virgo.

[Armstrong]
She went upstairs; she'd seen his room before. It was nice, it was something that could be packed quickly, could be relocated should the need be. He had no pictures. She could understand that. There was little need for them, no one needed to know who a person held dear. With a man like Lukas, you could tell by his actions who held his favor.

She didn't go in there often, or at all. With the exception to ask if he'd seen her pencil sharpener or if she could borrow a book, Armstrong stayed out of his space. She honestly had never noticed that he hd a coffee maker. These were the little things she learned over time.

Andrea had a place to sit, Mrena held her arms behind her back as though she were at ease. She didn't pace. She didn't look around the room, she didn't fidget. White Eyes stood still, and took a moment to put her words together.

"I would like to preface this," she stated, "by saying that I am not a galliard. Nor am I a philodox."

It would matter. She did not sing tales. She did not deal with hard truth, she dealt with something more complex; a theurge's truth was different than that of a philodox, but both were true. A theurge's truth was sometimes difficult to put into words or lyrics or poetry. Mrena chose her words carefully. She was no galliard, but she chose her words carefully.

"The current style of communication being chosen is dulling the points which need to be made. If the time, place, and delivery of a message is... abbrasive, then the spirit of the message is lost. We base our reactions on something less true to the meaning. And the symbolic communication between others is just as important as the words we do and do not speak."

She got through point one. Right, on to point two. Hopefully, a more concrete point two from the mezzo soprano.

"I do suggest, however, that altercations be handled privately, quickly, and directly, for the sake of all parties involved. As far as I'm concerned, the rest of the world does not need to know what disputes we are having, what they are about, and why we are having them. We have enough enemies, we don't need to publically pick each other apart and make it that much easier."

[Andrea Locke]
Andrea's demeanor has... shifted.
Like a chameleon, she alters her visage for the surroundings; for the event. Right now she isn't the warm, generous, polite hostess. That gown is shed.
One layer.
She is also no longer the kinwoman steeling herself against and Ahrouns gaze and an Ahrouns displeasure in order to make a point. A public and edged point. That slip is shed.
Another layer.

The change, however; does no leave her naked. She sits where Lukas indicates she should, calm, but showing visible signs of fatigue around the edges - after all, what she had said and how she had acted downstairs had taken, on her part, no little amount of force of will. Alertness and savvy still keeps her on her toes now, but the initial adrenaline rush has faded, leaving her with less to work with. It's a disadvantage, though she doesn't seem to be dwelling on it. She seems neither pleased or displeased. When Armstrong speaks and Lukas goes about making coffee, she gives the Theurge her undivided attention [we think].

When the young theurge is done making her admission and her two points, the kinwoman remains quite. There is a vague sort of ghost-smile on her lips; it goes along with the great mask. Otherwise, she is silent, turning her attention to Lukas, obviously seeing if he wishes to take up from there or if she is expected to say something herself. She has things to say, it seems.
But she doesn't seem to feel any rush or urgency about it.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Seems it's the ladies' turn, for now. Lukas remains at his task, filling the water chamber of the coffee machine, lowering the lid back down. He hits the button: hot water starts to burble through the machine.

It should be noted that this task puts him at Andrea's back. Whether or not this is intentional, the effect remains the same: discomfiting.

[Andrea Locke]
Discomfiting, isn't the half of it. In fact, Lukas current position is the one seem so far that does seem to cause her enough discomfort [and nerves] that she shows signs of the strain. A narrowing of her eyes, a shifting, stiffening of her shoulders; her legs crossing, uncrossing and crossing again. It is slow and measured enough to avoid being pinned as 'fidgeting' but it is clear enough that she does not like to have him at her back.
Barring that initial response, she adjusts well enough, though the stain of her hyper-alert posture won't dissipate until he moves away and back into her field of view once more.

When Lukas says nothing, Andrea finally speaks, addressing herself to Armstrong.

"Forgive me, Armstrong, but quite frankly I don't think the rest of the world cares a whit about some 'uppity' kin having it on with a Cliath and then being taken away to recieve her due punishment. Certainly not given the impression so many have of this Tribe. At most, they might be intrigued to discover that all Lord kin are not programed to mindless submission. And I highly doubt that from the witnesses." She speaks quietly, but it lacks any of the edge with which she spoke to Lukas downstairs. Her tone is quite conversational. A discussion. Which is how she will treat this [on the surface] until someone dictates otherwise.
"Also, I don't think you are quite looking at my actions downstairs for what they were. Which is, in large part, a performance. I'm no actress, but I know people and I know the Nation, in so much as any kin such as myself might learn from observation and the bits of schooling given here and there. Sooner or later it was going to get out that I was Shadow Lord kin -- do you honestly think that wouldn't make people think? Question? View this place with some suspicion and unease? I've seen it happen too many times to easily believe otherwise. And, see, my position here is useless if that happens. All I need is kin and Garou alike thinking I'm just another Lord kin on a tight Lord leash and there goes whatever neutrality I'm trying to offer here. The points behind my complaint was true enough, but the rather bald and ghastly way I approached the matter was done with all the intentions of a means serving an end."
She speaks slowly -- not insultingly so, as though she remotely thinks the two Garou can't follow her, but so as to try and fully express her [somewhat twisted and certainly manipulative] logic here. But her intonation and expression is still quite calmly neutral.
"While it may grate somewhat are either of your ego to have other Garou believing I am not 'good and under control' it will also, hopefully, go some way to assuring the non-Shadow Lords here that I'm not in anyone's pocket."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
There's something like a laugh from Lukas -- humorless, perhaps scoffing.

"And are you?" The aroma of coffee starts to rise into the room: not terrible, but not tremendously good, either. A drawer opens. Three mugs, mismatched, click onto the table. "Good and under control."

He circles around in front of her again. Sits on the bed, emptyhanded, while the coffee maker continues to steam and bubble behind her.

"And try to answer briefly this time, Ms. Locke."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(sorry, not Ms. Locke -- Andrea.)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(WHY DON'T ALL YOU PEEKING PEOPLE PLAY.)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(WITH EACH OTHER, IF YOU DON'T THINK YOUR CHAR WOULD COME KNOCK ON LUKAS' DOOR AT THE MOMENT.)

[cuddle lumpkins]
[MY CHARACTER TOTALLY WOULD. YOU WANT HIS ASSHOLERY INVOLVED HERE? I CAN TOTALLY SWING THAT.]

[Armstrong]
"There's a world full of people who look without seeing, hear without listening, and speak volumes without having ever said a word," she said. "They believe what is convenient."

She was completely unruffled. Armstrong either had a cast iron ego, or she was just as good at keeping composed and hearing things as the rest of the world. And? Well, it seemed that was what she had to say about the world's view on their kin. There was no statement of whether or not Andrea's statement was true, or believed, or not.

[cricket]
(I'M FINISHING MY SHEET. SILENCE MAN.)

[Andrea Locke]
She could say something insolent [shall I use small words, too?] but [thankfully] she doesn't.

She smiles, half a smirk that holds a certain amount of cynical realism [fatalism], and shifts her shoulders slightly, the bygone memory of Iberian and Gallic gestures of c'est la vie.
"I'm certainly no threat to either of you or your pack. I'm an observer, it's as simple as that. I'm already performing my small - minuscule, really - service to the Tribe and answer to a Garou of higher rank. Who is across many miles of land and sea... so one might say here and now that is for you and Armstrong to decide. You both serve in a pack under the head of a Silver Fang - not entirely a popular sentiment for much of this tribe at the moment."

