you found the real pizza!

[Maddox] [doo de doo]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Maddox] Music fills the air in the Green tonight. It's not a fast tune, or a happy tune that dances slowly through the air, rousing the downtrodden, making passersby sigh unexpectedly. It's sad, almost a dirge. One can imagine that the song is a farewell of sorts, because it is. Goodbye, sunshine. Hello, twilight.

If one were to follow the sound, they'd be surprised by the source. A tall, lanky figure lounges on a bus bench, plucking deftly at the strings of an acoustic. His head is tipped back, dark hair slightly askew from the wind, and his eyes are closed while he plays. There's a cigarette tucked between his lips, ash growing, smoke coiling into the air to mingle with the melody as it drifts and finds its way into the hearts of the neighborhood. He seems lost to his playing. Probably, he is.

[Izzy Montoya] She isn't lost. No, this is her stomping grounds, her territory of sorts, as it is where she works, the area covered by her precinct. No, she's not lost, at all. What she is, is walking out of a doughnut shop (insert joke here) with a pastry in one hand, coffee in the other, somehow managing to thumb through her messages on her phone all at the same time. She's a multitasker, she is.

Right up until she sloshes a bit of coffee through the open slot onto her hand, that is, which gets a reaction that no one who knows her would find surprising: "Jesus, Mary mother of FUCK! That's HOT!"

Such a lovely mouth...

[Maddox] The young man on the bench doesn't know the woman carrying doughnut, coffee, and electronic device all at once. He doesn't know that she has a mouth on her, lovely or otherwise. What he knows is that, through his playing, footsteps are nearing, and with them, breeding. A dark eye cracks open to peer at the woman swearing over spilled hot coffee.

"I'll say," he says around his cigarette, the movement of his lips causing the ash to finally break freak and drop onto the chest of his hoodie. And still he keeps on playing, long, deft fingers dancing over the strings, though it does seem to be winding down to a conclusion.

[Izzy Montoya] It's a juggling act, but after a moment or three, she makes her way toward the bench that currently carries the songster, who's song is nearing some sort of conclusion. She puts the pastry down, rescues her coffee, slides the face of the phone across her thigh, cleaning it with the material of her slacks, before slipping it into the pocket of her blazer. Only then does she look up at Maddox, a brow arching, slightly.

Instead of picking up her pastry, she instead starts the ritual search for her pack of cigarettes, something she needs as much, or more so, than the caffeine and sugar hits.

"Got a light?"

[Maddox] It's Izzy's lucky night for once. Not only is the Garou serenading her with beautiful guitar music, it just so happens that when the song ends, he ends her search for her cigarettes by pulling his own pack from the pocket of his hoodie.

"Sure thing, luv." Drawing out a Winston Red, he sets it between his lips and lights it with the dying cherry of his own cigarette. Once it's glowing nicely, he holds it out to her, brow arched, daring her to accept it from him now.

[Kora] Broadway Pizza is about as far from the bright lights of Manhattan as - anything else in the gritty streets of Chicago's industrial corridor. They serve a mean slice, though. One too many robberies means they serve their slices from behind a slate of metal bars and bulletproof glass after sundown. Even if a customer wanted to eat in, they tore out the chairs years ago. Standing room only, now.

The pizza's New York style, though. Big, thin-crusted slices you practically have to fold to consume. The store's sign glows neon red against the dusky shadows as twilight falls to night. A pregnant woman steps away from the counter, a box of Broadway's World Famous Garlic Breadsticks in hand, a pepperoni slice balanced on top.

The hood of her sweatshirt is pulled up, ward against the cold. It conceals the pale crown of her hair, shadows her face.

[Izzy Montoya] Her gaze narrows, slightly, as he calls her luv, but she doesn't say anything. Yet. She locates her pack, and shakes a cigarette free, placing it between her lips as he dares her. She simply smirks, takes the cigarette, and lights her own from the tip, before handing it back. She's been dared to do far worse things in her day.

She runs her hand through her hair, as she exhales slowly, and the reaches for her coffee cup again. Her taste buds are scalded already, so she doesn't bother being careful. at least this time she doesn't spit curses at the offending sludge.

"Izzy." She says. Then clarifies. "Not 'luv'".

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Of all the things Lukas misses about New York -- and there are a lot -- the food tends to rank near the top. New York City cuisine is New York on a dinner plate: endlessly diverse, a slice from every piece of the pie that forms that great city of cities. Greek, Afghan, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Moroccan, Ethiopian -- an entire world's worth of culture jammed into one little peninsula, and all of it represented in the ten thousand restaurants peppering Manhattan. Lukas misses the pastrami sandwiches. He misses the thincrust pizzas. Goddamn Chicago-style pizza-casseroles; who the hell thought it up, anyway?

So when Kora steps away from the counter at Broadway's, she finds Lukas leaning against the wall, munching on a slice of meat lover's. He waves at her with his pizza. A big, cheesy glop of sausage and pepperoni and ham and bacon falls into the opened box. He sets the slice down and scoops it up with his fingers, right into his mouth.

"You'd think," he calls when she's close enough to hear him over the hubbub and the noise, "you'd find decent New York-style pizza somewhere other than the ghetto."

Caucasian man in fine clothes: you wouldn't think he'd speak so boldly here. A couple baleful glares come his way -- and turn just as quickly away. His teeth rip into another bite of the pizza, and then he straightens up off the wall.

"What'd you get?"

[Kora] Me too!
to Izzy Montoya, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Maddox, Owen DeTerizzi

[Maddox] He grins at her masterful dodging skills. There will be no sappy second hand kisses here tonight. At least not yet. Probably for the best, Maddox doesn't look like he's had his shots.

Shifting the guitar to rest more comfortably in his lap, Maddox accepts the cigarette back. The spent on has been scraped out and flicked in the general direction of the nearest trash bin.

"Everybody's luv, Izzy luv. Maddox. Crescent of Stag. Got any requests?" His voice carries a faint and muddied accent, something reminiscent of a world across the ocean, but faded with distance and time. It's likely where the "luv" comes from, among other things.

[Maddox] [i'm cool with it!]
to Izzy Montoya, Kora, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Owen DeTerizzi

[Kora] The Skald glances up, lifting her chin as Lukas addresses her over the noise. There's a radio playing somewhere, not the sort of urban station one might imagine, either. Someone's singing in Spanish. The kitchen staff are nearly all Salvadoran. Making New-York style pizza in a Chicago ghetto. Her pale brows lift in a arc of surprise over dark eyes made darker by the shadow of her hood. The sweatshirt is a heather gray zipfront with kangaroo pockets pulled tight across the shape of her stomach. The shoulders and arms are too big for her, but she's rolled them and pushed them up her forearms, revealing a good half-inch of leather and rope bracelets around her wrists.

"Pepperoni and sausage," the note of surprise filters down out of her expression and she tips her head back enough to let the hood fall back. The harsh fluorescent lights make her pale skin all the more stark, and wash out the color of her hair. She lifts the box, showcasing a giant slice covered in ground italian sausage and thick slices of pepperoni. " - and the garlic breadsticks."

A twist of her mouth, with the last. "I'd offer you one, but I've been told they are deadly weapons. They don't skimp on the garlic. The pizza - " a narrow sort of pause, here, a dark-eyed glance back toward the counter. " - it's actually New York style?" The right corner of her mouth twists upward.

"I thought that might be advertising bullshit."

[Owen DeTerizzi] [split scene. No gumption to fit him in. Continue as you were!]

[Izzy Montoya] got any requests?

"That you cease calling me luv."

It's said blandly enough, but there is steel behind it. Something crawls along her spine every time he says it, and to be honest, she's enough on edge already. It's there, somewhere. Around the corners of her eyes, the edge of her lips. the tightening of the muscle at the corner of her jaw, the look in her dark gaze that suggests she's seen more than she should, than she wants too. For the most part, though, she simply is as she appears - a tired cop, who's been on the beat too long.

She doesn't join him on the bench, remaining standing. She does, however, study him. For a long moment, before turning back to study the street, in idle awareness. She doesn't bother making a more complete introduction. He already knows the important [to them] parts anyway.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Well," Lukas muses, tilting his slice so fluorescent-orange pizza grease starts dripping off the cheese, "I haven't had a good pizza in the City for years. I feel like maybe this one's not quite greasy enough. But it's still better than those mushy thick things they call pizza around here."

So speaking, he folds it up and bites into it, tilting his head at the door. Too crowded in here, even if no one crowds him. People get out of his way as he nears. It's like Moses in the Red Sea, all the way to the door. Which he opens by leaning against, swinging it outward into the chilly spring night.

"So when's the little tyke due?" -- he nods at her rather prominent belly.

[Maddox] He doesn't show it, but if Izzy were to sit beside him on the bench, Maddox would probably explode from surprise. Not because he's a nervous kind of man, not hardly, but because she's determined to oppose him. That, and he didn't actually ask her to.

Her only request is that he cease calling her luv. He tips his head up to stare at the woman, brow lifted, dark eyes hooded. Resting one arm atop his guitar, he plucks his cigarette from his lips and gesticulates with it.

"D'you mind if I call you Lizzy?" he asks, utterly and completely serious. Probably.

[Izzy Montoya] She snorts, and arches that brow at him again. She doesn't look away, doesn't lower her gaze, but meets his dead on. "As it is not my name, I'd prefer you not. Though I'm sure you will do whatever you fuckin' wish, in the end." Because that is what they do.

"Of course, then I'll be forced to call you Madeline." Deadpan, this.

She takes a swallow from her cup again, and then reaches for her pastry, tearing off a piece of it and plopping it into her mouth.

[Maddox] "What I wish, Lllizzy," and the L is noticeably drawn out, "is to not break a verbal habit that's twenty-some-odd years in the making. But," and he sighs, long-suffering and benevolent man making the effort to bestow a favor, "if it will make you happy, I can try. The best I can promise is a hybrid, lllIzzy."

Peering up at her, his mouth quirks, and he shrugs a shoulder. "And you can call me whatever you like, s'long as you don't refer to me as anything relating to Angelina fucking Jolie."

[Kora] "I trained in these islands in the north Atlantic, yeah?" she returns, walking fast enough to match his pace. It's hard to see the grace in her gait anymore. Mostly, she waddles, shoulders back, stomach forward. "The meal plan included every edible part of the sheep. Mutton; they sold the lambs off. And fish. I'd be happy with Little Caesar's pizza.

"This stuff - " outside now, a cool spring night; she glance up automatically, finding clouds across the waxing moon. The night's unsettled; she's not yet glimpsed the moon through the cloud cover and reminds herself not to look up again. "Is heaven."

Kora's eyes drop from the sky to the street; settle on Maddox and Izzy down on the corner, the bus stop bench. Then she cuts Lukas a side glance, generous mouth twisting in a subtle show of wry humor. "Did you actually just say little tyke?" The streetlights sheen across the surface of her eyes as she lifts her shoulders in a vague, answering shrug. "I don't know when exactly. Soon, though."

[Danicka Musil] Two college seniors and two people that look like they're old enough to be grad students stumble into the pizza parlor, laughing and barely able to carry themselves, then abruptly straighten up because they have to be serious here. One of them keeps flicking his eyes around, not blinking, and is visibly trying very, very hard not to laugh. He's holding the hand of a girl who, sober, would be way too pretty for him, but maybe that's what people think every time those two hold hands. The 'grad students' are a total hipster -- scarf and everything -- with a chin beard and tattoos, and beside him is a blonde woman in dark pink and white lululemon athletica, her hair up in a high ponytail.

The hipster is handling himself better than the undergrads, as though this is just his natural state. The brunette starts to giggle again. The blonde, who smells as strongly of weed as the rest of them, lets out a squeal that is decidedly not Shadow Lordly at all and bolts across the room to jump on Lukas, arms and legs tossed around his shoulders and waist, respectively.

"Hi!"

[Izzy Montoya] She studies him again. A long moment. Then? A subtle curve at the corner of her lips - barely seen, barely there before it's gone again. She turns, and settles to the bench then, crossing long legs, smoothing her slacks over her thigh, before she turns her attention to the pastry now held in her lap, cigarette between her fingers as she plucks bits of the treat off to eat them.

She doesn't seem to care that he didn't invite her to sit.

