[Izzy Montoya] The corner booth has been commandeered again, by the Detective. Her laptop open, files spread on the table next to her, she works her way through the never ending trail of paperwork that comes with the job. There's a glass there too - of whiskey, and a unlit cigarette in an ashtray that she takes outside on occasion to smoke.
She says nothing to anyone - but to ask for a refill occasionally.
[Izzy Montoya] (CORRECTION FOR THE OCD: IZZY FILLS HER OWN DRINK.)
[Izzy Montoya] (hell, just delete the last phrase completely.)
[Edward Bellamonte] Ed slides in through the back door. He's been largely incommunicado both by mundane messaging and totemphone, though they can feel his presence - they know he's in the city, he's just nonresponsive. He was charged to do something and, honorable (and Honorable) soul that he is, he takes it seriously. Far more so than anyone would give him credit for, quite likely. Regardless, he stops by the bar on his way through, tucks a large bill into a note by the register with what he's taking and his signature on it, and liberates a bottle of scotch, which he promptly takes to Izzy's booth, with a glass for himself.
He knows she's badly off.
He doesn't know how badly.
He looks at her, head tilted to the side as he studies, and sighs. "Who?" The question comes as he pours each of them a drink.
[Edward Bellamonte] (Today I feel . . .)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2
[Kate] [See Kate. See Kate try. See Kate try and use her Empathy.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 10 (Failure at target 4)
[Kate] [WTF, man. It's your BROTHER.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)
[Izzy Montoya] She looks up as she's joined, a slight twist of her lips an appreciation for the bottle he brings. She finishes off whats in her glass, and nudges it toward him for a refill. She finishes entering the data she had been working on, and then closes the laptop, the files, and tucks them under the computer as she moves it off to the side.
He waits as he looks her over. He knows what happened. She'd told him, the same as she told a couple others. Only one did she beg not to do anything, to trust her, to let her work it out. That one was not Edward.
She sighs, and reaches for her cigarette, then puts it back down again. If she lights up she has to go outside - so instead, it's back to the drink. As he slides it back her way, she reaches for it, her fingers brushing across his lightly during the exchange. She'd told him most of it - all but the answer to the question he most wants to know. "Does it matter?"
[Wyrmbreaker] From the cluster of wingback and dining chairs near the fire comes a shout of glorious triumph:
"BAM! 100megatons, motherfucker! Let's see you survive THAT."
Lukas is playing Nuclear War.
[Edward Bellamonte] "Of course it matters," he says, with a weight to his words that says he means what he says - but she knows him, has spent time with him. Even the last time she'd seen him, he was . . . well, some say he's weak, and it's possible (probable) that Izzy's heard it. "So does why, I suppose, but not as much."
He is no Philodox, and he is very. very. traditionalist, but that doesn't mean he understands what would drive anyone to do this to a woman, to a kin. Maybe it was a mundane fight, something on her job. He can hope, anyway.
[Sinclair] "...You just said 'motherfucker'," says the athletic blonde in the chair across from Lukas, squinting at him with a deeply furrowed brow and deeply troubled expression.
"Are you going to melt now?"
[Kate] It's never enough.
Edward Bellamonte was gone for some time from the pack then called the Unbroken Circle and so did not witness the things which his younger sibling had achieved, and, because the universe required balance in these things, accordingly, he also has no idea of the things which she has lost, or been forced to allow to slip away from her. In this, as in many things, there is a world of difference between brother and sister.
Edward grew sad, he tended toward melancholy.
Katherine grew angry, and in turn drew her strength from her anger.
It drove her onward, never ceasing, never giving up.
Because she could not. Because surrender was not within her to give.
She has been standing for several minutes now just shy of the doorway to the restaurant, observing her elder brother with her open, avid stare. The wings of the Falcon observing the eyes of the Falcon. She does not approve, of what she sees, that much is clear in the manner she frowns; manner she shifts her weight; manner her expression deepens to one of evident concern.
Of course it matters.
"Does not everything matter, brother?" She speaks, finally. Low-voiced and genteel, always so damnably genteel. "Do not you matter?" She knows him; she knows him better than any other creature on the face of the planet and at present; she fears for him.
[Wyrmbreaker] "You'd be shocked," Lukas says, all mock mystery as he reaches forward to pluck population cards off Sinclair's array, "at the things I say. Let's see, ten, twenty, thirty million... you dead yet?"
[Izzy Montoya] There's a flick of her gaze toward those by the fire. She's not sure when they arrived, or how long they've been there. Like so much else at the brotherhood - she simply doesn't care one way or the other. Her attention returns to the man across from her.
She knows a lot about him - has heard even more, but pays it little mind. She knows the man who has spent hours with her - enjoyable hours - and still let her be herself, without placing demands on her. She knows the man who is manic. She knows the man who is melancholy. She knows him.
"I asked repeatedly that he use my name. The last time I snapped - so did he." That's the base of it -the fiery underbelly, the bare bones. There's more to it - there always is. There are so many reasons that she is the way she is, she does what she does. But no - it never matters. "They'll just tell you it's a Tribal matter."
And then there's Kate, and Izzy fall silent once more.
[Sinclair] She snaps her jaws at his hand when he reaches over to snag her cards, but the gesture is playful. To another wolf, at least. To a human it looks mad, it looks bizarre, and it looks like she's asking to get backhanded. It's intensely feral, despite the modern look of her clothes, the metal and ink she uses to adorn herself.
All of which have been added to her body with needles, not sharped bits of bone. Just... so that's out there.