[Sampson]
Outside the door to the room in which a murder of Shadowlords have gathered, A Kenyan sits on his heels, guarding the room from prying ears or intruders. Fallen snow has slowly begun melting on him. Apparently he'd gone straight from upstairs to stand outside Lukas' room.
The man is drumming. He's drumming with two bones, on the bottom of his shoes (Nikes!), on the flooring, and occasionally a smacking on his thighs.
Its not silent drumming.

[Sampson]
(from downstairs to upstairs, edit!)

[Armstrong]
"Don't downplay your duties, Andrea, you know as well as anyone else exactly how important kin are to the Nation in so many regards," it was conversational. And at the mention or their Alpha, she didn't even bat an eye. She didn't seem phased and she wasn't even defensive.

"If you're serving the tribe so far from your home, what small service are you providing? You're a woman of many talents, I somehow doubt you came to Chicago to open a business."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(hey, lemme get a word in here.)

[Armstrong]
(Oh! Shit! Sorry, I rescind aforementioned post!)

[Armstrong]
(my bad!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
There's a great din outside -- Sampson drumming. For the moment Lukas ignores it, though it sets his teeth on edge.

Andrea half-smirks. She speaks. Lukas watches her, not amused, but not scowling either. In fact, his mouth is also curved. It is not a smile; not quite a sneer, either. So: it must also be a smirk.

It's a strange expression on him, so scornful. He who is always so serious, careful, open, honest. And that's the truth: Lukas is honest. Not gullible, not blindly trusting -- but when the ram is to the wall, honest.

But we digress. The point is: he looks at her as if he can see right through her layers and masks. He looks at her cynically, sardonically, and it is impossible to forget that for all his iron control, he is a creature of rage and fury. He has a body corded in raw muscle; he has enough strength to move her heavy restaurant tables around like toys; more than enough strength to -- to put it bluntly -- tear her fucking head off.

Not that Lukas would physically threaten a woman. That would simply be impolite.

Don't downplay your duties-- Armstrong begins, and then Lukas cuts in. Softly.

"It's interesting to me," he says, "to watch you spin your threats and your excuses into these tactful little speeches that come rolling out of your mouth. As if by sugarcoating them, you could make them disappear long enough that I'd swallow them whole.

"Listen to me, Kinwoman.

"Your neutrality is your own to maintain. Do with it what you will or can. And your business is yours to keep. I will tolerate the surreptitious disrespect of your employees. The stale food. The half-dried sheets. The damp towels. I will tolerate it because they are not my kin, they are unhappy, and they need some harmless means to express it.

"I will tolerate you coming to me in private to raise any grievances you may have against me, or my pack. I will tolerate this, and I will even try to set things right, within reason. I will do this because I respect my kin.

"What I will not tolerate is your disrespect. Your attempting to belittle me. In public. Before my pack, and before strangers. You will not speak to me as though you have precedence over me. I don't care what reason you might dream up for doing so -- making a point, setting a precedence, hiding your true fucking colors -- I do not give a damn. You will not do this again, or I will be very unhappy.

"You are Shadow Lord kin. You should know better than to disrespect your own kinsman. And that mighty uncle of yours, who you seem so ready to bring up like a shield, will tell you that himself."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(apologies for how long that took!)

[Sampson]
Rubber souled shoes, cloth covred thighs and carpet arent the most resonant of surfaces. He COULD make more noise! But he does not. The rhythm is that of a certain rite, someplace between a Nandi song and something more universally recognizable as Generic Minor Ritualistic drumming. And the bones are new! THICK bones, as if taken from a VERY fat man.
The rhythm stops abruptly, as he stares at the left ulna and ponders, then starts to scrape at the end of it, as if he could reshape it with a human nail.
Which.. grows longer. Until it is no longer human.

[Andrea Locke]
For the first time in all this, Andrea looks quite close to an honest breaking point. Which is to say she looks at Lukas with open incredulity. Where this matter freshly started and she in full possession of all her considerable self control, she might swallow it down. But such is not the case. She is fatigued by this... game. Because they all play it, in some way, shape or form. Some more directly and some less. She is incredulous, fatigued... and downright disappointing and for once it shows, openly and honestly.

"God spare me the pride and single minded idiocy of Ahrouns." She throws her hands up in the air, half plea to heaven. "I'm not threatening or trying to threaten anyone, Lukas. And I don't use my uncle as a shield -- the man is thousands of miles from here. If he were so protective of me do you think I'd be here? None of this is about you. It certainly isn't about me. Dispense with me and someone will just take my place -- granted, perhaps more to your liking, so maybe you should take that path. That 'mighty uncle' of mine would tell you to get your head out of your ass and stop seeing me and my ways as some kind of threat to your damned ego."

With a noise of plain disdainful disgust - a scornful tcha! - she rises from her chair, shaking her head. "Enough. Unless your plans include keeping me here by force or harm, I've had quite enough of this."

And she heads to the door, unless stopped.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
God spare me the--

"Shut up."

And at this point, she'll either shut up, or she won't. Lukas waits to see which.

[Andrea Locke]
Shut up.

With a noise of plain disdainful disgust - a scornful tcha! - she rises from her chair, shaking her head. "Enough. Unless your plans include keeping me here by force or harm, I've had quite enough of this."

And she heads to the door, unless stopped.

[Sampson]
Sampson moves away from the door; His shaving of the bone is gonna make a mess. A bowl of fruit, all perfectly arranged in an attractive and color-balanced way is JUST the thing. As quickly as it is compeltely Disarranged into a loose stilllife on the table, he has a container for his bone bits.
SKKKKKKKRRRIIITCH. SKKKRRRRRIIITTCH. Like nails on a chalkboard. A lot like that.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"Sit."

A beat.

"You don't want me to resort to force or harm, Andrea."

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Sampson is guarding the door to Lukas' bedroom, thumping a set of bones together. Katherine Bellamonte floats around a corner and sets her hip against the wall; arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes are on the Ragabash invoking Gaia-awful noises with his bone-carving, but her true attention is utterly pin-pointed on the conversation taking place behind closed doors.

"Sampson. I hope you have a Dustbuster for that."

Across the totemlink however, the Silver Fang's voice is full of quiet humor. Are you training a dog in there, Lukas? Shut up. Sit?

[Armstrong]
(Make you an offer you can't refuse, Persuasion! Yay!)

[Andrea Locke]
Right now looking Lukas in the eye for any prolonged amount of time would probably take more of her than she knows she can spare -- but she does manage a brief look that plainly tells him that physical harm and death are frankly low on her list of fears.

But all the same she sits back down, her posture ramrod straight and sending off waves of glacial frost.

[Andrea Locke]
ooc: Ack! Sorry, Mindy, I didn't see your roll! (hangs head)

[Armstrong]
(It's okay!)

[Armstrong]
(she failed it!)

[Armstrong]
"It is within your best interests to sit, and actually listen, Ms. Locke."

That was the problem with veiled threats and theurges. She looked at her, and she was still completely calm and completely composed, but she had no more persuasive edge than any other garou. The only thing she had going for her was that Armstrong seemed absolutely fearless.

"I'm dissapointed," she said with a sigh. "You seemed very capable and yet you seem rely so heavily on the deeds and honors raised by another. It's a point of contempt, but... very... familiar. The legacy you are leaving is a shame I'm not sure I can abide by."

[Kemp Oates]
He wasn't too comfortable coming in the Brotherhood. Sure it was warm. Sure it smelled mostly ok. But it had too damned many in one place and the only time he dealt with so many in one place was during moots and battles. So many together was a constant churning beneath his flesh. So it was with a scowl that he entered for a few moments to warm up. If he was this uneasy just coming in, imagine the feeling if he had been insane enough to beg a room, which he'd rather shit razorblades than do. Fortunately none here had to worry about that ever happening.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Lukas watches, perfectly still, eyes ferocious, until she takes her seat again. And while Armstrong speaks up, dispassionate, disappointed. And after, while the silence rolls out.

