doubt who Nikodemus is.

Leaning against the brick wall of the warehouse-turned-club, Lukas straightens up as Nikodemus approaches. The Ahroun is black-haired; his overcoat, which is wool, is also black or close enough not to matter. His heritage is as much in his face as his blood, his cheekbones wide and high, eyes clear and pale.

He holds out his hand, which is bare. Not cold enough for gloves yet. "Nikodemus. Thanks for coming out." If Nikodemus offers his hand, he grips the other's forearm, free hand coming up to clap lightly at the shoulder. Then he tips his head at the club's entrance line. "Let's talk inside."

[Genevra de Provence] A Cosmo is ordered and taken. She takes a sip as she turns around to lean back on the bar. And, as always, everything she wears is in perfect order. Her hair, her makeup, the dress she wears matched perfectly with the heels.

She eyes the crowd, the music blaring around her, the hundreds of voices trying to speak over the music.

Then came a familiar face. Danicka. Danny's half smile is met with a half tilt of Genevre's head. A light lift of her glass to the Lord kin in greeting.

[Nikodemus Arslanovic] "No need for thanks. I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak with you." He returns Lukas' forearm grip firmly, then follows him into the club. Nikodemus doesn't hide his distaste for the atmosphere of the nightclub, or the humans that inhabit it. The slight frown and upturned nose suggest he detects an odor he won't be able to clear out of his nostrils any time soon.

[Theron Locke] His fingers wrapping a tumbler glass filled with scotch and coke, he turned back to watch the throng of people dance and move to the music. He took a brief look at his watch, hmm Lukas should be here soon.

As his eyes returned to surveying the nightclub , his eyes eventually caught sight of Danicka looking particularly attractive all done up for a night on the town. She was currently speaking to a dark haired female he didn't know. Somewhat curious he headed in Danicka's direction, not interrupting her current conversation but just letting her know that he was around.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] On the other hand, Lukas seems rather at ease in the mire of humanity. He shows his ID patiently at the door; lets the bouncer go through the motions of patting him down for weaponry; pays his cover just inside; checks his coat with the girl behind the counter. The check tab goes into his wallet, which goes into the back pocket of his jeans. His shirt is a button-up, untucked, some pale indiscriminate color that reflects that hue of the lighting system inside.

When Nikodemus comes up behind him after passing through the doorcheck himself, Lukas lifts his chin toward Theron at the bar.

"My packmate, Theron Locke, a Theurge. Our tribe. I asked him to join us here." Lukas's pale eyes track ahead of Theron; there's a pause. His tone is ever so faintly different when he adds, "And Dani&+269;ka Musil, my mate. Genevre de Provence too, over there -- kin to the Fangs. That's de Provence as in Calvin de Provence, one of their higher-ranking wolves."

Lukas steps down from the entryway, then. The crowds shy away from his rage. Getting across the dance floor is not a difficult task.

"I'll be upfront about this, Nikodemus," he says as he walks. "I asked you to meet me here to discuss matters of pack. Have you got one?"

[Nikodemus Arslanovic] Nikodemus stays at Lukas' shoulder, matching his pace as they converse. His light eyes move across Theron, Danicka and Genevre as the Elder Lord points them out. When the Fangs' heritage is mentioned, he arches a brow and nods. "I've heard the name."


He shakes his head in response to the question, watching the humans part to allow he and (more accurately) his Tribesmate passage. The Galliard takes a certain satisfaction in how easily the apes are herded. The corner of his mouth turns upward in smirk before he answers. "I do not. And I have to admit, not having a pack to hunt with is making me edgy. I was very short with my own mate earlier today."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (sorry so slow, guys, at werk!)

"You're from the old lands, aren't you?" Lukas glances at Nikodemus as they near the others. "Serbia, I seem to remember hearing? The Unbroken might not be much like the packs you're used to. We're a mixed group, for one. Two Lords, two Fangs and a Glass Walker. And we're more concerned about the big picture than individual power and titles.

"If you think you can get used to that, though, you should run with us for a while. See if you fit in."

[Danicka Musil] Genevre acknowledges Danicka, and the Lord kinswoman returns the gesture with a lift of her plastic water bottle, turning away from the bar again. She sees Theron, but not Lukas and Nikodemus. Not at first, anyway. She is about to head back onto the dancefloor, back to the people she came here with, but thinks better of it and walks to the Theurge instead, meeting him halfway. She's breathing deeply but quickly from exertion, the smell of her different than that of the throng of mortals all around them.

Many Lords -- Garou and Kin alike -- show their breeding in appearances like Lukas's. Dark hair, pale eyes, ferocious visages with a regality that is more feral than the classic beauty of the Fangs. They bring to mind craggy mountains, chill winds, dark places and old memories.

He's been around Danicka before. He knows how she is different. How her blood seems so much more ancient than that, longlasting not because it is prepared for any siege but because it is quiet. Her spirit reminds him of the den one leaves to go to war, the cubs sleeping close together for warmth, the protected place that is that much more precious because it is secret.

She smiles at him. "Hello, Theron," she says, as warmly as old friends.

[Genevra de Provence] She watches Danny for a moment, watching the kin make her way to another. She looked the Garou over a moment with her deep blues, then looks back to the crowd, sipping at her cosmo drink. There is the lightest sway to her body with the music.

[Nikodemus Arslanovic] "Bosnia, actually." He breaks away from the conversation long enough to order a drink for himself, and Lukas should he want one. He pays with a twenty, and clearly has little grasp on the value of the dollar as he walks away from the bartender without retrieving his change. He would never intentionally tip the human.

"I'm very comfortable with the big picture. I am from a more...traditional Sept, that is true. But I was taught well. I am prepared to do anything it takes to serve Our Mother, and that includes leaving what I suppose would be called my 'comfort zone'." He grins at his new Alpha, raising his glass in a silent toast. "I'm honored by your invitation, and I accept. I won't disappoint you Lukas."

[Theron Locke] Theron returns the warm greeting "Evening Danicka", he always seemed to be at peace around his kinswoman. She was so much easier to be around than Anezka, but that may have also been more to do with him than his former lover.

Although he had been out of town for a Thanksgiving holiday, he didn't seem to the relaxed, well rested person one would associate with that. He seemed to be a little darker, withdrawn into the shadows around him.

"Enjoying the music tonight ?" making pleasant small talk "You haven't happened to have seen Lukas tonight?" he adds when there is enough of a lull in the music.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] As unused to the club scene as Niko seems to be, the drink Lukas orders will just look like toxic green waste to him. It's a kamikaze, though, and as the Galliard accepts the invite, Lukas grins -- suddenly, and with surprising brilliance -- and taps their glasses together. "Welcome," he says, simply. "Run with us for a week or two, and if there are no problems, we'll call Perun for you and make it official."

Then, "Come on. Let's go join the others."

[Jeff Pyeon] It's early, really, for a nightclub - unless this is the classy, jazz playing kind of nightclub, that one would most easily associate with most involved. Still, after a long day with a demanding client, what Jeff needs is a drink.

To that end, he wanders into the place playing music and smelling of cigarettes and alcohol (because these places always do) and heads for the bar. He's dressed smartly - dark suit, colored shirt, contrasting tie and excellent shoes - though the jacket is over his shoulder and the sleeves are rolled up.

There is not a drop of pure blood to be found.

There is, however, a need for a drink - and for that, he goes to the bar. Jameson, neat, he orders, and keep 'em coming. His credit card's given for the tab, and once he has a drink in hand, he turns to face the floor, to take stock of who's there.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (folks! i am going home. assume lukas leads niko over to the others and then ... gets a refill on his drink or something. i'll be back in 30-60! might be a little longer tonight cuz i'm gonna stop to get noms.)

[Danicka Musil] The comfort and ease of manner that Theron feels around Danicka may have more to do with the fact that Anezka was never, will never, be as good of a liar as Danicka is. He knows next to nothing about this woman, whose hair is as gold as Anezka's is dark, whose eyes are a murky and mottled green where the elder Kvasnicka sibling's are the same crystalline blue as her brother's. He doesn't know what she's like, or how Lukas might approve or disapprove of the amount of skin bared by her clothes, or whether she's allowed to be out in a place like this without her mate or not.

But the way she talks to him, smiles at him, it seems like she knows him better than she would know a blood brother. She leans in to hear him better and nods, then shakes her head. "Is he here?" she asks, loudly -- because she has to.

He's not mistaking the smile that causes to blossom over her face.

[Genevra de Provence] Genevre finishes her drink, and orders another. She hands over a $50 to start a tab for her. Once she has her drink, she begins walking the room/crowd, and any garou she passes, her breeding just exudes from her (PB3). Her eyes are watching the people, the interactions going on, and so forth.

[Nikodemus Arslanovic] Though his mood is greatly improved by the opportunity that has just been presented, the Bosnian Lord manages to scowl at everyone who has not been pointed out by Lukas. The sounds and smells of the club cause him more discomfort than weeks in the wilderness of his homeland. Patrons continue to leave clear passage for him, making Transit tolerable for the moment.

When he is finally brought to meet the others Nikodemus is a model of good manners. He smiles to both Danicka and Theron throughout the introductions, then watches the Ahroun walk away on whatever task he has undertaken. Faced with small talk, he makes the simple choice and turns to Theron. "Are you a native to Chicago, or a transfer like myself?"

[Jeff Pyeon] ((Don't wait on me. I'll post further in when I see opportunity. =D I hope you weren't already!))

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (psst, do me a favor and put 'playtest' in your tag!)
to Laila Frolich

[Laila Frolich] Oh ok, sorry
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (sorry guys, on phone)

[Theron Locke] Theron nods in response to Danicka's question "Yeah he is supposed to be, he gave me a call and asked me to meet him here. Apparently there is some business to be discussed " not missing the smile at all.

It's then that his concentration is broken but the arrival of a stranger, putting two and two together, along with unmistakeable smell of seething rage, he comes to the conclusion that this must be the guy that Lukas mentioned on the phone "Nikodemus right ? I'm Theron... and no I'm not a native , originally a New Yorker but have moved around a lot since those days."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas makes a detour to the bar, getting a second kamikaze to chase the first. When he approaches the group, he comes up beside Danicka, nodding a hello to Genevre.

"Hey," he says, a general greeting, raising his voice above the thump of music. "Theron, Nikodemus is a Galliard. He'll be running with us for a week or two, and hopefully joining the pack."