"To be fuckin' honest, I never made that connection. Now, though..." She looks up then, which is where finds Kora looking toward her and Maddox. She holds the gaze a moment, before returning her attention to the Theurge at her side.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I absolutely did. I thought you'd prefer it to," he pauses to take another big bite, bringing up the pizza box to catch a runaway glop of meat-n-cheese, "the future warrior of Gaia, oorah!"

And a laugh, then, more or less heading toward Izzy and Maddox down the way now -- that sort of half-unconscious clustering of like to like. "I was fostered in upstate New York. Very rural area, very beautiful. A big lake and some waterfalls. Actually, a reservoir and a dam, but still quite lovely. We were close enough to the City not to have to salvage every part of the sheep, though."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [ack! *reads* go on, i'll add another post in a sec!]

[Maddox] He shifts on the bench, giving the woman room. His Rage is not terribly high, and he's not the most threatening of Garou. Tall and gangly, Maddox looks more the type to accidentally hurt himself before doing damage to an opponent in a fight. Even without a gun, Izzy could probably overpower him with little effort.

That's not why he makes room. There's no telling what that reason is, or when why when she does deign to sit near him he refrains from leaning up against her and being a general nuisance. He does indeed look surprised, though. And he huffs a laugh.

"Hey, I'll remind you that I'm making an effort. No luvs for you. No Jolies for me. Deal?" Leaning back slightly, he holds out the arm closest to her for a shake. Her attention drifts, though, and so does his. Maddox looks over to see the small party over by or in the pizza joint. One familiar figure, one less familiar, and one just in the process of latching onto the more familiar one like a jumper.

[Izzy Montoya] He offers a shake, and she pulls her attention back to him. She drops her gaze to his hand, and then slides her fingers into his easily enough. "Deal."

A beat. "Which is good, as I'd hate to have to get these coordinates right here tattoo'd on my ass to commemorate the place we met. I hate needles."

His rage isn't as much as some, perhaps more than others. Rather than overwhelming, it's more of a tingle of awareness along her spine, under her skin. Easily ignored. He follows her gaze, and she lifts a chin toward Kora and Lukas. "Know'em?"

[Kora] Whatever she might have replied - the twist lingerings in the curve of her mouth when he finished future warrior of gaia with oorah - is largely swallowed when Danicka appears, well dressed, smelling of pot and Shadow Lord, and flings herself onto Lukas. The pregnant Fenrir steps rather politely, rather decisively, out of the immediate circle of their space, lifts her pizza box in vague toast to Lukas and begins ambling (waddling) down the street toward the bus bench.

So: tall, young, heavily pregnant woman, pale-skinned, pale-haired, dark-eyed, wearing a University of Chicago hoodie that is large enough to accommodate her gravid figure at the stomach, and too large everywhere else. NO breeding to mark her as Garou; just the confidence to walk a street like this in the presence of a Shadow Lord, or along. Her hair is long, pale enough that it would go silver in the moonlight, the weight of it wrapped back upon itself, secured with a chop stick at the base of her neck. Mostly the twist is covered by the hood of her sweatshirt.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's an unShadowLordly squeal, and then there's a rapid approach that distantly reminds him of the way his imaginary dream-daughter flung herself at him in the Underworld, and then he's scooping a potsmoked Danicka up half out of reflex and half out of instinct. Hi, she says. Rrr, he says, pretend-gnawing at her shoulder for a second.

Then, as though abruptly re-aware that they're out on the streets, he leans back and lets her slide back down. "Hi," he replies, smiling. Then a pause. Sniffing. "Are you stoned?"

He hasn't quite let go of her entirely. His arm wraps warm and heavy over her shoulders as he starts following Kora's meandering, waddling path toward the others.

[Maddox] "Why...?" he trails, amused and confused all at once. Before he can complete the question, Izzy asks him if he knows them. He lifts his head again to see.

"Big bloke's got a room at The Brotherhood. I don't know the bird 'e's wearing. Her..." He squints at Kora.

She probably doesn't remember him. He certainly doesn't really remember her, though she looks familiar. But they saw each other once, on another night, when Maddox was sitting on a bench in a park, playing to the twilight. It was brief, and he'd been thoroughly distracted by an adorable little songbird and a flighty tribesmate.

Maddox watches the pregnant woman as she makes her way near, eyes narrowed and head tilted. Then he gives up in a shrug.

"Aside from a bit of déjà vu, I don't think I've met her before. Friend of yours?"

[Danicka Musil] "I'm hungry," Danicka answers, as though this was a very, very stupid question on Lukas's part, and she must be stoned because there was less grace than her usual as she slid down and set her running-shoed feet on the concrete again. She's got a messenger bag slung over her shoulder, the strap crossing her chest, but it isn't heavy. Her eyes are glassy, but she's smiling. "You found the real pizza!" she says, since he's at this parlor, and she sounds so proud.

Oh, they're walking. She's got a very heavy arm on her and she's essentially being steered in the direction he's going, but tonight she doesn't seem to mind that. She doesn't reposition his arm or anything. She seems, in fact, quite content to be ushered along for once.

"I can haz pizza?" she lolcats at him, holding out her hands. She's beaming.

[Izzy Montoya] She shrugs a shoulder, semi-embarrassed to know the following: "Jolie has the longitude and latitude of the birth place of each of her adopted children on her arm."

Then it's back to the garou. The big bloke he says. "Lukas. And Danicka. And this..." Added as Kora comes within comfortable earshot and conversation distance. "Is Kora. Kora, Maddox. Kora is the Jarl."

The. Not hers. Somehow, though, it's not intended as an insult, nor slight. Izzy tends to hold herself apart from the Nation she is mired within, and this is no different. Of course, she doesn't claim Kora is a friend either. It's not hard to imagine Izzy having a distinct lack of those, all told. Coworkers, acquaintances, sure. Friends? Few and far between.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Well, at least the big bloke is no longer wearing the bird. He's just gently guiding her along, and long before she lolcats at him, he's already offering her his pizza box. There are two meatlover's slices in there, big and flat and heavy, oozing, dripping with toppings. One's halfeaten. The other one's hers now.

"I totally found the real pizza. Why are you -- " he decides, midway through the question, to stop trying to ask why she's stoned and cruising for pizza in Cabrini with a bunch of classmates. "Did you drive?"

[Kora] The Jarl is ungainly with late pregnancy, carrying a small pizza box that smells of garlic and another single slice on a greasy paper plate atop that. She has not yet eaten, not even the first bite of the slice. Her thumb holds the paper plate in place atop the box as she walks, though. When she's close enough that Izzy offers introductions, she offers the kinswoman a faint half smile. "Detective." And a lift of the box by way of greeting. "Maddox."

Her eyes are dark, the color mostly lost in the night's shadows. Without precisely conscious thought, she stands out of the stream of smoke, but does not ask Izzy to put out her cigarette, and does not otherwise acknowledge her pregnancy. Not that it needs acknowledgment.

A brief glance back down the street touches on Danicka and Lukas as they take the same path. Then her gaze shifts, focuses beyond them, behind their backs, narrowing with momentary interest at something in the middle distance.

The note lingers, then shifts. Kora glances back at Izzy and Maddox. "Making friends?" A steady look for Izzy, though there is an understated irony to the curve of her expressive mouth.

[Maddox] "Jarl?" he asks, brows raised. He looks over Kora, surprised, but probably not for a reason she might think. "I thought this was a multi-tribal sept?" His voice is not pitched to keep from reaching the Jarl, but nor does he call it out to her.

"Kora," he greets, mouth quirking. When he takes a drag from his own cigarette, the smoke gets blown from the corner of his mouth. Where the wind takes it from there is beyond his control. "And I think it's safer to say we're not making enemies. I hope." He doesn't needle Izzy about her knowledge of a pop culture icon. Not right now, anyway, though he does wonder what other tidbits of useless information the kinswoman has tucked away in that fascinating brain of hers.

[Izzy Montoya] Making friends, Kora asks, with understated irony. "And Influencing People." Izzy replies, with a slight smirk and equally steady gaze. Some have told her that a smirk is rude, crude, and not at all polite - which is likely why it's her default expression. She means no insult though. At least, not at the moment.

There is respect in this, too. Kora stands out of the path of cigarette smoke, but does not ask that it be put out. As a direct result, Izzy takes a final drag, exhales away from the Jarl, and drops the butt to the cement at her feet, crushing it to final death under the toe of her boot. It's the little things.

As for the idea of a multi-tribal sept. "It is."

[Danicka Musil] "Pizzaaa..." Danicka chortles gleefully, accepting the greasy slice without bothering with a napkin, without asking for one. She grabs the second large slice and holds it with both hands, taking a very large bite while Lukas is thinking better of asking why this woman, who considers everything from gallery openings to drinking at Mr. C's to taking apart arcane weaponry under a microscope to be appropriate ways to spend her leisure time, would do something as shocking as get high with college students.

Her teeth dig into the cheese and she looks like she's about to burst out giggling from sheer happiness. She doesn't, though. She reins it in, and chews that enormous bite, wiping some grease off her lower lip with the back of her wrist. Looks up at him as they near Maddox and Izzy and Kora again, blinking.

Swallows.

"I'm pretty sure we walked here. There may have been a bus. III left my coat at Trevor's apartment, though. He said he'd bring it to class tomorrow but I have to get it dry cleaned cuz it smells like ganja now." She takes another bite and, cheeks bulging, raises one hand in a wave to the Fianna, the detective, and the preggorz chick. She at least has the manners not to speak with her mouth full, though.

[Kora] "Not making enemies, influencing people," a mild, dark-eyed look from Maddox to Izzy and back again. The faint irony evident in the curve of her generous mouth widens. The shift is subtle as the difference between two shades of some designer color, but all the more evident for that. "Careful, detective. You'll make me proud."

Her chin rises, and she lifts the box by way of explanation. "If you will both excuse me, I'm heading back to the church. Need some milk to wash this down with, and I'm starving." A brief, flickering glance encompasses Lukas and Danicka in her excuses, and then the Fenrir starts around the corner.

[Kora] (Thanks for the scene, folks. Bedtime!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Well," Lukas says, "I suppose I could bother to drive you home like a gentleman."

They pass a dumpster. Lukas tosses the empty box in, folding up what's left of his first slice and munching it down. Then they're coming up on Maddox's bench just in time to see Kora take off. Lukas nods a goodbye.

"I think she's really going home to slather peanutbutter on her pizza," he deadpans. "Hormones and cravings and all. Hey, Izzy. Maddox. You guys met Dani&+269;ka?"

[Izzy Montoya] She huffs a breath of amusement as The Jarl walks away, but that is all the reaction the comment receives. It's rather more than anyone expected from her, really, and it passes quickly enough when Lukas and Danicka wander up.

"Lukas. Danicka." A slight nod suggests that yes, she knows the blond. Nothing more, however, as she finishes her pastry, and swallows it down with her rapidly cooling coffee.

[Maddox] Maddox's eyes narrow, his brow furrows, and he looks very much like someone just asked him to imagine a three-headed hippo in a tutu, waltzing to Rebecca Black's Friday.

"But..." He shakes his head, leaning back to wrap his arms about his guitar. Izzy dropped her cigarette for the pregnant woman, Maddox did not. He takes a drag, lets the air ease out while he talks. "The only Jarl's I've ever met were the elders of their all for the Get septs," he says with a roll of one shoulder, then the other, loosening the muscles. Kora makes her excuses, and he lifts his chin to her. He doesn't get a chance to tell her that he's infiltrated her church (with permission, honest!) once before she's gone.

"Or add pickles," Maddox says with a curl of his lip. "I have not," he says, sizing up the very obviously happily attached blonde woman with a grin. "Enchanté, mademoiselle," he says, a dip of his head taking the place of a rise, a bow, and the like.

[Danicka Musil] She rolls her eyes at Lukas's joke about driving her home. Elbows him sharply when he makes fun of Kora's hormonal cravings, if they even exist. "Sexist," she says, having swallowed the second bite of pizza. "Hi Izzy, Hi Maddox."

As for happily attached, well. She's happy, or looks it, being high and eating pizza. She's attached, from the way Lukas hasn't taken his arm from her since she ran up and hugged him. Then there's the ring on her left hand, a simple, subdued sort of thing that lacks a diamond engagement ring.

"What's a Jarl?" she asks, though Maddox just... essentially... explained ...that.

[Izzy Montoya] "Tribal Elder of the Fenrir." Easily answered. She stands then, and straightens her blazer, before searching for her cigarettes again. Idle hands, devil's workshop, that sort of thing, Before that, though, her phone chirps for her attention, and she pulls it out.