Finally: "Did you hear a word I said, Andrea? Or should I repeat myself?"

[Andrea Locke]
To Armstrong she looks, arching an eyebrow, though she doesn't say anything. Well, gee, lady, you should know.

Lukas speaks up and Andrea tilts up her chin to half regard him, unconcerned.
"Yes, I heard. I don't agree. Keep out of my way, respect my employees and I will steer clear of the both of you."
Her tone is flat -- with all the air of washing her hands of them and this 'conversation'.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
The coffee has finished brewing by now. The pot is quiet -- the aroma fills the room, incongruously homey.

"And what, exactly, don't you agree with? Respecting me as you demand I respect you?"

[Sampson]
Upstairs, it smells pretty damned good. Like... the candles his women like, waiting in a box for them to come to chicago. LIke the smell of their favorite brand of socks and fresh trainers. Alright, those aren't here yet either, but Sampson can REMEMBER the smell. and waht comes after a heavy run! Showaaaah!
He sighs, and stands from his position all hunched over the bowl. Not an artist. Hmm.
"ok. I will have a! Bottom ugly drumstick for one stick! Can't be worse than the fat man himself! HAH!"
Yes, he is thinking he's talking to himself.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Also: needless to say, Lukas is dead silent on the totemphone. His attention is occupied elsewhere.

[Hatchet]
[Note: Exactly one sentence of this post (the last sentence, to be exact) is even remotely relevant. I drank some coffee and started typing LIKE A CRAZY PERSON. My feelings won't be hurted if you just read the last sentence. *big thumbs up*]

When Lukas and Armstrong escorted Andrea upstairs, that left Hatchet and Dying Light in front of the downstairs fireplace. One scarfed down a plateful of day-old, re-heated chorizo and polished off a glass of milk, the other asked questons, and then -- after a lengthy speech by a somewhat melancholy Fianna -- they sang. In Spanish. It was quite lovely, given the fact that the two voices were coming from a throat cold (Hatchet's) and a throat dry (Dylan's).

But after that, after a little while of quiet company, Hatchet's mood had shifted. The Fianna are occasionally accused of being moody, and worse: Hatchet's moon is in the sky. Not only half, but waning, making him just a bit darker and more given to more extreme shifts of attitude, like someone trying to focus on both the black and the silver halves of the moon at the same time.

His eyes brightened, and his mood shifted, and he stirred the fire in the hearth a bit to make it more willing to die down slowly and safely. That done, he went to the kitchen with the dishes he had used but not asked for. He goes to the kitchen with a certain light in his eyes and curve at the corners of his mouth, and he goes about washing dishes and then searching through the refrigerator and pantry.

There is a problem here. That problem is: Hatchet cannot cook.

He can open a tin of pork and beans and stick it in a fire til it heats up real nice, if he has to. He can accept charity without pride or self-loathing. He can certainly eat, but when faced with some eggs and a skillet, he's somewhat at a loss. So after he remembers that he can't fucking cook, he stands there in the kitchen and re-thinks his strategy. The new strategy he comes up with involves not fucking cooking. It involves finding something easy.

When he does, he throws a light cloth over the plate to ensure that nothing rolls off in transit. He thinks briefly about not doing the second, but then shrugs and reaches into the refrigerator for a couple of bottles of beer. He looks at them and lifts his eyebrows. Fat Tire. Huh. Closing the door with his booted foot, he carries the longnecks between his fingers and starts to head up the stairs to the second floor.

[Kemp Oates]
He stood within for a bit, letting warmth soak in before he left as quietly as he entered. Shaking off the closed feel of the place as soon as he was out. What he really needed was to head for the Bawn, shed these two legs for four for a good run. Now and then it helped center him, running on all fours with little on his mind other than brother wolf's pleasure.

[Andrea Locke]
She stifles the urge to sigh, but answers plainly enough, looking half-towards him that dissapointment flickering over her features again before she responds, more quietly than at any point tonight, plainly tired.

"I disagree with your idea of respect given and received. I disagree with you and your tribemates assumption that anything I said was intended as a threat. I am outspoken - I am not deranged. I'm sorry." The apology is actually sincere, though not spoken with any great inflection. "I am used to dealing with... less direct... members of our Tribes. Things are different here and I should have spoken plainly." She pauses briefly waiting to see if she will be told to shut up again... if not. "Neither of you may see me as much - I dare say, I've never been compared to a Silver Fang before, that is new," Looking briefly to Mrena as though to see if she correctly deciphered the Theurges quip earlier. "But I know my duty and I am good at what I do. And not so good at some of the things other kinfolk do. Is that clear enough?"
The last holds no insolence of jeering -- she makes the efforts, though by this point she doubts it will change much and that begrudging acceptance is also clear.

[Sampson]
Sampson passes Hacket on the stairs, Kemp down farther, and a whole lotta other garou in the caern, a brief span of time later...
(GOD gg to bed. Night!)

[Andrea Locke]
ooc: Dear god I just submitted a half-complete PC sheet on accident for the second time tonight! If I stop responding it's because Mei used her super-powers and killed me.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
It is, perhaps, the lack of a retort to her query in conjunction with Sampson's sudden departure [leaving behind a strewn mess of shaven bone shards in his wake] that spurs the blond Philodox into action. It would be polite behavior to at least feign to rest her knuckles against his door before entering but it was only Lukas, after all.

What could he be plotting, after all, that required such privacy?

The Shadow Lord's door was nudged open and the shadow of his pack-mate fell across the floor. Blue eyes surveyed the occupants, inhaled the freshly brewed coffee and fell - lastly - upon the kinswoman, stiffly sitting in the midst of everything.

"Why Ms Locke, what a pleasure."

[Armstrong]
"What are your duties then? You downplayed them earlier, now it's become clear that this is a point of concern."

Her tone was conversational again. She was not shaken, she was not offended. Mrena simply had no need to be. It was weakness, and at that moment White Eyes was looking at the kinfolk in a completely different light. It was hard to tell what light that was though. She made up her mind before she walked in the door, ruffling feathers is her way of asserting her supposed dominance.

She went to go get a cup of coffee.

"Katherine!" Surprise, and then a continuation. "Having a decent evening?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Perhaps it's the apology. Perhaps it's just the fact that at last, Lukas realizes they're not even on the same fucking wavelength. But his anger seems abated; he watches her with a sort of curiosity, impersonal and distant.

She's used to dealing with less direct members of the Tribe, she says. "Andrea," he says, patiently -- and truer words were never spoken, if her present physical intactness is any indication, "I am not like other Lords.

"But I think you missed the point. Which is: if you have a grievance -- any grievance, against myself, my pack, or anyone -- I ask that you bring it to me. In private. That is the respect I ask. And in return, I'll give you the respect of considering your complaint and doing what I can to rectify it.

"The point is also this: if you take your personal grievances against me and air it for all and sundry again as you did tonight -- if you attempt to talk down to me again, or blatantly disrespect me in any way -- I will not forgive you twice.

"Have we understood each other?"

[Andrea Locke]
"Likewise, Ms. Bellamonte." The pleasentry is laced with the kinwomans growing fatigue, but it comes out polite all the same, along with her nod to the Silver Fang.

Armstrong speaks before Lukas, so, Andrea looks to Armstrong.... looks to Lukas, then to Katherine, then responds in somber quietness. "Perhaps we can discuss that at another time, Ms. Armstrong."