[Danicka Musil] She's been pointed out by Lukas. She's been pointed out as one of their tribe, though Niko could tell that without being informed. Niko does not scowl at her, but Danicka quiets when he gets nearby all the same. She listens as Lukas arrives and tells them who he is, that he might be one of the Unbroken soon enough, and sips her water where before she all but gulped it.

[Danicka Musil] [Danicka's going to be quiet for awhile, here. Other scene went to Inits and I'm store-bound here in a bit!]

[Genevra de Provence] Genevre nods and smiles a touch to Lukas, raising her glass to him. She found her a nice little spot where she could watch the Lords as they interacted with each other, trying to get one of those lawyer readings off them.

[Theron Locke] Theron listens as the purpose of the impromptu meeting is finally explained "Ahh okay, sounds like a plan. " as he turns to Niko "Glad to have you along for the ride.".

It's only after this that Theron greets the female that was sitting with Danicka "So sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier. I'm Theron and you are ?"

[Genevra de Provence] Her voice is confident, with a strong french accent. "Genevre de Provence." She gave Theron a touch of a smile.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] ("hopefully joining the pack thereafter." -- is what it should read)

"Genevre is one of Kate's kinswoman," Lukas adds. "Genevre, this is my packmate, Theron."

Beside the slender blonde, Lukas's height and breadth of chest and shoulders seems all the more apparent. They're a handsome, if mismatched couple -- Danicka slim and golden; Lukas tall and swarthy. The Shadow Lord downs his second kamikaze, then reaches around Danicka to set it on the bar.

[Genevra de Provence] "So is this what the wolves of Chicago do when they are not fighting?" She took a sip of her cosmo.

[Theron Locke] With a smirk he responds to the Silver Fang "This and ...other... things if you listen to the rumor mill".

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Dear god." Lukas seems caught between wanting to know and not wanting to know. "What 'other things' are they talking about now?"

[Genevra de Provence] Her brow quirks a bit. "I'm not one who listens to rumours. I like facts much more."

[Theron Locke] He turns to Lukas with a grin "oh you know the usual, whose lusting after who.. etc etc. The stuff that makes the world turn for some people"

"Yeah I agree facts are good, but that normally involves steeping on a few toes"

[Genevra de Provence] Another sip of her drink. "I, myself, 'ave no problem stepping on people's toes. Is what I do." She had this strange smile to her lips.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I think she just invited you to dance, Theron," Lukas puts in wryly.

[Theron Locke] Theron responds to Lukas just as quickly "Well I wouldn't mind, just depends on if Genevre minds if her dance partner dances like a white boy."

"Oh I don't have a problem with stepping on people's toes either, just sometimes pays to acknowledge that fact"

[Danicka Musil] Since the Shadow Lords -- other than Theron -- walked over, Danicka's been almost silent. There's no secrecy or pretense anymore about what she is to Lukas, how far his claim goes. As far as the tribe is concerned, every inch of her flesh and every penny in her coffers belongs to him and is at his disposal. Niko's rage is considerable, and it is not until he drifts away from the group that Danicka even begins to relax.

Despite the fact that as far as sheer fury goes, Lukas outstrips the others so severely that there is a wide berth of empty air around the group as mortals pull away from him, trying to stay out of his reach.

She finishes her water, looking into the crowd. "I'm here with classmates," she says quietly, an aside to Lukas as he teases Genevre and Theron. Her eyes flick to them, between them, and then she smiles. "Should I stay nearby, in case one of you needs help limping off the dance floor?"

[Genevra de Provence] Genevre put her glass down on the bar and held her hand out to Theron. "Let us see if you can dance as well as you can speak with that silver tongue you 'ave."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas glances over Danicka's shoulder as though to find these classmates in the turmoil of the crowd. "Do you need to go back to them?" he replies, an aside for an aside.

[Theron Locke] Theron smiles and takes the offered hand "well we will have to wait and see won't we". He is appreciative of the distraction, his mind not focused on the past but the present. He begins to follow Genevre out onto the dance floor.

[Danicka Musil] "Chances are," Danicka says, as though she is reciting something from a book, "if you take a group of college students to a nightclub, one or more of them will get too drunk to remember who all they came with."

Genevre is holding out her hand to Theron. Danicka lets the knuckles of hers brush against the fingers of Lukas's, in the dark, between the outsides of their thighs. "And chances are, if you're at a nightclub with a group of college students too drunk to remember who they came with, no one will mind if some of their original number go home with people other than the ones they arrived with."

[Genevra de Provence] Her fingers curl around Theron's hand and she guides him out to the dance floor. She grew up one of Paris' elite, and a known socialite in her early college days. So she had no complaints about taking a hottie like Theron out to the dance floor. "Tell me, Theron, what weighs so 'eavy on your mind?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] As his packmate and his packmate's kin recede farther away, their hands brush, and then his fingers catch hers. He turns a little -- facing her profile now.

"Are those the rules?" he asks, amused. "Ms. Musil's Guide to College Outings?"

[Danicka Musil] Fingers tangle after brushing, as he's grasping her hand to hold it, to keep it from retreating or escaping. Danicka lets the empty water bottle dangle from her other hand, tipping her head back a bit to meet his gaze. "Please," she says, her tone too light to be serious, too smooth to be scoffing, "I'm just relaying what I've been told. I'm only a freshman."

It takes awhile for the faint curve to her mouth to become an actual smile. "Are you seriously playing matchmaker? I thought he was with your sister."

[Theron Locke] He does his best to move with her as they dance, though to onlookers it definitely wasn't hard to see who was outdancing who. "Hmm lets just say that I've had to say goodbye to a part of my life I rather enjoyed. Unfortunately the ironic thing is that it was the best decision to make, which doesn't make me feel any better" he says with a small smile.

[Genevra de Provence] She grabbed Theron's hand, after his comment, and spun herself into his arms. "As a lawyer, I could read that in so many ways." She smiled, a REAL smile from the Fang. The kin was actually enjoying herself at the moment. Now one had to wonder how long that would last.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks at Theron and Genevre, mere flashes in the dark motion of the dance floor now. "Já poslal je pry&+269;, takže jsem mohl být s vámi," he replies quietly.

"Besides," he adds a moment later, "I trust Theron with my sister's honor. A dance is a dance."

Lukas doesn't know, yet, that Theron and Anezka broke up over Thanksgiving. He doesn't know that the Theurge was talking about that very issue -- albeit in oblique terms -- on the dance floor with a Fang kin. As far as he's concerned, that romance was still progressing right along.

[Katherine Bellamonte] (So, where is everyone? *peers* I require locations! And a detailed map! And... a martini.)
to Danicka Musil, Genevra de Provence, Jeff Pyeon, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Theron Locke

[Genevra de Provence] ((On the dance floor, dancing with Theron))

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (at the bar, with danicka!)

[Danicka Musil] [*mixes a martini* Drop, you're on map duty, I guess...]

[Danicka Musil] They vanish. To Danicka's eyes, less sharp than Lukas's, less honed to the dark, Genevre and Theron are no more now than anyone else: young, beautiful, well-dressed and moving to the music that beats like a terrified heart and winds around the dancers like a long pair of legs.

"Vím," she says, more level than the shouting they have to employ to hear one another when they don't lean in close. Which they do. On every word, with every passing second.

Her hand tightens on his for a moment, then relaxes. "Have you talked to her again since insisting over the phone that you were not flipping your lid?"

Her tone is just teasing enough to imply that she, like his sister, disagreed on that point.

[Katherine Bellamonte] A moment or two later, Lukas and Theron can feel their pack-sister's presence as she slides into the nightclub's throng. For a change, she is in neither black or white but crimson red, a leather duster covering the blond's body down to her thighs, her legs encased in high matching boots, and beneath her duster, a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned enough that it suggests to the shape of Katherine's body, the curve of her breasts.

She is somehow both beautiful beneath the changing lights, and unsettling, her red lips curved in a display of light mood as she weaves her way through the crowd toward the pair at the bar. They can hear the Silver Fang's thoughts across the totem link, her comments on the attire of the dancers, her general thoughts on the club.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Is this supposed to be music? It sounds as if someone is being strangled.

And then an instant later: The designer of those pants should be shot, they look hideous.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Theron Locke

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Not about Theron, no," Lukas replies, a shake of his head emphasizing the negation. "She's a grown-ass woman. Her words, not mine. Theron hasn't given me reason to think he'll mistreat her yet, and I don't think he will. If Anežka wants to risk making a mistake with her choice of mate or heartbreak when he dies or what-have-you, it's not my business."

Lukas looks toward the door. He's quiet a moment, as though listening to some internal frequency. Then, "Katherine just showed up." Perhaps that's a form of advance warning.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's drums 'n bass, Katherine. Learn it live it love it. Hear the totemphone message about Nikodemus earlier?
to Katherine Bellamonte, Theron Locke

[Katherine Bellamonte] Hmm, is all she says about the drums and bass. Then, when Lukas mentions Nikodemus: Oui, I will be interested to meet him and discover how we get along. As I recall, you and I were instantly the best of friends.

There's no disguising the hint of amusement in her voice.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Theron Locke

[Danicka Musil] Certain words that Lukas uses matter more than others. Yet is one of them. Risk is another. Danicka is utterly silent for a moment, the smell of her enriched by sweat, diminished by their closeness to so many other sweaty human beings. And then she squeezes his hand. "Yes," she says, "it is."

Which seems to be her final word on the subject, at least for the night. Even if Lukas were to ask what she means or argue the point with her, a moment later he's telling her that Katherine is here. Danicka takes a deep breath and squeezes his hand once more, then slips her fingers free.

"I'm going to head back to the group," she tells him, facing him. "Nemohu se pojednávat s Kate dnes ve&+269;er, jsem se finále p&+345;ichází."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Katherine and I, Lukas explains for Theron's benefit -- and for Sinclair's, and Caleb's, if they were listening in, pretty much despised each other at first sight. Not hard to see why, prissy little stuck-up thing that she is. A silent laugh follows this.
to Katherine Bellamonte, Theron Locke

[Theron Locke] He laughs a small laugh at Gen's comment "As a lawyer I bet you could read lots of things, lots of ways. With that profession, you call me the silver tongue." he shakes his head. The enjoyment the Fang shows is almost infectious as Theron relaxes more to the beat.

