mother's touch guinea pig.

[Armstrong] She had so much crap to bring back. Work was done, for the most part, and Mrena Armstrong arrived back to her current residence. A little past her original projection of ten days (tops) of being gone.

The theurge came in the back entrance, as that it was the fastest. As that it was the most convenient, really. SDhe could slip in, no one would notice, and she could get ot her room in peace without someone trying to accost her with a menu or tell her that she needed to quit getting paint on the floor. [The whole second floor smells like paint thinner, can't you do that outside?]

And, despite having been back for all of forty-five minutes, Mrena Armstrong was already planning her escape. April first was coming up. She was packed with Sampson. Mrena had to start planning a week in advance if she was going to get out of a birthday without being dyed purple or waking up to find everything had been nailed to the ceiling.

However, this was not the point. And this was not what brought us to the current scene.

What brought us tot his point was Mrena headed up the stairs, smelling distinctly of Boston, Chicago, and all the dirt that fell between the two cities. She plopped her bag down on the sectional, looking behind her to see if she'd made a mess coming in. Nothing too bad.

"There had better be hot water," she said.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where we open our scene today.

[Wyrmbreaker] Perversely, Lukas has refused to lock himself safely up in his room to ooze pus and shed hair. No, ladies and gentlemen, our hero has chosen to park his ass right where he usually does: sprawled out on the sectional couch, wearing his shorts and nothing else, in glabro.

Reading.

The lamp on at his head leaves nothing to the imagination. His open sores are weeping fluids, glistening in the light. His body hair, normally heavy in this form, is patchy and sparse, entire stretches of it stripped away as though by mange, the skin beneath red and irritated, flakey. He is, in a word, disgusting.

Armstrong wants hot water. Lukas just grunts under his breath. He's reading a book called The Elephant Vanishes, and it's hard to tell if he's actually frowning, or if his brow is simply beetled because of the form he's in.

The TV is on too, but the sound is muted; it's just a flickering at the corner of his vision. It's a second before the penny drops.

"Hey." He puts the book down. If she thought his body was a wreck, his face is even worse: burnt, pitted, lesioned, swollen. And Glabro besides. "You're back."

[Armstrong] She looked at Lukas and he could have heard her stomach turn.

Or, well, maybe it was his imagination, because the distinctly mud-splattered theurge just sort of looked at him and lost whatever color was not afforded to her by dirt. And, like an onlooker for a train wreck, she just couldn't look away. Her beta was a wreck. More than a wreck, he was downright icky.

"..." He was talking to her and words just weren't coming out.

And she scooted her bag off the edge of the couch. The theurge sat herself down, still dirty, and laid her hands in her lap. There were supposed to be words coming. This, however, was not the case. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mrena Armstrong had lost the English language and as that she did not speak another language she was simply silent for a moment.

The moment passed quickly.

"... please don't leak on the couch."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas looks at her for a beat.

And then his sharp glabro teeth flash; he bares his teeth; it's not a snarl, it's a laugh, and he laughs at her, great gales of belly-laughs given a savage timbre by the size and depth of his not-quite-human lungs.

He laughs until he has to wipe his eyes with the heels of his hands, and then he's sitting up, still bubbling laughter in small bursts and gouts, and owing under his breath when the strain of sitting up pulls at his bitten side, because yes, on top of the radiation burns, he's also gotten a bite taken out of him because of all the fuckers there last night he was the only one selfless enough to not attack his own attackers once.

Some Shadow Lord he is.

"I think," he says, carefully putting his book aside, "it may be too late for that."

[Armstrong] Lukas laughed, and the bursts of laughter followed by the occasional oww made the theurge cover her mouth, then giggle, then laugh. Actually laugh, the kind of laughter that required Mrena to cover her mouth to keep from being too horribly loud. "Ohhhh god, I need to take a picture, that is so gross," she said.

Well, she said gross. Given her tone, the quiet wondrous undertone, she seemed more impressed with the disturbing wounds than anything. From an artistic perspective, it was interesting. All colors and textures and ick. The body reacting and healing was a disgusting thing indeed; for her part, she was impressed.

"So," she started, "I'm going to assume that I missed something, as that you look like you've been attacked by an awakened cheese grater."

A pause, and then a slight grin. The kind that came to children when they had a new toy.