"If you'll excuse me."

And she's stepping away, whether they will or not, snapping into the phone. "Montoya. It better be fuckin' good, Finn, it's my fuckin' night off." As if she ever really takes any such thing...

[bedtime for me! Thanks for the play. G'night.]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "It's an old norse term that refers to a chieftain," Lukas explains, sounding quite scholarly. "The english cognate is 'earl'. It's also what the old-world Fenrir call their Sept Alphas these days.

"As for how it's used in this Sept -- I think the Athro Modi that lived here a few years back started using it as a fuck-you to the Sept. I suppose those who came after him just thought it sounded cool. Either that or it's still meant to be a fuck-you."

He pops the last of the pizza in his mouth, then sucks his fingers clean of grease. "Yum," he says.

[Danicka Musil] Maddox says a Jarl is an elder of a Get sept. Izzy claims it's the Get elder in any sept. Lukas suddenly sounds like his father. Danicka gives a slow blink and takes another bite of pizza. "This one guy thought I was Fenrir once," she says, after she's chewed and swallowed. "It was cuz I was badass an' I shot a zombie. Pew, pew."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Wait, what? When did you shoot a zombie?"

[Maddox] Lukas sounds a bit scholarly, and Maddox looks immensely interested. He likes scholarly things, apparently. "There's also a Jarl in Norse mythology, was the son of someone." He looks away, frowning that he can't remember right off the bat. "Rig? Rig. He was the son of Rig, spawned the ancestors of the Norse or some shit."

He takes a final drag from his cigarette and drops the butt to the concrete, scuffing it out beneath his sneaker.

[Danicka Musil] "I know fuck all about Norse mythology," Danicka says, as though this is a point of pride, or simply that anything that comes out of her mouth sounds brilliant right now to her own ears. Her eyebrows hop up when Lukas demands to know when she shot a zombie and she shoves a bite of pizza into her mouth, shaking her head. Her eyes are wide. She gives a helpless shrug.

Sorry, can't answer you, my mouth is full. What would your mother say?

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I can't even tell if you're just making this up because you're stoned," Lukas says, half-exasperated. "And I like Norse mythology. All these grim, hard stories with the bottom line being everything dies, the end. It illuminates the Get mindset for you.

"This is what always interested me, though. Fenris is brother to Jormungandr -- the Serpent. Most Fenrir will tell you now that that's just the humans trashing their good name, but I wonder if that's really it. The Wyrm is the Destroyer. He was supposed to be a force of balance; holy destruction, like Kali. These days we're the destroyers. I wonder if that wasn't what that myth alludes to: our rage and its affinity to the Wyrm-as-he-should-be. Our place in the balance of things.

"Perun is said to have fought the dragon Volos, too. But even that wasn't so much about destroy the wyrm as it was about balance."

Danicka's stoned and nomming pizza. Lukas ... is pontificating on philosophy and myth.

[Maddox] [ARE you making it up? subterfuge!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Danicka Musil] She swallows, and coughs, because she didn't chew enough, and scowls at Lukas. "I didn't make it up," she insists diffidently. "I shot a zombie in a subway, don't be a jerk."

He stops being a jerk and starts waxing philosophical and her brain can't entirely wrap around it at the moment, or else she's content to just listen. But he mentions Volos and she brightens. "My sister has a fetish named after Veles," she says happily, but the difference in name is notable. "You're using his Russian name," she adds curiously. "But! So does the sickle. I don't know how it got into my family's hands if it came from Russia. Maybe the name just changed. I don't know. Stuff is funny stuff."

She takes another bite, finishing off the slice.

[Danicka Musil] [wtf I didn't roll manip/sub STOP DICETURBATING]

[Maddox] [it's my party and i'll diceturbate if i want to!]

[Danicka Musil] [that's gonna be one lonely party]

[Maddox] [yes -_-]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I'm just speaking Americanese," Lukas quibbles. "But here: Veles." A pause. Then rather out of the blue, he hugs Danicka against his side and kisses her hair. "I like that your sister has a fetish named after Veles," he says. "It's fitting.

"As for your subway zombie, I'm just going to stick my head in the sand. It's past and done, but if I think about it I'll just worry."

He kisses her again, this time bending to her cheek. Then he unwraps his arm from around her. "I'm going to get another slice or two," he says. "Either of you want anything?"

[Maddox] Lukas waxes philosophical on mythology, Danicka, no Dani&+269;ka noms some pizza and talks about shooting zombies, pew pew. Maddox, meanwhile, adjusts his acoustic and strums, fingers idly plucking out a melody to suit, or not, as the conversation shifts. He knows before she admits to it that she's telling the truth about shooting a zombie. He nods to her, quite impressed.

"A lot of mythologies group things into a balance of threes. The Christian's Holy Trinity, the Greek's and Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. I don't see what the Get would have to fear from being reminded that in the olden days, their ancestors had a different perspective." He shrugs.

And falls quiet for the couple, until Lukas asks if either of them wants anything. "Ah, no thanks, mate. I should probably find my bike," he adds, suddenly remembering his mode of transportation isn't right close by. Hm. Rising, he shifts his guitar around so that it rests against his back, holds out his hand to Danicka. "It was lovely to meet you. May you never forget the blessed double-tap." He lifts his other hand in a sort of vague benediction. "Rhya."

And with that he makes his leave.

[sorry, guys, i'm fading so fast. thanks for the scene!]

[Danicka Musil] [thank you for the RP!]

[Danicka Musil] "He was nice," Danicka says of Maddox, after he's left. "Fianna?"

She casts her eyes around for a napkin. Sighs as Lukas takes his arm off of her and steps closer. "No, you're warm," she insists, and ducks under his arm again, against his side. Lays her head on him for a moment, closing her eyes. "Mine," she murmurs, as they're alone now, and it's one thing to be silly, it's one thing to act like they're remotely equals in public. It's another to let anyone see... this.

For a moment, Danicka just stands there, then tips her head back and looks up at him. "It was a couple of years ago in the fall. And the only reason I remember that much is because it wasn't long after we got back from New York."

From her family's home. From taking her away from Vladik with brutal finality.

"...and not long before we were taken underground." Danicka sticks her fingers in her mouth and sucks off the grease, then sighs and hugs him, messy or not. "Bizarrely, even though we were mated, it still feels like we were so new then. And it was like every other day something was happening, something was attacking." A beat. "So I killed a zombie with this jackass named Alex and Drew and Lonna and Lee and then I shot the fuck out of this twelve-foot-tall stork-man. Blew its fucking head off."

A beat. "He thought I was wearing Burberry and I was wearing Pierotucci. Moron. And he called me a Fang so I slapped the shit out of him and then he thought I was Fenrir and I don't like them either but it's better than being a Fang."

They're walking back towards the parlor by now. Danicka blinks in surprise. "My feet are moving!" Another pause, another switch in the tracks of her mind. "You shouldn't worry though. All the stupid Kin that day who didn't have guns were injured and whining and fussing afterward. I didn't have a scratch on me."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I think that's what he said," Lukas affirms. "I just met him last night. He and some others were boozing on the BroHo roof."

Truth be told, he was starting to put his arm over her again as Maddox declines and makes to leave. There's no reason for him to leave Danicka on the street while he went for another slice. There's no way in hell he wants to -- not in Cabrini, not at x past midnight, not even if she shot a zombie two years ago and was mistaken for a Fenrir.

"It's because you're blonde, I bet," Lukas opines. "If you dyed your hair jet-black no one would ever doubt that you were a Shadow Lord. Especially after they saw you blow some zombie away.

"And, I'm not really worried. I know you're smart and tough and strong. And even if you weren't, you've got more talens than most Cliaths. I'm just ... reflexively grr. Because you're mine. And zombies shouldn't be allowed to attack you."

The pizza parlor -- which is a shitty little hole where they serve absurdly amazing pizza through security bars and all the chairs have long since been stolen or removed, so now there's just standing room only around a bunch of greasy tables -- isn't so crowded now. They can still hear a hubbub of voices as they approach, though.

[Danicka Musil] [paws!]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [folded ones!]

[Danicka Musil] "A lot of things shouldn't be allowed to happen," Danicka muses, walking alongside him and working at her fingers again to try and lick the very last droplets of pizzajuice off of them, despite the fact that she knows she's going to have more soon. "But they [i]do[/i] happen."

It's been a long time since it was a shock to hear the truth come out of Danicka's mouth so easily, so plainly, so fearlessly. Still, sometimes it's hard to hear how brutally she faces it. She's never hidden from it, never shied away from the horrors of truth. She's just done a very good job, most of her life, of hiding more innocuous realities from others. What does it matter if she lied about where she was all night, when there were such worse things that people willfully blinded themselves to?

She leans into him, though. Not out of fear, not even out of chill though she has no coat; Danicka's not afraid of Cabrini-Green. Lukas is right; she has more talens than most Cliaths, she's a nasty shot with a handgun, and even when she didn't have those things and that skill, she wasn't afraid of the worst neighborhoods in New York or New Orleans. Chicago's slums don't make her bat an eyelash.

Still. Lukas's mind turns towards protection, towards keeping her warm, keeping her fed, wrapping around her and making sure nothing bad, nothing cold, nothing hard or mean touches her -- and that's all the time. That's in homid. That's in the high rises of her own apartment, that's in their den out in Stickney. It doesn't require her fear. It doesn't even require a real threat to her safety or comfort.

"Smart and tough and strong," she's chuckling as they walk into the pizza parlor. "You're [i]ridiculous[/i]. Come meet Trevor and Grant and Adrienne," she says as she grabs the handle of the door. "I wanna see if they suddenly get paranoid around you."

rapid dispersal.

[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twists slightly as she takes a deep swallow from the bottle. "If I thought yeh smoked," she says, "I might ask yeh for a cigarette. I don't think I can stand judgement on a few crisps."

She leans forward, one hand lifting to her face to push loosened strands of hair back, tucking them back behind her ear as she turns the bag slightly so she can read the flavour.

"However," she says, pushing it back as she straightens, "I can't abide what yeh Americans call salt 'nd vinegar. You're on yer own."

She can hear a guitar playing, a quiet, light tune and she turns her head slightly to the sound.

[Rain] The sound of music in the park slows her steps. Soon Rain's chin has tipped down again and she is rooted to her place, off center of the path, hands in her pockets still and eyes unwaveringly open. An accutely tuned ear does not need to cast about for the source of the melody, no, she knows from where it emanates. Her feet may be rooted, but her gaze is cast toward that source, her shoulders turned toward him.

So it is that she doesn't quite make it to the table where Kora and Imogen are gathered, not yet. And it's possible that the guitarist catches her looking his way, with a note of appreciation on her features, something less admiring and fawning than the average fangirl. Rain, in turn, offers him a small smile, a little lift of her chin, a show of some sort of imagined solidarity.

She does not approach. Her blood is silent as to her Tribal ties. There's a moment, then, when they take each other's measure. A moment of exchanged smiles. Rain stands where she is and looks not at him while he plays, but across the distance to something unseen. She takes a moment to listen, and soon, he can imagine, she'll pick up with her walking again.

[Hunter] Where there is food there is a gnawer. The smells of sausages waft through the air of grant park and out of one of the bushes stalks a wolf. It doesn't look like any normal wolf, it looks like a man in fact.

Hunter Matthews turns his head left and right before green eyes settle on the Fenrir in Fianna clothing and the Queen of the Vikings. Then he sees the food. It's this that makes him grin and it's this that makes him wander over more than anything else. Or at least that's what he would claim if questioned.

Boots touch down heavily on grass and path and grassy path until he's entering their little bubble. Somewhere there is music drifting along like the soundtrack to a lovers dream. Hunter fucking hates romcoms.

"Sup Kora, Imogen."

A beat.

"I see ya' have food."

[Maddox] Soon she'll pick up on her walking again, yes. Maybe. Possibly perhaps. They watch each other, Garou and Kin, not fully aware of what rather than whom they are looking at. There's Rage, of course, some vague sense of menace emanating from the man on the bench, playing the beautiful tune, but it's as insignificant as a candleflame compared to the gathering over yonder. This is nothing the Child can't handle.