[Theron Locke] "Oh well it does take all sorts.. and who knows maybe that contrast helps keep you in line" he finally responds, and then in addition I guess you could call it music Kate, these young ones seem to enjoy it but no accounting for taste. It's definitely danceable to though, once you learn to let go
to Katherine Bellamonte, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's fingers catch at Danicka's for a second. As close as they stand, she can see the flicker in his eyes: an urge to hold her where she is; an urge to bend to her and kiss her mouth.

It passes. They're in public. More to the point: his packmates were near, and a Fang that was only distantly Katherine's ward.

He lets her go. "Have fun," he says quietly.

[Genevra de Provence] "You would be very surprised at the things I could do, monsior." She was dancing in close to him. "I could probably read you right now as well. I've learned 'ow with all the people I deal with. Makes it 'ard for them to 'ide thing from me."

[Danicka Musil] She sees. And she lets her hand rest lightly in his still, lets him hold on rather than pulling away, snatching herself out of his grasp. Her head tips to the side as he gets past whatever urge is making him look at her the way he does. And then she smiles. It's understandably, but almost achingly, gentle.

Their hands slide apart. Danicka nods. "You, too," she says, and takes a step away.

And, with a lopsided grin that no one else quite sees: "Najd&+283;te mi pozd&+283;ji. Pokud nemám na tebe seru zase brzy, budu selžou všechny své t&+345;ídy."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] That dispels the quietness in Lukas's mood, his eyes. It makes him throw his head back, makes him laugh, sudden and happy.

"Okay," he says, after, smiling at her from the bar as she moves away into the crowd. And, raising his voice, "Vaše místo?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] As the Silver Fang locates her Alpha by the bar, he is saying farewell to his mate, and the blond's eyes follow the Kinswoman a moment as she leaves his side to return to another party. "I hope that was not on my account," she greets Lukas with, and turns to attract the barkeep's attention so she can order herself a drink.

A martini, she says to him. With lots of olives.


[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine's response to this comes across in a huff of false incredulity.

Yes, and you were a boorish Shadow Lord who only wished to conspire and undermine me. There is true fondness in the manner they snark at one another now, despite their words.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Theron Locke

[Theron Locke] As she moves closer or maybe it is her words, the colour of Theron's cheeks change. The faintest blush colouring his olive skin.

"Maybe you could, you'd just have to work out if it was the real me or the me right now." he responds conspiratorially

[Theron Locke] Theron pipes up "Now children play nice....Don't make me come over there, your distracting me from my dancing
to Katherine Bellamonte, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Danicka Musil] In answer, Danicka holds up the middle three fingers of her left hand, forefinger and ring finger splayed. But then she's turning, back into the crowd of dancers, looking again for her classmates.

[Danicka Musil] [And I'm out to get some sleep! Thank you all for the RP!]

[Katherine Bellamonte] [Night, Kai! Thanks!]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "No," Lukas says to Katherine, smiling, as one blonde moves away and the other arrives. "It had more to do with her finals next week. Buy you a drink?"

[Genevra de Provence] His blush seemed to energize her. She did enjoy it when she made those around her change expression. "Let me see. You are very loyal and dedicate, but you also recently suffered a loss. I saw 'ow you were around Lukas. But you also seem alittle distracted. 'Ow do I know this? You are 'ere dancing with me, but you are not really flirting considering my dress is barely the size of a pillow case." ((Thank you Chilltank for the comparison *L*))

[Katherine Bellamonte] "Please," she says as her martini is made and leans her weight easily against the bar, her eyes seeking out Theron and Genevra, glimpsed briefly as a gap in the dancers opens up, before they are again swallowed from her sight. A vaguely teasing light enters the Philodox's eye.

"My, Theron and Genevra appear to be getting along rather nicely, do they not?" A fair eyebrow lifts.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] When Katherine's martini arrives, it's Lukas that puts down the bill for it. Then he glances over his shoulder at Theron and Genevre on the dance floor.

"He's dating my sister," Lukas says, wry. Ignorance is bliss. "I wouldn't be concerned for the virtue of your kinswoman."

(i'm heading to bed in a bit here, too!)

[Katherine Bellamonte] She laughs, a tinkling, happy noise as she lifts the rim of the glass to her lips.

"Bien sûr," she concedes, before adding. "But then your sister is not here at present, is she? Genevra is a fine catch for any." The woman's expression turns thoughtful. "It is rather a pity there are not more eligible Silver Fang males in Chicago."

[Theron Locke] He coughs a little "well it's not that I don't appreciate what your wearing. But your right I'm distracted" his eyes flicking to Lukas over at the bar and then returning "Unfortunately it's something I need to talk to others about first. "

[Genevra de Provence] She stopped dancing, and pressed in lightly, kissing his cheek with the barest feather touch of her lips. Then doing the same to the other cheek. A cordial French gesture. "Go then, monsior. The longer something weighs on you, the worse things get."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] -- which makes Lukas smirk, faintly. "A pity for her or you?"

The quip is gentle, though. He knows how things ended with Martin. Lukas gets up then, finishing his own drink and setting the glass down on the bar.

"I'm heading out, I think. Let me know what you think of Nikodemus."

(crashing, folks!)

[Theron Locke] He takes her hand, lifting it too his lips and kisses it lightly "Thankyou for the dance Genevre. I apologise if I seemed too distracted for you to enjoy yourself, but I think I will take your advice." He offers her a thankful smile, "It seems the person I need is about to leave" eyeing Lukas as he starts to leave "I better catch him, sorry I had to cut our dance short. Perhaps another time we can continue?"

He waits for his response and then heads in the direction of Lukas.

[Genevra de Provence] "I would be delighted. Now shoo."

Sunday, November 29, 2009

baseball with the dead.

[buzz buzz] 1. IC posts: 10 minutes or less. Declares and rolls: 3 minutes or less unless you are waiting on me to answer a question.
2. Ask your questions in the chat. It's possible someone there can answer faster than me. I r n00bcakes.
3. There is no posting order, but post once for every post I make unless I tell you otherwise.
4. PM me now if you have any Uncrossable Lines and/or Exploitable Flaws.
5. Keep track of your own health and tempers.

[buzz buzz] This area of the northside is a good place to get sick. Along with the Thorek Hospital and Medical Center on W Irving Park, there are a plethora of clinics, therapists, and counseling centers on nearly every corner. Or perhaps it's not a good place to be ill, given the size of Graceland Cemetary to the west.

This isn't the nicest part of the northside. The streets are littered with lines of black tar, stark against the paler concrete of side roads and main roads alike, quick fixes for winter damage. The people here are a quiet, untrusting sort. They watch passersby sternly, quietly, willing them to quicken their steps and get out of their territory.

Cece Anderson and her husband Hank opened Urban Tea Lounge two years ago as a place where people could sit for hours over pots of piping hot tea. It's been closed for weeks, and no one knows why. Maybe it's the slow economy. The people in this area simply don't have the disposable income to throw away on tea and social gatherings. The parking lot in the back is huge, and empty.

[Warcry] The empty parking lot of a currently closed tea shop is, as far as Sinclair is concerned, better than a batting cage. She only has the one ball, which means a lot of chasing, but she's got a bat and an arm. So she's lazily tossing the baseball up in the air, and smacking it with her bat time and time again. It goes flying to a bare brick wall thataway, and then she goes after it. Eventually the ball will fall apart. Eventually everything will.

[Rayne Harrison] The Digital Eye sometimes catered to service calls which, most found out, were cheaper than Geek Squad and other competitors.

Rayne was just finishing up a service call to one of the clinics in the area. Services given Pro Bono as a contribution to the community. Now she began the trek home in the cold.

[Abney] Whereever the people are quiet and untrusting, whereever the scenery is dilapidated and suspect, you are apt to find Abney. The girl's hood is up, her hands are in the kangaroo pouch of her hoodie. Her cheeks are red with cold, but that's fine. Winter is a harsh season, and winter in the city is harsher. Abney has absolutely no goal in mind, except learn Chicago, and so she strolls toward Urban Tea Lounge, lured in by the word Tea, then lured in by how empty it looks. How ghost town. The sound of someone hitting a ball, thwack, thwack, thwack in the parking lot behind.

[Warcry]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Warcry] [and another thing]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] ((per 4 + alert 3))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Abney] (Percept + Alert)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] She didn't really seem to notice that the road was empty. Perhaps mentally she was preoccupied with something else. She pulled her scarf loose and then shifted her hands in her pocket, and pulled out one of those little flavoured cigars, and lit up. She didn't smoke often. Hell, it had been months since her last one, but when she stresses.....

[Warcry] It's not her calling to be aware of the nuances and flavors of life. It's not her job to scout. It is, however, part of her duty to listen. To pay attention here, to feel the pulse of the spirit world there, to be memory and voice as well as tooth and claw, eyes and ears.

Or maybe she just gets lucky, and as the baseball is rolling towards her feet and as her sneakers are scuffing to a stop. She is mid-crouch to pick up the ball when she hears something. Her head lifts slowly, cocks to the side. She's wearing several layers of clothes and her breath steams when she exhales.

Sinclair picks up the ball with her left hand, bat in her right, and stands up again. "Rayne," she says simply, by way of greeting, and then her pale blue eyes flick to the other, paler blonde, the one she's seen around the Brotherhood lately. She gives a nod hello, and looks back to the west, taking a few steps towards the buildings in that direction.

[Rayne Harrison] She happen to stop near Sinclair to light up when she hears her name. Her head pops up to look around as she exhales the raspberry flavoured smoke. There was a touch of surprise there too, seeing Sinclair. "Hey Sinclair, what's up?"

[buzz buzz] Warcry, the closer of the three, sees it first.

From between the tall decrepit buildings on the west end of the parking lot, is a woman. She's dressed in her Sunday best, a lovely white blouse with a ruffled collar, a slim black skirt that falls to her knees. Her feet are bare. Maybe that's why her pace is so slow. She doesn't pick up her feet, but shuffles slowly, no doubt due to glass shards and rocks and other detritous that has embedded itself in her bare feet.

Her hair is down and in disarray. She looks like she's been in a fight. There's dirt on her clothes, most notably on the white shirt. Maybe that's where her shoes went. Left behind in her haste to get away from someone or something.

She shuffles out into the light cast by the tall parking lot lamps. And she stops. Her face turns toward Sinclair, the closest to her.

And she stares.

