grace.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Alone wasn't quite what it used to be anymore.

Some girl, anywhere between sixteen and twenty-three years old with features that did not strike but did not repulse was wandering near, looking awestricken and sympathetic all at once. She reached out toward the glass, vibrant green eyes wandering from tank to tank, display to display, expression flickering just a little for a new flavor with each new sight.

Gabriella Bellamonte watched her quietly, carefully, with her hands in her coat pockets. She watched as the girl moved in close, ducked in front of her to get a look at the insects, and took two steps back when this was done, allowing the girl her space and avoiding physical contact both. The steps weren't small, weren't overlarge either, but the motion was quick enough to stir up the breeze in the stagnant and artificially-warmed air, to carry a whiplash of breeding as bold and distinguishable as the taste of oregano on the palate. Silver Fang. Royalty. Blood of Heroes, right there.

"Excuse me," she murmered softly as she moved closer to the center of the aisle rather than crowd the wall beside her.

[Grace] She looks at Gabriella, and her eyes aren't filled with wonder or anything other than an overwhelming sadness. It was strange for the ragabash, looking at roaches and spiders and things that were creeping and crawling and not at all cuddly.

She looked at Gabriella, the princess, the royal and homid-born as though there was something that she could do bout it. She places her hands on the glass, one lingering and giving a good, firm press. It won't give.

"Stuck," she tells the Silver Fang. And it's a pleading, saddened, mournful sound. Like a howl for those who had fallen. Like a lament for those yet to realize the horrible world they live in.

"Not their home," she informs her. She does not say how this makes her feel to the near complete stranger. It's already been made perfectly clear.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] The girl appeared mortified at the idea of entrapment, of anything being stuck behind glass in such an enclosed area, with no territory to claim and no grounds to roam and no prey to track down and kill on their own. Gabbie watched this with a high arch to her slim, light colored eyebrows and rolled her shoulders a little inside of her coat, adjusting how it rested on her frame so it was more comfortable, wasn't bunched up odd at the back collar.

Either the girl was crazy, or...

...that 'or' seemed a strong possibility, considering the city, considering her life.

"No, but if you let them out here they'd freeze and starve. This isn't something you can really do anything about." Shoulders hitch up again, this time with a little more meaning to the gesture. Helplessness and an apology heaped into one.

"...Maybe I should help you find your way out?"

[Grace] "Just stuck," she acquiesces. The blonde nods.

She observes Gabriella, and the woman makes an offer. The way that she speaks is slow, after long pauses when there are words mulled over. She's an average looking sort. She would be prettiest if her hair wasn't tangled, she'd be prettier if she didn't seem feral. She is tall, or rather, tall-ish. She's tall compared to Gabriella, and she observes her quietly.

She doesn't come close, she doesn't do much. When she does approach, her gait is tentative. She ducks down, looking over features, but even this is a foreign gesture for her. Sight is not her sharpest sense, and one can tell this by the way she observes...

She inhales, then speaks. The word is quiet, "falcon."

A word she recently learned, but knows the meaning well.

"Grace," she tells her. Does not offer a hand or a bow or anything of the sort. She has on scent, not like Gabriella. Instead, she needs a word for a name, and to a wolf that meant very little.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] In a world of werewolves and beasties that slither through sewer grates and breathe steam against your window panes at night, where even the slightest slip could mean death, abduction, worse, codewords were key. They were necessary, they mandated your life. If you didn't know how to speak in code with others like you, then you were lost, you would drown in the sea of ignorance and never know who was around you.

'Falcon' was uttered quietly on the taller girl's lips, and Gabbie's eyebrows lifted just a touch higher before she nodded, confirming what Grace already knew.

"Gabriella," she answered. Last names didn't matter much to people that didn't offer them, she figured. Besides, wasn't the whole point of coming out here tonight to avoid being a Bellamonte or anything attached to them?

One hand moved from her coat pocket, swept toward the direction the exit lay in, and she turned to start walking. As she walked, she spoke, her words soft so that her voice would not carry up the hall and beyond the pair of them. "Where do you come from, Grace, and do others know you're here?"

[Grace] Gabriella.

Gabriella smelled like falcon's brood and that, in turn, left a taste on her tongue and she semeec more-than-pleased with this. Her hands went to her pockets. She followed Gabriella, and she was all the while trying to mimick her gestures. She was doing a fair job at this.