They smile to each other. She's too far off for him to read her expression all that well, and it's dark, and he's wearing sunglasses. He doesn't need to see the exact features of the girl's face, anyway. Still grinning, the rougishness faded in the twilight, and still playing, he tips his head at her, tilts it back. Come closer, my sweet. She may not see the gesture, looking away at something far off as she is, and Maddox doesn't let his attention drift for very long. Eventually he turns his head back to face straight ahead, and tips his chin up. One might imagine that his eyes are closed behind his sunglasses. One would be correct.

[Fiona] The landscape's a lot like one of those hidden pictures images where there are a number of - get ready for a revelation - hidden objects within the landscape. The landscape could be perfectly serviceable: a park - a path; an evening sky, shading bright into dark; it could be benches, and trashcans, an abandoned water fountain with rust pooling at its base like a relic of some barbaric sacrifice [city funds]. But then! The closer look reveals: well, fairies, wings folded, cruel-faced, laughing, if this hidden pictures book belongs to Fiona Rogers, age six, which it doesn't, because she isn't aged six anymore, hasn't been for practically a whole decade, but it could reveal other things: clocks, thieves, whatever. Werewolves. Werewolf kin. Grant Park: thrown into sudden relief - the man playing gorgeousness froma guitar, smoking and smiling at the woman walking with her hands in her coats pockets, Unicorn-blooded, feet drawing her closer to a woman whose carriage tells stories of savage, poetic monsters, whose carriage is a queen's and whose hair is a torch, to a woman who's heavy, who's a stoppered jar of transformation contained, denied, and there's Hunter, hungry, grinning - and yeah, these people.

They're hidden pictures, see? They aren't what they seem.

And here's another -

Girl. Teenager, young, youthful, very, with a coat that has sleeves just an inch too long, that's just a little too big, just a little too awkward. Dark jeans that're dirty at the knees, grass-stained on the butt. Werewolf, though whatever rage she's got is well-buried, well-hidden, which is a good thing because it's a school night, because it's Monday, because homework was due and not done, because, because they tease, they do, and earlier she was sitting on the school bus with her skinny legs hauled up to her chest, determinedly reading her book while Someone poked her arm, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again, snickering when she didn't know how to react, moving on to tweaking her hair, and she'd looked over her shoulder, known who it was, KNOWN, but they didn't stop, and sometimes telling yourself that seriously you can totally turn into a monster and KILL people is not the comfort one might imagine.

Which is all to say, Fiona Rogers decided not to go home, decided to go to the Docks, was there upset, decided to bus to the park, and now it's late, and she's "walking" -- wandering in a line that sort've heard about what "straight" means once upon a time -- with her head down, squinting at the book in her hands, trying to read before the twilight's entirely gone, reading by path light, by shadow, reading:

'Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am,' said the Dwarf cheerfully. 'But that's a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You've no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.'

But blood tells. Blood tells! Blood up and YELLS.

Fiona does sneak little glances up now and then, mostly gauging the light and the pathlight, more and more hunched over Prince Caspian, and her gaze snags across Imogen and Kora -- then skitters (! noise!) over to - a sound. There's a sound - it's - a pretty? - and - no, that was soundtrack, that was - maybe it's the fairy people because it is twilight and that is when they come out maybe maybe oh please maybe and that must be Slaughter and she is a queen so of course they would play by her oh god oh god do I look okay -

And she is so distracted by her speculation on the origin of guitar music that she walks

smack

into Rain. Unless evasive maneuver is immediately accomplished.

[Kora] "The street vendors don't carry Pringles," the Skald returns, pulling back the bag of chips as Imogen dismisses all American iterations of salt and vinegar. Maybe a bit mournful. "And he was out of barbeque." Which is the closest flavor to Bacon Double Cheeseburger she can imagine. Maybe if you took a bag of cheese and sour cream and crushed it up with a bag of barbeque it would begin to approach the taste bud nirvana of bacon double cheeseburger Pringles to the pregnant Garou's warped, twisted taste buds.

The foil crinkles with every movement of the bag, and the scent of the damn things - mixed with the deeper, heavier smell of the sausages - is particularly sharp in the cold air. Kora's sitting forward on the picnic table, enough that it looks like she's turning on the fulcrum of her stomach somehow. Each movement is made more awkward by her stomach too. She cannot bend forward, not far, cannot see her feet, cannot (it seems) ever ease the tension in her lower back and lower abdomen.

She cuts a glance over her shoulder, following the direction of Imogen's glance with the music in the air. Dark eyes touch on Rain, then Maddox, lingering on the former rather than the latter. She turns back as Hunter approaches, offering the Bone Gnawer a faint curl of her generous mouth by way of greeting, then holding out the bag of chips by way of offer. "Italian sausages. That dude with the yellow and red stripped umbrella by the fountain makes the best around here. Got an extra if you're hungry."

[Starla] It isn't coincidence that brings her to the picnic table, just a secret dalliance with one of the other vendors that had taken one of Roman's kin away from Kora's side in search of a certain craving for coffee. Starla had kept a pace behind the Jarl's heels, accompany her for no other reason that to not be alone in the church. A mumbled exchange saw the dusky-skinned kin off in search of that a warm beverage; the quest complete, the journey home was wrought with - no excitement.

A warm mist curls around the dark crown of hair that sweeps down her shoulders, twisted and plaited, two loose braids meet at the points of her hips. She wrinkles her nose, savoring the sweet, aroma of hazelnut and chocolate coffee that mingles together in the large white Styrofoam cup, warming the palm of her right hand through the thin cotton glove.

Starla arched an eyebrow, pale green eyes skimming over the small gathering of faces that collect around the Jarl. First to Imogen, and then straying to Hunter before she finally pulls them back to the Jarl. Music wafts in the air, she tilts her head away trying to listen for it, to understand the melody, but it's appreciation is lost on her. She wasn't as musically-inclined as others.

[Kora] "What the hell's wrong with American salt, anyway?" Kora continues, dark eyes swinging back to Imogen. "Or with American vinegar?"

[Imogen] "Hunter," Imogen returns the greeting as she stretches, a small muscle at a time, her movements subtle. When he asks about the food, the doctor's mouth quirks slightly. "Bone Gnawer, aren't you?" she asks.

Kora demands a question - Imogen's smirk lingers as she turns her head. "S'not an insult t'yer entire nation," she remarks, placidly, for once meaning nation with a small 'n'. "Yeh just can't be expected to get th'balance right."

Starla is nearby now, in sight. Imogen's gaze flicks there, before lifting her chin toward the younger woman, pointing her out to Kora.

[Rain] They have been admonished to be alert, to be mindful, to be wary, to be watchful and Rain has listened, more or less, in the way that children and young adults listen, more or less, when told to do things that they already do, but this time with some urgency, with some immediacy, with some pressing Something hanging over their heads that was (imagined to) not (be) there before. She is not entirely lost to the music man's song, not ready to hie and and away with this pied piper, no. She sees the teenager approaching, just in time.

No! Not just in time. Just a moment later than just in time. In time enough to not fall over when the redhead wanders, straight line or otherwise, into the left half of her back. Rain turns a bit, gets an arm out in front of her, either to steady the girl or herself should they fall. Or to something. Something. Surely she had some sort of plan that wasn't base and instinctual reaction. Right? (Maybe.)

"Oh, hey, are you okay there?" she says, and maybe her voice reaches the table, or the bench, filtering into the awareness of someone beyond this entangled duo. It's possible, see, because they are all close enough to hear the dulcet strums of an accoustic guitar and that is neither so loud nor so throaty as to carry for far. And her voice is warm, it has a note of rising above, of carrying: she carries, more and further than they might suppose: endures. It does not die out easily into the night.

She doesn't say with sharpness watch where you're going. No. Rain looks the girl over, making sure she's alright, pats her on the arm once as she steps away. No harm done.

[Hunter] "If I'm hungry." He repeats back to her with a scoff and reaches his hand for some of the goodies. Crunch. "I'm always fuckin' hungry." Which is probably not the right thing to say becomes Imogen has this to offer:

Bone Gnawer, aren't you?

And now he has no defence. He can't claim tribe-ism or oppression by those who think they are better because he just walked right into that stereotype. All he can do is give her a flat look, but with raised eyebrows like: Ha Ha very clever Imogen.

He's not very clever about these things.

Eyes follow the gazes and the point and he spots Starla. The kin gets a warm smile and a beckoning wave: come have a sausage!

"So," he says to Imogen and Kora. "Did ya' fill Imogen here on the fuckin' joyous occasion that was the meetin'? I'd hate for her to fuckin' miss out on all the fun."

[Starla] Starla's greeting is more verbal, friendlier to Imogen as she finds it easier to meet the smaller woman's eyes than she would Kora's or Hunter's. "Evenin', Doc Slaughter." The mid-western twang rumbles around her words, rolls off the tongue in a merrier drawl when she spoke.

She wasn't quite sure what the topic of conversation was revolving around, something about being a Gnawer and food, which pulls her eyes to Hunter again. A warm smile begets a broader grin from the Gaian kin, the freckles dancing across her skin on her left cheek and the bridge of her nose, scrunching it up cutely. She lifts her free hand to offer a small wave to the Gnawer, "Hey" as she's maneuvering around them to the empty half of the picnic table.

The coffee is set down, Starla turns with her back facing the edge, dropping her hands back to cover over the table's wooden surface and leans back, pushing herself up as she hops up to sit on it. The coffee retrieved; Starla's eyes widening slightly as Imogen is asked the question of the hour.

[Kora] "You know Starla, yeah?" Kora to Imogen, as the latter lifts her chin mildly toward Roman's cousin, pointing her out as she returns with coffee. To Hunter, too. There's a general tilt to the introduction. It's encompassing like that.

Nevermind that this isn't her territory, nevermind that this isn't a feasting hall, nevermind that they're on a park bench on a cold spring night and all she has are sausages, crisps and chocolate milk rather than mead and great haunches of meat turning on the fire: she'll share what's there. There's an instinctive grace to that that's larger than the place or position. Hunter grabs a handful of chips, and Kora holds out her chocolate milk a half-second later. Like it was a greeting cup, for fuck's sake.

Like Thorngrim Ghostsinger's giant paws were ghosting over her long, slender fingers. (Less than slender; she's retaining water.)

A glance back there, the collision between Rain and Fiona. A quick, close glance over her shoulder, a level look that is not alarmed, followed by a lift of the bag of chips by way of salute to Rain and Fiona.

"Naw," Kora returns to Hunter. "Too busy debating the finer points of crisp manufacturing. You heard about that though, yeah Doc? GE summoned the kin and tribe leaders, invited everyone to air out their grievances then - " A quiet, subtle snort. "Fucking - " Here, her mouth flattens, twists the rest of whatever she might've said next away. " - meetings. So damn much talk."

[Fiona] Fiona is not complicated. Fiona is no literary nymphet, adored by HH and other such suspects. Fiona mystifies noone except perhaps people who actually know her. Fiona, running into Rain, who saves her own balance and lends a steadying hand to the younger girl, makes a hiccup-gasp of surprise, and drops her book. The warm voice and the warm hand do something to assuage the anxiety that fills her eyes, the shy, kneejerk worry, chased by a sharper pang (but the fairyland door will leave now [if it's there] and the elfguitarist'll vanish [if he's really an elf]), and then a cautious smile. Her forehead crinkles up, eyebrows arcing, "Uhm. I. Uhm, yes. I'm - gosh, just so fucking stupid, I'm sorry, it's just," and she stoops down to collect her book, which is when tragedy strikes. The pages: they're bent. They're smooshed! The corners are folded quite noticeably in a way any booklover would just cringe at. The dust jacket is

[ominous music]

[a chord of doom]

ripped. "Oh no," Fiona murmurs, wretched, "Oh no, oh no oh no oh no oh no," and she pulls her turtle neck (she was wearing a turtle neck under that coat) up over her nose, to muffle the, "Oh no oh no." She gives Rain a look full of travesty, the utmost, utterly forgetting she doesn't even know Rain. "Do you think it can be fixed?"

[Maddox] Rain is right to be cautious. Something delivish and dangerous lurks the streets of Chicago. Of course, there's always something devilish and dangerous prowling this city's streets. One might suspect the guitarist on the bench is one such creature. After all, none present has seen him before. That doesn't mean he's a complete unknown. Two of his auspice know his name, one of them the elder in this city, and a third knows of him, thanks to a chance encounter in a hotel hallway. He's been sighted in The Brotherhood, but so far hasn't gone out of his way to impress himself upon the citizens of Chicago. There are those who know that he hasn't danced the spiral.