Grumblingly, Sinclair looks like she's about to threaten to fold, to bow out, but then she -- quite simply, gets distracted. She looks over at Katherine when she comes further into the dining room, perking slightly. Her eyes flick over to Ed and Izzy, since they're over there as well, then she turns back to Lukas.
"Card games," she says mock-archly, "are for pansy-asses."
[Edward Bellamonte] "....." A tribal matter. A . . . "One of us did this to you?" There is disgust in that tone, so very much of it, though whether it's with himself or the one who did it is unclear. But it's not disbelief, not for a moment. He knows her tribe, knows some members of it, has called one of them packmate. It's not even really surprise.
Kate is there, asking him if he matters, and (of course he doesn't) he answers, wry. "Yes, everything matters. Kate, this is Izzy - I don't know if you've met. Izzy, this is my sister, Kate. Would you care to join us?"
He is brooding, pensive. He is so much more (less) than that. And now, he is drinking. This never ends well.
[Izzy Montoya] Lips quirk slightly, almost into a smirk, until she's abruptly reminded that that? hurts like a motherfucker still. "Imagine the fun of explaining it at work. It's been a long fuckin' week."
To Kate, she lifts her glass, briefly in hello, before taking another long swallow.
[Kate] Katherine's pale eyes cut to the battered Kinswoman.
Her lips tighten, but other than that she does not comment on what is -- as Izzy (perhaps with a touch of resignation, or spite) says herself -- a tribal matter of the Fenrir. She inclines her head very slightly and responds prettily: "Greetings, Izzy, I am charmed to make your acquaintance."
Then, to her brother, she moves to his side, and puts a hand to his arm, her mouth very near to his ear. "I would speak a moment with you in private, Edward."
[Edward Bellamonte] ".....I can't really imagine. To hard times, may we come out of them stronger," he says, and tips her glass his way before downing the measure of scotch he'd poured in it - a hefty, generous pour - before pouring again. There is a flicker-flash of something in his eyes as his sister whispers in his ear, relaxation at her touch (he is nothing if not part of his pack, he is nothing alone, he is a piece of a whole more than most of them) when it comes. So it is, with some Garou.
"Excuse me for a moment." It's almost, but not quite, apologetic, and he allows himself to be drawn away with his sister. Glass in hand, of course, as he's no intention of stopping at one drink.
[Edward Bellamonte] ((His glass, her way. Oops.))
[Izzy Montoya] He can't. It's true. And maybe some day she'll tell him all of it. Not tonight though. Kate bids him to go speak with her, and she waves away his excuse, with that slight, barely there smirk of hers - a pale representation of what he's used to seeing.
They move away, and she simply reaches for her laptop once more, opens it, and takes the first folder off the pile.
[Kate] Katherine moves before him and draws him into the corridor that doubles as the entrance to the brotherhood proper. It is not quite private in the truest sense of the word, but she keeps, for the moment, their discussion from the totem-link. His younger sister [only recognized sister now] swings to await him, her arms neatly folded over her chest.
There is no anger in her but for the natural tightness that the full moon draws.
"Edward," she says quietly, her pale eyes clear and focused on him. He knows this face, it is the one she adopts when she is afraid, or uncertain, or working as a Philodox, less so his sister. "Word has come to Lukas from another Garou that you are in the grips of Harano. That you are full of despair, and despondent I have noted since the very night you returned.
But I know now enough to suppose what you went through would leave lasting marks on any of us.
I had hoped that given time you would stir yourself out of it, but you have not. You have become withdrawn, sullen, prone to slipping away for days at a time without contacting your pack, those who would care for you if you would let us."
She breathes out slowly, and breeches distance to cup his cheek in her palm, her mask of indifference melting to one of sisterly concern. "You are not replaceable to me, do you understand that? I cannot lose you as well. I will not, so you will talk to me, or talk to Lukas. Share your burden with us, Edward.
Reclaim your place among us. Do not turn your face from us, for it is to invite despair in."
[Wyrmbreaker] "And pixels on a screen are just so much more badass," Lukas retorts, as playful a sally as the snap of her teeth had been. "Come on, Khrushchev, I'll buy you a vodka to wash down your tears."
Lukas has large, capable hands; not quite slender or artistic, but well formed, strong. He gathers up the cards in them, shuffling them neatly before putting them away.
Lukas's back is to the entrances and exits of the Brotherhood. That's a rare thing; it says something about his trust in his packmate, her ability to watch his six. Even so, he recognizes the perking up of Sinclair's face when Kate shows up, and knows where her eyes flick when she looks toward Ed.
He can sense it, too, when his packmates come together. He can just barely hear them murmuring to one another.
Eyes on the cards, he speaks quietly to Sinclair:
"Let them talk alone for a while. Ed's slipping into Harano. I thought it's best to let Kate handle it first. She knows him best."
Cleanup is a very efficient effort. In under twenty seconds everything's packed away, and Nuclear War is back in its box for the next residents of the BroHo to enjoy. As Lukas slides the lid back on, he stands.
"So, how about that drink?"
[Grace] She's heard this story at least four times.
It's a long one, and it plays in her head backward and forward, time and time again. In times of stress, the faux English, soothing voice seems to calm her. She mouths along with the words, trying to commit them to memory if for no other reason than the fact that she likes them. It's odd, doing something for its own sake, especially listening, especially shoving something in homid ears that dampens the sound of other things, that reverberates in her entire being (until one of the earbuds falls out)
Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she herself was becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. she hearsit play in her ears and the Fianna gallops down the stairs in a one-two rhythm.
Da-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-dum-da-down.