She walked with straight posture, she walked with every bit of grace that her name implied. She was, in an effect, elegant in her movements. Everything like a dance. If nothing more, she was very much a student of mimicry, and immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Gabriella was pretty. Gabriella was unobtrusive. Gabriella fit well in a city, so she would be like Gabriella.

"Lila and Carlotta are coming," she says. The words came ad they were foreign against the alto's tongue. Where is she from? where did she go from here?

She takes a second, and stops. She looks at Gabriella, and the blonde keeps her hands in her pockets. There are many ways she could respond, and there are many more. There is not confusion in her eyes, and the sound she makes is high pitched, almost like a whine. Jaw clenched again, she is searching.

All sorts of ways to respond. But none are easily defined.

Then? She half smirks, and the gesture is not one that is familiar to her, but she is growing more comfortable with.

"They are slow. Should take bus- four wheels are faster than two legs."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Grace was mimicking her, and either Gabbie didn't pick up on this or decided not to read deeply into it. She walked along the hallway, following the main stretch that hugged the building's shape in a singular line, with no sudden corners to throw her off track. Her posture was straight-backed, proper because it had to be, with rounded shoulders, unobtrusive because she wanted to fly under the radar.

Lila and Carlotta were coming, and she assumed that this was the rest of the girl's pack, that she had arrived first for some reason while the other two were hanging behind, taking their time in showing up within the city. Gabbie pulled her scarf out from where she'd loosened it to let it rest under her coat, wrapped it more securely around her throat and snuggled her chin into it, then reached for the door.

But Grace had stopped, so Gabbie paused as well, looking back at her, blinking once.

An attempted joke. Four wheels are faster than two legs. The Kinfolk looked a little surprised at first, like she'd just been expecting a spectacular on-stage performance from a renowned stand-up comedian and instead got a Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road joke. Then she grinned, the expression putting a split in the otherwise placid and undedicated to emotion face she'd been wearing, and pulled the door open to hold it for the girl.

"Maybe they'll consider that next time."

[Lukas] It's at the door that they run into Lukas. He wasn't in the reptile wing. He was where he usually is -- at the schooling fish, watching the silent whirlwind of fish.

"Gabbie," he greets her, slipping the loose ends of his scarf through the loop to tighten it, and then tucking it inside his coat as he buttons it up. The Shadow Lord's breeding announces him for what he is; if that does not, then his black hair, pale fierce eyes do. "And Gabbie's friend," he says. A joke of sorts -- rare, with the moon so full.

[Lukas] (LESS WATCH. MOAR PLAY.)

[Grace] "They should," with gusto. With resolve, "Chicago smells. Menus have no pictures. Cities are strange."

With absolute resolve in that thought. Her friend was a Galliard, her warder was a Galliard, she had lots of words, it jsut took the blonde a long, long time to choose the appropriate one. She nod, and is almost at the exit when she finds herself greeted by a wall of Thunder and rage.

Grace looks at Lukas, green eyes bright. Brows raised, and she takes a step back.

She offers her hand, and the gesture is abrupt, unfamiliar.

"Grace," she says. It's all she gives. Just Grace.

[Lukas] Grace sticks her hand out the way ... well, actually, Lukas can't think of anything that best approximates that abrupt, straightforward thrust of her hand. He looks at it for a second, blinks, and then takes it.

"Lukáš," he replies.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Unwanted people in unwanted places.
This was starting to feel exactly like old times.

Gabbie startled just a touch at Lukas's sudden presence, but the surprise on her face was washed away almost immediately by something that was part displeased and annoyed, part resolved. She released the door handle once Grace had stepped through enough, with her arm stuck out like she were a robot rather than as though the motion was comfortable. The Kinfolk plucked at her scarf until it settled where she wanted it, tugged at her coat until the lapels were situated correctly, then her hands dipped into her pockets and she shifted off to the side, quiet, watching fish rather than Garou.

[Lukas] (they were leaving the aquarium, right?)

[Grace] (to my knowledge! So, we should all be in about the same place!)

[Grace] She's not entirely certain as to what to do now. Humans do something after they've taken hands. She doesn't shake it, she doesn't do much.

"Lukáš," she repeats. With a longer A and an s that is less like an S in english and more like an sh. It's an imitation, it's repeating what she's heard for confirmation. It's an excellent mimicry of a language whose rules she doesn't fully understand.