"Want me to fix it?"

[Wyrmbreaker] This time, Lukas' smile is a little pained, more grimace than grin.

"I wish it was so simple," he says. "There was taint at the edge of the bawn. Pretty bad. Ten banes in all, large and small. A group of us took them down, but ... that they were there at all was unacceptable and dangerous.

"I've called a warmoot. If the Wyrmfoe agrees, we'll gather as a Sept and trade notes. Discuss plans."

Then, as she asks if he wants her to fix it, the Glabro tilts his head at her. A beat. "Oho," he says, softly. "Someone has a new Gift." The edge of his mouth turns up, showing a glimmer of canine tooth. "Let's see it."

[Wyrmbreaker] (fyi mindy, his current rage should be around 3)

[Jackie Castellano] Why here?

Of all the backwater polack cities in all the world, why the fuck am I here? It's written across his face as the white and blue striped cuff of one arm is adjusted under the jacket, along his wrist. The physicality of his is evident, he's strong, wide at the shoulders and at the very least would not be a man from whom one might expect clumsiness. The light beige color of his jacket matches the pants, matches the belt. He's spent some time trimming his beard and the haircut he's got cost what a starving family makes in a week. This is a man with style, if not for the light snarl on his face as he walks through the brotherhood door he'd easily be called attractive, though he's no Michelangelo sculpture to be sure. His hair and eyes are dark, his nose betrays him as Roman, perhaps Calabrian, bred pure in a very human way.

And not at all in a way that Garou might recognize.

He stands tall at the back, aloof in that east coast way that seems automatically affected this far away from the Atlantic. He swaggers, like he owns the room all the way over to the bar, where he sits with the same authority and raises his hand in the air, high above him. Fingers snap impatiently. "Yo." A look is thrown down the bar from Jennifer, with no small bit of vitrol. "Can I gedda jack, honey? T'ank you." He bites his lip and stares again at the mirror behind the bar like he's got something under his skin that itches to get out.

"My god." As the drink arrives. "D' whole city this dead, cupcake?" His accent is noticable, even a little acerbic on the ears. That lovely garden state twang only the northern counties can love. A hundred dollar bills is peeled from inside a money clip produced from the jacket's chest pocket. The glint of steel is seen and gone like the pages of a flipbook going by. The paper is placed forcefully and directly into the woman's hand. "Jus' keep 'em comin'."

[Armstrong] He relayed the situation to the theurge and she nodded a little. Her eyes narrowed slightly; there was mention of banes near the bawn. He called a warmoot, if the Wyrmfoe agreed they would be trading information soon. Mrena exhaled slowly, then nodded.

"How long do you think it's been going on, or was it something sudden? What do we know thus far?" because she wanted to know. The theurge pushed her hair back out of her face.

Sounded like someone had a new Gift. "I do," she said. Then? She looked at her guinea pig/injured packmate and got on to doing what she needed to do.

The theurge got up and headed over to bridge the gap. Couldn't exactly fix him if she didn't make contact.The theurge looked at his injuries- there were plenty, thanks to the radiation- so instead, White Eyes laid a hand on Lukas' side and said something. It was something reverent, something focused and self-assured. No bargaining, no uncertainty. Just focus.

(spending a gnosis point, Mother's Touch for the win)

[Wyrmbreaker] It is not his first time being healed. Still, he straightens up, taking a deep breath.

Regeneration is hard work. His skin is burning hot; he's sweating; he's been eating and sleeping and resting and eating all day. When the Gift begins to gather, to conduct from her fingers to his body, he can feel his natural regeneration accelerating beyond belief -- the maddening itch of a body healing far too fast, far too well.

Burnt skin flakes off. New skin grows. Fibrous processes snake across the gape of bite wounds, across the lesions and the sores; fresh tissue spontaneously regenerates on the scaffolding of collagen. Muscle reknits. Skin closes over.

When Mrena is done, Lukas is more or less as good as new -- though the hair will take a little longer to grow back. He touches the bare pink skin where a weeping sore used to be. The last of the itch is pulsing away, and he looks at the Theurge with a savage, toothy smile.

"Well, it looks like your trip wasn't for nothing," he says -- an understated sort of gratitude. He stands up, and standing, sheds his brutish guise; returns to the form he was born to.