An earbud fell out of her left ear. Grace frowned, and she reached up to try and put the little sound piece back in one ear. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes.
She thought she heard people above the dulcet, soothing tones of the English woman reading Jane Austen to her. She thought she heard people. SomethingsomethingsomethingKhrushchev-
Khrushchev. Hmn. She thinks about the word, not realizing it's a name, and imagines the English woman reading to her saying the word. It makes her smile. She isn't sure why, it sounds like a percussive word, a word with purpose. She observes it, though, and goes out to see who all precisely is in the downstairs. The earbud goes back into her ear.
To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.
Off to the front room to observe.
[Edward Bellamonte] "Those who would care for me." It's dull, that tone, and for a moment it seems as if he might pull away from his touch, from that of the sister he's worked so hard to keep as his through everything - through Lucien, through their original arrival in Chicago, and then he'd picked it up again with his return, fighting against the inclination to disengage, to distance, even as that felt like ripping out a part of himself.
"And who are they? You, yes, that has never been a question in my mind. The friend - once my best - who brands me a liar and a fool, who says, point blank, that I am less than my blood, who quotes our uncle without a thought? Sinclair, the Galliard who would beat me as soon as speak? Theron, the Theurge I've spoken with twice?" Or thrice, but he can count the occasions on his two hands, no doubt. "I am not turning my face from anyone, and I. am. trying."
So very hard, he tries - to prove himself, to be what others want him to be, expect him to be.
Expected him to be.
"I was charged with a task, by our Alpha. When I've completed it, reached my own satisfaction, you will know. Until then . . ." He shrugs, sips (swigs) from his drink. Until then, things will go on as they have.
[Sinclair] She might argue that video games actually take some skill, or that card games are for old people, but Sinclair would also like vodka tonight, and besides: she's distracted. Her packmates are near, at least a few of them, and then Lukas is telling her about them. The Galliard's reaction is undeniable, instant, and unmistakable to anyone who happens to look at her face just then:
her frown is tight. The corners of her mouth are down. She looks displeased, anxious, but not exactly worried. There's something else there, too, something she actually puts effort into concealing.
They scoop cards into their box, and Sinclair climbs out of her seat, popping her lips once for no good reason but to make the noise. "Once upon a time," she says, "the night I met Dee and Joey in Vegas, he made himself a Vodka Red Bull in his hotel room. I told him to make me one with one hundred percent less vodka and two hundred percent more Ketel."
She walks towards the bar, arms swinging slightly and legs loose, looking up and over at Lukas with an arched brow. "He made me a drink exactly like his, and when I asked him if he was retarded, he stomped off. But dude. It's math."
[manipulation + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] (i use my empathee-fu!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Sinclair] [Since he beat her by two...*L*
Sinclair is disgusted to hear that Ed is in Harano. It's pretty clear her opinion of him can be boiled down to WEEEAAAK!, but underneath that, she sees him as dead weight.]
to Wyrmbreaker
[Kate] "Edward," her tone turns disbelieving, she draws his chin between her fingers and keeps his eyes focused on her. "Have you even tried to speak to Theron more than a handful of times? Have you stuck around long enough after Lukas spoke out of frustration more than anything else and allowed for understanding to come between you? Have you worked to listen to Sinclair as well as work to enrage her? Non," she drops his face, her lovely features drawn to a deep frown.
"You ran away into the Umbra like a child, to sit and dwell by yourself. You tell me that you are trying, and you are sincere I can see that much, but how hard are you trying? It is not enough simply to want to change, you must work at it, constantly, every day and every night. You do not see that you are slipping away, that I am losing you, too, as I did Gabriella. But I know you, Edward. I think that I know you so well that when you disappear forever, it shall destroy some piece of me forever."
She looks inconsolably sad for a second, then her eyes spark and she jabs at his chest.
"So knock it off! Things will not go on as they have, for mark my words, brother, if I have to stalk your footsteps, pin spirits to your behind, or sit and wait for you endlessly, I will do it to bring you back, and keep you with us. We need you, Silver Jester-rhya," she echoes herself again, softer.
"We need you. You are a part of us, you are more than your honor, or your glory or your wisdom to us. You are our brother, and we are the Unbroken"
[Wyrmbreaker] Sinclair, actually, doesn't get very far before the Shadow Lord catches her by the arm -- gently, but firmly -- and draws her back. He speaks to her quietly, face sober, though not for very long.
Then he lets her go, bumping her with his shoulder as he heads for the bar. It's closed now. Danny's asleep. The restaurant is shut down and dark except for emergency lights and the fireplace. Lukas reaches over the swinging half-height door and lets himself in behind the counter, smiling faintly as she tells her story.
He does not, in fact, reach for Ketel One. He bypasses it for Chopin, removing the bottle from its place high up enough to suggest it's not one of the more popular brands on the shelf.
"I will serve you Ketel and Red Bull if you insist," Lukas says, setting out two shotglasses, "but it is, in fact, a gross misconception that the best vodkas are Russian grain vodka. The Poles may have lost every war since the beginning of time, but damn if they don't make a good potato vodka."
He tips a shot into each glass. Slides one across the bar to Sinclair, raises his own.
"Na zdraví, Warcry."
[Wyrmbreaker] Rewind! What he said quietly:
"As it stands, Edward is weak. He is a whining child, and is fast becoming a liability to the pack. But on account of his fall from grace, our pack bonds, and most importantly, the fact that Katherine doesn't need to lose two siblings in a month, I'm going to cut him some slack.
"For now."
to Sinclair
[Edward Bellamonte] There is exasperation.
There is defeat.