[perception again, my dears]

[Warcry]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Abney]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] ((Please Kahseeno *begs*))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Abney] The blonde with the nod and the baseball in the back lot; they garner a flicker of attention. But Abney's attention was hard-won, just now; the building was an empty shell. Sad, one part of Abney thinks; revitalization is vital for a city. Good, another part of Abney thinks; the city's got too much. Then again, this place will just stand here, weaver-monument, and where's the wyld in that? Stand there, shell-for-the-wyrm, shell-for-abandoned-people. Abandonment sucks. The snow-and-ashes child of Gaia (and she's got the blood for it, does) totally loses herself to introspection, follows thoughts down twisty labyrinthine paths, chase the white rabbit, ladeeda da.

And there. Right there. That woman, that's exactly the kind of shit that places like this bring out. All injured, walking wounded. Abney remembers herself long enough to, finally, belatedly, return her attention to Sinclair, nod herself, offer a you-are-vaguely-familiar, "Hey."

Then she calls out, louder, this time to the injured woman, looking at Sinclair. "Hey. You okay, lady?" Big bleeding heart. Yeah, whatever.

[Warcry] "...Fuck my life," sighs the Galliard, even as Rayne is lighting up nearby. Abney goes over to the woman just as Sinclair's nose is wrinkling with disgust, as though she smells something foul.

"She's dead," Sinclair informs the Child of Gaia, and throws the baseball in her left hand at the woman.

[Rayne Harrison] So much for enjoying a moment of peace when she hears Sinclair's comment. She flicks the barely smoked little cigar away, and moves to join Sinclair, pulling off her coat, scarf and beanie as she does. "No rest for the wicked it seems, Warcry."

[Warcry] Across the totemlink comes Sinclair's voice, boisterous as ever, especially under her moon: Hey, are any of you near West Agatite and North Hazel? I totally just saw a zombie.

A beat.

And threw a baseball at it.
to Wyrmbreaker

[Abney] "Ah. Not okay, then," Abney says, arrested mid-step.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Who's dead?" Lukas has a knack for showing up at the right place at the right time. Well; he has a knack for that today, anyway. Then Sinclair spares him from needing to answer. She taps onto the totemphone. And lobs a fastball at the lady. She doesn't look like she wants to play catch.

"Okay-then," Lukas says, and steps forward to take point. "Which are you better at, No Moons, sneaking or scouting?"

[Wyrmbreaker] Also: the little leather bag of talens comes out. And Warcry gets a rather foul-looking, blood-encrusted bandage.

(forgive multiple posts. it was a tack-on. *dazed*)

[Warcry] [-1G to activate BB]

[Rayne Harrison] Rayne notices Lukas comes out of no where, and gives a nod. She drops her things to the ground, and calls forth Jackal in a blister of exploding mini bats from her arm.

"Neither at the moment. I'm still learning the sneaky stuff." ((IE, it's in my journal I sent))

[Abney] "Number one," Abney says, succinct. "If you want to get all 'there's a big difference' about it."

[Warcry] [dex + ath + waxing gibbous moon]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] "All right. You're," Abney, "taking to the shadows to ambush our new friend. Wait until she's close enough to us that we can help you if things go awry. And you," Rayne, "are climbing up to the roof here to have a look around. Let me know if you see any others, and come right back down."

[Rayne Harrison] A quick nod to Lukas. "Gotcha, ~Rhya." She moves off, slipping around to the building to use the fire escape to get to the roof, tucking Jackal in her belt as she does.

[Wyrmbreaker] Totem: Let her come to us. Even if she takes a long time.
to Warcry

[Rayne Harrison] ((Per 4 + alert 3 + 1 perc totem bonus))((*begs Kahseeno*))
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Warcry] Sinclair takes the bandage and doesn't hesitate to use it, doesn't ask what it is, doesn't even glance down at it before a blue glow so pale it's nearly silver gleams around her hand where she touches it. That light flows up her arm and to her heart, bursts small and quiet like the impact of a meteor hitting the desert in the distance. She tosses her baseball bat to one side. It clocks the asphalt, rolls out of the way.

"She's kinda... looking... right... at me," Sinclair says slowly, though whether her hesitance is true or a mockery is hard to tell. There's a beat, and then she nods. There's submission in it.

[Abney] "Keep her eyes on you," Abney says, running her fingers through her hair. Then her mouth goes lopsided. "There's never only one of the walking dead. Never."

The child of Gaia'll look at Sinclair, too; then leave the two of them there. Separate from the cluster and, one hopes, fade into the shadows, become a smear of not worth anyone's time, nothing here to see or smell or ... We'll see.

[Rayne Harrison] Rayne moved about the rooftop in a crouch, peeking over the edge just enough to look out. Her eyes narrow on something, and she snarls a bit. She quickly moves back to the fire escape, taking 2 or 3 steps at a time, and slidding down the ladder for the last bit to land.

"Rhya, 3 more coming from the west."

[Rayne Harrison] *adds*

Points to the narrow between the buildings where they are coming from.

[Wyrmbreaker] (*cough* disregard last totempost!)
to Warcry

[Warcry] (*hands you a Halls drop*)
to Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] "Move fast," is Wyrmbreaker's version of a good-luck to Abney. He doesn't wait for Mrs. Shambles to come to him after all. Eyes fixed right back on the zombie, Wyrmbreaker starts forward, stride after efficient stride taking him unfalteringly toward her.

He's obviously moving to stop her at the mouth of the short alley she was coming from. And that her friends were following from. As he goes, a pale glow begins to seep from his skin.

[Wyrmbreaker] (Luna's Armor! 'nother 1gn, +1wp)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) [WP]

[Warcry] [-1WP for Resist Pain.]

[buzz buzz] [Lady friend
+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[buzz buzz] [Friend +1
+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
+4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Wyrmbreaker] (+19)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] Inits
+9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[Abney] 8
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Warcry] [-1R, snap-shift to hispo]
[+9]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Abney] Tiny Doom (no real names, please) truly is sneaky. The rest of the dead start to pour out of the alley, and once Abney's close -- the first friend has come out, and now there's a second -- Abney burns rage to snapshift into massive war-wolf form and tries to bite it's head off. SNAP.

[dex + brawl + all the modifiers talked 'bout in chat]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Abney] Damage? Strength 2(+3hispo) + 2 + 4 (succ-1)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] Lukas : 28
Rayne : 19
Warcry : 18
Lady : 16
Friend 2 : 13
Friend 3 : 13
Abney : 12
Friend 1 : 5
Declare in reverse

Round One: FIGHT

[buzz buzz] [Friend +1
Bite Abney]

[Abney] [Chew Friend +2!]

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Bite Abney

Friend +2
Bite Abney]

Lady
Bite Lukas]

[Warcry] [1a. Close on +1 to flank
1b. Bite
R1. Bite
R2. BITE]

[Rayne Harrison] -1R snap shift crinos
1a Claw +1
1b Claw +1

[Wyrmbreaker] [-1R hispo
1a. true fear on lady (worth a shot!)
b. close
c. spur claws on +3
R1. bite +1! (or 2, or 3, in that order if they die)]

[Wyrmbreaker] c. -5 dice, spur claws, 1 rage.
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] (claw damage! +1)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Soaky!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] 1a Claw + 1

Dex 4 + Brawl 3 + Dex 1 crinos
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3

[Rayne Harrison] Damage Str 2 + 4 crinos + 2
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +1
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] 1b Claw + 1

-3 dice
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] Dam
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +1
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Warcry] [1b. Dex + Brawl + Perun -3 (split) // -1 diff (flanked)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 6 at target 4)

[Warcry] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +1
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Lady
Biting Lukas, - 2 diff 'cause she's behind him now
dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6 (Success x 7 at target 3)

[buzz buzz] [damage: str + 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Changing actions: I help j00, Friend +3. Pulling out spur claws

Friend +3
Bite Abney: dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [damage: str + 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Abney] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Abney] [same as before since modifiers cancelled each other out last time! BITE YOU. -2 dice for wounded. +1 wp YOUR FRIENDS ARE ALL BITING ME, I HATE YOU SO MUCH.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Abney] Damage? Strength 2(+3hispo) +2 +1 (succ-1)
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Soaky!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] (chomp +2!)
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 8 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] (+7)
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Warcry] [R1. Biting Friend 2. +1 diff (changed targets), -1 diff (flanked)]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 8 at target 5)

[Warcry] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Warcry] [R2]
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Warcry] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +2
Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Best Friend +1
+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 10

[buzz buzz] [Best Friend +2
+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[buzz buzz] Though he has only one bound packmate with him, the others fall quickly in line with the Fostern's orders. Abney, little Tiny Doom, blurs and darts to the alley where the three newcomers are headed. She waits for the first to pass, and leaps in behind the second. She sinks her teeth into the flesh of its shoulder and pulls. Her target, a man in a nice grey suit smudged with soil, slows, and turns. All three newcomers turn as one to close on the little Ragabash.

Wyrmbreaker tries to instill fear in the barefoot woman, but can the undead feel fear? Do they feel pain? Do they feel...anything? This one, apparently, does not. Lukas becomes a dark furred blur on four legs, darts for the alley, the woman hot on the Shadow Lord's heels. He digs his claws into the last undead in the line, a stocky man in a brown plaid suit. The attack does little, but the claws remain. The woman is on him then, coming along behind him. She opens her mouth to display perfect white teeth. She bites into Lukas' flank, but Luna's Armor protects him. He feels nothing.

Rayne, the Electronic Jedi, explodes into a bigger, furry two-legged form. She rakes her claws twice across the chest of the third man. On the second slash she cuts him open, but no blood comes out to stain her claws or splash across her chest. They remain strangely clean even when Warcry steps in and cuts the man down.

For being unliving, for supposedly having no brain activity within their skulls, the man in the brown plaid suit is oddly thoughtful. He turns, and he rips Lukas' claws from the grey-suited man, allowing him to bite into Tiny Doom's shoulder. His jaws are human, but they find their mark. They dig in, and they tear the flesh away, leaving the little Ragabash howling in agony. That doesn't stop her from rending the flesh from her opponent, the man in the grey suit.

Warcry leaps in again, and sending another to the ground.

There are two left, the woman and the man in the plaid suit. They're the only ones standing. Abney is the only one injured thus far. Surely the Garou are thinking they have this in the bag. What are the undead to living, snapping, dangerous jaws?

There comes a shuffling, not from a shambling walk but simply from feet that refuse to lift far from the ground. From around the corner of the southern building come two more, a big beefy male and a short, thick black woman. Both are dressed nicely. Both stop when they come upon the carnage.

