cannonball!

[Katherine] Katherine Bellamonte's Loft happened to have, recently renovated and elongated at the repeated pleas of her associated pack-mates -- an enclosed and heatedOlympic sized swimming pool with a spa attached to one corner. The enclosed glass structure was kept at a slightly tropical temperature to sustain the exotic plantlife she'd had brought it to surround the decking. There were lounge chairs scattered on either side of the pool, as well as a recently added picnic table and grill.

At present, at this late hour the lighting around the pool was soft, muted pool lights casting the depths of the water a dark, mysterious blue, and left shadowy underwater pockets. Floating in the midst of this on a bright yellow inflatable lounge, attired in an elegant black two-piece was the mistress of the Loft herself. Katherine's eyes were closed, her fingertips lazily brushing the surface of the water as she listened to the soundtrack of tropical rain-forest noises, fed into the room via discreet speakers in each corner.

Her lips curved in a smile; she sighed.

[sklora-Myrgen] [Yo, this a closed scene?]
to Katherine, Marni, Wyrmbreaker

[Marni] (I am TOTALY crashing. Crash with me! :) )
to Katherine, sklora-Myrgen, Wyrmbreaker

[Wyrmbreaker] The pool is now olympic-sized.

And heated. Sometimes when they want a workout, the pack rolls out the lane dividers; right now, it's one huge, open expanse adored by one lazily spinning Silver Fang.

Then the door to the pool room opens. It's significantly warmer in here, more humid. Lukas enters discreetly enough. There's a changing room in the corner, and it's there that he strips down to his swim trunks. Coming out, Katherine can hear him padding around the edge of the pool to the diving board, which is too new and too high-quality to creak as he gets on it.

For a moment the Ahroun stands there on the edge of it, back straight, body aligned, quiet and focused as an olympic hopeful. He bounces gently on the balls of his feet, once, twice, and then three more times, vigorously, building momentum in the resonance of the board and the flexion of his legs and --

"CANNONBALL!"

Katherine's repose is rudely interrupted as Lukas, knees tucked to chest, sploosh!es into the center of the pool

[Wyrmbreaker] (it's open! think up a reason to be there and hop in!)
to Katherine, Marni, sklora-Myrgen, vikthya

[Marni] [nothing to see here!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Katherine] The Half Moon abruptly frowns, and opens one eye as her Alpha cannonballs into the pool, sending rough waves rippling toward her raft and rocking it dangerously from side to side. Lukas, diving below her and swimming across the width of the pool is spared the string of french curse-words adopted for his descriptors this evening.

She kicks her foot in his direction lazily.

"Heathen." She complains without any rancor.

--

Elsewhere, the large open spaces that make up the Silver Fang's abode are monitored by tiny cameras, red lights blinking steadily as they electronically whirr left and right. Lucille, the Aristocrat's maid, was folding laundry in the Half Moon's bedroom.

[sklora-Myrgen] [Wait, just realized the time. Wishful thinking! Enjoy the swim, guys *grin*]
to Katherine, Marni, Wyrmbreaker

[Marni] Chicago is... well, one thing it's NOT is NYC, and while she knows the streets and underbelly of NYC like the back of her hand, she gets totally, completely, 100% lost in Chicago. She's been bus surfing all day, she's gotten twisted and turned around and she has NO idea where she is...

Except? She isn't in Kansas. Or in the slums, because HOLY hell is that house HUGE. Why, it looks big enough o hold a swimming pool! Like, one for the OLYMPICS or something. She studies it, and then, then her eyes are drawn to the garbage up nearer the house, and suddenly she knows exactly what she'll find inside. Oh yeah baby...

and so it's to the garbage can she goes, the lid clanking to the side and suddenly she's rummaging around in there like there might be a perfectly baked loaf of bread in there, still warm, waiting for her.

That's not what's there - but to her? Close enough... soon as she finds it, anyway...

[Wyrmbreaker] Even before he comes up for air he's laughing -- muffled bubbles of it bursting to the surface. He's still laughing when he breaches, stroking to the long edge of the pool in one gliding pull. There he turns, cocking his elbows up on the tile, mopping water from his face. His hair is soaked, plastered against his head, sleek and black.

"You know what you should do?" He points at the ceiling. "You should put a UV lamp right there. Then you can tan while you lounge around pretending you're in Rio de Janeiro."

If he's joking, he's repressing the smile that's threatening the corners of his mouth.