Kate has, in fact, never seen her brother look defeated. Not when their father died, not when he voiced his suspicions about their uncle, not when they lost Gabbie. He may look devil-may-care. He often looks immature for his age, for his stature, for who and what he is. But this is what it takes to bring defeat to those eyes that she knows so well, that face she holds so dear.
Not just a friend, once his best, who speaks the same poison as his hated uncle.
But his sister, who says it's not enough. It's never enough.
The last of his drink is downed as quickly as the first one had been, and his eyes are shuttered after that glimpse, darker than she's ever seen them. There is no boyish sparkle, no laughter no mirth, and though a smile does pull up the edges of his mouth slightly, it's an ill-fitting mask. You ran away into the umbra like a child . . .
"I had a thing to do. Have a thing to do. I am called weak, I am called honorless, and I will not have it, Kitty." There's a pause, and then, "I can't have it. You, of all people, should know this. I will check in, you will know that I am well, but I will do what I've set out to do."
He falls quiet, still, finds a place to set his empty glass and leans in, a hand behind her head, to place a kiss on her forehead.
"Je t'aime, ma sœur. Je ferai de vous fier."
And then, as quickly as he came, he's out the back door.
[Sinclair] There's a flash of sharp, vicious resistance when Lukas takes hold of Sinclair's arm. She was playful at the table, playful talking about Nuclear War and silly card games, but she comes dangerously close to snarling at him when he does that. Her face has whipped around, and the expression on it, despite the flare of her rage... isn't anger. If anything, it's very close to the way she looked not so long ago when she was coming out of a frenzy, asking what she'd done.
Memory flickers. Dies. She works her arm out of his grasp as he speaks to her, eyes looking at some distant point between wall and floor intently. When Lukas finishes, she looks up at him, her eyes hardened now. "If I didn't already understand that, or if I were going to advise you otherwise, I would have," she says flatly, and does not look like she's in a mood to slide elegantly back into joking around when they get to the bar. He bumps into her shoulder, and she does not lean into it as usual. She simply bears it, and
in the end, doesn't say a word about vodka, or about Red Bull, or about Dietrich.
[Kate] I will make you proud, he murmurs in French, and draws her in to press a kiss to her brow. Her eyes close, and she is still frowning, still unconvinced as she says quietly: "Vous faites déjà."
You already do.
Then, before she can do more than call his name, once, again, he is out the back door and Katherine is left looking after him, wrapping her arms around herself as if chilled not by the wind that cuts through the opening and closing door, but by the fact that he had done the very thing she feared he would -- he'd run away.
Damn it, Edward, what, what do you have to do that is worth sacrificing everything for! You do not have to be our father, you do not have to prove that to yourself, these words, projected across the totem-link are angry.
"Edward, come back!"
[Wyrmbreaker] In the end, she doesn't say a word about vodka, or Red Bull, or Dietrich.
In the end, Lukas -- who had looked at her quizzically and curiously when she whipped around, who had studied the look in her eyes with a great deal of intensity and very little anger at all -- doesn't say a word about Polish vodka, either, nor about the sudden tension that had flared in her.
In the end, they don't get a drink, because angry words suddenly lash across the totem, and then Katherine shouts at the back door. And Lukas turns away, frowning, the pivot of his body wordless invitation for Sinclair to follow.
He heads across the room to Katherine.
"Where the hell is he going?"
[Sinclair] Something is wrong. The shift in the Galliard happened immediately when Lukas touched her arm, and seemed separated from the words between them. It was her right arm that he touched. It's covered by a long thermal sleeve underneath the shorter sleeve of a t-shirt, hiding the ink there, the four names, the black script list of people who mattered. One way or another.
Then her head comes up, whipping towards Kate and Ed, and whatever it is, whatever was wrong inside of her... fizzles out. She falls into step behind and to the side of her Alpha, heading towards Kate, frowning again. Her teeth are on edge.
[Izzy Montoya] She glances up as they call after Edward, and then simply returns her attention to her computer, and the never ending trail of paperwork.
[Grace] Roll call.
There is a woman with a busted face and Fenrir breeding that catches her attention.The blonde pulls one earbud out, then the other and lets them both rest on one shoulder. She observes the female, head cocked to the side and she starts what could be a tentative approach. She seems very enaged in what she is doing, though, and Grace abandons the notion.
There is a pack. There is a Shadow Lord who has been described as disgustingly honorable. There is a Glass Walker she's seen once, and that was all. Enoguh to know she was a force of nature in battle (nothing about her that solidified or calcified like the weaver. No, the one time Grace saw Sinclair fight, she knew her as a force of powerful, potential destruction. She had watched with awe). There was a Silver Fang outside, one with the speech patterns of Jane Austen, and another who she had met once. His name was Edward. Not Eddie.
She watches them move, observes them with their retreats and pursuits, and goes, instead, to observe the bar, and get somethign to drink.
She couldn't read the bottles, but that didn't really matter.
[Kate] Katherine does not look at her pack-mates, her jaw is set, her eyes still focused on that door as if through sheer will power she could make her brother reappear. She does not cry, as she did when she cut her younger sister out of her life, she looks, rather more numb.
Her eyes are shadowed with some unnameable grief.
"To prove his worth, apparently." She's sick with anger, she throbs with it suddenly. "I am sorry, Lukas. I did what I could, but he is so consumed inside by whatever it is that drives him. Shame, grief, anger, perhaps all of these things, he will not listen to reason until he finds what he seeks."
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks at Katherine for a moment, then at the closed door. In their minds, they can feel Edward receding, moving away from them, this concentration of Perun's power under the roof of the Brotherhood.