Behind Wyrmbreaker, the woman leans out. Though her eyes are a milky, filmy blue she looks directly at the newcomers. And then she raises her hand, and she points.

[buzz buzz] [Damage:
Friends 1&2: incapped
Abney: 4A
Everyone else: OK

Lukas : 28
Rayne : 19
Warcry : 18
Lady : 16
BF +1 : 15
Friend 3 : 13
Abney : 12
BF +2 : 11
declare in reverse!]

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
bite Sinclair]

[Abney] [Spend 1 Rage, BITE Friend +3, BITE Friend +3.]

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Bite Sinclair

BF +1
Bite Sinclair

Lady
Bite Sinclair]

[Warcry] [1a. Bite Friend 3
1b. Bite Friend 3
1c. Bite BF1]

[Rayne Harrison] 1a. BITE +2
1b. BITE +2

[Wyrmbreaker] 1a. bite lady
b. bite friend +3
R1. moar +3 chomp
R2. moar +3 chomp
if +3 goes down, lady next, then BF 1, then BF 2.

[Wyrmbreaker] a. -2!
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 10 at target 3) Re-rolls: 2

[Wyrmbreaker] (damage +9)
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 7 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Lady
Soak for the love of cheese!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] b. friend +3! -3
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Wyrmbreaker] (wrong diff. that was diff 3. so... 8 succ. +7!)
Dice Rolled:[ 16 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Soaky!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] 1a BITE BF2

Dex + brawl + form mods - 2 dice split diff 5
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]

[Rayne Harrison] Dam
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
Soaky!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Rayne Harrison] 1b BITE BF2 -3 split
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Rayne Harrison] Dam
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 8, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
Soakit!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Warcry] [1a. Bite Friend 3. -3]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 11 at target 5) Re-rolls: 4

[Warcry] [Damage: I WANT YOU TO HIT ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN]
Dice Rolled:[ 18 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 9 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Nooo I want to liiiive!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Warcry] [1b. -4. Switching to BF1, and remembering her +1 for the moon phase this time]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

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

[buzz buzz] [BF +1
Soaky]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Warcry] [1c. -5]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 5) Re-rolls: 1

[Warcry] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +1
Can't we all just get along?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +1
Bite Sinclair: dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [damage: str + 1 + 2]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Warcry] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [Friend +3
Bite Sinclair: dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [damage: str + 1 + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Warcry] [Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [delete last attack]

[Abney] [Regular Action! CHOMP BF+1. - 2 dice for wounded. - 2 diff for backstabby.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 3)

[Abney] Damage! Strength+2+4(-1)
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 6, 6, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +1
Soaky]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
bite Sinclair: dex + brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[buzz buzz] [damage: str + 1 + 3]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Warcry] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] R1. chomp BF1! +1diff changing actions.
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 13 at target 4) Re-rolls: 2

[Wyrmbreaker] damage +12
Dice Rolled:[ 21 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 14 at target 6)

[Abney] [BF2, got my eye on you. bite! - same crap as before.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Success x 5 at target 3)

[Abney] Damage! Same.
Dice Rolled:[ 11 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
Nooo I want to liiiiiive!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Wyrmbreaker] chomp!
Dice Rolled:[ 13 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 7 at target 4) Re-rolls: 1

[Wyrmbreaker] 6
Dice Rolled:[ 15 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
I just wanted a hug ;_; ]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2 +4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Rayne Harrison] Inits

+9
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

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

[buzz buzz] [Damage:
Lukas and Rayne: OK
Sinclair: 6A
Abney: 4A
BF +2: 7A and still kickin'
BF +1: kersplutted
Everyone else: Incapped

Lukas : 28
Rayne : 19
Warcry : 18
Abney : 12
BF +2 : 5
declare in reverse!]

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
Bite Sinclair (hahahaha)]

[Abney] (Do NOT attack again. Mother's Touch Sinclair!)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Warcry] [1a. Bite BF2]

[Rayne Harrison] 1a. BITE BF2
1b. BITE BF2 head

[Wyrmbreaker] 1a. climb a fire escape
b. look around for moar.

[Rayne Harrison] 1b BITE BF2
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 6, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 5) [WP]

[Rayne Harrison] Dam (remebering to add suxx this time))
Dice Rolled:[ 14 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[buzz buzz] [BF +2
I thought you were my fwiend!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Abney] Unicorn Power: shine! okay, heal.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 7 (Success x 3 at target 1)

[buzz buzz] The woman's finger points to one and one only: Sinclair.

All of the walking dead turn on the charcoal furred Glass Walker. All try to sink their teeth in, but though she has their undivided attention, Sinclair makes quick work of her attacker. She's fast, deadly. Beautiful. It's her moon in the sky, and it makes her luminescent. She's faster, her fangs are sharper, she glows with Luna's light on her fur.

The others do what they can to help. Lukas brings the woman to the ground. Abney and Rayne rip chunks off the stocky man. Lukas moves in behind them to bury his teeth into the man's torso. Like a dog with a favored toy, the huge black monster shakes his head once, violently, ripping the man's body to shreds.

They take turns nipping at the black woman in her pretty floral dress. Chunks of flesh, shreds of clothing, shards of bone litter the ground around her, until Rayne moves forward. Like a hunter stalking its prey, she prowls low to the ground. The woman doesn't see it come. She shouldn't see anything, but her milky gaze is fixed on the charcoal colored wolf in front of her. And then she sees the ribbed inside of a canine mouth. Then...

silence.

Silence echoes off the walls of the alley, skips across the empty parking lot like stones. For a moment, it's deafening.

As the heat of battle fades and heart beats slow, the warriors of Gaia begin to hear the sounds of the city. Cars moving along W Agatite Avenue. People walking to the nearby grocery store. The night time creatures that still dwell within the city in winter.

Lukas, ever cautious, climbs a nearby fire escape, scouting for others. What he sees is a city getting ready for the night. Lights go on as the sun sinks beyond the horizon.

Night falls over Chicago. May they all live to see another sunrise.

[Rayne Harrison] Rayne, satisfied after spitting out zombie yuckies, shifts back down to her homid form, in her dedicated winter clothes. She looks around a moment, then to the others. "Alright, now what?"

[Abney] Is Sinclair good? Sinclair is good. The war-wolf makes certain the dead aren't going to move again, as near as she can see. Is there a head still attached? If so: Claw, decapitate. Claw, decapitate. When that's done, and only then, will Abney shift back into her homid shape. And what a shape it is: absolutely none. Abney's hurt, but she'll heal. Go back to the Brotherhood, chill in her room in Crinos -- or maybe the caern. No sweat. "Find out why," she says.

[Wyrmbreaker] Wyrmbreaker rattles up the fire escape in hispo -- metal fastenings creaking under the load. He comes back down in a considerably smaller shape, homid, dropping the last six or eight feet to land in a crouch.

"We need to cleanse, send word to the Caern, and track these things," no respect for the (un)dead: he kicks a corpse, "to wherever they came from. There's no need for all of us to do everything. Pick a job and let's get to it."

(iiii need to sleep *dies* so ... most likely lukas will either be tracking or bringing word to caern, as he has no cleansing abilities whatsoever.)

[Rayne Harrison] "I can track." SHe nodded to Lukas.

[Warcry] Two of the undead fall, dropping to the ground like sacks of raw meat, after Sinclair lunges at them. They, like the rest, are left where they lie, the attention of the Garou focused on those still moving, still attacking. When it's over, and Wyrmbreaker gives them the all-clear from his perch above, Sinclair accepts Abney's healing with little more than a stretch, a shudder, and a gentle head-butt to the Gaian's ribs.

She shifts into homid a moment later, watching Abney go amongst the corpses, making double sure they won't be rising once more. Sinclair, the blood she spilled still on her skin and clothes but no trace of a wound left, turns to her Alpha as he drops down. She can't cleanse, so for the most part she gets out of the way while the others do. She can't track, so she leave that to Rayne.

"I'll go to the Caern and let the elders know," she says with a nod.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Can you Cleanse?"

Poor Abney. One heal and suddenly everyone expects her to behave like a Theurge.

[Abney] Her expression is a shade cynical. Look at that. The child of Gaia, excepted to be all shining. Abney cocks a brow, then gives Wyrmbreaker a half-smile. "Nope. One of y'all tell somebody to get their asses over here who can, though, and I'll hold the fort down."

[Abney] ooc: ahem. exPected to be all shining.

[Wyrmbreaker] "I'll track with Rayne, then, so we can cover ground faster if the trail splits. It was a honor fighting with you two. I'll see you later, I'm sure."

With that, Lukas drops into his lupus form, putting his nose to the ground.

(i'm out folks, dying here! thanks for the fun!!)

Friday, November 27, 2009

trust.

[Danicka Musil] She hasn't been up here for very long whenever Lukas makes his way to his bedroom. The door is locked behind her, and she has his keys. Maybe she was too drunk to consider that a problem. Maybe she assumes he can get in by other means. There's no telling.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Perhaps it's all but stereotypical that Lukas would turn a social gathering, a party, into an arena to discuss pack business.

Nevertheless, the conversation with Edwin wraps up efficiently enough. After the Ragabash departs, Lukas mounts the staircase to the second floor, passing the now-empty common room on his way to his door.

Which is locked, under his hand. He looks at it a moment, half-puzzled. Then he knocks.

[Danicka Musil] She is not a deep sleeper. He's felt her limp, warm, and heavy against him more than a few times now. He's woken to find her arm and leg wrapped around him, her hand over his heart and her brow resting against the base of his neck. He's fallen asleep on his back with her cheek to his chest, half her body draped over him. He's stirred and touched her as she sleeps, and she's reacted. With a sigh, with a wriggling, with any number of responses to stimuli. Danicka sleeps well, but it takes no special talent to wake her.

Because she is also given more to wakefulness and alertness than sleep, more inclined to be aware than oblivious. So soon enough he hears rustling, and the creak of springs as she rises, and he can all but feel her light footsteps across the floor. The door unlocks, and opens a crack, and Danicka looks out, squinting against the light, to see that it's him.

"Mmm," is all she says, as though in confirmation, and turns to walk away again, heading back to his bed. Her shoes are by his desk, but her trenchcoat and pants are nowhere to be seen. They're hanging in his closet, which is closed. Danicka's locket is on his desk, filling the space above it with the scent of sandalwood and roses. She's in her sweater and a pair of pale pink underwear, and as soon as she reaches his bed she all but flops back onto it, squirming and kicking her legs back under the topmost quilt.