[Sinclair] The Galliard's presence at the Loft has been far more frequent these days since the installation of the larger pool. She swims with a religious intensity at times, whether the lane dividers are out or whether she's alone. Notably, she's quieter after a workout, calmer-seeming, the way she is after a battle. Only this way her rage is undrained, her exhaustion a pleasant physical weariness.

She's not drifting in the pool. She's not lounging. She's certainly not cannonballing. She's not even in sight. Until she surges upward from the bottom of the pool where she was holding her breath, taking a huge gasp of air.

"How long was that?" she asks Kate, water dripping into her eyes.

[Wyrmbreaker] (that was adorNed, not adored. wtf.)

[Sinclair] [addendum!]

When Lukas pops up out of the water, too, Sinclair gives him a small wave. "Hiya."

[Wyrmbreaker] "You were there the whole time?" Amazed. "I could've landed on you."

[Katherine] Lucille finished putting away her Mistress' fine clothing, and bustled out of the solitary bedroom on the first floor. She could hear the laughter and splashing suggestive of Katherine and her pack, but kept to her duties, as she had for a good twenty years. She picked up two garbage bags already set by the back door, ready to be carried out and stepped into the Garage with its faint petrol scent, past the parked vehicles and out onto the small side alley that backed onto the Loft's property.

She was promptly presented with a rear end poking out of a garbage can. The elderly Spaniard hemmed loudly, her hands full of garbage bags, a black eyebrow raised.

"You lost something in there, or you hoping to find something?"

--

Katherine smirks at Lukas, and paddles in a slow, languorous circle around the pool. "I will have you know the sounds are meditative, Lukas." She glances upward at the ceiling as if considering his suggestion, though. Then Sinclair breaks the surface and asks how long that was.

"A watch does not go with this outfit," she smiles, "But it was longer than last time."

[Sinclair] "Yes," Sinclair says, still catching her breath. "Wouldn't that have sucked."

She bobs upward and then flips after Katherine confirms that she beat her last time, doing a neat turn to go back underwater. She doesn't stay, nor does she swim down to the bottom of the pool. She does streak through the water until she's under Kate's float, however, and then pushes up on it with both hands to flip the Philodox over.

[Marni] Ahha. FOUND it. A perfectly FINE hunk of leftover ham. Why anyone would throw away such a fine hunk of meat? She pops out of the garbage can, just about the time that she's hemmed and she turns to find herself caught... oh so caught.

Marni grins around a bite of (days old, week old, not at all really good for anyone else but a streetrat who's hungry) ham, before she shakes her head. "Found it." and then she looks at the bags pointedly. "Unless ya got something better in there, of course..."

Shameless, Marni.

[Wyrmbreaker] Katherine capsizes. Lukas bursts into laughter. Loud, unequivocal, unsympathetic laughter. Then he holds his hand up for a high-five.

[Sinclair] There is no high five for Lukas. Sinclair chuckles wickedly even as she darts away through the water, but she doesn't tread her way to her Alpha to slap her palm against his. She dives under again. And the light bends and the clarity of her vision under the surface is better than Lukas's looking through the surface, and

she's very fast

when she grabs his ankle and yanks him downward.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Wait no--"

and then he's under, and whatever he meant to say is lost in a maze of bubbles. Lukas is rather ruthless about booting Sinclair squarely in the head to make her let go. When he resurfaces, he hacks a cough out, spits water from his mouth, and then promptly tackles Sinclair wherever she might be.

The water roils and foams as the two scuffle, as much underwater as above. When they let go, Sinclair has a blackening eye and Lukas has a cut lip diffusing blood into the water, but he's laughing. And coughing.

[Marni] Lucille, well. She's appalled to think the hungry girl is gonna rummage through the bags of garbage she just gathered to take out, and with a cluck of her tongue and some tsking and likely some spanish words Marni is glad she doesn't understand... she's herding Marni inside.

A dirty, dirty gnawer, with grime on her hands, and that piece of disgusting ham held between her fingers, and clothing that could certainly use a wash.... in Kate's pristine home. Pristine and filled with shiny shiny things...

Score!

"Hey, thanks... I appreciate this and all..."

[Sinclair] True to form, Sinclair doesn't back down when the Ahroun's heavy foot connects with her head. Too hard and he could break her neck, drown her. But it's hard to get a solid kick at her when she's offsetting his balance, when she's dragging him under, when she's letting go and dodging away like she was born to be underwater. The girl swims like a fish, and though on land they're almost --

(but not quite, never quite)

-- evenly matched, she has some indistinct advantage here in the pool, where familiarity with the environment and experience with how to move keep the water from slowing her down.