And it's back to business. "I don't know how long it's been going on. I haven't been at the caern often lately. But Maelstrom was pretty adamant that we get rid of it asap, so I assume it wasn't there very long. I didn't have a chance to look realmside. Umbraside, it looked like some sort of toxic spill into the river. The banes weren't growing any larger though; they were simply there. So my guess is something else, maybe something or someone realmside, transported the taint here and dumped it into the water.

"I'm hoping when we gather up the Sept different people will know different things, and maybe together, we can piece together what's going on. It'll also be good to get everyone on the same page and let the Wyrmfoe weigh in on what we do next."

There's a rather strident voice downstairs, and Lukas cocks his head in the direction of the stairs. "Sounds like we have company. Might be a human who doesn't know when to let up."

[Jackie Castellano] When to let up.

Oh that's why we're here.

His tongue pokes at the inside of his lip, it's not a motion of nerves though but one of some unseen annoyance poking at him like knives it seems. His drink isn't sipped and enjoyed but thrown back quickly so half of the fiery liquid drops down his throat. The man is large but not incredibly tall, in fact he's very average in that regard, clocking in a maybe two inches shy of the six foot mark. But his presence in a room is every bit as unnerving as the Rage closing from upstairs. It's simply not supernatural. "Jesus H. Christ." He bemoans absently. "Four hours I've been in this city and not a goddamn one'a'ya can tell me where's a good place t'score a decent Galamad," If it wasn't clear he was from somewhere in or around essex county his bastardization of the word calamari proves it beyond reasonable doubt.

"I mean, is dere even a freakin' wop in dis city?" He laughs at his own joke, a chuckle over the smile that sucks down more liquor. The sum of money though has made him at least important enough to serve again directly, even if he's not addressed with anything more than an upturned eyebrow.

[Armstrong] There were certain spirits that Mrena felt awkward interacting with. When she was younger [which is an odd thought, Mrena being younger. It was hard to think of her as being anything other than a not-yet-twenty year old kid], she almost felt strange looking for Unicorn or any of that brood. They played by a different set of rules, different protocol for interaction. And the more things changed, the more Mrena realized that things stayed the same.

Looks like her trip wasn't for nothing.
"Wouldn't be gone for a week and not come back without something useful," she said.

Back to business. Mrena listened and nodded, the theurge was intent on her packmate, shaking her hand off slightly and wiping it on her jeans. Lukas was fixed, yes, but she was still listening, still logging away whatever it was that her packmate relayed to her.

But then? There was someone downstairs. And Mrena remembered that she was dirty. And now, had some of whatever Lukas had been leaking on her hands. While the dirt was okay, the latter was not.
"Suppose we should make an appearance. I'll be down in a minute... figure I could use some food, too."

[Wyrmbreaker] "Nah. I'm gonna let Saint Jenny charm him." A faint, wry tilt of his mouth. "Now that I'm all patched up, I want to go down by the river realmside and see if there's anything left."

He starts toward his room; pauses, turns, balance cantilevered. She's his packmate. She knows him well enough now that she knows he moves differently when he's injured and when he's hale and whole -- that he holds himself more stiffly and more regularly in the former case, and possesses a certain animal assurance, something like grace, in the latter.

"By the way," he adds, "are you around tomorrow? I want to pencil myself in for a Rite of Binding lesson."

[Jackie Castellano] As he shifts in the chair a slight glint of gold becomes visible under the collar of his shirt. A single small chain and a simple gold cross adorn it. There's a small inscription near the top but it's not quite legible from as far away as Jennifer Coltrane stands.

"S'a matta, toots?"

His lips drop at the corners, an deep frown running like a half moon along his face. "Whatever." More whiskey thrown on hot temper can only start an alcohol fire on the bar of the brotherhood of thieves.

[Armstrong] "Keep me informed," she said. The theurge didn't touch her hair, didn't touch anything and then looked at her packmate. What was she going tomorrow?

The lady seemed to think about this, going through her to do list and then? Then Mrena had a decisive answer. "I don't have much going on. I'll be here after noon so..." she trailed off.

Well, she didn't really trail off. She put the ball in his court. The theurge seemed excited, pleased even. Progress. She was going to get to teach something; White Eyes was in her element. "I look forward to it. I'll be sure to be about."