She keeps her hand in his for awhile longer, then pulls back if allowed. She slips her hand back in her pocket.

"You know each other," to the two of them. A question without asking it.

[Lukas] Lukas looks at Grace with some surprise -- as much for her strange handshake as for her rather perfect pronunciation of a name that, thus far, only one other in this city has managed.

"Gabriella's my old friend's little sister. And you're her ... school friend?"

Utterly unlikely.

[Kate] They should know by now -- no, correction, Gabbie should know by now -- that where there was one Unbroken member, there was bound to be another. Like the fierce cold-blooded animals that swam in the depths of some of these very tanks, another pack member looms out of the darkness of the Aquarium as they exit. She; bringing up the rear as if the two between them were being rounded up.

Of course; the Silver Fang cannot hide herself from other full bloods; not with her breeding. It was a beacon to them all and Truth's Meridian appeared, first her pale eyes, then the legacy of that golden hair, then her figure, clothed entirely in white with only her boots to stop it becoming a singular theme.

[Lukas] "...and there's my old friend now. This is Katherine."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas and Grace spoke, two Garou going about the rituals of greeting in their own ways, and Gabriella held her tongue, seeming rather involved with a school of brightly colored fish that existed soley to bid visitors farewell on their way out the doors. Let them do their talking, posturing, what have you, she had no business within it.

How do you know our dear Gabbie?
By circumstance.
Shall we discuss other things?
Certainly.

Then, rounding the curve as a vision in white came the elder of the Bellamonte sisters, but not the eldest of the Bellamonte children in whole. Gabbie's clear blue eyes flicked toward her, then returned to the fish.

[Grace] This is practice.

Are they school friends, "no."

As though this is simple enough. Not immediate. Not automatic. She mulls over words and meanings, listens to what the other person says, and thinks about it until she finally responds. Conversation is not an immediate thing with Grace. not fast paced, not rapidfire quips and blows and flowing words back and forth, nor is it abrupt.

"I don't go to school," she informs him. Then, there is Katherine.

This is Katherine.

"Grace," she offers, but doesn't try to accord the lady with an awkward handshake. It's getting easier, the flow of conversation, and a word seems less awkward to fall off her tongue.

[Kate] Katherine was a tall woman in her early twenties with wavy blond hair that fell just past her shoulders and features that looked as if they'd been carved out of some design on what a Silver Fang ought to resemble if she possibly could. High cheekbones and a long, straight nose made up her features, and a mouth that tended toward smirking or curving in deliciously meaningful moments of expression.

Katherine placed one palm against her sister's back as she passed, then let it slide away as her interest was taken with 'Grace'.

"Bonjour, Grace." She says with an air of pleasure, her critical eye running down the figure. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence with my sister?"

[Grace] She is tall and thin. Tall by human female standards. High cheekbones a long, somewhat narrow nose, a jaw that is set and eyes that are bright, bright green. They were beautiful, really, but the color themselves was a concept that was completely lost on the flaxen-haired female. She had within her a great potential to be lovely, save for the fact that she seemed a little too feral.

Save for the tangles, she seemed clean. She wasn't particularly offensive to any of the senses. Unremarkabe to look at, ungrating to hear, not too rough or too soft, and no discernable scent.

"Coincidence and cockroaches," she offers Kate, though the response is not immediate in the least bit. The way she pays attention is not dissimilar to that of a person who does not speak English as a first, or even second, language.

A pause, again.

"Is this a problem?" not accusatory. Not defensive. A genuine question.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Katherine slipped by, touched a hand to the center of Gabriella's back and pressed it there lightly through the heavy wool of her younger sister's winter coat. Black, as opposed to the white that Katherine had sheathed herself in. Gabbie looked remarkably like her sister when it came to a simple matter of bone structure, Katherine simply existed in paler tones. Lighter hair, fair, unblemished skin, fine white clothing and an always careful application of make-up. Gabbie, tonight, had gone without make-up in an effort to remain unremarkable, dressed in jeans rather than a nice skirt, and stayed plain as a girl with such blatant breeding could.

The hand slid away, though that could be in part due to the fact that Gabbie moved away at the same time that Katherine stepped forward to investigate Grace.