The kinswoman notices the girl coming toward her a moment too late. Maddox notices her a moment after that, when the sound of bodies colliding catches his attention. His playing stops abruptly, and he turns to look over his shoulder at the girls on the path.

And he laughs. The sound is slightly higher pitched than one might expect, but not piercing. It could be annoying to the right (or wrong) ear. Probably is. That's just Maddox all over. He doesn't start playing again, but rises, and shifts his guitar to rest against his back. With one hand he pulls the cigarette from his lips to blow a plume of smoke into the night air. The other removes his sunglasses, pushes them up his face to displace his hair in all directions before finding a natural spot to perch.

"Well well," he says, amused. One hand flicks ash from the cigarette, the other disappears into the pocket of a dark colored blazer. There's also a hooded sweatshirt, and jeans, and trainers. Keeping his pace leisurely slow, he wanders in the direction of Rain and Fiona. His eyes, visible now, are dark, intense, and focused for the moment. "Good evening, little birds. What have we got here?" He speaks with a touch of some muddled, faded accent that almost lends an air of sophistication to the skinny man. He looks at the book in Fiona's hands, his eyes go too wide. The hand removes from his blazer pocket to press to his chest, and he gasps audibly. "What did you do?" He holds out his hand for the tome. "Let's have a look then. Assess the damage."

[Izzy Montoya] Ah yes. The meetings. The stupid fuckin meeting. When Izzy stalked out, it wasn't far - it was to the nearest dive bar where she knows the bartender, where she proceeded to drink half the men under the table, and picking a likeable enough victim out of those that remained standing to follow home. This could possibly be the infamous 'walk of shame' of the day after - if she had an ounce of shame in her. It could be, but it's not, as that was hours ago and she's already put in a full day of work, and then some.

What it is, is a stop for a quick meal and coffee, because she's fuckin' hungry and needs caffeine and the park is one of the few areas she can get both AND nicotine all at the same time.

That she's here at the same time as the Jarl and company? Pure coincidence. Still, it happens that she has a cup of coffee - hot and black, just like... well, never you mind - in one hand, and a sausage in the other as she heads toward the picnic tables.

To her credit, she doesn't stop when she sees who is gathered there. She does have a feeling there will be some sort of... discussion... about what she had to say last night, though. Perhaps, in some way, it's like a bandaid. Rip it off, get it over with, quickly. No such thoughts show in her carefully guarded expression, however. There is simply recognition. That's all.

[Rain] There is a way that wolves know each other, they can scent it in each other, they can see something that kin cannot. Whatever Fiona is, it does not unnerve Rain to be near to her, tangled up for a moment in her; where others might bristle at even the quiet Rage suddenly at their backs, the songbird doesn't seem to notice it. Not at first. And then in only subtle ways. Fiona's wolf is subdued, in comparison to those at the table over yonder.

But now there are two unfamiliar wolves clustered around the kinswoman of Unicorn, and she unknowing of it in this very moment. There is sharp laughter -- sharp but not shrill; high but not piercing -- and deep worry. Rain rests a hand on the girl's shoulder, smiles warmly.

"Bent pages can be smoothed. Just place it under something heavy, y'know?" she suggests, and there's a warmth to her tone that makes it read as genuine, as open, bereft of ill-will or deception. Honest. Maddox takes up the tome, scolding the girl in the process and Rain's mouth thins a bit.

"She feels bad enough," the Gaian says, still unaware that she's standing up for (or up to) True. "You'd best help if you're going to rile her up like that," she says, weariness and some sort of protectiveness for the younger girl stepping in where her manners might have better bridged that gap.

Even still, even unknowing, some part of her twigs to the convergence here. Her hands go back into her pockets when she next has the chance; innately she separates herself a bit from them. The gold charm at her throat is buried beneath layers of cloth just now; still silent her blood offers them no suggestions. There is a glance, stolen, toward the table where the Queen of Vikings dines with pages and Knights from other Families.

[Imogen] "Starla," Imogen greets the other, neatly answering Kora's question as to whether or not the two of have met without saying a word.

Hunter's sarcastic - you are so damn clever - look in Imogen's direction is merely met by arched eyebrows that could likely be translated to a resounding affirmative. Why yes, she is that clever.

The subject moves on and rather quickly. Hunter asks if Kora has filled Imogen in. Kora offers an statement, an opinion.

"Don't worry," she assures Hunter, "I've been t'meetings before. I'm familiar wi' their dynamic." A flick of her glance toward Kora. "I heard a bit about it; Kinfolk Liaison, Sept Liaison." A faint smirk of her mouth, "More o' the same, though I imagine I'm one o' the only ones still about t'recall." Meetings in Hill House. Mary Alice at the centre, a packmate of the Grand Elder's - whose name she has forgotten - in the back as a representative.

A beat. She picks up her water, tipping it back to fill her mouth. Swallows. "Then they want a kinfolk to 'lead them all', I take it."

[Starla] "We've met - Hunter's a real White Knight when it comes to rescuing and protecting damsels." There is a playful jest in the tone of her voice, kept light as the conversation starts to grow heavy with the discussion of last night's meeting. Starla nods to Imogen behind her coffee cup, smiling, "Imogen."

The Gaian kin had fallen asleep through most of it, only to wake up and find out that Danicka had been placed in an esteemed title position that now made the renowned mate of that Shadow Lord dude, the voice of Chicago's kin. It plays across her thoughts as if she were swimming through murky water, cautious to even drop a passing comment on it.

Air passes through her nose in a noisy snerk, mouth occupied by the flimsy plastic lid of her coffee cup, sitting precariously from the hot beverage as she tried not to scald her tongue. Starla winces; the corners of her eyes crinkling up as she lowers the cup, the sugary liquid burned her tongue, the back of her mouth and throat as it warmed a path down into her stomach.

"That Danicka lady was crowned a liaison of the kinfolk, git's to sit in on moots and whatnots, be a mouth piece for the kin." She interjects at random, mouth flattening into that same thin-lipped frown she wore when she witnessed it last night. "Some guy named Matthieu gets to pucker up wit' Amy's alliance buddies."

Somewhere in the distance, Rain is making new friends, she has become a magnet for a pair of Fianna. Their shapes and motions slide along her peripheral, become the focal point of Starla's attention for several seconds as she watches the quiet display of their actions, unable to make out words that might form - just reads the faint lines of body language. She tucks her swings her legs back and forth, perched on the table, taking another swig at the scorching hot coffee, wincing.

[Maddox] A breath after she soothes the younger girl, the captivating young woman who he thinks might have some deeper appreciation for his playing than some silly, empty-headed thing, scolds. Maddox takes the book, but before he can fully look over the pages, he turns his head. Dark eyes bore into her face, and he does nothing to hide the way they travel down and back up again. He grins around his cigarette, probably because of that lewd glance, maybe for her moxie. "Shhhhhh..." he says, holding a finger up to his lips, and continues in a stage whisper, "what d'you think I'm doing, luv?"

And then he turns away. His focus shifts to the book in his hands. Fingertips slide over the bent pages, his expression thoughtful. Taking hold of the pages, he lets the book hang from his grasp before bracing the spine with his other hand. The pages get bent back, carefully, the touch gentler than Rain might imagine. There's still a kink when he's done, still a slight crease, but time spent closed should set that straight over time.

"That takes care of that," he says, and flips through the book. A brow rises briefly, lowers again, and he looks for signs of official looking stamps or little pockets for library check-out cards. Flicking his gaze to Fiona, he asks, "Is this borrowed?"

[Hunter] "Oh good," he says slyly to Imogen. "Just makin' sure we're all fuckin' equals in misery."

He slips this comment in somewhere though he says it quiet enough that he's not intruding on the flow of the conversation. Nearby there's a kinfolk and she's sitting on a picnic table. Apparently he's real White Knight and while that might make another Garou puff up with pride it just makes Hunter scowl, though there's a certain amusement in the expression.

This description of him obviously isn't a new one.

Silence for the rest of it, until Starla is done explaining and there's a rumble from the back of his throat, a slight bristling of Rage at the comments.

"Didn't say nuthin' at the time, was half fallin' a fuckin' sleep when it all came out. I dunno about this kinfolk at the fuckin' moot crap though. I mean the Gee Eee is the god damn Gee Eee so what does my opinion matter?"

He snorts.

"Just don't know about it s'all. Don't know what the need is."

[Fiona] Elves are cruel. Not in Tolkien: the elves in Tolkien are noble and just and beautiful. They're not real. Fiona's not stupid. She totally gets that (although she is also prepared to discuss matters in their language, should they ever decide to become real). Elves are cruel in all the stories. Maddox's muddled accent does not escape clarity when Fiona listens to it, and she pegs him as a man from a place where a fairy might well decide to pretend to be human. Fiona is standing with the book in her hand like it's a piece of the spear that got Jesus and she's a Catholic like it's some kind of broken holy relic like if she moves it'll dissolve like she's made out of fire and the book's spun of cotton candy and that's not going to last at all. For a second: her eyes go blank. Wide, unblinking. She is considering who she will run down and play a game with for the ability to scent out the true form of strangers at twilight. It'd be useful. Why didn't she think of it before?

And while she's considering this, back of her mind consideration, like an itch, her throat is filling up with despair, is closing with saliva, and she swallows, actually flinching at the what did you do, murmuring, "It's broken. Do you, uhm. Do you really think, do," and her eyes go bright luminous. She's not crying, mind, but the possibility is there. If she blinks, water'll gather in the corner of her eyes. "Do you, uhm, do you think smoothing it will," and she holds the book out to Maddox, shaking from adrenaline and (contained) despair. She is a teenager; these things are dramatic. "That just smoothing it will work?"

When the book's been taken, she starts biting on her pinkynail, although she offers Rain a quick smile, while watching what Maddox is doing like a vicious hungry-for-mice hawk: "It's, it's okay. Boys are always mean and kind of like - uhm they are. They're kind of - what are you doing that doesn't look okay that looks - "

Then he's handing the book back and she stares at it. The dust jacket is still ripped, but, but, but hey, that's not too bad. " - thanks, London."

[Fiona] ooc: Erk! Wait. *adds*

"And uhm." Her shoulders round with guilt. "Yes. It's my brother's."

[Rain] There's something almost magical about having a true teenager in their midst (little does Rain know), whose adept twist at melodrama has nothing to do with Rage (except when it does) and is bent more toward the immediacy of everything in those fragile years. Rain was probably like that, once, somewhere between the ages of twelve and whenever-the-fuck-it-was that she left home.

That year. When she was the same age her brother had been. When it held a certain sort of symmetry. When she'd had enough, and enough means, and a good enough excuse and there'd been an open road. Before she'd been Found, and broken, and remolded. Before she'd been Unicorn's or anyone else's. So maybe it's that she sees a slip of something so profoundly normal in Fiona's hysteria, and in the cruel-kind way that Maddox both toys with it and remedies it, that floods Rain's expression with amusement, twines it around her resident warmth, gentles whatever borderline concern she might have had to be unwittingly amongst wolves in the dusky hours of twilight.

"I've got some tape in my bag," Rain says, offering out the suggestion with a raise of her eyebrow and a little motion that would lead to pulling her hand out of her pocket should Fiona show interest. "I'm almost always fixing my sheet music," she admits, easily, as if it were one of those things that just happened of its own accord, through no misuse or malady. A little shrug.

If desired, this little bit of clear-bodied tape is produced and proferred to the penitent teen.

For Maddox, then, a side-slipped smile, a faint cousin of a smirk, at the way that his eyes travel (but not quite self-possessed enough to bespeak some worldly wisdom, just comprehension, the subtle challenge of a thing that does not expect in any way to be chased: innocence [folly]). "Nice trick," she tells him. For the way he handled the book, or the teen, or maybe even his guitar, which she eyes, now, with a similar appreciation to the way he looked her up and then down again.

There is a measure of approval in her eyes when they meet his, briefly -- another sign that she does not yet know him for what he is.

[Kora] Starla's comment about Hunter protecting damsels earns the kinswoman a longer look; direct and dark-eyed, the unblinking, unbending sort. The sort that recalls the wolf she is, underneath, makes unrevealing reflective pools of her eyes. It's steady, watchful, judgment withheld but the sharpness of it so immediate as to be immanent.

When Izzy approaches, her own sausage in hand, the detective receives a subtle lift of a chin from the heavily pregnant Skald. Just a greeting. Whatever she's dreading appears to be overshadowed by other issues.