"Mmph," she adds, once she's there.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's colder in his room than in the commons. That's as much a phenomenon of the air ducts as it is his insistence on keeping the window open a crack, even in November.

She's in underwear and a sweater, though, and when she lets him in he catches her by the waist before she can turn away again, pulling her against him and wrapping his arms around. A pause, eyes closed, body curved to hers. Then he kisses the side of her neck, lets her go.

She goes back to bed. He re-locks the door, then goes to close his window. After, he goes to his bed, sitting on the edge, aware of a sudden, deep ache in himself:

I want this woman in my bed.
Every night.


that he banishes with a deep breath. Half-pivoting, he puts his hand out, strokes her hair back.

"Myslel jsem, že chceš jít domů?"

[Danicka Musil] Danicka neither tenses nor struggles when he wraps his arm around her and pulls her close. She rests easily against him, bare thighs to his slack-covered ones, absorbing some of his warmth and quietly accepting the affection, the closeness, without doing much in return. Her arms do come around him after a moment, though. Her hands do gently stroke his back, pat him a couple of times.

She gets under the quilt while he sits down beside her legs, and she lays on her right side so she can tuck her chin close to her chest and look at him. Her eyes close when he touches her hair, and then she nods -- with effort -- a couple of times.

"Jo. Jen ... potřeba vystřízlivět první."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Budu řídit." His hand lingers a moment. Then Lukas gets up, the mattress shifting as his weight leaves it. In the darkness, his slacks are black; his shirt is ghostly, the most visible thing about him. His back, turned, is straight -- something quietly proud about the way he holds himself.

He gets his coat out, slipping into it. Then her clothes, which he brings back to bed for her.

"No tak," he urges gently. "Proč jste tolik pít?"

[Danicka Musil] "Will you drive my car?" Danicka asks him as he gets up, slipping between Czech and English with thoughtless ease, as though she can't tell which language she's speaking right now. Her eyes have a metallic glint in this light, gray with hints of silver, til she rolls this way or that way and the light changes enough that he can see their true color.

She lingers for a little while, then throws back the quilt with an exaggerated motion of her arm, baring her legs and the pale panties that are almost the same color as her skin without a lamp to clarify the difference.

He brings her the pair of khakis from one hanger, the trench from another. She smiles up at him and makes no effort to put either of them on, lifting both arms from the elbows and waggling her fists in the air.

"Tradici," she answers, then launches into: "And who does Mama teach, to mend and tend and fix, preparing her to marry whomever Papa picks? The daughterrrs! The daughters!"

Danicka claps her hands once over her head, and laughs. "Tradition!"

And laughs more.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Do you want me to?" he responds. She flings the quilt back; she doesn't start putting her clothes on. He promptly turns her coat over, wool side to her bare legs, and lays it over her again.

"It's tradition for you to get shitfaced on thanksgiving?" he sounds vaguely amused; mostly bemused.

[Danicka Musil] "Yes," Danicka answers, nodding and giggling, her hands falling. There's a coat over her legs, but it's not long enough to cover her from waist to toes. Her feet wiggle out at the end, her hips are still half-bared. She stretches as her laughter fades, yawning, and nods benignly up at him again. "I had a friend. In New York. And my family never really celebrated the holiday. And she started getting me drunk on Thanksgiving and goading me into telling people what I think. The truth. And then I went to New Orleans. And when I came back I got drunk one year and told her about the baby and Christian and the abortion and she stopped being my friend.

"But!" Danicka goes on, lifting a finger only to drop it again, looking a bit weary now, "it is a good tradition."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] A flicker of a pause: baby, Christian, abortion. Then it passes.

"Is that why you laid into the Fang downstairs?" he asks, his tone light enough. Since she refuses to dress herself, he shakes her slacks out, lays them on the bed, then starts looking under and beside his bed for her socks and shoes. "In the name of truth?"

[Danicka Musil] [Perception + Empathy -1 (waaasteeed)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Danicka Musil] At her worst -- at her most exhausted, her most altered -- Danicka is still more perceptive than the vast majority of people Lukas knows. She's told him she knew before he did that he wanted her, and it's the truth. She could tell, being driven home in his car wearing a green silk dress under a thick white coat and every last inch of her smelling faintly of his packmate's attentions, that he was glad she did not want Sam. That he was ferociously trying to stamp that reaction down because of the importance his pack has to him. That he'd spent part of the night listening to her fuck someone else and could not, entirely, tolerate it. She knew. She went into her apartment and showered the night off her skin, washing it and almost all of the memory of it away like she'd done so many times before,

and had thought about him as she did. And had thought about him as she went to sleep, finally, her room filled with dawning sunlight. When she woke she found herself staring at the wall, his name and his being on her mind before she was even completely conscious. She did not remember much about being with Sam. She remembered every moment of the car ride home with Lukas.

This is the only time she has ever told him that she had an abortion. He's known she's been pregnant twice. He knows what happened the first time. But what she says now is new, and as she looks up at him she can see the Ahroun flickering from shock to figuring it out, putting two and two together and coming up with one more painful truth. She can see the way he shifts from one topic to another as he shakes her slacks out. And then she's distracted.

"No," Danicka insists slowly, heavily, starting to push herself up on her elbows so she can reach for her pants, "I laid into the Fang downstairs because she came here dressed like that solely for your benefit, twirling around like a odstraňovač nátěrů and pouting because you're taken only to turn around and act like her breeding makes her superior."

Danicka scoffs and struggles with her pants, peering in the dark for which leg goes in which hole. "Since her fucking behavior sure as hell doesn't." She finds her way, lays back down, and wriggles into her khakis, tugging them up onto her hips and zipping and clasping them, looking at the ceiling. "Fucking Fangs. They act like garish buffoons and expect the rest of us to be impressed. They have no manners when they try to have them, and no grace or subtlety when they try their hand at condescension.

"I have better carriage and decorum than the moronic Fangs in this city, and my father was a cabinetmaker," she concludes, sitting up and pointing at the desk. "Shoes're there."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Baby," Lukas puts his hands over Danicka's, stilling her efforts to pull her pants back on. "Did you think for a single instant that I could possibly be interested in what she had to offer?"

[Danicka Musil] Lukas gets neither a 'yes' nor a 'no' in answer to that question. Danicka starts laughing. It isn't a chuckle, or a restrained giggle. It's a laugh that starts in her belly and makes her tremble, her eyes squeezing shut with hilarity and her head tipping back. She laughs for some time, until actual tears squeeze out past her eyelashes.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "If you didn't think that," Lukas continues evenly, hilarity notwithstanding, "then why does it even matter to you what she does, what she wears, or how rude she was being? What is she doing that could possibly harm you?

"You said it yourself. You have better carriage and decorum. Beyond that, you have more intelligence, more wit, a mind of your own, a future beyond cubs and genealogies and gilded cages. You're her better in every way. Anyone with a mind can see that."

Danicka had not, a moment ago, seen disappointment in Lukas. She saw that he did not want to be the object of their jealousies; she saw that he was concerned, perhaps, that she thought his love of her was anything but complete.

If she looks now, it would be different. There would be something like disappointment there.

"So why," he finishes, "would you even deign to bicker back at her, or any other Fang?"

[Danicka Musil] The laughter fades into giggles, and into snickers, and then a soft sigh as it leaves her completely. She has her hand under his, and does not move it. He speaks to her, level and thoughtful, and it only makes her frown. She looks considering at first, and then something in the way he looks at her makes her sit up -- slowly, because the room is spinning lazily and teetering a bit. Her frown deepens as she looks at him.

"You," she says firmly, "have missed the point entirely."

Their hands are laying together as comfortably as sleeping children, packed wolves, on her lap. They seem separate from the conversation, from Danicka's frown and tone, and yet the gentleness that even the slightest contact adds to their interaction can't be understated.

"It wasn't about you," Danicka goes on, softening her words as they leave her mouth, because these ones in particular can so often be taken as a slap in the face, a scolding for arrogance. "She is... low. And so obviously so."

She pauses there, and snickers, delighted. "I rhymed." It takes a moment for Danicka to calm down again, shaking it off and firmly grabbing a hold of her senses so she can continue speaking.

"But then she insulted me. And the..." she searches for a word, sighs it out: "transparency of it all was pathetic." Danicka leans over and touches her brow to his for a moment, closes her eyes, then lets her head slide down the side of his face to his shoulder. She exhales, resting there a moment as though sitting up is just too exhausting for her to contemplate any longer. "Baby, think less of me if you will, but I didn't snark at her because I felt threatened. I don't smirk at Kate behind her back or in Czech because I'm scared of her. I know very well the places that I excel and they falter. I do it...because..."

She pauses there, and pulls back, and moves his hand gently away from her waist so she can finish clasping her slacks. Her legs slide to the side, and she begins to search for the floor with her bare feet. "Baví mě to."

The way she once said: I am when he said -- so softly -- I don't think you're capable of cruelty.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] That silences Lukas. The fact that she told him at all, so bluntly, surprises him -- but less than it did half a year ago. What she told him, though, makes his eyebrows flit together; makes him search for words.

She told him, once, that she's capable of cruelty. He remembers that, and he remembers that she told him two men have loved her; he adds these facts to what she just said, a name, an act, a decision. Ultimately, though, Lukas doesn't really believe that of her. If one gets philosophical about it, if one gets cynical about it, it's possible that on some level Lukas doesn't believe anyone other than the Garou and the Wyrm, the monsters and the monsters, capable of cruelty and malice and hate and destruction.

He stops searching for something to say. He sits back. It's hard to define who lets go of whom first. He's still watching her seconds later. As she swings her feet to the floor, his eyes finally cut away. There's a beat of pause. Then he gets up and goes to retrieve her shoes, handing them to her as he turns back.

"Thank you for being honest," he says finally, "and for not trying to paint it as something loftier than it is."

A beat of pause. Then he holds his hand out for hers.

"Did you still want me to drive?"

[Danicka Musil] [Perception + Empathy -1 (I love vodka! :D)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Danicka Musil] They deserve it.

She would not call it cruelty, however malicious it may seem to enjoy the ability to insult someone to their face without them knowing it. And she can do it without switching languages. Lukas has seen it. He knows how expertly Danicka can hide a verbal slap, couching it in a charming smile and a turn of phrase. He can see the way her eyes glint sometimes with the knowledge that they are simply too dense, or too full of themselves, to realize they are being humiliated rather than sincerely praised. She gets off on it: not just mocking them and getting away with it, but on the very fact that she is, as he said... better. Cleverer.