Without a single word to either of the pack that shouldered the burden of her responsibility, Gabbie pushed the exit door open with her shoulder, hands still in her pockets, and made for a silent retreat.

[Lukas] "Gabbie, wait." That's offhand, casual. Then, laughing, "No, if it were a problem, Grace, Katherine would be very clear about it."

There's a pause. Then: "Forgive me for being rude, but you seem ... out of place in the city." He leaves it at that, an unspoken inquiry.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Offhand, casual, but an order's an order and she knew that much. To ignore him outright would mean she'd be grilled later, or grilled immediately with claws in her back and fangs at her neck. Either way, it seemed that immediate escape was slipping out of her grasp.

So she stopped and turned, shoulders against the door leading outside to hold it open, letting the well-below-freezing air whip in and lash at the three, showing she had no intention of waiting long.

[Grace] She perked up, watching Gabriella start to leave, brows knit for a second, her posture changes, less tension, more eagerness. The corners of her lips draw inward, and a half pout comes across the blonde's features. He asks for forgiveness- a pleasantry she does not entirely understand. Grace gets to the meat of the conversation though.

She is out-of-place in a city.

"I am," she affirms, "Chicago smells. Menus have no pictures. Cities are strange."

She pauses, and mulls over how to say this. As with anything she says, Grace thinks and chooses words carefully. Inarticulate does not equal unintelligent.

"The experience is worth the discomfort."

Words she stole from a Galliard. Words she made her own.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] [Nodding off. Just assume Gab out one way or the other.]

[Lukas] (night kenna!)

[Lukas] Well; that seals the deal, confirms the suspicion. A faint quirk of a smile at the corner of the Shadow Lord's mouth, as though quietly pleased at the discovery. Then he turns to Gabriella.

"Call a cab," he says to the girl, then nods at the sky. "Cold out."

[Lukas] Swinging back around, Lukas finishes doing up his coat and nods at the door.

"Come on," he invites. "Walk with us a while."

[Grace] Her coat is held close, and buttons are not checked. She isn't dressed for this sort of weather, but then again, stepping out into it doesn't really seem to bother her. She doesn't whimper or shy away from the cold, she doesn't make a displeased sound, no whimpers or chuffs or any indication that stepping out into single-digit weather made her eyeballs sting and her lungs dare to seize.

Instead, she pulls the hood of her coat up, and this is adequate enough protection.

When she moves, it's to keep in step. Not so much walk as prowl. Distinctly inhuman undertones in a very human body.

[Lukas] Katherine presumably flanking Lukas's other side, the three step out into the bitter cold. Lukas is silent as they walk away from the closing Shedd. It's early yet -- 6pm, the dinner hour -- but in the deep of winter the sky is already black.

Snow is flurrying down. Snow is on the ground, though cleared away from the paths.

After some distance, when they are safely out of the earshot of humans, Lukas speaks. "Where are you from, then, Grace?"

[Grace] "West," she told him, and could not quite clarify.

The word itself is unfamiliar, and the description does not come easily. There is more there there is so more much more there, so much more of a specific answer that is completely lost to human words.

"Sweet grass, fertile land fat cows," is the best she can come up with. "Near Unanswered Questions, but not Unanswered Questions. Sept of the Hidden Path... Near... Wyoming?"

She looks at him for confirmation. That Wyoming is a word and a place and something that made sense to him because the distinction meant nothing to her. There is snow falling, in a distinct pattern in its own way.

"Black Hills... not a city. Not like Chicago. More cows than people," yep, sounded like Wyoming.

[Lukas] Lukas nods in confirmation. "Wyoming's a human state in the west, yes. I've never been there. What's it like?"

Not a city, she says. More cows than people. And Lukas huffs a quiet laugh.

"I come from New York City. Now that's a city. More people than flies." He looks at her again, this longlimbed, feral creature in the shape of a girl. "Wolf-born, are you? What are you doing so far from home?"

[Grace] He's from New York City.
"I'm sorry," she tells him. And she means it... or else, she seems to mean it. He says something about there being more people than flies, and it makes her laugh. She tries not to bare her teeth, but she does anyway. There is a lot communicated in the sound, half growl, half mirth, all amused.

Why was she here?

"Hidden Path couldn't perform a Rite of Passage. Sent here instead. Learn war where war is fought."

A pause.

"I beat Carlotta and Lila here," she states.