"If I have to hear about the concerns of my tribe's kin from the mouth of a poncy, long-winded Silver Fang - " Her nostrils flare with an exhaled breath and she shakes her gleaming head. The empty hood of her seatshirt moves across her spine, half-driven by the slow-uncoiling weight of her hair. "I will eat a fucking hat and then kick someone's goddamned ass."

A glance back at Imogen, then. "We nominated you for the position. Grand Elder picked the Shadow Lord's mate. She's got this batshit chick as her sidekick, too. Doc, I've been here how long, and the only time I've seen that woman was in the fucking underworld." Here, she breathes out. "Monty - tried to work with them last year, remember? Undermined him at every turn. I've got no clue what the next step is, but for fuck's sake, Doc. They wanna make squandrons of attack-kin, or some shit. As if they were Black Eagle.

"The Sept needs more than a Shadow Lord and her batshit sidekick leading the kin."

[Izzy Montoya] Hunter doesn't get it, and Izzy's close enough to the conversation by this point to have heard what they are discussing, and hear who was appointed. She snorts. Which is what got her into trouble last night.

The need. That's what he doesn't get. "Power." She stops, and takes a swallow of toohot coffee and grimaces as it scalds her tongue, then takes another swig anyway.

"Control. She finally got what she fuckin wanted when she headed this shit up before. She just waited till some crazy bitch fucked up bad enough to get to weasel her way in and take control."

No secret that Izzy has very little use for Shadowlords - and since she's not fucking either of them, she has no use for them at all. A simple woman, our Izzy, at the core.

She nods to Kora, and comes to a stop near the table, setting her cup down, so that she can take a bite of her sausage. She was there before. She saw what happened - and that they let the crazy-bitch take any part? She snorts again. "I shoulda shot that bitch when I had the chance."

She might be kidding.
Likely - not so much.

[Starla] An all-too familiar vibration rumbles in the back of Hunter's throat, the heat under his skin bristles at the comments that Starla makes. She couldn't ignore the scowl that was shot her way, despite the amusement that is written into the Gnawer's expression. She's keenly aware of that rage - that fire in the belly - it draws the thin points of her eyebrows to furrow deeply, the pale green of her eyes to hide under the flutter of thick lashes as her gaze skims his way.

She suppressed a shudder that ruptures a spasm of tension that starts to build between her shoulders, runs along the muscles of her lower back, making the kin sit just a little straighter, her legs to swing a little less. She shifts now, pulling her legs up to cross them and tuck her feet under her thighs. She falls quiet, working her burnt tongue into the inside of her left cheek; head bowed as her mouth meets the cup once again, swallowing heavily the sugary brown liquid.

Starla has a sudden knee-jerk reaction to the weight of Kora's falling on her. She tilts her head, eyes widening suddenly, almost pinned with worriment and confusion, as if to ask if she said something wrong. And then, Kora speaks out, voices her opinions about the Shadow Lord and her batshitcrazy sidekick...

The Gaian kin chokes on the sugary swill of coffee she nearly breathes in, cheeks bulged out as the cup lowers. Starla turns her head, trying to miss anyone that happens to be in her trajectory when she spews out the coffee. One of her hands rose up to press against her mouth, coughing. A flush of color spreads over her cheeks, eyes watery - her condition worsens as Lukas appears.

[Maddox] He has to laugh at that, he can't help it, any more than he could help looking over the shape of Rain's figure. It probably doesn't put her mind at ease that she doesn't get a second such look after she removes herself. Maddox doesn't look at her like he's about to chase her through the park with the intent to eat her up and devour her. His attention is so focused on the teenager and her despair over her book, the kinswoman may actually have been forgotten. He laughs because Fiona is a girl, not just female but a girl, and while the damage to the book is probably not the worst thing that's happened to her all day or all her life, right now she acts like it. And it's funny. "London. I like that. Makes me sound," here his chin lifts, and he strikes a pose as he stares up at the dark sky overhead, "dignified." There's an air of confidence about the man that lends a certain something to the image. Then he sniffs, turns his head blow a last bit of smoke before twisting his body slightly to scrape it out against the sole of his shoe.

It's my brother's.

"Oh." The laughter suddenly dies. Dark eyes flick down to the book in her hands, then back up to that young face. He shrugs. "I was going to suggest you make a new one, but if it's not yours I guess you're fucked." There's an offer of tape, and his attention returns to the kinswoman, the look in his eyes lending more to the thought that she might have been forgotten, even for a moment. Looking to Fiona, he smirks, jerks his thumb toward Rain. "Or that, yeah. Tape fixes all manner of ills." This said with that smirk, and a wink thrown to Rain.

He doesn't say a word when she mentions a trick. He tips his chin down, has to to look at her, lifts his brows, and puts his hand to his chest again. Moi? He winks.

[Rain] For expediency's sake, we will assume that Fiona, bent as she is on righting her book, accepts the tape and busies herself with the careful administration of the sort. Fixes all manners of ills, Maddox had said, and he's right. Clear tape is a god-send, not quite as modern a marvel as WiFi or the i-Anything, but pretty miraculous in its own right.

Rain watches her, kindly, as she goes about this handiwork, but her attention quickly strays again to the fellow musician in the circle.

"How long've you played?" she asks, which is an opening for all manner of other avenues of conversation. One hand escapes her pocket, reaches up to push a lock of dark hair behind her ear, revealing the sweep of her pale jawline, the line of her neck until it is swallowed up by her scarf, and then her coat. There is no reason, really, to linger, but the supposed safety of having her extended Family just across the way makes it easier for her to strike up conversation with strangers. Easier, because Rain has never balked at the task in the past.

[Maddox] They watch the teen put her brother's book to rights, not entirely unlike...older siblings maybe? With Rain the gentle elder sister, and Maddox the teasing, testing elder brother. Playing the part of the grouse even as he picks Fiona back up and tends to scraped knees, so to speak.

Even so, Rain probably wouldn't be so easy with the Fiann if her family wasn't right over there. Their attention is introverted, however, focused on some sort of debate. Leaving Rain alone in the presence of a pair of wolves. Maddox's eyes snap to the movement of her fingers as they sweep her hair back behind her ear. His head tips to the side, the gaze traveling down the line of her jaw and her throat. This one's a brave little bird, striking up a conversation with this stranger who has no fear of staring at the lovely lines of her.

"Hm?" Attention grabbed, he looks up at her eyes, the expression curious before his mouth stretches in a smile. Maddox is not the best looking man on the block, is in fact quite plain. Most girls would prefer a man more like the burly Gnawer, all tall and broad and strong. And probably dull as a brick and twice as thick. There's a charm to the Fiann, though, a confidence some might find appealing.

"That depends, luv." Without moving his feet to actually step closer to her, he puts his hands into the pockets of his blazer (dropping the cigarette butt in one (gross) to be tossed into a bin later), tips his chin, and leans his body toward Rain. "How long as the moon circled the earth?" The lean is brief, and before he starts the next sentence, he's standing upright again, eyes toward the sky. "How long have the stars burned in the cosmos?" He shrugs. "And you? What sort of music do you have wrapped up in tape?"

[Rain] He leans forward a bit and she leans back, like a push-pull game, follow (me) the leader. She's been spending more time on stage lately and this sort of mildly exaggerated action, partnered with an expression that is part playful and part oh-not-so-very-gullible (but gullible indeed) follows directly from that. There's a self-possession in the way that she moves, that she carries herself here, in the park, in an echo-wake of a day on the stage.

He calls her luv. She retorts with, "Oh, honey, you don't look half as old as all that earth and moon stuff," she says, Southern touch stringing out the words in ways honeyed and amused. All manner of delicately irreverent. Theater people and musicians were like this, people who ply their voices and their (many faced) personas as wares, trade and barter on emotions. Strangely, for Rain, it seems more genuine than hoax, more honest than feigned.

"And I sing for my supper," she jests, only just, with a smirk to her eyes and one that curled her mouth just so. "And play where I can." But she never, ever busks.

[Maddox] They banter. It's the kind of interaction Maddox is best at, this playful back and forth. He pushes, or maybe she pulls. Then they reverse, come to rights. She tells him he doesn't look as old as the moon and the earth, and he grins at her, lets out a touch of that pitched laughter. "I could have gotten lost in the land of the faeries," he muses, as though he knows what Fiona was thinking of him. There's no way, no possible way he would know that, though. Could he?

Rain admits that she sings for her supper, and that earns another discerning look from the Fiann, as if every time he looks at her he sees something new about her, something that keeps his attention from drifting away to another world, just beyond the Gauntlet. She calls him honey and it's so sweet, so touching, that it earns a smile that starts to touch on his dark eyes.

"Excellent," he says. "Then maybe you can show me around to the better venues sometime." His smile is smooth rather than warm, yet still somehow inviting.

[Rain] "Ah, ah," she says, holding up a finger and twitching it back and forth as she clucks. "Now wouldn't that just be sowin' my own competition about? I hear you play," she says, and there's some down home something to her voice that would have made it natural to hear that followed up with son, or child, or yet again honey. In fact the absence of that endearment is felt, draws the ear along like a hanging chord, snapped off without resolution.

Her finger falls away, and she smiles a bit more fully.

"Though I might," she recants. A little. Cheeky grin. "If I'm feelin' particularly charitable."

Rain rocks back on her heels a bit, glancing over to the table where the Queen of Vikings and Miss Doctor Slaughter have dispersed, leaving the ambient Rage diminished; leaving the air around this section of the park a little less strangled, throttled upon their presence: tight.

[Kora] I should've shot that bitch -

Maybe Izzy's joking, maybe she's not. Kora's reaction is immediate (nearly an hour later, heh. Sorry guys!) and unswerving. Oh, it's banked by the shape of her body, the heaviness of her pregnancy. Her wolf is bound in soft human skin, but her eyes blaze with it. Gleam in the subtle reflection of the crescent moon.

Once moment she's sitting, the next she's standing, lifting herself off the picnic table, and in that moment of movement it's momentarily easy to forget that she's eight months pregnant or more. No one knows, in truth. She advances on Izzy one step, then two. A flash of rage that must go unfulfilled, leaving her that much more restless in the aftermath.

"Kin are banned from the Caern, Izzy - " near-deadly quiet, " - because John Thornton shot a fucking Garou there. If I hear you threaten another Gaian, Shadow Lord or no, kin or otherwise, in jest or certainty, it will be the last time, Detective. I trust we're clear."

She is suddenly not hungry anymore, standing, she wants to run. She's caged inside her skin, and that desire is - A glance at Starla, Hunter maybe. "I'm going to see if Trent's home. Someone make sure that that stranger with Rain is safe, yeah?"

--

And - out!

[Fiona] The tip of Fiona's tongue is poking out of the corner of her mouth as she very, very, very excrutiatingly carefully applies the cellophane tape and listens with half-an-ear to the (fey [elfish]) musician and the other (sweet, voice-full) musician talk about musician things.

However, there is one word GUARANTEED to get her attention. It tarts with an 'f' and ends with an 'aeries' and Fiona's head shoots up, palms pressing flat against the path she is now crouched on, fingers splayed, body bent over the book, and she stares at Maddox.

"Hey. Hey. Uhm, hey. Hey. Do you - hmm. Do you - what's the recipe - " here, she makes her voice suave, tricksy: " - for boiling eggshells?"

[Maddox] Ah, ah, and his smile broadens. She heard him play, after all. She could be sowing the seeds of her own destruction, or at least her own financial ruin, if she shows a talented player like Maddox around all of her haunts. The look he gives her is, yet again, exaggerated innocence. Who would suspect such a lad as he of such a cunning trick?

She might, though, this lovely young singer. She might take him around if she's feeling particularly charitable. He manages to keep a sense of triumph from his demeanor, a feat made easier when the little bookworm tries to get his attention. She tries to sound suave, tricksy, when she asks her question.

For a moment, Maddox just stares at her, like she's some strange being he hasn't run into before. For that moment, there's a space of silence among the trio. Then Maddox snorts. And he laughs.

"I'm not a changeling, luv," a fact that may be denied by the fact that mere mention makes him laugh.

[Izzy Montoya] Kora moves.

Izzy falls completely, utterly, impossibly, totally still.