And as for Lukas... when he says he is not like other Lords she merely blinks at him, a natural movement, unphased and showing neither relief or displeasure at his supposed 'difference'. He threatens -- a promise, really, she has no doubt -- and she merely nods neither committing to a lifetime of compliance or not. In the end all she really has to say is,
"I understand you."

The 'we' is missing, but she is sure he'll be satisfied in that she has fully received each word of his statement and taken them for simple truth.

"It's quite late. I hope you all have a pleasant evening." And, once more, she gets up to leave.

[Hatchet]
Not hurrying up the stairs, nor around the corner, Hatchet passes by Sampson, moving out of the rapid-moving Strider's way. He's learned that's a good idea: just get out of the Strider's way. Even if they don't know where they're going, most of them seem pretty determined about getting there.

His feet move slowly enough that they don't make a whole lot of noise on the steps, but they are not silent. They are sturdy boots and he is a solidly built man, and this is not a brand-new building. There are creaks as the building settles at night, groans, and the stairs complain quietly about being used. Hatchet pauses at the landing at the top of the stairs before entering the common room.

Ain't nobody there. His eyebrows lift, he glances around, and then takes a few more steps in, listening. Exact words can't be made out, but he hears a female voice he is not very familiar with, and then Lukas's. Then Andrea's. Hatchet walks over towards the couches...at least for now.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Ms Bellamonte lounges in the doorway and adjusts her weight with a carefully timed stretch so that while she has every appearance of casual ease she is in fact prohibiting anyone from entering or exiting the Shadow Lord's bedroom without her stepping aside. Katherine is dressed in a pair of gray linen slacks and a long-sleeved dress shirt, the sleeves and collar of which are unbuttoned, giving the woman an air of casual elegance.

Mrena says her name, and Katherine's eyes turn toward her packmate with some semblance of good natured amusement. "Mrena! You as well, well, isn't this the closeted party."

Andrea rises to leave, and Katherine's eyes follow her without shifting a muscle, she looks past her at Lukas, and waits for some recognition, or word.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
She rises -- so does he.

There's always an inherent threat when an Ahroun gets suddenly to his feet. A split-instant of uncertainty, primal uneasiness. A flicker of ohshitwhatishe--

But it passes. He's only standing because the lady is standing. There's a quirk about Lukas: he is polite, tries hard to be, but sometimes it only lasts until it fails to produce results -- fades into brutality -- returns, when the dust has settled. His politeness is not the same as his honor. One is ironclad. The other is merely convenience.

"Good night, Andrea." This time, he lets her out of the room. He watches her as far as the door, which is, thanks to Katherine, now open. When she's out of sight his eyes flicker to Katherine. His brow darkens as he regards her; then he turns away, going to his coffee pot. He pours out three mugs of coffee. Since Andrea has left, he offers one to Armstrong, one to Katherine.

The third he keeps himself, flicking off the coffee machine. "Didn't anyone teach you to knock, Katherine?" -- mildly.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
--which, apparently, she receives in the man's farewell greeting to the kinswoman.

Katherine watches Andrea approach with a faint smile; her height becoming apparent as she straightens and, with a small show of enviable grace, slips out of the archway into the room. "Sleep well, Ms Locke." Katherine's pleasant, light tone commands before it turns to regard, in turn, her packmates. First Mrena and then Lukas -- handing her a cup of coffee.

Didn't anyone teach you to knock, Katherine?

Laughter like bells, and the Philodox shakes her head. "I was only showing concern for my Beta. Since when is that a crime?"

[Armstrong]
"I look forward to it," she said with a smile. The corners of her mouth upturned, she had incredibly white teeth.

Then, Andrea was out and Katherine was in. She took the cup from Lukas with a small nod and a quiet, but audible thank you. She traced her finger across the top of the mug, looking at it quietly before inhaling the smell. It was a cull experience. Lukas stood because the lady stood; he brought coffee.

"It was an experience, that's all I can really say at the moment."

[Hatchet]
The dorm door that Lukas disappears behind most nights or emerges from at other times is open, and so Hatchet tries to stay out of the way of its opening. Whether he does this the better to eavesdrop or not is debatable, but otherwise he is not hiding his presence. He is standing still near the stairs, hearing Katherine and Armstrong and Andrea and...

He just stands there behind a couch, beers and plate in his hands, gnawing on the inside of his lower lip thoughtfully.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Lukas eyes Katherine cynically over the rim of his coffee mug, which he lifts for a swallow. Black. They were getting it black too, unless they wanted to go downstairs for some cream and sugar.

Lowering it, "And everyone knows one little kinswoman is such a threat to your Ahroun Beta's personal safety." Dry, dry, dry as a desert. Armstrong calls it an experience; Lukas makes some vague sound like laughter, ironic. "Yeah," he says, shortly. There's more he could say -- but the door is open, and he doesn't bloody well feel like thinking commentary at them.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
A sip of bitter coffee, a cynical expression from Lukas.

She wasn't sure which was trying her patience more -- the coffee or the coffee-brewer. "Well, with all due respect Lukas, the way you were addressing her," here the Philodox's voice adopts a theatrically deep timbre. "Shut up. Sit down, it sounded serious enough. For all I knew, she was coming at you with a kitchen knife."

Her eyes dance behind her cup as she lifts it to sip from.

Katherine was enjoying herself, it seemed.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Lukas makes a face as Katherine imitates him, annoyed. He leans back against the desk, the top of which is bare. The whole of the room is in fact quite spartan and spare, with no personal touches to be seen anywhere.

"Sit down," he says, and shows his teeth in a humorless grin, "and shut up. Or get out of my fucking room."

Language, language.

[Armstrong]
She took a drink; there was a definite bite to the coffee. There was no reason to do much with it other than keep it the way it was. Putting cream in coffee was just a way to make a pot last longer.

"Spirits make more sense," she said into the coffee. It was almost like she was talking to the coffee instead of those around her. She looked at Katherine for a moment.

"Courtesies are for those who show them in kind, if that says anything at all of her demeanor. You don't loan a person your purse if they aren't going to give it back."

[Hatchet]
It takes a minute or two for Hatchet, standing there with the beers sweating and whatever-it-is under the cloth waiting for its grand unveiling, to decide that despite the presence of Katherine Bellamonte, his original course of action must be the path he remains on. Not that he could not eat what's on the plate or drink both beers himself, but that's really not the point. Not for him, anyway.

So he waits a minute, then two, and walks over to the Shadow Lord's door where he sits with his Alpha's sister and the pack's Theurge. And since both of his hands are being used at the moment, Hatchet knocks on the doorframe with his boot, cocking his head as he stands on the other side of threshhold.

[Andrea Locke]
ooc: Okay, all, I'm off to bed. See ya'll in a week or so! (waves)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
"Mâle grossier,

[Katherine Bellamonte]
(ack!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(everyone, plz point at jacqui and join me in lawling.)

[Armstrong]
(I need to stretch first, it's rather physically strenuous to do without proper preparation)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
(JOVE ATE MY POST. ;_; HDY MOCK ME IN MY MOMENT OF DESPAIR)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
"Mâle grossier," she chides in french, her voice adopting a European purr to shape each word from her throat. She glances at Mrena and offers in response to her words the lifting of one shapely eyebrow upward as if to say Oh, that is how it is with regards to Andrea Locke.

Lukas's spartan bedroom gets the benefit of the Silver Fang's critical gaze before she waves a hand in his bed's direction. "Unless you mean for me to sit on your bed, the answer to all your demands is a resounding no."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"Píča," Lukas replies, wholly offhand. It seems they've now degenerated to childlike namecalling. She turns down a seat on his bed -- which is, by the way, perfectly made and quite neat except for a rumple in the covers where Lukas had sat earlier -- and he kicks his desk chair at her, none too gently.