[Danicka] The first lupus-born Garou Danicka ever met recently ate a kinswoman he had sworn to protect.

Danicka doesn't know this. Danicka probably never needs to know this, just as she does not need to know how a Bloody Bandage is made or the fact that the spirits bound into them will very likely get progressively more angry with Wyrmbreaker for handing the carefully wrapped squares of cloth over to his mate time and time again. There are things she knows she's not expected to know. There are things she does not know that she should never be told, for her own welfare.

Which is the same reasoning used in not telling children about sex, or death, or gods.

There is a woman smoking at the bottom of the Shedd's steps. Her hair is long and thick and blonde and curled at the ends. There is a green knit hat with a tiny decorative brim at the front and a white flower on the brow. Her coat is long and black, the cut of it tapering to her waist and flaring around her thighs slightly. Elegantly. She can't have been out here long. Not in frostbite-worthy temperatures. Not with the sun down.

[Danicka] [DLP]

[Danicka] [Delete the DLP! DTDLP. New acronyms!]

[Lukas] "Huh." Surprise. "You're a cub, then. Are they also cubs?"

The broad steps in front of the Shedd are nearly devoid of people tonight. It's too damn cold. Lukas's breath trails white behind him with every word. He pulls a flat cap out of his pocket and puts it on, pulling the brim low over his brow. When he sees Danicka at the bottom of the steps, a flicker of a smile crosses his face, like fire down a line of liquor.

He adjusts their course so that they'll pass her.

[Grace] "Carlotta is. Thunder's blood unproven. Lila's not. Unicorn. Fostern," she clarifies. She is specific, though, not saying he and Carlotta share a tribe but, rather, that they might share blood. Tribe being more than accident of birth.

Speaking of Thunder's blood, there is a shift in the wind, and Grace finds herself looking at Danicka.

Her hair is long and thick and blonde [silver] and curled at the ends. There is a green [grey] knit hat with a tiny decoative brim. There is electricity and ancestry and promise. Women like Danicka Musil don't exist where she is from, and she is looked upon with brows knit faint and drawn upward. Not a flower, because kin are not so delicate. Flowers wilt in these temperatures, and she is still standing.

There is promise, there, and bright green [vivid grey] eyes go from Danicka to Lukas- with his long a and his sh rather than American S- and she states the obvious.

"You know her," she says. You like her. She says without saying.

[Lukas] "Lila will be your mentor, then? Are you also of Unicorn's lineage?"

And, his eyes returning to Danicka, "She is my mate. Come on. I'll introduce you."

[Grace] "Stag," she says, "Lila is my warder, though."

She's somewhat proud of this. Her lineage, her warder, the entire fact that she could put the entirety of that statement together with the subtleties attended. She befriended Galliards, this one.

"Almost ready," she tells him, and nods. He's going to introduce her to his mate, and lips upturn, posture straightens and Grace, for now, seems eager for the experience.

[Danicka] He knows her. He likes her. More than that, really. Enough that he smiles, and starts to move towards her like the change takes no thought, no effort, no plan or consideration.

Rage assaults Danicka from behind and to the side, crawling up her back and underneath her sleeves and under her hair, licking at her like flames and icicles at once. Danicka, Dunhill held delicately to one side, turns her head as she exhales and looks over at the two of them. One familiar. One not. She doesn't smile as Lukas did when he saw her.

She stabs out her cigarette in the ashtray atop the trash can she's standing next to, waves her hand in front of her, and takes a few steps away. The cold leeches away some of the smoke, some of the smell, but it still lingers. Clings. Even if she only smoked a quarter of one so far.

Her smile, when it comes, is a faint curve to either corner of her mouth. "Lukáš," she says, and inclines her head to him, then turns to Grace with an unspoken question in her green eyes.

[Lukas] "Your mentor," Lukas corrects, gently enough. "You're a cub, not a child."

Then they're at the bottom of the stairs, and Danicka is turning to face them, stabbing out the cigarette that doubtlessly assaults Grace's wolfbred senses.

"This is Grace," he answers the unspoken question. "She's a cub from Wyoming. Grace, this is Dani&+269;ka, my mate. Also from New York. And," since he hasn't offered a formal introduction yet, "I'm called Wyrmbreaker. A Fostern Full Moon of Thunder."