She watches Kora, her dark eyes unreadable, her gaze even... still. so very very still... as it's laid down again. She knows what John did. More importantly, she knows why. And she will, always and forever, be on John's side of the matter on this one. He is, after all, the one she chose.

However, she doesn't move. She doesn't speak. She waits until ultimatums are given - as they have been before - and trust is broken - as it has been before. Then, she simply reaches for her coffee cup, and takes a drink once Kora has gone. A swallow, and she sets it down again, then takes another bite of her sausage. It's not really her fault everyone assumes she meant Danicka - especially when they were ALL calling the OTHER kin in question 'crazy bitch' - but whatever. They never listen - even to themselves. It really is none of her concern if they are so interested in getting themselves killed.

Hell, she threatens to shoot everyone. It's part of her charm. It's highly likely that won't change now, either. And, in the end, she simply smirks. The more things change....

[Rain] Rain McKellar was not raised on tales of Faeries, Changelings and wee Folk. The folk tales she heard, when she heard them at all, were rooted in the community that grew up alongside her own, spoken from the tongues of men and women still called Colored by their neighbors. In place where Correctness, political or otherwise, had not fully taken hold there was no room for At the End of the Rainbows.

"Well, lovely," she says, narrowing her eyes a little as she looks down at Fiona. "Wouldn't y' just put the shells in water, and heat them up a little. Gentle-like at first, so they don't break about more?"

This is, most likely, not the answer the girl is looking for but if, by some stroke of chance it resonates, well, then Rain might play about at being a Faerie, a thing she knows nothing at all about, in a flight of twilight fancy. Even kinfolk had to have good days, playful and joyous moments amidst the worry and Rage.

She glances over to Maddox, faux-seriously, as if he could confirm or deny her story with nothing more than a glance.

[Hunter] There's telling off to be done and Hunter looks bored. But then there's a re[quest] for the white knight as Starla had so kindly put it. Make sure that the weirdo talking to Rain is actually not a weirdo but an okay dude. So he does this and he flicks his chin to Starla and Izzy to see if they want to come along for the journey.

"Let's go check em' for fleas n'such."

So the burly dull thick as a brick Gnawer starts wandering towards Rain and Maddox. There's nothing intentionally intimidating about Hunter right now, he's just an Ahroun.

Strong, filled with Rage, green eyes that could and would have had Rain looking away [or running away] a month ago. Now? Maybe not. He approaches.

"What's ya' name?" He asks Maddox, then tilts his head to Rain. "Kora said we should make sure he ain't no creeper." It's obvious he's doing a favour, not following orders. He seems just as invested in this task as he has to be.

[Starla] Starla is sitting cross-legged on the edge of the picnic table. The Styrofoam cup of coffee held in her right hand, arm extended away from her as if the contents of the cup just might come exploding out of it at any second. The back of her left hand presses against her mouth, watery green eyes squint at her surroundings; the choking fits subsided, the brown sugary liquid that she spat out splashed against the ground.

She wipes the sleeve of her denim jacket across her chin, wiping away the remnants of coffee. She rolls closed for a brief second, listening as Kora's words run over her ears and she simply nods in response. The dashing White Knight of the Slums of Bronzeville takes up the banner of the Jarl's request to check out the man with Rain. He motions for the Gaian and Fenrir kin to join him.

Starla glances at Izzy, rolling her shoulders in a faint shrug and pushes off the picnic table, that may or may not look eerily familiar, and looks for a trash can to throw the cup away in. She dogs after the Gnawer's heels, bowing her head, tendrils of black hair escape from the loose bindings of long braids to sweep across the curve of her jaw and into her eyes.

[Rain] And that, boys and girls, is the fun coming to a screeching halt. Rain more than feels Hunter's Rage riding up against her skin when she nears, and there's an instinctive half-step, only partly hidden by how she shifts her body to open the circle to him.

And with Hunter, of course, being who and what he is, Rain will not make eye contact. But she will glance up, putting her attention on or about level with his cheekbone. Offer a smile that is a bit more tense, somewhat shrouded, stripped of that easy idle mirth from a moment before. He runs right up against the bounds of her will, but her chin tips up a bit, shoulders square a little.

"Evenin' Hunter," she says, her voice level and still honeyed-slow for Eve's new Alpha, Eve's brother now that Rain could no longer be sister to the Gnawer of her own right. That gaze slides to Starla, softens and welcomes a bit more. "Starla," she expands the greeting to fit them both.

[Wyrmbreaker] [oh - fyi so there's no further surprises: yeah, lukas is hanging out across the gauntlet. but i really, really need to run for some groceries before i die of starvation. so i'll be back to RP in about 20 min!]

[Fiona] Her smile is careful - is like hands held together, cupping something precious - water, maybe, which might spill and glimmer at any moment, or, or, or, or something lighter, something more winsome. The smile tucks a slanting dimple in one cheek, something that bespeaks of dreamy mischief. "You're doing a very good An Gánconágh impression. I don't know, London. You've even got faery lands forlorn in your voice. Although I guess I hear London's kind of dirty now and the ravens only talk sometimes, to some people," the dreaminess is taking control, and she stands up, hugging the book to her chest, swaying back and forth: the dimple is for Rain. "You're not. A real faery'd be like, Whoa! I never heard of anyone doing THAT before. Unless, uhm. I guess they've all, uhm, heard that story already," and she gives Maddox and Rain both a speculative look, naked greed for something supernatural. (She's a monster. You'd never think so.)

Then Hunter and Starla come over, and Fiona - starts: "Oh! You - uhm." Pause. Caution: "Hey you. I think he's okay enough for a boy. He's just being a boy. D-do, uhm. Kora? Like, uhm. I know a Kora too! Like persephone."

[Izzy Montoya] They vacate the table, and Izzy remains where she is. She takes a seat, pulls her cup to her lips for another scalding swallow, and sets both the cup and her sausage on the table. Then, the ritual search for cigarettes and lighter.

Both pockets of her coat are searched, then the inside one, finally revealing the battered pack - the lighter is located in her right pocket of her slacks, and the latter is used to light up one of the cigarettes in the former.

She takes a deep drag, and closes her eyes briefly. It is all the reaction she allows herself.

[Maddox] [percept + PU, diff 8 -1 (WP diff) -4 (Rage diff)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 9 (Success x 2 at target 3)

[Maddox] Maddox is still chortling a bit when the bodyguard arrives, all big and brooding and such and such. They are nearly the same height, the Ahroun and the Theurge, but the difference in their builds is staggering. Hunter is at least four times as big as Maddox, by the Fiann's reckoning. And, also by his reckoning, most likely a quarter as intelligent. There's Rage rolling off the big guy in waves, and Maddox just turns to look at him, eyelids drooped, brows lifted. Utterly unconcerned.

Until the little slip of breeding wanders up behind him. It's his first clue that perhaps not all is as it seems. One careful look over Hunter, and he knows what he's dealing with here. These are not just brave little mortal girls. They're something. Maddox peers at Starla, then twists around to look at Rain, who has stepped back again. Dark eyes sweep again over the Child of Gaia. He will not, under any circumstances, change his target to the pure bred girl on the other side of the lumbering oaf at this stage of the game, no sir. He tilts his head to the side, his hands still in the pockets of his blazer.

"I'm Maddox," he says, his tone light and easy, carefully modulated to make sure the Ahroun understands him. It's only because they all seem to know each other, somehow, some way, that he continues. "Where the Sidewalk Ends, Cliath Theurge of the Fianna. Who're you?"

[Hunter] [per+pu on fiona!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Hunter] "Rain." He greets her back, there's even a little smile there for the breedless kin. But then his attention is back on Maddox and if he needed to look closely to figure out what this man is [he does] then that need is snuffed out as soon as he introduces himself.

Where the Sidewalk Ends, Cliath Theurge of the Fianna. Who're you?

"Hunter Matthews. Burnout. The White Knight of fuckin' Bronzeville." Dead pan. Thanks Starla

That's all he gets for now, attention shifting to the small headed red headed girl who it turns out isn't really a girl at all. She's a wolf, or a wolfette or maybe even a wolfina.

"Boys are stupid."

[Rain] Look, then, they're playing nice tonight. Rain as Little Red Riding Hood, Hunter as the Big Bad Wolf. Tonight is a night of (my what big teeth you have) tentative peace. She doesn't turn on her heel, or skitter away. There is no Kool-Aid-Manning-It out of the park. No, instead she stands her ground. They smile. Neither smile is mistaken for the baring of teeth.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Progress! Celebrate it!

Rain's hands go back into her coat pockets. She dips her chin down a little, so that when she is looking at the gathered wolves it is slightly through the veil of her dark lashes. They exchange names, titles of a sort, some more figurative than others. All the while, the Gaian girl maintains and calm and quiet way of staying out of the way, out from underfoot, completely unrankled by the need to remain quiet and separate while the big kids make their introductions.

[Starla] The White Knight of fucking Bronzeville... Starla blinks. Hunter's dead pan. She coughs, cupping her hand over her mouth to hide the smile that threatens to break free. She shakes her head, tosses Rain a curious glance, as if to quietly ask if she's alright. The brief display of concern customary from this one.

The girls always looked out for each other.

"Don't deny it, Hunter, it's true."

[Fiona] [STAMINA. It'll make sense, honest.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 6 (Failure at target 7)

[Fiona] This. This happens, in quick succession - first: wide-eyed shock, thrilling up her spine, because she has been apparently helped by a garou of her same tribe and her same auspice, and Rain must be okay too because well because Kora and now Hunter and that was totally Kora by Slaughter and, and Fiona isn't the smartest, cleverest teenage girl in the world, most of her smarts being used up with imaginary languages, but she can put two and two together at least. Still, the wide eyes take Rain in with some concern [brimming], some sudden touch of trouble, and then go beyond Hunter to Starla.

Hunter's introduction snaps her attention back to him. This time, she thinks as he is still talking, she is going to get through an introduction with dignity.

That is not what happens. The girl hugging the book to her chest stops swaying, and then Hunter adds Boys are stupid, and she flushes (blushes), then just gurgles with laughter -- shy, fey, helpless, unhelped, uncontrolled. She gasps for air, and

then starts giggling again. Not loudly. Behind her book, as a matter of fact, which she is using to hide her mouth.

[Maddox] Maddox snorts, grins at the Ahroun, all brash and bold. "Riiiiiight. Takes one to know one." And childish, too, apparently.

He looks at Fiona first, and that grin shifts slightly for the teen. Reaching out, he ruffles the giggling girl's hair, completely unable to not laugh, probably at her, but it's not any meaner than anything else he's said or done this night. "And London is a bit dirty these days, but the ravens still talk, if you know how to listen."

A step is taken back, which incidentally brings him a touch closer to Rain. Rain. He smiles to her, leans in close if she'll let him, close enough to whisper against her ear yet still managing to keep from touching her. Whatever he says, if she lets him, is between the pair of them.

Then he leans away from her, shoots a grin to the unnamed Starla, and a wink besides, "Well if you'll excuse me ladies." Another step back, and then a turn, then a stop, then a few steps back to Rain. "Oh, this will probably make sense then. I'm more or less staying at this place called The Brotherhood. Call 'round any time you want to show me your favorite places." He winks for her, and it's not the same as the one sent Starla's way. This time, when he steps off again, his steps are sure, and there's no turning back. When he nears a trash bin, he removes his hand from his pocket to toss something away.

Then the shadows swallow his passage, and the faerie Londoner is lost from sight.

[Izzy Montoya] There is helpless laughter from over in that direction, and they get a glance - but they are spared the presence of the Fenrir Kin. There is a purity to her blood that speaks of the fierceness of her bloodline, of wars and fiends and victory and crimson stains throughout the history of her people. But more so, there is an exhaustion about the woman - not a girl, and certainly not a child - who remains seated at the table.

She runs her free hand through her hair, briefly, allowing the minute light catch her features for a moment. She lets go, and then reaches into her pocket. Not for another cigarette, she's still sucking down the one she has, but for her phone. Then, the dim light illuminating her face, she checks her email, messages, etc.

[Hunter] Apparently Hunter's mere presence is enough to bring about laughter from the collective. Maybe it's what he said or maybe it's how he said it. Whatever the case, girls are laughing and they are probably laughing at him because he's really not that funny.

Starla gets another one of those amused scowls, a little twisting of his lips into a grin and shake of his head. No, it's not true. There's a picnic table somewhere in the park that is most likely testament to that fact.