No matter. They can still reach him. The totem bond is there.
Lukas doesn't respond directly to Kate. His voice comes across Perun's thunder instead, strong and sure:
Edward, whatever you think you're doing by running away again and again, it's only making you look weak and untrustworthy. Your worth is here with this pack. You'll prove it by staying to face us. By sharing your burdens with us. By striving to be better as one of us. By not turning and running each time someone criticizes your flaws.
You won't prove anything by running around alone. That was never my intention. Your lone wolf tendencies are the whole problem, Ed, the reason you've lost the trust and respect and love of this pack in the first place.
We haven't given up on you, but you're not giving us much reason to keep hoping.
(i know you're sleeping, CC, so no need to reply. lukas would sent that out across the link, though.)
[Edward Bellamonte] ((Thanks!))
[Grace] There are a world of things behind the bar. Glasses, tall, short, tumblers, high balls, wine, martini, snifters and all other glass contraptions with strange names. She takes something with a heavy bottom, and places it on the bar. Her attention goes from people, to the bottles on the shelf. She isn't sure what to take.
She takes a bottle without color, so one that looked more like water than mud or iced tea. Something off the top shelf, because in her infinite logic, things that are kept out of one's reach are done so for a reason. Like people's Christmas decorations. She takes a second and takes it. She inspects the bottle, as though this is something that is supposed ot be done. It's a ritual, something observable, something she'd seen people do before.
It wasn't like the label meant anything to her, however, the label did catch her attention. She liked the picture.
When she took off the lid, she smelled juniper.
Grace poured herself a glass. Half full, so that it stunk of optimism. She took a second, and put the lid back on the bottle and returned it to where she found it. three ice cubes were soon to follow. She took a sip, frowned, and reached for another bottle. This time, it was one with bubbles. It hissed when she opened it, and she poured it into the glass to make it completely full.
She sips again. Satisfied, the ragabash takes a perch on top of the bar.
Congratulations, Grace, you have discovered gin and tonic. It tastes like Christmas.
[Wyrmbreaker] Nothing.
His words spin out into silence. After several seconds, some of the alertness, the listening, leaves Lukas's face. Is replaced with irritation and disgust.
"Fuck's sake," he says. "He just doesn't get it."
There's a Ragabash quietly having her very first gin and tonic atop the bar. Near the kitchen door, there's a small cadre of wolves, only one of them Shadow Lord, but all of them bound under a storm. The male of the group rubs the back of his neck, and then resumes his original course toward the bar.
He still lets himself in behind the counter. He doesn't pontificate on the qualities of Polish potato vodka. He just grabs the bottle of Chopin off the shelf.
The glasses Lukas sets out are not shotglasses, but tumblers.
[Kate] The Philodox holds her Alpha's eyes for a beat, then turns on her heel wordlessly and walks toward the bar. The Kinswoman has gone since she drew her brother out into the hall, his emptied glass still sits where he perched it and his sister moves and collects it automatically, without thought to carry it across to where the Cub sits, smacking her lips and relishing her discovery of mixed drinks.
This draws the corner of Katherine's lip very slightly, and she stands, eyes lowered for a beat to her hands, curled around Edward's glass. Then, breathing out, she climbs onto a stool and watches Lukas prepare drinks.
[Grace] [Homids are weird...]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)
[Sinclair] [charisma + performance]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Sinclair] Sinclair's voice crackles over their totemlink -- or rather, the beginning of her voice, the initiation of contact between them all. No words actually leave her mind to travel to Lukas's, Iona's, Ed's, Kate's, Caleb's, Theron's. She silences herself, and she just looks over at Kate, her frown taking on a different tone. "C'mon," she says to the other blonde, and heads for the bar.
When she gets there, she clambers up onto a barstool, not sitting on it but perching, resting her shins against the bar proper and balancing on the balls of her feet. Her eyes flick over Grace, whose presence may very well be keeping Sinclair from loudly opining. Then again, the flash of tension earlier may still be doing that on its own.
"I am so distant from the hope of myself," she says out of nowhere, as silence descends on them. It hardly sounds like her own voice, as though it comes from faraway, as though it comes from another mind entirely, "in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world,
"but walk slowly," she finishes, her voice falling a touch, and then it becomes clear who she is speaking for, who has walked away, "and bow often."
So clear, in fact, that they can see him in their minds' eyes, hear him as she recites even this simple stanza with a gravity and insight that goes beyond her rage, her instinct that tells her to rend apart whatever is weak, whatever is less, whatever she cannot love.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas sets out not three glasses but four, his innate courtesy preventing him from utterly ignoring the cub that's only a yard or two away. The bottle of Chopin is fresh; the cap crackles as he twists it off. He pours with a sort of thoughtless ease, not like a bartender but merely like a man who knows who to pour liquor for himself and his friends.
One, two, three. Four, the fourth glass a little less than the rest. When he answers Sinclair, it's not aloud. What he says aloud is, instead:
"Come here, Grace. If you don't learn anything else as a cub, you should learn this."
He slides the fourth glass to the cub.
"It's a common misconception that the finest liquor is scotch, when in truth it's vodka. The problem is that it's also believed the best vodkas are either Russian or French grain vodkas, which is patently untrue. The Poles may have lost every war since the beginning of time, but damn if they don't make a good potato vodka.
"Now, sip this."
Despite that, Lukas swallows his wholesale, and then immediately pours another.
[Wyrmbreaker] Before he speaks to Grace, before he draws the cub's attention from the matters of their pack to vodka, Lukas's eyes flicked briefly at Sinclair.