[Grace] There are two things that people typically notice about Grace: her eyes are green. Bright green. Vivid emerald poison green. Two: she doesn't blink enough. Or, rather, it is not that she doesn't blink enough, but that when she does it is deliberate. It is slow and savored. Her attention does not waver. She doesn't so much look at someone as she does observe them. The look is a courtesy; she's not observing them simply with sight.

It's scent that lingers. It's concepts she tastes, like cigarette smoke and the various other things she's not used to.

"... your mentor can change?" a question enough, but one worth asking it seemed.

By then, they're into introductions. This is Dani&+269;ka-

"Dani&+269;ka," she repeats, looking at the female for confirmation. Like a ch and not a C, imitation at it finest. In the end, it's all words to her, that Dani&+269;ka in her mind is the concrete term for Thunder and smoke and shampoo and being the object of guarded adoration.

Fostern Full Moon of Thunder.

She looks at him, and this is when blinking is obvious. Brows raised, she blinked twice, perked up immediately. Surprised, to say the least.

"... and you are both from New York?" she shakes her head. Both from a city. "Did you meet there? Why are you both here?"

[Danicka] "Dani&+269;ka," she says right back to Grace, confirming: and gently easing her close to the correct pronunciation. A ch and a sh all at once. Then a pause: "But you can call me Danicka. Or Dani. Or Ms. Musil, if that's easier."

One eyebrow flicks up a bit when she seems appalled at the fact that they're both from a city. She glances at Lukas, then back to Grace, nodding. "We're both from New York. Our families knew each other briefly a very long time ago but we really met here in Chicago."

[Lukas] "Sometimes," Lukas answers the first question with some surprise. "Why? You're not satisfied with your present Fostering?"

He's quiet while Danicka answers about their history -- something she remembers better than he does. He's a year or two younger than the blonde woman the Nation acknowledges as his. When you're five, that year or two makes a difference.

"New York City isn't so bad," Lukas says then, laughing under his breath. "The Weaver's strong there, but ... you'd be surprised how much Wyld you'd find.

"I came here with my pack about a year ago. The Sept was small then, the Caern relatively unguarded. A lot of battles and bloodshed followed its raising, but after the Wyrm was beaten back a lot of the heroes of those early years left for other cities. We feared a resurgence. We also saw an opportunity." A touch of wryness, "We had visions and ideals. So we came."

Odd, but: this is something he's never actually told Danicka. Likewise, he doesn't know why she's here. They've never actually asked one another. It didn't seem to matter.

[Lukas] (wb! we've been assuming kate's with lukas. they're now at the bottom of the stairs outside the shedd, freezing their asses off.)

[Grace] "I am satisfied," she says, "I was satisfied with Guards Twilight as well."

She leaves it at that. Off to the topic of names.

"Dani&+269;ka," she says again, and waits a second after she hears Ms. Musil actually say it. She gets closer with each attempt. She pauses, then? "I want to call you by your name, not what is easy."

It's insistent, but that is what it is. Not rude, but determined. She was going to get Dani&+269;ka- the ch and the sh all at once.

"Dani&+269;ka," finally. That one little letter had given her such trouble, and now it is simply an immitation of what Ms. Musil said- a reproduction. A near-perfect immitation, only different in pitch and timbre. Unhampered by a clear set of linguistic rules, she has an easier time picking up the nuances of a different language. It's sounds to her, syllables to immitate and reproduce.

A pause.

"What do you prefer?"

One of the benefits of being around Galliards so much was that... well... Grace had a lot of words she had learned to pick up and immitate. Prefer being one, and resurgence-

"Resurgence?"

resurgence not being another.

"Were you right?" she asks the ahroun.

[Kate] (*grins* TY!)

[Danicka] There's a moment of long consideration on this, as she looks from Grace to Lukas and back again. It's as though she's looking for a guidepost, a sign of what to do. But finally she looks to the odd green-eyed woman and says: "I would rather you called me something else. Dani&+269;ka is sort of a nickname." So is Danicka, truth be told.

But Dani&+269;ka. When she says it's a nickname, when she says right out that she would prefer something else coming from Grace's lips, the tone of it is: And I don't know you.

It puts Lukas in an awkward position, in a way. He will likely not start mispronouncing the name she goes by. He will probably not start handing out her given name in introductions. Gaia only knows how he'll handle that. Danicka, asked her preference, actually gives it, and then looks to Lukas. She has not, and perhaps will not, answer Grace's question about why she came here.