Hatchet knocks. The door's open anyway. If it hadn't been, Lukas may not have let him in. Or Katherine either, for that matter. He might've stepped out to speak to them.

But the door is open. And Lukas says, "Come in, Hatchet-rhya. You want coffee?" There's only one cup left in the four-cup brewer, and in all honesty, "It might not be very good."

[Armstrong]
There was a knock at the door, with which she had to respond. "Lukas, you are popular tonight."

She nodded a little, then looked at Katherine again, and then at the door for good measure. She took another drink and waited; this wasn't her room to let people into. Mrena blew across the top of the coffee, watching little ripples travel across it. It made her smile, but not for too long. Hatchet came on in, which actually did warrant a smile and a little bit of a nod for a greeting.

"... do I really want to know what you two are saying?"

[Hatchet]
Mâle grossier, Katherine purrs, as Hatchet is coming to lean on the doorjamb. He smirks for some reason. "That's me," he agrees, almost cheerfully, though there is a glint in his eyes when he looks at Katherine that is not mistakable -- unless one is truly dense -- for pleasure at the sight of her.

He looks then, smoothly turning his head, to Lukas, and shakes his head. "No, thanks." He indicates the plate and beers with a slight lift. "I thought maybe one bite of chorizo before Andrea tried to go at you like a pissed-off terrier might not do it. So. Room service."

Seeing a smile from Armstrong he glances at her, and smiles a little, before looking back at the Ahroun.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"I think she called me a stupid man, a neanderthal, something of the sort. I called her a cunt." Lukas, who had been in a good mood earlier, is now decidedly not in a good mood. He swallows the last of his coffee, sets the mug aside, and reaches out to take the proffered plate-and-beer. One beer. "I believe in escalation," he adds. And, "Thanks, Rhya."

He pulls the cloth off the plate, perhaps just a little worried about what might be underneath.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(i'll have you all know, that's the first time i've written the c-word ICly. *twitch*)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
(I feel so honored right now.)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Contrary to what most would expect of a woman who had just been called a not-strictly-medical term for the female reproductive organ, Katherine seems remarkably contained about it. She merely gleams at Lukas as if his reacting to her french slur was in fact a mark on his childishness and not her own.

Hatchet arrives and confirms himself as a rude male.

Now Katherine looks slightly less pleased with all things and turns so that her back is toward neither man but offering both opposing sides of her profile. "Actually," she corrects, tweaking a finger out as she sips from her coffee. "I called you a rude male. Not that you don't fit the other descriptors just as neatly."

[Armstrong]
"Alas, I feel somehow left out of all of this," she said. It was with a quiet sigh and a sip of coffee. "All I have to chose from in an arsenal of insults is English. And then there's no mystique."

She feigned quiet sadness at her aparent lack of linguistic prowess. Mrena rolled her shoulders back, looking between those in the room with a quiet glance, then off at the door frame. She wasn't quite home at that moment.

[[Residents, brb. Only eight of them in this building and they want to talk to me. Oi!]]

[Hatchet]
The room they are all in now -- all in only when Hatchet decides to accept Lukas's Come in and takes a step or two through the door -- is spare, is spartan. It's lived in, but tidy. The bed is made, the coat is carefully set aside, and there are no pictures set out or forlorn instruments or anything of that sort hanging about. What does linger, what has been in the room for days now and is there in the coat and in the blanket that does not need to be washed as often as the sheets, is the smell.

Which is really all the 'personal effect' that matters.

Hatchet hands off the plate to Lukas and keeps a hold of one beer while the other is taken from his grasp. As the Ahroun takes the cloth off, Hatchet uses his fist and the edge of the desk to open his own beer. "You're welcome, Lukas," he says in a mimic of the other man's own tone, in place of an honorific that does not exist from a higher-ranked Garou to a subordinate.

He has nothing to say about the slurs passing between packmates, and pays it no mind. And he could be a rival. He is an outsider. Yet it does not seem to matter.

Underneath the cloth there is a hunk of bread. It has a soft interior and a chewy crust. There is also a hunk of cheese. It is pale and fragrant and of the 'hard' variety, but not so dry that it crumbles. There is also an apple, and laying amidst the center there is a knife. It's very simple, and it's not chorizo, but it's a decent amount of food.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Seeing the bread beneath the cloth, a slight smile flickers over Lukas' face, then subsumes. He hoists himself up onto the desk. There are only so many seats in the room -- the bed accounts for two; the chair one; the desk makes up the fourth. Breaking the hunk of bread in half, he includes a sizable hunk of cheese, wraps this in the cloth and passes it back to Hatchet.

The rest of the simple fare -- half a chunk of bread, half a chunk of cheese, one beer -- he splits with his pack. Which is to say, he tears the remaining bread into roughly equal parts and parcels them out, then takes a gulp of beer and passes it on to whomever is closer, Armstrong or Katherine. The apple is set aside for later. Whatever their bickering, and whatever his personal feelings toward the latter, it does not interfere in these most basic, most ancient customs of hospitality and kinship.

"Don't worry," he says to Armstrong; the edge in his tone blunted now. "You could just call her an inbred degenerate. I think all Fangs take offense at that. But then you'd be giving her the right to call you a skulking backstabber, or something worse." He tears into his bread and cheese, all teeth.

[Armstrong]
to Hatchet, Katherine Bellamonte, Lukas Wyrmbreaker
(back!)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Katherine takes a piece of bread, minus the cheese and politely turns down the beer for the sake of her mostly-drunk coffee. She still, however, does not deign to sit down on Lukas' neatly made bed. She stands, quite at her ease with coffee in one hand and bread in the other, carefully held between her slender fingertips.

Katherine makes a hmpfhing noise at Lukas' suggestion.

"How very nice to see you falling back on tribal stereotypes, Lukas."

[Armstrong]
There was something to be said about the Fianna and hospitality, and there was something to be said about the constraints that came with hosting this impromptu party. Lukas still had an edge, that she could understand. Hell, Mrena had been there for the exchange. He was a more patient creature than the ones she formerly associated with. Then again, her current company was much different than that she had been so familiar with.

That, however, was not the point.

She accepted the beer, tipping it up a little in a small toast. "Thanks," she said, then took a drink and passed it to Lukas. Mrena seemed rather practiced in the art of sharing a beer. After all, technically she still couldn't buy them. She shrugged, one shoulder effort.

"Alright now," said. Like she had some lovely realization at that moment. She crossed her legs and sighed. "Anyone know how close it is until dawn?"

[Hatchet]
The veil is lifted, and Hatchet's offering is revealed. He did not flat-out say that it was repayment for eating Lukas's dinner, or if this has anything to do with interfering downstairs, even if at the time he did not know that Andrea was a Shadow Lord. He is looking at the other mâle grossier's face as he uncovers the plate, and there's a surge of something unbidden across his features, there and then again quickly gone, quickly pulled back.

So there it is. It's one thing to eat someone's meal because they're off dealing with a member of the Breeding Brigade, and it's one thing to pass over a hunk of lamb to be torn at with teeth, but these both lack the symbolism and ritual of literally breaking bread together. Sharing the meal, sharing the plate. Apparently from the presence of only two beers and the fact that he kept one for himself, Hatchet's intentions did not originally include Armstrong or -- god forbid -- the Bellamonte.

Oh, well. He doesn't offer to go downstairs and get more, and she rejects it anyway, which counts for something.

Hatchet is standing by the desk when he flicks his bottle cap into the trash can pressed up against the wall, standing there still as Lukas goes from chair to desk. He lifts his eyebrows as food is handed over, giving Lukas a Look that is rather easily interpreted as mild, yet not ungrateful, surprise. Hatchet takes the cheese and the bread, smiling as his eyebrows lower, and then he walks over to sit on the bed.