While he's proselytizing about vodka, he's also communicating into their mind, You seem to at least get where he's coming from, Sinclair. Why don't you talk to him and see if you can get our point across?
And no, he doesn't care if Edward overhears.
to Kate, Sinclair
[Kate] The Philodox is quiet, as she so often is when her mind is buzzing with thoughts. She has her brother's glass in her hands and rolls it between her palms, back and forth, back and forth. The motion ceases when Sinclair recites her moving words, borrowed from another, but delivered with the heart-breaking perfection only a tale-singer could invoke and then she sets it down, face down and replaces it with what Lukas serves her.
Sip this.
Katherine downs hers in a single gulp, and sets her glass out for another.
[Grace] If she learns nothing as a cub, she should learn this.
She looks at the Shadow Lord, and is expecting some huge spiel about life and love and honor and instead, gets something much more practical-
Lukáš [Long A, s that's closer to an sh but not quite] informs her about the finer points of vodka.
She looks at the glass, then at her own glass. She has two, now. One with gin, something she has yet to name but smells like Christmas, and another, presumably, with vodka. She uses context clues to determine that this is, in fact, vodka. It looks like water. It smells like... well.. She drinks it anyway.
Green eyes widen.
She blinks once. Then blinks again for good measure.
Swallows.
And coughs. Then takes a smaller drink this next time.
"So... what's scotch?"
This is vodka. Who cares what scotch is, it's unimportant.
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't refill Kate's glass; he just slides her the whole damn bottle.
Behind the bar, he pulls up a stool, sitting down to face them. His second glass he nurses, sipping at it as he'd suggested Grace do.
"Scotch," he says, not without irony, "is an inferior liquor that the Fianna dreamt up."
[Sinclair] A tumbler of Polish vodka slides over to Sinclair, who catches it in her palm and does not bother to twist it back and forth on the bar. She takes a long sip, a savoring sip, neither tossing the drink back her throat nor gagging on it. She drinks it without evident appreciation nor disturbance, and manages not to smirk when Grace chokes and coughs and sputters. She slides down on her barstool a moment later, sitting now instead of crouching, and looks over at Kate.
She takes another drink and, thus lubricated, adds: "The first duty of love is to listen," she intones gently, looking at Kate but for the last two words, which are said as her head turns to look at Wyrmbreaker again. "Paul Tillich..
"A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with," she says, another recitation. "Kenneth A. Wells."
Interestingly enough, Kenneth is the first name inscribed on her right bicep, though it's currently under wraps. She drinks again, finishing what's in the first glass, and whatever else might be said, it is said silently.
[Sinclair] My understanding is limited, and even if it were not, it will not compensate enough for his lack of it, nor compensate at all for his unwillingness to listen.
The first duty of love.
He doesn't --
-- she doesn't believe he does.
to Kate, Wyrmbreaker
[Kate] He slides her the bottle, she shoots him a brief, amused glance and helps herself to another generous glass. Then, as Lukas notes that the Fianna dreamt up Scotch, she makes a little snort and adds to his little spiel. "And the french, we have Champagne."
[Wyrmbreaker] "And cognac," Lukas adds. "I'll cede cognac to the Fangs."
Never one to be accused of cheating, Wyrmbreaker obligingly brings down a bottle of Royal Lochnagar and another of Remy. More glasses, too.
[Wyrmbreaker] [I WANNA ROLL. Every shot = 2 bashing. Here's soak for first shot of vodka!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9 (Failure at target 6)
[Grace] She looks from Lukas, to Sinclair, and remembers words orated and performed. And she cocks her head to the side a little, half a smile crosses her face, lingers, and she looks at her glass again. The smile is small, stays there, and for all intents and purposes was somewhat inexplicable. Not pleased in the sense of proud, not impressed in the sense of someone who needed something to be proven to her, but rather, something entirely different.
Grace does not, at this point, realize precisely how difficult it is to get shitfaced outside of your breedform, or really what will happen at all if she drinks too much or something in particular. She'll learn, though, because so much of life was learning.
She stops, and turns, and looks at her iPod. The blonde takes the little thing out from wherever she'd shoved it and puts it on the bar.
Jane Austen still playing in the background.
[Wyrmbreaker] [And for second, going down the hatch more slowly!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Grace] [may as well!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kate] [oh you shits.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 5 (Failure at target 6)
[Sinclair] [first glass]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 2 (Botch x 2 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] True. But doesn't that apply the other way too, though? Lukas's thoughts are becoming a little fuzzier. Maybe someone needs to go listen to Edward having it out. I'll be the first to admit, recently every time he opens his mouth I just listen for signs of weakness I need to berate him about.
to Kate, Sinclair
[Kate] [for the second glass she's nursing a little.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Sinclair] Yeah, and I'm way more patient and understanding than you, Sinclair intones dryly, her voice like a whirlwind sucking all the air and humor out of the words.
to Kate, Wyrmbreaker
[Wyrmbreaker] I'm just thinking of the time I was this close to tearing Marrick's face off, Lukas replies, not dryly but wryly, and you managed to make sense out of it all.
to Kate, Sinclair
[Kate] As are Katherine's. If Edward is going to confide in any of us, face it, it's going to be in me. He thinks everyone else is out to berate, belittle or tear him down.
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker
[Sinclair] The Galliard does not quite fall off of her barstool as she finishes her first drink. She tips it back, finishes it, and sets it back down to be refilled. "What do the Walkers get?" she asks, the words slowing down a bit.