He manages to kick her. She rolls, comes up sputtering several feet away, ducks his tackle

and punches him hard across the face with her off hand. And the next time he lunges at her, he actually grabs a hold. She yelps, her mouth fills with water, and the struggle gets briefly thrashing and violent as Katherine stomps out of the pool room in a huff because of their roughhousing. And yes, in the end: Sinclair's eye is changing colors, Lukas's lip is bleeding and swollen, and they're both coughing up chlorinated water.

"Mother--" she coughs again, half-laughing, "--fucker. I totally -- had you. An' you -- know it."

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas inhales to answer, which only sends water further down his airpipe, which sets out another round of coughing.

Surely all this is audible outside the pool doors, even if the Loft's walls are thick, and heavy, and expensive. If that's not audible, then at the least Marni can't miss it when the mistress of this domain storms out of the pool room (door opens, huff, door slams, stomp) and up the stairs.

When Lukas is done coughing, pounding himself in the chest until he has a red patch on his breastbone, he says, "You should teach me to swim better." He glies over to Katherine's pool raft, flipping it over right-side-up, and then hanging off the edge. "I'll teach you to ... uh. Swing a sword."

[Marni] Her jaw DROPS as the mistress of the castle (for really, it must be exactly that, right?) and goes upstairs. The pretty pretty princess with the pearl drop earrings from the other night. "No fucking WAY..."

The look on her face chances from disbelief to a pure absolute delight of discovery...

To Lucille, she grins. "Is there a pool in there? There totally is a pool right? And you were gonna walk me right on by and NOT show me the pool... I haven't had a bath in a MONTH, woman... what were you thinking?"

Yeah, she's aware of how that sounds, and she's scooting around the maid despite her protests and bursting into the pool area... cuz she's subtle, Marni. Real subtle.

[Sinclair] "Okay," Sinclair says breathily, and turns her head to the side to cough a few more times. She wheezes, and continues treading water without clinging to raft or poolside. Her hair is tied back in a tight, short braid, but a few tendrils cling to her cheeks here and there, further loosened by the brawl she and her Alpha just had. She breathes heavily, has been since the start of it all, since testing the limits of her lungs, and shrugs once.

"I'd rather learn to swing an axe, y'know?" she says, and drifts backward. "Something about it just seems right to me." Sinclair finally moves to float on her back, letting herself relax. "You're teaching me a lot, anyway."

The door opens, and she turns her head, expecting Katherine...only to see a total stranger. She frowns.

[Wyrmbreaker] "An axe." Lukas laughs under his breath. "Because you don't get mistaken for a Get of Fenris enough already..."

he trails off. The door opens; it's not Katherine. The smile on his face goes still; then fades. He lets go the pool lounger, tilting into a stroke. Lukas is not as fast as Sinclair, but there's a deliberation and surety to his movements. Two or three strokes takes him the remaining length of the pool, and then he grabs the ladder at the edge and hauls himself up out of the pool in one motion, a cascade of water shedding off his body.

If Marni reads some level of banked aggression from the abruptness of his motions, she's probably not imagining it. "Who are you?" he demands.

[Katherine] Katherine returns, eventually, by way of the upstairs. She returns to the kitchen, and sets about making a tray of drinks. Something fruity, something with vodka and twist of lime on the side. She's donned a sheer white wrap of sorts, her black swim suit peeking through beneath, her fair hair combed back into a sleek mane against her neck and shoulders.

"Lucille?"

The Hispanic maid, staring for a moment in mingled amusement and consternation after Marni, turns at Kate's voice and moves to intercept her and her wobbling tray of beverages. "There is a girl in your pool room, Señora," she apologizes in her quiet way, following after the tall Silver Fang. She steps inside in Marni's wake, trapping her between two Garou and a -- well, wet place.

[Marni] The pool? is HUGE. And Marni is standing there, her eyes wide and her fingers itching, and flexing until she wraps them around the straps of her backpack to keep them from touching everything in this oh so pretty pretty (SHINY) environment.

"Oh...fuckmerunning..."