In her mind, they earn it. By their very stupidity, by their self-involvement, by their arrogance, they ask to be knocked down a peg or two. They ask to be belitted. In her mind, the smirking taunt and the eyerolling behind their backs is the natural and proper consequence for what she deems pathetic, what she calls low. But she does not try to tell him that this is a calling in life, a noble vocation, to teach Fangs and others a lesson.

Simply: she enjoys it.

Danicka watches him get up, and her brows pull together.

"Do you?" she asks quietly, which is not a response to either of the things he just said.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] His hand stays where it is in the air between them. Lukas frowns, a quick expression, confusion.

"Do I what? Want to drive?"

[Danicka Musil] "Think less of me."

She is sitting on the edge of his bed, her hands in her lap, her toes on the cold carpet. The frown on her upturned face is a small, aching thing. It is not something she would have shown him months ago. It is not something she would show him quite so easily, even now, while sober.

And when she speaks, it is barely above a whisper.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] When his eyebrows draw further together, it's not confusion.

"Danička, miluji tě." They rarely say it this way: matter-of-factly, a statement rather than a form of worship. "Nothing could ever make me think less of you."

He holds his hand out further, offering it to her, opening the fingers to let hers through if she takes it.

"But," he adds, slower, "I think and act differently from you in this. I don't mock a person for his weakness. I sometimes try to help them. More often I simply pity them. But then, in the end I remember their weaknesses in case I ever need to use that knowledge. And there's nothing commendable about that; nothing that would give me the right to think less of you."

[Danicka Musil] To look at them, to know what they really are -- that he is not a man living in luxury but a monster, that she is not an independent woman but the broken kin of monsters -- no one would imagine that Lukas is the one with compassion enough to reach out to the faltering, that Danicka is the one whose gaze lacks sympathy for the weak. It is a rare thing for her to nurture, for her to feel pity. It is rarer still for her to care about the thoughts and feelings of others beyond how it affects her, how they might hurt her.

It isn't hard to understand how they developed like this, what priorities they were given from an early age. When Lukas was still a teenager, his outlook on the world still forming, he was taken under the wing of a Hungarian Philodox of the tribe. It would be ridiculous to pretend that Promised-Rain did not have powerful influence over the molding of the young Ahroun's attitude, now so gelled that it will possibly never change. Just as it would be foolish to imagine that Danicka can, after all these years, offer to the world what she was never given.

Ex nihilo nihil fit.

Still his hand is held out, open. Danicka finally takes it, and puts pressure on it as she rises to her feet.

Even as drunk as she is, and unable to simply shift and burn the vodka out of her system, she doesn't wobble. She puts effort into keeping herself from swaying, and squeezes his hand once before letting go and walking over to her boots. Danicka reaches into them and sits on his desk chair to put her socks on, drawing them up under her pant legs. She pulls each boot on, snug around her calves, and barely remembers to pick up her locket, pocketing it rather than putting it back on. She looks around for her trench coat

and it's there, in his hand again, held out to her. She smiles faintly as she puts it on, shrugging it over her shoulders and sweeping her hair out from under the collar with a practiced, familiar gesture. Her purse is picked up, and when she's ready to go, she seeks his hand again.

"Did I tell you that my roommate is in Vermont?" she asks, genuinely wondering, as they exit his room.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas huffs a laugh under his breath.

"Yes," he says. Her hand is held warm in his -- and then he takes it in his other arm, loops it through the crook of his elbow. Not because this is more gentlemanly, but because this brings her closer.

And because it's raining outside, or has been in spats all day. On his way out of his room, he picks up his umbrella where it stands folded against the corner. The door shuts behind them, locking on its own. The Brotherhood is quiet around them as they descend the stairs. In the kitchen, some sleepy-looking kin are cleaning up the aftereffects of the feast.

Lukas doesn't tell Danicka that when he found her lazing in his bed, too drunk to move, he thought seriously about picking her up and telling her to wrap her arms and legs around him; to cloak herself in his coat and ride on his back like a child piggybacking; to hold on while he climbed out the window with her and went out that way so she wouldn't have to dress, wouldn't have to be presentable, wouldn't have to act like she wasn't

absofuckinglutely sloshed.

as she passed before the eyes of strangers and near-strangers.

Danicka didn't need this, in the end, and one wouldn't necessarily expect a world-class master of masks and social graces like her to. She stands without swaying. They walk down together, and out into the parking lot where he finds her slate-blue Infiniti. Unlocking the doors, he hands her into the passenger's side, then circles around to get in the driver's.

He's driven this car once, coming back from a Polish restaurant where they ate traditional Polish fare and drank Polish potato vodka and moved from sitting across from one another like civilized adults to sitting beside one another like children to cuddling like teenagers to, finally, all but mauling one another's faces like animals. The controls are vaguely familiar to him. He adjusts the seat and the mirrors and the steering wheel, and then starts the ignition.

"What's he doing in Vermont?"

[Danicka Musil] They talk as they leave, as he takes his umbrella and she holds onto his arm to help steady herself as much as to stay close to him. She goes down the stairs slowly but not gingerly, her feet firmly placed. He can feel the tension in her, the sheer effort to maintain grace despite the amount of alcohol in her system and the drowsiness lingering from brief sleep.

"Visiting his mother," she explains, as far as Paul is concerned. It doesn't really matter. It's Thanksgiving; Paul is human (and all of them are mortal). Of course he's with his family for the holiday. Of course he's out of the city, out of the state, seeing the parent who will still talk to him.

They pass by the employees of the Brotherhood in silence, exit through the alleyway into the light rain. Danicka has no idea what Lukas thought of before, how he considered getting her out of there in a thoroughly undignified fashion just because

together, alone, they do not worry much about dignity.

She hands him her eyes from her purse as they go to the car, and he hits a button to unlock the doors, opens one for her. Danicka slides into the seat with a sigh. It takes her until he's settled in his own seat to get her belt on across her chest and lap, fumbling while he's adjusting mirrors and the like.

"Have you... thought any more about what we talked about before?" she asks, as he's pulling out of the parking lot, the wipers moving slowly, the stereo playing from the middle of a song with a male vocalist singing

...I will run, if I can keep up with you I'll stay young forever...

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Briefly caught off guard, Lukas replies with the first thing on his mind, which is indication in and of itself that what he doesn't discuss immediately and what he forgets are two things altogether:

"Christian?"

A moment later, clicking his own seatbelt, "Or getting a place that's ours?"

[Danicka Musil] Her jaw tenses at the name, though she was all but laughing when she said it herself. "Getting a place," she clarifies quietly, a moment later, and looks out the window.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He senses the tension in her, though this time they aren't touching; she isn't leaning into his arm as they move down the stairs that challenge her inebriated balance. Lukas glances briefly at Danicka, then away. And he leaves the subject of Christian be; nods, maneuvering her car carefully down the quiet streets.

"I have." Lake Shore Drive winds through some of Chicago's most expensive neighborhoods; near the Caern, however, the scenery is industrial and unpretty and the streets are ill-lit, probably rife with crime at night. The headlights are bright, though, cutting effortlessly through the gloom. "I've been looking since the day after we talked about it, actually. The market's good right now. A lot of foreclosure homes up for sale for ridiculous prices, which drives the entire market down. It's -- "

he trails off; realizes she probably doesn't care about the market trend. Realizes she probably already knows. There's a pause. Then he says, "There were a few places I liked. They're not very impressive." He laughs under his breath, half-embarrassedly. "They're actually closer to hovels. But the neighborhoods around them were decent. The umbral spirits were congenial, or at least benign, and I wouldn't worry about your safety if you were there without me.

"Do you want to see them?"

[Danicka Musil] This is a warmer topic than the one hinted at when he said the name of the man she'd mentioned up in his room. Danicka eases almost immediately, too inebriated to hold on to any one thought for very long. She may have already forgotten telling him that her friend, an unnamed woman in New York City, ceased speaking to her when Danicka got smashed and told her of the decision she'd made all those years ago.

However many it was.

She takes her eyes off the glass when Lukas tells her he's been looking since the ninth, and her eyebrows go up. Her lips are parted, faintly curved; she looks vaguely, innocently happy for a moment, even as he starts to delve into the market and the economy and why these 'hovels' are even cheaper right now than they would be otherwise.

The truth is, Danicka has always lived in lovely homes. He's seen the house she grew up in, the house he visited on occasion and ran rampant through because it was so much bigger than the single room his family occupied for a time. He can likely imagine the sort of homes -- plural -- that she inhabited while she worked for the Sokolovs, never far from Yelizaveta except for her days off. He can imagine her sitting in the back seat of towncars with her charge, the windows tinted to keep gawkers from peering in at the Silver Fang and her Shadow Lord governess. He can surmise without difficulty what kind of abode stood on the Sokolovs' land in New Orleans, and he's been in her apartment here enough times.

It does not take much less than what she's used to for Lukas to be concerned about how impressive they are. To call them 'hovels'.

Danicka tips her head to the side, blinking slowly. Lazily. "Right now?" she says, sounding a bit lost.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Before I buy one," he replies. "Now, if you want. But maybe when the sun is up." He's straightfaced; if he's teasing her, it's hard to tell.

[Danicka Musil] "Do you..."

She stops there, frowns, and looks at her hands in her lap. The song changes to one about a cigarette. Or one that uses a cigarette as a metaphor. Something. It's low, the volume down and the music background more than anything else.

"Do you want my help buying it?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Once, a question like that would have made him fiercely defensive, even retaliatory. Then again, once, she would've never asked him if he thought less of her as though that mattered, when a moment ago she told him she wouldn't care.

Lukas turns to cast Danicka a quick, wry smile. "I can manage, Danička." His eyes go back to the road. He makes a right; the Loop slides by across the river, glittering even at this hour. Not too far ahead: Danicka's apartment and all its glamour, all its million-dollar views. What she pays for rent in two months is enough to buy some of the 'hovels' he's looked at.

"Unless you wanted something nicer," he adds -- not spitefully, but perhaps a little worriedly.

[Danicka Musil] Her eyes close, and she smiles. It's slow, and it's bright, and when she can't contain it any longer, she laughs. The sound is not the boisterous, uncontrolled sound of amusement she let out when he asked her if she thought she had anything whatsoever to worry about where Genevre was concerned. It is not the giggle she released when she realized she'd rhymed while she tried to explain herself. It's soft. And inexpicable. And happy.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] And not entirely comprehensible, from Lukas's perspective. He looks at her again -- a glance of his eyes, as much as he can afford while driving. The corners of his mouth flirt upward too, an irresistible reaction to her happiness, but with a touch of uncertainty.