[Wyrmbreaker] Oh yes, NOW he's dry, look how well he confided in you tonight.
to Kate, Sinclair
[Kate] She glares. Bite me, Wyrmbreaker.
to Sinclair, Wyrmbreaker
[Wyrmbreaker] "Walkers get Hpnotiq," Lukas replies without missing a beat. More glasses come down. Scotch in one, cognac in the other, and then he spins around on his stool -- his movements just a little looser somehow -- to pull the blue bottle off the shelf.
[Sinclair] That was different, she insists. Look, can we stop talking about him? It's like he's right over there listening and I don't think it's gonna help.
to Kate, Wyrmbreaker
[Sinclair] "I like Hpnotiq," Sinclair muses, rather obviously. She leans on the bar, propping one elbow up on it, and watches Lukas with her eyes while he goes to get it. "Oooh, I'm going to get Hpnotiq. And then I should go practice wif mah axesh." She's feigning the slur. For now.
[Kate] Katherine throws the rest of her drink back, winces, and then blinks, a tad more glassy-eyed than she had been a few minutes ago. The pain of her brother's departure, of her failure to reach him, of it all has her speaking aloud abruptly, as she impatiently re-fills her glass for the third time.
"I wish he were listening, I should tell him he's being absurd, trying to prove himself like he did as a little boy, running around with a plastic sword and shield defending our home from the barbarian hoards and then running to tell father how brave he was." She swirls the liquid around, frowning.
[Wyrmbreaker] Now there are three more glasses before each of them, two amber, one turquoise blue.
Lukas looks at Kate with mild surprise as she bemoans her brother aloud. He picks up the first glass - scotch - and replies simply, "I'll talk to him. I'll give him a day to cool off and then find him. We'll figure something out.
"Cheers." Down the hatch.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Kate] [warble-meter check]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Grace] Grace looks at Kate for a second, bro raised and mouth shut. The rest of the gin and tonic goes down the hatch, int hat there is no real reason to waste it, and she did like the Christmas flavored beverage. The blonde seems satisfied with this for the time being, and starts to bundle up her mp3 player.
She has an amber glass. Scotch, and she inspects it, too before that also goes down the hatch.
Down down down.
"Rhya? she asks Lukas, after she's swallowed. Well, it seems like she's addressing him. Everyone's rhya to Grace, she needs to be more specific, "my mentor said it was okay for me to learn about your tribe, by the way. But I should offer chiminage first because that's polite."
A beat. And she holds out the iPod.
"So, here."
[Grace] [gin and tonic, go home!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Grace] [and you too, scotch!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)
[Sinclair] "Shhh," Sinclair says gently to Kate as she abruptly switches to an audible way of communicating about Edward. "He doesn't need your help with the childhood stories to make him seem more pathetic."
She grabs the glass of Hpnotiq and downs it, suddenly, grinning after she's swallowed because she does -- as she said -- like it quite a bit.
[second drink]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kate] Katherine laughs -- an abrupt, husky sound -- and throws back the Scotch. It too burns on its way down her throat and color rises, pink and burning to her cheeks, to her neck. She rests her chin on her hand and looks from the Cub, to Lukas with an idle smile.
"What is on the iPod, Grace?"
[Wyrmbreaker] "Ouch, Sinclair," Lukas observes, and then downs the cognac as well. A shot isn't a lot; a single gulp, or two untimid swallows. Then he turns, bemused, to see the cub thrusting her iPod at him. A second; then he laughs.
"Thank you. That's very kind." He pushes it gently back at her. "But it's not necessary. I have one, and an iPhone too. How about this: if I teach you about the Shadow Lords, you'll try to remember and uphold our better traits no matter which tribe you ultimately join."
(gulp!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Sinclair] She takes the bottle herself and pours another, going from vodka to the drink of choice of her tribe without missing a beat. "I speaketh truth, Lukas." She peers at him, then peers at Grace. "Who are you, again?"
Again doesn't make sense, since they've never met. She drinks her second -- no, third, total, it's just the second of the blue shit -- glass of alcohol.
[and third]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Grace] "Pride and Prejudice," she announces, "Emma, Withering Heights, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings... and..."
She pulls for more of what's on it. The knowledge of what's inside is beyond her.
"Classical and Joan Baez, and the rest I usually skip through," she tells Kate. Truth be told, Grace didn't put any of that on her iPod, they were things that others had placed on there thinking she would like them, or insisting that she would enjoy them, or that it was whatever they had on them. It was the most decidedly human thing she owned, and for some strange reason was a source of endless fascination. She gets her iPod back, having been returned her endless source of aural amusement
She nods.
"I can do that," she says.
And, finally, to Sinclair.
"Grace, no moon, cub," she informs her.
[Wyrmbreaker] "Wuthering Heights," Lukas corrects gently. "It's a name, not an adjective." He wonders if she even knows what an adjective is; dismisses it as unimportant. "And," he adds, moving on to the Hpnotiq now before beckoning for Kate to hand his Chopin back, "that's the best book of that lot, if you ask me. Quintessential Shadow Lord romance, Heathcliff and Catherine. Makes you wonder about Emily Bronte."
It'll probably make Grace wonder about Lukas and Danicka, too, after she gets through that book and sees for herself the tumultuous storm of dysfunction that makes up what Lukas just called the quintessential Lord romance.
(gulp!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kate] Katherine appears to be done with drinks for the evening, rather, she fixes her somewhat glassy eyes on Grace and smiles warmly, drunkenly, at the Fiann Cub. "Oh, so? You are a fan of Ms Austen's works are you? I have a great library of them at my home, you must come and peruse with me the poetry of Fitzwilliam Darcy discovering his manners, and his love for Elizabeth Bennent, you must cherish, as I do, Mr Knightly's unswerving advice to young Emma Woodhouse."