More than that, even: Hatchet keeps his damn boots off the mattress, but he leans back so he is at least mostly lying on the bed, making himself quite at home. He places the cloth on top of the covers, puts the cheese and bread on top of it -- the better to not get crumbs on the bed, see. Besides, he is far more interested in his beer at the moment, and takes a swig as Lukas is passing his own around.

...an inbred degenerate. Hatchet presses his lips together to restrain a laugh, looking over at Katherine with those gray eyes of his full of mirth suddenly. He is damn near quivering with glee, cannot restrain a grin, and it can't possibly be all because they are playing his favorite game: Fuck With The Bellamontes. Surely not.

He does not answer Armstrong, though. Not for lack of knowing about how far off dawn is. Just because he's currently drinking beer, laying back, and leaving it to her packmates to tell her.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"I have to," Lukas says blandly. "Your devastating wit leaves me no other recourse."

He's bored with the bickering now. Lukas has a mind that thinks in grand proportions, for better or worse. He hates wasting time with idle arguments; he hates that Katherine inevitably draws him into them. He hates, also, spending an entire night trying to drill one thing into an uncooperative kinswoman.

But that is neither here nor there. When the bottle comes around again -- just him and Armstrong, it seems -- he takes a swig. Passes it on. Eats.

"I don't know," to Armstrong. "A couple hours, maybe three. Why? Something to do at dawn?"

[Katherine Bellamonte]
to Armstrong, Hatchet, Lukas Wyrmbreaker
(post around me, peoples! My dinner is here. BRB.)

[Armstrong]
"I want to be up with the dew," she said. "Among other things, I need to get some gourds and find some new pigments. It should prove to be a fruitful endeavor."

She took the bottle of beer, holding it by the top and then taking the opportunity to break the bread and cheese off, making a nice little bread-and-cheese sandwich. She took a bite, making sure to wipe her mouth before taking a drink.

"I have intention of talking to a few people while I'm out. If you'd like, you can come."

May as well extend the offer to her packmates. She hadn't said exactly who or what she intended on talking to.

[Hatchet]
Gourds. Pigments. From the bed he is currently occupying, Hatchet quirks an eyebrow, but it's not a terribly confused or startled once: she's a Theurge. From his experience, Shadow Lord Theurges, more than any other member of the Tribe, are the ones you watch out for. Even more, yes, than their stormy Ahrouns, their talented Ragabashes, or their frighteningly level-gazed Philodoxes.

His eyebrow lowers as he lifts the bread and breaks it, tearing off a bite rather than attacking it with his teeth or shoving the whole hunk into his maw. Hatchet twists his torso slightly, the bedsprings whining about it, the better to pick up or set down food without inadvertently getting it all over the place, and slowly comes back around.

When he was offered back the food he brought, it is entirely possible that he should have just politely declined and gone back to his own room rather than stick around with a pack that is not his own. But that has been noted, more than once, by now. His own pack does not seem to nest or gel, does not seem to come together companionably. On the other hand, maybe they are just taking a break from one another after being stuck in the same small spaces for months at a time.

Still doesn't explain why he didn't just say No thanks, it's for you and get the fuck out.

"People?" he asks, curiously.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
"I might take you up on that offer, Mrena." Katherine, having been silent for a short time intercedes with, a small smile curving her lips at each corner. "It would be good to speak to a few of the locals, and there are some promising houses on the other side of town I want to check out. Perhaps you can tell me your sense of them."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"I think I'll pass," Lukas says. "Call me if you need me." And on that note he wolfs down the rest of his bread and, picking up the apple and the knife, begins to divvy that up as well.

Half to the Fostern. The other half split amongst the pack -- though if Katherine turns her share down again, he'll eat it himself.

(getting sleepy here -- don't wait on me to post! i may sink into quietness :P)

[Armstrong]
"I will," she said.

Then, Hatchet asked a question and she went ahead and answered. She had to, namely because she could not openly leave the question unattended. She tucked her hair back behind one of her ears, speaking again. She had a clear voice, that was of a slightly higher pitch than others. Then again, she was small.

"I need to get a feeling for the city itself, it's something I would recommend if you intend on having a prolonged stay. For sake of personal inventory," she said. Then, it was off to look at Katherine. She seemed rather pleased with this; they could run their errands all at once. Well, some of them.

"Lovely, I'll see you in a few hours then," and with that, she took a bite of apple.

[Hatchet]
This time, when a few slices of apple come his way, Hatchet looks at Lukas's hand and then at Lukas and just shakes his head. It is not a quick, dismissive gesture, like one would give to shake off a fly. It is a very clear communication, and while it is impossible for the two of them to behave like equals with any honestry or truth to the matter, there is respect in even that small thing which does not bleed over into Hatchet's words, eye contact, or treatment in general towards the rest of the Unbroken Circle.

Armstrong answers. Sort of. Hatchet doesn't request clarification, or comment on whether or not he plans to stay here for awhile. The mention to Balance Without Fault of leaving at the vernal equinox was a conversation only Balance Without Fault and Soledad were really privy to, and his reputation is not quite so large that every Garou he meets knows just how frequently he has been moving around for...however many years.

His eyes flick from the Theurge to the Philodox to the Ahroun, as he takes another impressively long drink from his beer. Just when one might think he's being uncharacteristically quiet, or polite, he chimes in with: "When was the last time any of you were so drunk you could not remember how you ended up in someone else's pants? Or, y'know, the equivalent. Like, how you got back to whatever den you were occupying at the time when the last thing you can recall is telling some rural Gnawer Kinfolk with a shotgun that she was the one who invted you into the bed of his truck?"

[Armstrong]
"You know," Mrena started. It was something slow, and she inhaled slowly as though there was some huge realization. "I've never actually been drunk or in anyone's pants. I've been told that I'm really missing something."

There was a pause, something quiet and a thoughtful moment. It was a sort of admission she didn't normally come out with, not that it was really important but there it was.

"It was an awkward conversation that I'm still a little unsure as to why I had it, but still. Awkward." She nodded with a degree of certainty after that.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Hatchet asks when was the last time... as if they were at a frat party.
Mrena slowly and thoughtfully answers.

Katherine Bellamonte sets her uneaten bread inside her coffee cup with complete fixation -- it is not imagination that the skin beneath her pearls and rising up the length of her neck is turning a redder shade than previously seen and pushes herself from her standing position.

"On that note, I believe I'll leave you all to further discussion."

Apparently, the topic matter was not to the elder Miss Bellamonte's liking.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Lukas makes a faint sound -- equal parts amusement and there's-a-fianna-for-you-ness.

"A very long time ago," he says, all cards-close-to-the-chest. The Unbroken Circle is, apparently, a very prudish pack. That said, it's perhaps ironic to think the one most likely to join in the cathartic-confession fun -- besides Sampson, of course -- would be Edward. Who is, alas, not present at present.

His sister's here, though. And Katherine -- perhaps not entirely unexpectedly -- doesn't even deign to provide any sort of answer at all. She simply stands up and huffs out of the room.

A beat or two. Lukas finishes his apple, eats Katherine's bread as well, and then dusts the crumbs off his hands and gets up.

"Don't break anything while I'm gone," he cautions -- rather like a freshman telling his friends not to steal his DVDs -- and then follows la Katherine out of the room.

[Hatchet]
It's true: for a man who does not drip the scent of his ancestors everywhere he goes, whose voice entirely lacks accent denoting where the hell he might be from originally, the man is unquestionably a Fianna. Even if you discount his Scottish-sounding human name, it just shines through.