Though this much is known: she did not come here with Lukas, already mated to him, if they met in Chicago.

"It's freezing. I was about to head to dinner." She nods her head towards the parking lot: a question.

[Kate] Katherine has been quiet for some time, perhaps on the phone, perhaps simply concentrating her thoughts elsewhere -- it is not the first occasion that the Half Moon's attention has become untethered and drifted away from the present moment, however she seems to return now, Truth's Meridian -- in thought, as well as footstep. Her boots crunch over the snow-packed ground and she returns to the group, now including Danicka, gathered before the stairs.

Katherine is closeting away her cell-phone.

She pauses as she catches sight of Lukas' mate, and her lips purse together in wordless reaction, her fair brows knitting as a huff of air leaves her nostrils. Still -- she approaches, her figure almost lost against the backdrop of white on white.

"Excuse my rudeness, I had some business to attend to. Good evening, Danicka." She offers, a touch stiffer than perhaps she had before, but conceding the greeting none the less for her Alpha's sake.

[Danicka] The woman over there has, til now, not garnered Danicka's attention. She was smoking, until Lukas and Grace walked over. She could not sense Katherine's rage or see her face for awhile, not until the Half Moon heads toward them. Her spine doesn't straighten automatically. Her lips don't press together, her forehead doesn't furrow in sudden frown. She does look over at the Philodox's approach, and nods to her.

"Dobrý ve&+269;er, Katherine," she echoes back.

[Lukas] "Right to come here?" Lukas's smile is a little quirky. "Yeah, I suppose it was."

Not: I suppose we were.

Danicka and Grace discuss her name, then. There's a glance exchanged between the Shadow Lords, brief, but noticeable. Enough that Grace -- quick, clever, and curiously able to see deeper into human interactions than humans can simply because she is not -- might be able to discern the reason for Danicka's hesitance to offer her name.

Her real name.

Then Kate's back with them, and Lukas is ... briefly, subtly tense. It passes. "I think dinner's a great idea," he says, including Grace and Kate in the comment before looking back at Danicka. "Where were you heading?"

[Grace] All of these interactions were new to her. Something exciting to be observed, and watched carefully with a discerning eye and heard with a careful ear; these were not wolves in front of her. They did not function in the way that wolves did. Nor were they rural people, and did not function the way the ranchers did. No, there was was something there, and her mouth closed, brows raised, the cub nodded at this.

You don't poke your elders with sticks, unless it's your job to poke them with sticks. Then, by all means, prod and question.

Grace was a no-moon.
Prod and question.

Back to Danicka.

"Ms. Musil?" she asks. Respectful, formal, indicative of a station and a degree of familiarity. She doesn't know her. They don't know each other. Dani&+269;ka is a nickname. [Truth be told, Grace is almost the same thing. She has no scent, she has nothing to really define her. Grace is a quality to aspire to, Grace is not a name. Grace was not given to her, it was earned and worked for. Grace was not a fingerprint, but prints and scents and deeds undone were nothing to human ear and mind. There was the need for something concrete. Grace was concrete.]

[Kate] Katherine turns on Grace with a smile; her teeth very white and straight. "Grace, I must offer my apologies for vanishing so soon after we met. I am without proper introduction to you and this I must rectify at once." She laughs, a little breathlessly for effect.

Katherine was something of a consummate actress when the occasion called for it. She could simper, swoon or snarl, no wonder Lukas put her to good use as his weapon in social settings. "I am Katherine Bellamonte, Truth's Meridian, Cliath Philodox of the Silver Fang tribe and member of the Unbroken. I am also the elder for my tribe in the city, as well as Philodox Elder and acting Mistress of the Challenge. I bid you welcome to Chicago, oui."

[Danicka] A great idea, Lukas calls dinner, immediately including Katherine... who was not there when Danicka mentioned it.

He looks back at her and she meets his eyes, her expression so serene as to be almost bovine, almost sleepy. She smiles softly and then turns to look at Grace, giving a small nod. "That will do."

She does not know that Grace is a cub, that while this does not make her a child and certainly does not put Danicka above her it does make her inexperienced in the world. Danicka was a governess. She was not like Nanny Helena, she was not like Professor Eldridge. She was, to the little girl who became a young woman under her instruction, always Ms. Musil.