Here, Katherine's voice, always musical and light, adopts a quoted accuracy of Mr Knightly, chastising his friend's ill treatment of Miss Bates, a poorer young woman doomed to be a Spinster: "You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honor, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her and before others, many of whom would be entirely guided by your treatment of her. This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will, I will tell you truths while I can."
The Silver Fang tsks, she glows. "She is a great favorite of mine, too."
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas snorts a laugh. "Oh, you would like Jane Austen, Kate. Boring, bland and ever so well-mannered. Pass the Chopin. You're all falling off your chairs and I'm not even feeling it yet."
[Kate] Katherine passes the bottle back, hmming.
"Great tragedy, if you ask me," of Wuthering Heights. "They were both horrific characters, nothing could save them from destroying themselves and everything around them."
[Sinclair] Sinclair is not talking about books with the others. She's looking oddly at Grace, then shaking her head, and taking yet another drink. She raises an eyebrow at Lukas. "Who's falling out of whose chair?"
She knocks back what's left in her glass and slams it down on the bar for more. It's the fourth. Right? It's the fourth.
[gulp]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Grace] The next drink, something amber and nameless because Grace couldn't remember what it was that Lukas had poured, goes down the hatch.
Wuthering Heights, it's a noun, not an adjective, "ohhhh."
Okay, that made sense. But the mention of Kate liking Jane Austen made her light up, excited for no other reason than, finally, she'd found someone else who enjoyed this particular author.
[321-consume]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] "That's true enough," Wyrmbreaker concurs amiably enough, and pours. "Also, Sinclair, I'll have you know this," he raises it, "is shot number six. So there."
(glug!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Sinclair] "Fine," she says simply, and slides out of her chair. She stands up. She pours herself a double, looks straight at her Alpha, and chugs it.
[five]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Sinclair] [and six]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)
[Sinclair] The almost-gleaming blue fluid goes down easily enough, and then the glass touches the bartop again. Sinclair doesn't cling for the edge, doesn't waver, just stands there for a moment, watching Lukas with a certain competitive intensity.
And then she bursts out laughing, leaning over the bar and giggling fiendishly.
[Kate] ...which sets Katherine off, she slips off her leaning post of a hand, and buries her face in the crook of her arm, giggling in unison with Sinclair. "I'm done, I'm done. I am a light weight." She smacks the bar top like a surrendering wrestler.
[Grace] Grace, instead, just looks at them in quiet confusion. No, less than quiet confusion, there is even a vocalization to go with it. She reaches for the next drink and takes it. She sits rather comfortably perched with the people nearby and, for her part, is content to be quiet.
She looks at them again, takes a drink, and expects something to happen.
[maybe?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Wyrmbreaker] Very fiercely, he stares back at Sinclair while she chugs, and chugs, and...
giggles.
Lukas holds his Ever So Serious stare for another second before abruptly bursting into laughter -- the sort of sudden uproar that, quite simply, screams drunk. Drunk, drunk, drunk.
[Grace] It was at that moment when Grace realized that, whatever trick there was to drinking alcohol, she was doing it wrong.
This was, however, infinitely amusing. The lupus grinned ear to ear, and was content to observe instead.
[Sinclair] The three present members of the Unbroken dissolve into laughter while the cub -- we won't call her innocent, we won't imply that youth covers all sins -- watches on, essentially untouched by what she's imbibing. They are not quite so lucky. The three of them are drunk, and in Kate's case very drunk, and Lukas and Sinclair aren't far behind. "Kate!" Sinclair says. "You stay here tonight. We can make Theron sleep on the floor. I'm meaner than he is, it'll totally work."
She claps her hand on the Philodox's back. "Les'go. I'm goin' upsh...fuck, there's no 'sh' in 'stairs'." She laughs, tears in her eyes, and reaches across the bar to put her hand on Lukas's forehead, ruffling his hair. "You're all funny-stupid. Let's go. C'mon. C'mon, let's go. S'... is sleepin' time."
[Kate] Katherine half-raises her face from her arm, and consents with a chorus of half finished, "Ah..huh, Ah...hee, huh, oh...kay." Then struggles to her feet, slips and regains her footing with another burst of semi-hysterical tears. "Oopsiedaisies." She reaches out, finds Sinclair's shoulder, and winds her arm around it like a weed.
"Can we crawl up the stairs? The top seems... far."
[Sinclair] "Nooo," Sinclair says, very seriously, shaking her head slowly... seven or eight times, holding the vowel the whole time. "Followers of Perun don't crawl."
She does let Kate lean on her, though, even if it makes her sway. She hums idly, going back and forth, side to side, slinging her arm around Kate's waist.
[Sinclair] [III need to go flop into bed myself. Assume Sinclair gets her and Kate upstairs one way or another. She'll shift or burn WP if necessary to make sure that happens safely and that Kate gets put in a clean bed. *L* Thank you guys so much for the RP!]
[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has found it quite impossible to stop laughing. He's finally put his head down in his arms, shoulders shaking as he laughs, and laughs, and
his pack is leaving. He picks himself up, puts on a straight face, tells Grace: "Try it in lupus. You'll understand."
He catches up with his packmates, then, throwing his arm over Kate's shoulder from the other side. They'll have to go sideways up the stairs if they want to stand wound together. He'll worry about that later.
[Kate] [Likewise, girl! :D ]
celebration.
9 years ago