And the splashing, and the demand, and the OHHOOH. Shadow Lord. Her jaw snaps closed, her grin reappears, and she's really... well. Cute. Even dirty, she's cute. "Who are YOU, hotstuff?" bad Marni. "I happen to be Marni Geller, queen of the trash heap and cuddler extra-ordinaire.."

And damned if she doesn't cross her legs at the ankle, and spread her arms, and bow.

[Sinclair] The Galliard is no longer relaxing. She's upright in the water, slowly swimming sideways to the edge of the pool as Lukas is climbing out of it, essentially demanding to know who the fuck is in his pack's territory...which, in a way, the Loft is. Sinclair grabs the edge of the pool, hauls herself up and out, and crouches there as water sluices off her skin. She looks like a little animal there, a little savage, with metal lining her ears and sticking through the skin of one arm, with ink on both her biceps and another tattoo of a black and green viper winding around her right thigh.

Her eyes are just as pale as the water, if not paler. Lukas and Kate's are an intense, glacial blue; hers are cloudier, more opaque. No less intense.

[Wyrmbreaker] Marni has no purity of blood. Her rage is unremarkable. She couldn't be more different from the Shadow Lord.

Everything about Lukas implies dominance; implies strength; implies rank and alphaship and claim. His rage twists and crackles in the air. His blood is so indisputably Thunder's that it may as well be tattooed on his body. The Ahroun stands with his wet feet planted wide, hands a small distance away from his thighs -- readied. He tilts his head in a quick, feral expression of consternation as the stranger curtsies.

"Fine. What are you doing here?"

Kate enters. His eyes cut to her, then back. Totemic: Is she your guest, Katherine?

[Katherine] Lucille is whispering in Katherine's ear hastily as she sets the drinks down, until the Half Moon silences her with a tight-lipped tsssh and a gesture, asking for a cessation of her prattling. Katherine; tall, imposing even when barefoot, steps around the Bone Gnawer until she is looking down on her face.

Recognition alights there, and her eyebrows rise.

"Lucille apologizes for her lack of forethought. She says she wanted to give the homeless urchin here some food, but she requested a tour instead and walked in here before Lucille could prevent her." Katherine's eyes shifted to her Alpha, then to Sinclair, so balanced and poised; crouched like a lithe little feline, ready to pounce.

Totemic: No, but I recognize her from a diner I was in last night.

"I saw you last night, you were in the diner, looking at me."

[Marni] Oh that grin, that grin never fades, even as her gaze flips to Sinclair, studies Lukas, and watches Katherine wander around her to face her directly. That grin is knowing, it is wild, it is amused. Marni tucks her fingers around the straps of her pack once more and shakes her head and mimics...

"Requested a tour instead... my but don't you talk purdy..." She laughs and shakes her head. "Yessum. Actually - it was your earrings. They were lovely - and the perfect match to your necklace. Gorgeous. But to be completely fair, I was looking at everyone. You just caught me." Ah, and damn if she doesn't tip a saucy wink.

"I was just trolling your garbage for a meal, and Lucille was a little disgusted so thought to feed me. Nice of her, I thought - but man. I had to see this pool..." And she moves toward it with a step, and then stops. "It's really quite fuckin' amazing."

[Sinclair] [skip me!]

[Wyrmbreaker] All this time, except for a flicker to Katherine, Lukas's ice-cast eyes have stayed on Marni. "You've a lot of nerve," he says. "Do you always go where you're not invited?"

And, after a beat, "Let's hear the rest of your introduction, Marni Geller."

[Marni] She wrinkles her nose, and scratches her neck idly. "Yeah. I get that a lot. And just a leeeeettle tiny correction?" She holds her forefinger and thumb close together. Little tiny correction, indeedl. "Was'er'faces maid invited me. So just because YOU didn't... See?"

Nods. That solves that part, right? And then the grin returns and she nods. "They call me Sticky Fingers an' ya proooooooobably don't wanna know why. Claith Ragabash a Gnawin on that Bone." A beat, and she tips her head, curls bouncing. "And I really don't think you want me callin' you tall dark and studly every time I tell folks I metcha... so how about returning the introductory favor."

[Katherine] A wrinkle of absolute distaste forms across the Silver Fang's features, and a hand raises to calm her nausea, pressed against her nose and mouth for a beat; she breathes out in steady, small breathes until it passes, and she can respond without strain evident in her voice.