"What?"

[Danicka Musil] "It just..." she laughs again, her eyes opening as she turns her head and looks at him. "You reminded me of that first night, is all. Just now."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He's briefly baffled. His mind runs through the way she looked dressing in the grey light of dawn, or what little there was of it shafting through the imperfect closure of the curtains. From there, to the air conditioner that rattled as it blasted cold air into the room, and how the room stayed cold even after he turned it off; how it was cold, but he didn't feel it, while he was fucking her, and fucking her, and fucking her, and fucking her; how afterward he covered her shoulder with his hand and asked

(if he could keep her warm)

if she was cold, and how she answered no, but tucked her feet under his anyway.

And back. The way they fought against one another in slow and subtle ways. The way they gave in with that first kiss, and again and again. The way they left Mr. C's together and he brought her to the lowest, shabbiest motel he could think of, and

he has it, then. And he laughs too, quietly.

"Where we are doesn't matter," he quotes her back to herself, and turns to smile at her through the changing lights that cast through the windshield. "We can look in the morning if you want. Or if you want me to surprise you, I can do that too."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [paws!]

[Danicka Musil] It is not dawn yet, and won't be for a very, very long time. Morning's light will be gray and dim, wintry and pale even through her enormous windows, but it won't be the same as the way it was that morning as she dressed at the foot of the bed, covering the skin he'd watched bared bit by bit a few hours before. Her apartment is cool but it won't be as frigid as it was the first time he fucked her, or the second or third or fourth, and there won't be the same system shock of feverish heat and rage against the chill in the air.

He may hold her, and keep her warm, but it won't be the same as that morning. She tells him, now, if she's cold. She seeks his body heat, even asks for it, rather than simply accepting it when it's given.

Danicka is looking at him when he figures it out, and smiles when he laughs.

"I trust you," is all she says.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] That ends his laughter. It doesn't snip it off, or cut it down; but it winds his laughter to an end all the same. He quiets. He's quiet.

Then, "I know."

That's quiet. She didn't always trust him; he knows that. He didn't always believe what she said and she didn't always trust him. That was painful every single time she said it, but he didn't show it because showing it would be weakness, and he didn't believe her when she said

I'm yours until the full moon

or that she didn't want it to end, or that she was capable of loyalty at all.

Sometimes it hurts him now to think of how little they trusted each other once. Sometimes he's ashamed of the way he treated her, and the things he thought of her, and the things he said to his pack about her, belittling her, denigrating her, casting her as a whore, a slut, a woman whose only and inscrutable purpose was havoc and games.

He takes his right hand off the wheel, and he reaches for hers again. When she gives it to him -- if she gives it to him -- he draws it to his mouth. His eyes on the road, he kisses her hand, his mouth warm on her palm; then warm as he takes her fingers into his mouth, the index and the middle, sucking gently at her fingertips. There's nothing lascivious or seductive about it. He performs this act as an act of love, a demonstration of adoration, gently.

[Danicka Musil] Sometimes when they say they love each other, it's an outcry of that same adoration. It's worship. He's inside her and she's gasping and they're both sweating and they have to say something to seal themselves, to make them whole again after a shattering of heart and body and spirit alike. Sometimes when he kisses her hand like this, her palm and her fingertips, when he sucks on her fingers, it's like a pilgrim kissing the icon of a saint, reverent and yet without the cold, perfunctory sense of duty.

Instead it's this: warm. Sensual without inviting immediate sexuality. Pilgrims do not know their saints the way that he shows he knows her when he does this. And she touches his lips, not in blessing but in recognition of her own, watches him not in divine interest but with a quiet ache of love.

Eventually he lowers her hand, holds it as he drives or lets it go. And it doesn't take very long to get to her apartment, or to the parking garage underneath Kingsbury Plaza. The stereo in the car goes quiet. The concrete cave is silent. There is not much light in here. Danicka hesitates a moment, then leans over and kisses his cheek, lingeringly.

And whispers, lips moving against his skin: "Miluji tě."

And though she said this first to him, she does not say this as often as he does, whether when they're making love or when they're simply looking at each other across the way. Every time, it's like a secret. Like something sacred. Like a prayer, if not worship.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas leans into the first kiss. Leans into Danicka, his temple to her brow, as she whispers against his cheek.

It's been some time since his last shave; she's known him long enough that she's probably able to guesstimate just how long by the length of his beard-bristle. She knows he always shaves clean. She knows he shaves with a straight razor, brushing foam on with a badger-fur brush, rinsing afterward with cool water. She's seen him shave a few times, in his room and in her bathroom, standing in front of her mirror naked in the morning after making love to her the night before, and ten minutes before, with the room still steamy from their shower.

Lukas closes his eyes now, resting his head against hers like animals nesting. A concrete cave is exactly how he thinks of her garage, sometimes. A glass and steel and concrete and drywall den is how he thinks of her home. Asphalt canyons, the streets. Concrete bluffs, the buildings. He pretends to be human -- better than most Garou, and better even than some kin -- but he is not; never will be.

His hand rises, curves over the back of her neck. And then he turns his head and kisses her, softly but slowly, his mouth closed but warm, warm against hers.

"Let me take you to bed," he whispers back, his lips brushing hers with every word. "Let me hold you tonight."

[Danicka Musil] Several times, she's watched him shave. She's laid in his bed or sat and dried her hair while he's gone through the grooming ritual, yet she's never gotten a tub of glycerine soap and another brush and another straight razor for him to keep in her apartment. He does not have a segment of closet to hang up clothes to leave there, no drawer for his socks and boxer-briefs. There is a second toothbrush in her bathroom. Every time she comes to the Brotherhood, she brings whatever she needs in case she stays. They've made no other overtures of shared space.

His room is his territory. By the laws of the nation, so is her apartment. By the concord of their relationship, 23-C in Kingsbury Plaza is Danicka's den. Not his. Not the tribe's. It is hers to share or forbid at her leisure, even if he is the only Garou who would respect it. He may be the only one she expects to.

But Lukas has never seen Danicka shave her legs. He sees bar soap and shampoo and conditioner in her shower, sees a wooden scrub-brush with a woven strap to slip one's hand through. He's seen the gentler soap she uses on her face. He's never seen a razor in there. He's never seen any other colorful acoutrements. Her bathroom is clean and almost spartan, decorated by a set of candles and little else, just as her bedroom is sparsely decorated, the walls bare. Just as her living room does not even have curtains.

Most of the warmth of her den comes from her. From the fact that it's hers.

She tastes faintly of vodka when he kisses her. Her eyes close at the touch to the back of her neck, and her breath sighs when they part. She opens her eyes look at him, nodding. "Každou noc," she murmurs to him, and kisses him again.

Every night that they're together, she means. Every night that they get to sleep in the same bed, she means. Not every night, period. Not having him in her bed every evening, waking to find him in lazy repose, not expecting to have breakfast with him every morning until the abrupt and heartbreaking day that he dies. She just means: every night that they're together.

That's all. Surely that's all.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] This kiss is shorter than the rest -- his lips barely seal around hers before he's drawing back, far enough to see her eyes.

"Každou noc?" he repeats softly.

[Danicka Musil] This isn't fair to either of them. She's drunk -- because it's tradition. She's saying almost everything that comes into her head -- because she's drunk, and because it's tradition. So he talks about holding her tonight, taking her to her bed and keeping her against his body, and she says

every night like an invitation, like an affirmation, like something elusive and impossible, and now they have to clarify.

Because she's drunk. And because they can't.

"...When we can," she whispers, because that is what she always meant. That is what she thinks she meant, or wants to mean, or knows she is permitted to mean.

Danicka reaches down and unclasps her seatbelt, picks up her purse. "Let's go up."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is larger than Danicka; broader through the shoulders and chest, taller, more massive. He doesn't turn sideways to face her as she did partly because the seatbelt and steering wheel constrains him, and partly because it's more effort for him to fit in the tight space than it is for her.

His right arm wraps backward behind her neck, though. The embrace is a little awkward; it wouldn't let her curl against his chest the way she would if they were in bed, if they were together the way he wants to be

(every night.)

right now. Still, it's contact, and his fingers sift gently through her hair when she says the words that, for a moment, make a trace of longing skim through his eyes; makes a lance of something dangerously close to disappointment, or pain, scar through the center of his chest.

He says nothing, though. His hand falls from her a moment later, and he draws a deep breath. Reason reasserts itself. Logic. "Yeah," he says, quietly, and unbuckles his own seatbelt.

They'll take the elevator up together, standing beside each other. Their hands will be at their sides when the doors close, but midway up he'll reach out and slide his arm around her waist. She'll lean into the side of his chest. She's still drunk, so drunk; he worries about that a little, quietly, amorphously, even though he knows she can take care of herself and knows her limits. When the doors open he walks her to her door.

They won't bother turning on the lights. Paul isn't home, but they won't even make love in the living room with its glorious view. He'll take her to bed as he promised to, as he said he would, as he wants her to, because in a way that's even rarer than making love to her.

He'll bring a glass of water to bed tonight, and it won't be for himself. They'll shed their clothes haphazardly and tumble amidst comforters and pillows, and find each other in the sheets. He'll draw her close and wrap her in his arms, close to his body, skin to skin, naked and primal and together. She'll sleep first. He'll stay awake a little longer, listening to the silence, until his primitive mind settles and believes that it's safe here, that he can sleep, that she'll be protected and safe in his arms while they sleep.

In the morning, which will actually be closer to noon, they'll make love; they'll shower; they'll have breakfast or order something from the sandwich bar downstairs. He'll lounge around with her until mid-afternoon and they'll talk about random things, and at one point he'll tell her what he remembers about his childhood home with the orange trees, but he won't ask her about Christian again because she doesn't want to talk about it and

truthfully, he doesn't really want to know

and he won't ask her about the house again, the den he wants to make for them, because he wants to make it. For them. For her. And he wants, foolishly and rather boyishly, to surprise her with it; to have it bought and paid for and won; to tinker with it and fix it up and make it habitable, make it acceptable, before presenting it to his mate.

And, far more simply: because she trusts him.
 
Copyright Lukáš Wyrmbreaker 2010.
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