Mrena speaks first.

"Honestly, whether you're missing anything or not depends entirely on the pants you haven't been in," Hatchet says with a verbal shrug and a slight shake of his head. He pops a bite of cheese into his mouth and follows it up with another swallow of beer. "And," he adds after that swallow, "on the stories you get from being drunk. I mean, the ones where you just vomit on yourself or someone else and pass out --not that I have ever done that-- do not, in my opinion, even count."

Lukas's answer gets a look, a lifted eyebrow and a slight tilt of his head that seems to say Heeey with interest in whatever story is there, more than question as to what that story is. Katherine does not get off so easy.

She huffs, and this makes Hatchet -- oh yes -- snicker. He starts to sit up slowly, trying not to disturb the napkin and get crumbs or cheese all over Lukas's nicely-made bed, and gives Katherine what could possibly start to become a 'trademark' manic grin. "Oh sweet baby Jesus, Katie-baby, tell me whatever story is making you blush like that. Please. I'll be nice and respectful to you for a whole month if you tell me about the time you got wasted and ended up in bed with your third double-cousin twice removed."

Lukas rises up to follow her as she turns to go, though, and Hatchet laughs out loud. "Aww, Katie-baby!" he calls, in disappointment.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Katherine, it seems is making a bee-line for the kitchen having forgotten in her desire to put distance between herself and the inappropriate conversation taking place in Lukas' bedroom that the cup in question actually belonged to Lukas. Hatchet's laughter and Katie-baby's serve only to set the Philodox's teeth decidedly on edge and she all but brings storm clouds with her as she enters the kitchen area -- her slim shoulders hunched, eyes a furiously dark black-blue as she sets the cup and bread in the sink and -- oddly -- turns the facet on, washing her hands in the scalding water.

If she realizes she has been followed out of the bedroom, she plays her ignorance (refusal to acknowledge) well.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Not that Lukas is hiding his presence. For the second time this night, he thumps down the stairs. Quieter this time, not the deliberate heavy tread of a man just awoken but a steady, gathered, rolling tread. The kitchen is abandoned this time of night, but the lights are still on. In his charcoal-grey drawstring slacks and his plain t-shirt, he doesn't exactly darken the room with his presence -- but his is a palpable presence all the same, all storm and strength.

And smirk.

Because he is doing that: smirking. Watching her scrub her hands, noting the tight hunch of her shoulders and the set line of her jaw. Waiting a good twenty seconds or more before speaking up:

"What's the matter, your Highness -- the crass talk of us lowly plebs made you feel all dirty?"

[Armstrong]
She looked at Lukas with some amount of interest, brows raised with a degree of curiosity that she really couldn't quite put into words. And then, Lukas was out the door with Katie-baby [That still made her cringe a little when she heard it] and with that she was left alone in a room Hatchet.

"This is going to become a problem, because there's a finite number of acceptable pants and, realistically, I just don't have the time to find a guy, drag him in, try not to tear off the acceptable pants, it's all very time-consuming from what I've gathered."

A beat passed, and then she looked at him with a degree of renewed interest in the story. He was, after all, a Fianna. And he was talking about things that, well, you just didn't talk to spirits about. Her posture was straight, but squared. Her silvery gaze was intent.

"So, what's this you said about Bone Gnawers and shotguns and pickup trucks?"

[Armstrong]

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Katherine does not look up from her task to answer Lukas, rather she picks up a bar of soap set on the window-ledge and scrubs it between her palms to generate a generous amount of Rose-scented lather before dipping her hands back under the facet.

Over the palm, under the palm.
Change hands.
Repeat.
Check beneath fingernails where germs are want to live.

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.

Her hair is loose and jostles with the fervor of her scrubbing, falling over her eye so that when she blinks it is to the flinch of hair invading her vision.

"On the contrary, I simply had nothing of interest to add to the discussion, unlike you Lukas, I don't find pleasure in talking about my sexual adventures." Despite the steadiness in her voice, she does manage to make the word sexual an entirely unwelcome addition to her vocabulary.

[Hatchet]
Though he laughs, sitting up on Lukas's bed now and his eyes youthfully bright, something about Hatchet changes after the two pack members who are closest to Edward leave the room. The subtle hints of body language and general demeanor are not so much difficult to pick up on as they are capable of meaning several things, some of which are just far more likely than the others.

His shoulders drop slightly, rounding downward. He takes a breath and hides whatever expression crosses his face by draining what is left of his beer. He reaches back behind him, grabs the pillow, and rearranges it so that he can lean back rather than fully laying down. And while it is not quite Rage -- no, not by a long shot -- his eyes, for a moment, look absolutely furious.

But he gives Mrena his attention. All of that happens within seconds, and then he's looking at her, now without whatever anger (or whatever looked like anger; that is the simplest explanation, given their collective nature) there was in his eyes. He gives a small belch.

Does not excuse himself.

"What's time-consuming about it? Find a willing Kin -- which, I mean, you can go after a mortal if you like but they're skittish and it's really pretty embarrassing if one knocks you up -- and throw down." Hatchet shrugs one shoulder. "As for Gnawers and shotguns and pickup trucks, I was in Oklahoma this one time and this girl...her name was...uhhh...fuck." He stops, looks at the ceiling, trying to remember it.

And with a snap of his fingers and an excitable look back at Armstrong, he does: "LIZ. Liz Henson." He tells the rest with bobs of his head from one side to the other, emphasizing points. "It was summer, there was a thing, I got trashed, we fooled around in her big brother's pickup truck, annnd the last thing I remember -- before waking up in my den with Soledad pissed as fuck at me, mind you -- is him aiming a shotgun at my face and me trying to explain -- as eloquently as a drunk, post-coital man can -- that if I'd known it was his truck I would have brought a condom or not used his sleeping bag or something."

Hatchet shrugs, whaddya-gonna-do, and throws another bite of bread into his mouth. "Though," he says as he chews, "it's his own fault for leaving the sleeping bag back there, in my opinion."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
A laugh, brief but unaffected. "Don't tar me with that brush. I don't kiss and tell." He moves away from the stairs, crosses the kitchen, doesn't quite come into her personal space. Drags up a kitchen stool instead and parks his ass on it, much as he had earlier that night. Before all that ... mess.

"Anyway," he goes on, watching her scrubscrubscrub away, "what was with the blushing?"

[Armstrong]
He belched. He did not excuse himself.

She nodded a little, head canting to the side a little in a quiet appraisal. Like a music critic, checking for timbre and tone and deigning it to have the appropriate vibrato for a man of his size and accomplishment.

There was something distinctly younger about her in that moment. This was, of course, a time to soak up the wisdom of an experienced voice. Later, she might find this completely deplorable. Or she would laugh herself. Or, conversely, she would look back with fond memories as a Fostern or Adren of the time the alpha of a rival pack told her bawdy, red-dirt sex stories in Chicago.

She didn't go into what she was looking for in kinfolk. It was a tale for another time.

Like when she figured it out.

He had her attention, and it was surprising because she didn't seem distracted in the least. He was talking about summer in Oklahoma with some girl named Liz Henson. He had a good build, enough that it did get her wrapped up in it. "That's what happens though," she nodded. "You leave a sleeping bag in the back of your truck and you're all but screaming 'Please, fuck my sister.'"

A pause.

"He was probably more angry about the sleeping bag, though."

A beat.

"So, how exactly did you get back in your den? I suppose you either did a good job of explaining yourself in a drunken post-coital stupor or did Soledad save you from a shotgun-toting Mister Henson."