"My... garbage, how... interesting." A beat, she picks up a glass of punch, sips from it as if to wash away the bile of that thought and then continues. "I have no qualms with my maid feeding any needy," she's a Bone Gnawer, Katherine learns then, and does not seem to believe her prior definition required much in the way of altering. "But in the future, Sticky Fingers-yuf," The corner of the Silver Fang's mouth lifts, though her eyes remain quite detached from the expression.

"Try the front door.

And I am Katherine Bellamonte, Truth's Meridian, Cliath Half Moon." She begets the rest of the titles for the moment.

[Sinclair] Slowly, Sinclair rises to her feet, and somehow this makes her seem no less dangerous than she did before, no less predatory. Her eyes flick over Marni once, twice, then she moves closer to Lukas and Katherine, standing with the other two members of the swimsuit brigade for now.

[Wyrmbreaker] "You were invited to dine," Lukas picks up where Katherine left off seamlessly, "not to snoop. This is my packmate's private home, and therefore the territory of my pack. Respect it."

He walks from the pool, then: the tall swarthy male separating from the slighter, fairer females. Some of the severity leaves his look and tone. He goes to the side of the room, picking up a fresh towel from the stack to dry himself.

"We're the Unbroken," he says. "I'm Lukáš Wyrmbreaker, Ahroun, Fostern, and Shadow Lord. Eyes of the Oncoming Storm and Darkensky are our Theurges; Silver Jester is our Ragabash."

[Sinclair] "Warcry," she says levelly, with less grace than Katherine, less strength than Lukas, more savagery than any of them. "Cliath Galliard, Walker."

[Marni] She grins at Katherine. "Is that an" a flick of her gaze toward Lukas, than back "official invitation to dinner, Katherine?" Cheeky, she is. Destined to get her ass kicked fifteen ways from Sunday, to. But somehow, there's the feeling that she really doesn't mind that. Not at all. Otherwise, she'd have learned to curb her tongue a long time ago.

Or not. Hard to tell with Gnawers.

She laughs, and then tips her head toward Lukas. "Is that not exactly what my kind are born and bred to do, Lukas -rhya? Perhaps I should rethink a lifetime of teaching. Oh! I know! I'll just remember that when you've need of a Ragabash unafraid to get dirty..." She winks at him, and then stretches, arching her back before just rocking on her feet a little.

"But..." oh that dramatic sigh. "Since I offend your delicate sense so, I suppose I'll just wander along like a good little needy waif and raid your kitchen with the help."

[Katherine] "It is," she responds with a touch of polite exasperation, "a request that you refrain from digging in my garbage cans as it tends to attract attention in this neighborhood. Lucille, would you please escort Marni to the kitchen and prepare something for her to take home with her, Merci."

Katherine glances at Sinclair and Lukas.

"Now, if you would excuse us, I believe my pack-mates were just getting ready to take their leave for the evening."

[Wyrmbreaker] "The next time you're starving," Lukas puts in, throwing the towel over his shoulder and heading for the changing room, "go to the Brotherhood. It's run by kinfolk. They'll feed and house you for free, though it's a good idea to do something for them if you can."

[Marni] She waves absently. "I don't need a place to stay." But she curtsy's to Katherine again, with that cheeky grin. "Yessum. Wouldn't want to attract attention at all." Of course, there's the undertone that the mere existence of an Olympic sized swimming pool in a personal dwelling does that all by itself.

She looks at the pool again, and damned if she doesn't look like she's planning, for an instant, to just cannon ball in and take a leisurely bath...

...but she turns instead, and follows Lucille toward the kitchen. "No need to make anything, chica. I can forage your leftovers, just point me in the right direction..." and as she moves, she's trialing her fingers along every surface, tilting a picture on the wall a little off scenter, dancing her fingertips along counters...

[Sinclair] The Galliard does indeed take her leave then, turning to go to the changing room as well, water still dripping off of her. She has no towel. It's in the changing room.

[Sinclair] [Thanks for the RP, guys! Sorry my posts got so itty bitty and crappy at the end, I tired.]

[Wyrmbreaker] [iiii'm off to bed too! thanks for the RP, folks!]

[Katherine] [*shrill* THIEF! THIIIIIEF. *grins* Thanks for the scene, guys! I'ma say lets wrap there. :) ]

[Marni] Along with grimy fingerprints, after Marni is gone with quite a load of leftovers since she's not picky on just HOW leftover they are...

Lucille might notice a couple missing items. A fork disappeared. That tea set is missing a cup, and what happened to that sterling silver ladle?!

Sticky Fingers, indeed....