The tension inherent in Danicka and Katherine's spare greetings is obvious but utterly fleeting on Kate's part, subtle and indistinct on Danicka's. Or it appears so. It's a complex thing, and difficult to say whether it's dislike or fear or jealousy or any number of things. It could be all of them. It is not addressed. Danicka answers Lukas then, finally:

"Why don't you decide?"

[Danicka] [Correction: She totally knows Grace is a cub.]

[Danicka] [Since Lukas. Y'know. Said that. Like ten seconds ago.]

[Lukas] The choice is left to him. Lukas doesn't hem or haw; doesn't bother polling the group. Whether because he is a fostern, or an alpha, or a Shadow Lord, or simply him, he decides immediately:

"Steak."

He comes down the last few steps, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Nine, I think." Nine steaks? "It's not far." N9ne, the steakhouse, then. He smiles, a quick flash, startling in its charisma. "Come on."

[Grace] Katherine is a flurry of words and concepts, which she sorts through while thinking about the finer details of it.

"Grace," she finally offers, "cub. Stag's blood, and no moon."

All the finer details of Grace all at once. As specific as she could be while still being accurate. There is talk of food, and she perks up. There is mention of steak, and while her stomach seems more-than-content to follow, Grace has to speak up.

"I should probably leave," she announces, but waits to be dismissed.

[Kate] Katherine smirks somewhat when Lukas decides on steak, just steak as the course of action. Of course he goes on to explain, but he is rather more addressing the Kinswoman than her, precisely, and she has no time for that -- or her, honestly. She instead focuses in on Grace, who appears to be uncertain if she's welcome to accompany them.

"You are most welcome to dine with us, Grace of the blood of Stag," Katherine prettily invites, her mouth condescending a smile.

[Danicka] She reaches into her pockets and pulls out a pair of well-fitting gloves, dark green leather. They're supple, sliding easily onto her hands and her long fingers. Danicka, told where they're going, simply heads down the stairs and towards the parking lot, remaining a few steps behind her mate.

[Lukas] Lukas, already heading in the direction of N9ne, turns on his heel. Rather than urging the cub to come along or not, he asks, "Where are you staying, Grace?"

[Grace] [OMG! Someone gimme help!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Grace] "The woods," she tells him, "it is nice... familiar. Comfortable."

Cold, too, but she left that part out.

Katherine gets a moment, she catches the smile but does not quite comprehend its tone. Katherine invites, and the Fianna replies, "the offer is appreciated, but I must respectfully decline, Ms. Bellamonte. Perhaps another time."

Words that came after focus, that came elegant, albeit somewhat quaint and a little off from the lupus' typical speech patterns.

[Lukas] "Well," Lukas replies, "if you find yourself missing the company of the Nation, many of us are bunked up at the Brotherhood. Look in the Umbra near the Caern; you'll find it soon enough."

[Kate] "The Woods?" The Silver Fang repeats incredulously, before restraining herself, and composing her features to hide her horror. She nods, and begins to move off after her Alpha.

[Grace] For a second, she felt a tinge of what could be considered kinship with Katherine Bellamonte, for they both had stood tonight in stark almost-horror at the prospect of where one of their company deigned to call home. Not more than a few moments ago, Grace had been staring at Wyrmbreaker with quiet horror as he told her that, yes, both he and Danicka lived in New York once, and then moved to Chicago.

She smiles, both for Kate and for Lukas, and even for Ms. Musil- all smoke and Thunder and guarded cautious something-

"Thank you," she says. Not a pleasantry, but a phrase with meaning. Given power because, to her, the phrase was not yet useless.

[Danicka] [manipulation: 'convincing' + subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Grace] [Oooh, wassat?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Danicka] [Bitch is hiding something under that near-perfect veneer of pleasant submission. And it's not fear of Grace or Kate or Lukas's rage. It's anger. At very least, Grace can tell none of it is aimed at her. Whether it's more directed at the Fang or the Lord, however, isn't currently discernible.]
to Grace

[Lukas] "See you, Grace," Lukas replies.

They part ways at the edge of Grant Park -- Grace heading back to the woods however a lupus in the city might choose to travel; Danicka, Kate and Lukas walking the few blocks to the steakhouse that looks like a club or a lounge bar.