[Katherine Bellamonte]
She frowns, a mostly useless expression since he cannot glimpse her face, lowered and partially masked as it is by her hair and shadow both. It's a frown of frustration and in some smaller degree -- embarrassment -- that she should have been so unprepared and unaccustomed to dealing with discussion of sex.

Oh sure, toss her into a pit of salivating monsters and she was cool as ice, but pair the elder Bellamonte daughter with a frank discussion of what men and women did in their marital beds and she was a blushing fool.

The injustice.

The scrubbing ceases and the facet is switched off, the Philodox's hands now a rather violent shade of red as she turns around against the sink and levels her eyes with her pack-mate -- the frown still caught around her mouth, the expression drawing a pinch above her nose.

"Nothing like the Fianna was suggesting," her eyes stray briefly toward the stairs, fury darkening them more-so. "Edward may like to live his life as he chooses, but I follow -- I am -- I don't do that. Any of that."

One can only assume by that she means sex.

[Hatchet]
Hatchet can only nod in agreement with the bit about the sleeping bag. It's probably true, at least in his recollection of the event -- which he admits is hazy.

It bears noting that given the man's size, Tribe, and the fact that he is a Fianna who walks like he is used to doing so for miles on end, it would be a worthy estimate to guess that he has a higher-than-average level of endurance. The sheer amount of alcohol or other substances it would take to inebriate him to the point he can no longer remember how he got home is...staggering.

He gives her a broad-shouldered shrug with a helpless look. "Even Soledad didn't know how I got back. She said I just wandered in a little before dawn, dripping wet like I'd decided to go swimming in my clothes, muttered something about crawdads, and fell asleep. We were planning on leaving the next morning anyway, so we just stuck to that plan."

Hatchet eats a little more bread and cheese, and shakes his head. "No blood on me, though, or holes in my clothes. So apparently he didn't blow a few shells into my chest. And I think if I'd done any damage to him I'd have heard about it before we managed to leave." Hatchet swallows and sniffs some moisture out of his sinuses, looking over at her. "I do kinda wonder why I was soaking wet, though."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Lukas' eyes linger for a moment on her hands -- something like a frown flickering over his brow. Let's face it, watching your packmate scrub her hands raw isn't the most pleasant thing in the world. Either that or he's disgusted by her weakness -- or worse, committing it to memory to use against her someday. That would be her opinion of him, wouldn't it? And now he was frowning in earnest.

At least until she starts speaking. And his eyes flicker up to hers at the last bit -- I don't do that. Any of that. -- and suddenly the icy blue, so reserved, is alive with mirth. The corners of his mouth twitch up. He controls it. He has to bite the insides of his lips to still them, but still them, and control himself, he does.

A few seconds tick by. Then, after he's sure of his ability to speak without bursting into gales of laughter: "Wait. You're celibate? Or -- wait, no way." Control slipping. Corners of mouth turning up. He hides his mouth behind his fist, pressing his knuckle to his upper lip. "Are you telling me, not anymore, or not ever?"

[Katherine Bellamonte]
"Merde," Katherine curses in her mother's language, eyes flashing dangerously, her lips pulled back to reveal those lovely, perfect teeth that would do any socialite proud. "Do not laugh at me, Lukas Wyrmbreaker."

As always, their fights, their altercations are done in quiet, tight-lipped tones.

As to his question -- she remains silent -- her renewed blush speaking enough on her behalf.

[Armstrong]
There was a moment that the shadow lord considered this. Hatchet was a Fianna. He was bout six feet tall. The cost of the amount of alcohol that it would take to get him so incredibly drunk that he could not remember how he woke up where he was blew Mrena's mind. This, of course, was the mind of a Theurge; one could argue that they were completely immune to these sorts of reality shaking revelations or, conversely, that it took so little to have them that it meant little.

"There is a very good chance you don't want to know why you were soaking wet," Mrena stated.

She then continued onward. "So, there's a good chance you two could have simply had a heart to heart, you swore like a good boyscout to never again ever do those things to his obviously oh so sweet and virtuous sister and he let you off the hook, bought you another beer, and then dumped your inebriated butt in a creek. These things do happen."

She rolled her shoudlers back and then started to get herself together. She hadn't finished her coffee, and at that moment the young lady finished it off and gather up whatever she had left in the way of food.

"Get some sleep, it's nearly dawn. Unless you have intentions of greeting the sun, this could prove to become problematic."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Truth be told, he was doing good. He was doing great. He was managing to keep it under control -- the incredulity, the hilarity, all of it -- managing to keep a straightish face.

And then.
And then.

She glares at him, she bares her teeth, she tells him not to laugh at her, and then adds his full and wolfly name, as though this would cement the deal.

And Lukas, quite frankly, loses his shit. He cracks up. All the ups and downs of the night; all the random REHREHREHs of upset kin and intricate plans of wyrm-haven-cleansing and -- it all comes together, comes apart, and he howls laughter at her, gales of laughter, hurricanes. And of course, the madder she gets, the harder he tries to stop, and the harder he tries to stop, the harder he laughs.

[Katherine Bellamonte]
Meridian's Truth glares at him.
Straightens her spine.

Marches past him and gives him an almighty shove as if in hopes to knock him clear off his stool while he laughs at her expense and -- unless he makes some lightening fast motion to prevent her -- storms off into her bedroom. Satisfaction would be slamming the door but she will not give him that satisfaction and instead closes and locks it as normal.

[Hatchet]
"And that," he says sagely to Mrena when she suggests he doesn't want to know why he was so wet," is why I have never gone back to Oklahoma. It's right up there with Utah. Which honestly, I liked," he says, laying a hand on his chest before letting it fall away. "It was pretty there. But Soledad hated it, so I can't go back til something kills her."

For a moment it is possible that the blasé, casual way he says this about the packmate he is obviously closest to could be utterly chilling. That depends entirely on the listener, however. He may simply be a realist, but the lack of emotion in it just seems unusual.

"Maybe," he tacks on, nodding absently at her other possibilities. It's just as likely as anything else, in his mind. She gets her things together and he does not move. He quirks an eyebrow at the second piece of advice she has set between them, but has no comment. But he is still lying on Lukas's bed, empty beer bottle beside the leg of the bed and shared 'meal' half-eaten.

"Goodnight, White Eyes," he says when she does turn out to leave, seeing -- apparently -- nothing wrong at all with staying right where he is when the last loyal, bonded packmate of the room's owner is heading out. If he knew right now that Katherine was getting laughed at downstairs, he would sorely regret staying up here. He does not know, and so he does not regret.

It's something of a theme of his.

When he hears tromping feet and sees Katherine flash past the open door, however, he has to push his lips together, roll his eyes backward, and try not to laugh. It doesn't last long. He starts to snicker, and then he starts to laugh.

[Hatchet]
[NOTE TO SELF FOR LOG: Fix the spacing in that first line. Space goes BEFORE the ", not after. THIS WILL NOT STAND.]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Perhaps it's some consolation that, when pushed, Lukas goes sprawling out of the stool. Six-feet-three, two-hundred-something-pounds of Shadow Lord Ahroun crashes down amidst stool legs, onions, chopping boards, strings of sausage. She goes stomping up the stairs -- but not fast enough to avoid a sizeable sausage he hurls after her, which thuds meatily into her lower back.

"Take that with you." Dissolving into hilarity again, "Might help you loosen up a little!"

[Katherine Bellamonte]
(*loses it and falls off HER chair OOCly*)

[Hatchet]
[OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU.]

[Armstrong]
(*can't breathe, laughing too hard*)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
There is nothing but stony silence from Katherine's room.

At some point in the early hours of the morning -- a sausage is discovered lying in the stairwell without apparent explanation.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
(thanks for the RP, all!)

[Katherine Bellamonte]
(ditto!)