The little Fiann though, she is just out of control. Her face is covered up by a book and even that can't keep out the mirth. The park can't even handle her right now. Hunter is smiling at her and it's one of confusion but not an unkind smile, more like: this is odd, but im glad you're enjoying your self.

Whispers, whispers. He doesn't speak again for some time, instead he's wandering after him to check in that rubbish bin and find out what he's tossing away.

[Starla] Maddox is rewarded with a curious tilt of Starla's head, she turns to follow him with her eyes, arching a brow at the wink, one corner of her curls back in response. She shakes her head slowly, nose twitching; she swings her attention back to the giggling sprite hiding behind a book as Hunter seems to be the punch of a hidden joke that the Gaian kin isn't privy to just yet.

She lays her hands on her hips, purses her lips together. The pale gaze of green eyes find Hunter's face, notes that same scowl of amusement that he gave her at the table, Starla smirks at him. "Yeah it is."

It's all she says in response to the quiet look .

[Rain] Starla tosses a glance her way and Rain's reply is a reassuring look. But that's before the littlest wolf devolves into a cascade of giggles. Before Maddox's voice brushes against her ear and Rain's smile twists, delicately, amused and pleased and a little abashed. Her cheeks pink, just so, and she turns to look at the Fiann as he steps away.

Whatever she's trying to hide is not all that terribly well hidden. He mentions the Brotherhood. He winks. She finds her composure again and chuckles lightly, responding: "I know the place." And yet not vetting that offer of showing him her favorite places.

That much she can jest about in the presence of the Bronzeville Ahroun. When Hunter steps away, though, some unseen tension slakes from her shoulders and Rain exhales a little more completely. Unfurls. The Gaian girl offers a glance to Fiona, seeing if the giggle-fit has exhausted itself by now, and then back over to Starla.

Finally, a true greeting for her kinswoman. "Wolves, and faeries, and sliver slip moons," she says, eyebrows lofted a little, cheeks still pinked faintly by whatever Maddox said. "I think it's time for me to head home," there's a little tip of her head, an unspoken invite for Starla to accompany her, if she so wants, back to the stout Cabrini church now that the party is breaking up.

[Fiona] "I uhm, just. I. Hee. Hee. That's your NAME." Hunter is wandering to inspect a trashcan (there are no rubbish bins in America), and Fiona worries her lower lip with her teeth, the gleam of a grin making of her eyes mischief. To Rain and Starla she says, very quietly: "It's just, like. He must of uhm. Pissed somebody off, you know. For that to be part of his name. 'Boys are Stupid.' Hee."

Then - then. There is a sound: familiar. The buzz of a cellphone going off, in the way of cellphones, half an hour after the angry, maternal message was left on the phone. Fiona, still biting her lip, reaches gingerly into her pocket and looks at it. Then her eyes go round enough for the full moon to fall in and drown: "Oh no - "

" - thank you!! Uh, Ray? Rain? Uhm - and - and - bye!"

Then she is off. Like a ROCKET of PURE SPEED, running, feet kicking up, towards the edges of the park (huff! huff!) and the last bus of the night that'll bring her home.

[Fiona] [howfast?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]

[Maddox] [thanks for the scene, guys! *bzooms* JAYSUS]

[Fiona] [Like a cheetah.]

[Wyrmbreaker] For an Ahroun, Lukas's gnosis is potent, even impressive. That doesn't mean it's foolproof. The crossing is long and difficult this time. He snags on the webs. He gets lost in the world-between-worlds. He pulls through a second or a year later -- he's not even sure -- and Kora's long gone.

There's a rustle in the foliage. Then Lukas, stepping out of the treeline, brushing glistening webwork from his shoulders, his chest, everywhere. It fades before it hits the earth. He grimaces, rolling a shoulder in its joint.

"Kora and Imogen leave already?" This is to Izzy.

[Izzy Montoya] There's a rustle in the foliage, and her eyes snap up - she is, after all, a perceptive bitch. She is aware of her surroundings, despite the fact she seems to be concentrating on whatever information she is flipping through on her phone.

She watches, and then the figure comes into the light, and she recognizes him. There's little expression to betray her, as she meets his gaze, and answers the question simply.

"Yes."

She returns her attention to the screen of her phone, and takes another drag off her cigarette. If it occurs to her to ask how he knew they were here - she does not voice it aloud.

[Starla] Wolves and Fairies and Silver slip moons... Rain is waxing poetry at the painted Unicorn that has turned to watch the healthy flush of color stain Rain's cheeks. Starla tips her head to the side, extends her right hand out to point at the other Gaian kin, finds it impossible to speak as her attention is being thrust into different directions with Hunter stalking off to - do something - to a trash can... and Fiona is darting off like a cheetah.

There is a speed in the girl she has never seen before. The hand drops to her hip, Starla clucks her tongue against the back of her teeth. "Yeah," she agrees in a breathless murmur, "It's late and Cinderella's about ready to turn into a pumpkin by the look on yar face, sugah."

[Hunter] Hunter wanders back not too long after the Fiann has darted off into the night, his head swivels up the grassy knoll to where the picnic table is situated and -- incidentally -- a rather familiar Adren. If Lukas looks he'll get a casual little salute from the Gnawer before his attention reverts to Starla and Rain.

"You two headin' off?"

[Wyrmbreaker] She doesn't have to ask, it turns out. Lukas was never one to hide his motives. "I wanted to have a talk with Imogen," he says. "I was looking for her. And Kora. I followed her this far and then got tangled in the tapestry... so to speak."

Spiderwebs, the last of them, crack and fall from his sleeve as the Ahroun gestures to the picnic bench across from Izzy, eyebrows rising in a may I? expression. Probably just courtesy -- drilled into him from long before he was Wyrmbreaker. After he sits, tipping a returned, Sarita-style two-finger-salute at Hunter, he turns back to Izzy.

There's a pause; then, levelly, "I heard the tail end of the conversation before she left. What'd you say?"

[Rain] "That's me," she agrees easily, stepping close enough to thread an arm through Starla's. "Country bumpkin." A little nudge, a lightness to her voice that hasn't been there much of late.

It's warm enough to buoy her smile up to something truly friendly when she looks over to answer Hunter and takes Lukas measure in the distance. "Yeah," she says, to Defiance's Alpha. "It's getting late. We should get back to the Church."

Just two good little kin girls observing a reasonable curfew. Nothin' to see here.

"Say hi to Eve for me, if that's okay," she adds, but there's something wistful and ever so quietly aching under that. It surfaces, but doesn't linger.

[Izzy Montoya] He asks if he can sit, and she doesn't bother to give permission. He, as all the others, assumes he does not really need it, and will do as he damn well pleases regardless. She does, however, click her phone screen to locked and slides it into her pocket. She flicks her cigarette ashes off to the side before taking another drag.

Long and slow.

She is silent long enough that he may think she refuses to answer the question for whatever reason: its none of his business, it's not polite to eavesdrop, she has already been berated and belittled, she thinks twice of what she says, or she doesn't give two shits.

It's the latter, apparently, because she does answer. "That I should have shot that crazy bitch when I had the chance." She holds up a finger, before she continues. "Don't get your panties in a fuckin' wad, too, though - I threaten to shoot everyone. Amunet ain't fuckin' special, no matter how had she fuckin' tries to be."

She doesn't look away. She doesn't look down. She doesn't avoid his gaze. She meets it, dead on. Not with challenge, simply determination. She doesn't back down, and she isn't lying.

[Starla] Rain entangles her arm with Starla's pulls the freckle-faced kin up to her side, there is a nudge in her side, a lightness to Rain's voice that she picks up on easily; it's been awhile since she's heard it.

The warm smile that plays across Rain's face is the opposite of the frown turning down the corners of Starla's mouth, she doesn't disengage from the kin, not when Rain tells Hunter that it's late. They should be going back to the Church like the good little kin they were. Starla lifts her head up, fixes an expression that is hidden and shadowed by the fall of black hair sweeping across her eyes. It's a desire to go anywhere but home.

She relents, however, and shakes her head, agreeing with Rain, "Yeah, she's right. We should be going home."

[Hunter] Hunter studies Rain's face and what he reads is completely false. But he doesn't know it and the reaction from the Ahroun is very real. He looks disappointed; he looks resigned and sad for the breed-less kinswoman.

A shake of his head completes the expression. But he's still Hunter; he still has to ask.

"Ya' need a lift? EmmyLou's out on the street, can drop ya' off."

[Starla] "Yeah, we can use a lift, Hunter. It'd be awfully kind of ya to do so."

She interjects suddenly, ready to tug Rain in that direction, not letting her argue the point. It was better than walking at this time of night, anyhow.

[Wyrmbreaker] A black eyebrow hops up. Then, surprisingly, Lukas just laughs under his breath. "You can say and do what you want, Izzy, as long as you're willing to face the consequences. I could care less if you threaten to shoot someone; it's just bluster. Inappropriate, callous and rude, but bluster in the end. If you actually pulled a gun"

which actually happened not twenty-four hours ago, but he doesn't mention that little episode nor how it ended,

"then we'd have a serious problem. That said, I'm not sure her mate would be quite so understanding, and frankly, I think a little overreaction would be in order if the love of one's life were threatened. And Stefan's of a camp known for having ears on every wall."

A pause.

"Did you talk to Kora? You seemed pretty worked up last night about what happened to you in the past."

[Rain] [G'night guys, and thank you for the scene!]

[Wyrmbreaker] [night!]

[Rain] [Someday, I swear, Rain's actually gonna stay in a scene with one of your characters long enough for us to RP... *promises, promises*]
to Wyrmbreaker

[Izzy Montoya] Inappropriate, callous and rude.
Izzy, in a nutshell.

She smirks, slightly, and shrugs. "If I pull a gun on someone, I intend to use it, and I don't miss." Simple enough. And mates and understanding, and all of that just gets a brief roll of her eyes. Antiquated notions irritate her. Of course, most things irritate her. There's more of a disbelief that that crazy cunt could be the love of anyone's life under it than anything else. To each their own.

"No." She didn't talk to Kora. She finishes her cigarette, and immediately lights a second one. It is the only concession she gives to the affect of the current topic of conversation. "Talking won't change the mindset behind the events, let alone the event itself. After all," she's a fairly good mimic here... "It's been that way for thousands of years. Get motherfuckin' used to it. She was there. She knows of it."

She shrugs a shoulder absently. "I hadn't intended to speak. The man asked a question. One day, they'll all remember that if you don't want me to answer, don't fuckin' ask."

The twist of her lips is amused, briefly, before she shrugs. "That was not why I left, anyway."

[Hunter] [Hunter out with the girls! Unless you want to post more shann?]

[Starla] (nah we're good)

[Hunter] [aight thanks for the scene ya'll]

[Wyrmbreaker] To be truthful, there was just a touch of irony when Lukas said it: love of his life. A certain cynicism of his own in his eyes, as if he had a hard time believe that love-match, himself.

It's still there when he smiles a little. "And I suppose you're about to tell me why you really left."

[Izzy Montoya] "Not unless you fuckin' ask." Amused, that.

[Wyrmbreaker] Lukas shakes his head. "You're not my kin, Izzy. If it's something I need to know as the Ahroun Elder, I assume you'll tell me. Otherwise, I'm not going to pry too deeply into your business. It's like you said. You're not happy, but you still do your job. That's all I ask.

"Did Kora pass it on to Imogen that the kin coalition could use a more experienced leader?"

[Izzy Montoya] "You know what they say about assuming.." She shrugs, slightly. Then.. almost as if she isn't really aware she's saying it out loud... "She has no fuckin' idea. None." Amunet, that is. "No idea what it's like. What that fuckin prick Daniel did? Child's fuckin' play. Unnecessary, stupid, inconvenient. But fuckin nothing. She's got no fuckin' idea what it's like to know without a doubt bein' dead is better than living with it, day in and day fuckin' out."

She blinks, and then shakes her head and brings herself back to the actual question. "She mentioned it, than got too busy jumpin my shit."

[Wyrmbreaker] There are Garou -- gossips -- who would pry now, relentlessly, invasively, until they got to the bottom of Izzy's story. Lukas: he looks faintly uncomfortable, suddenly privy to some inner aspect of Izzy that the woman herself probably didn't want him to know. Like inadvertently walking in on her while she changed, or something.

So he averts his eyes and waits. When she's done, he looks back at her.

"Well. Maybe you could pass it on, then, unless I track them down first. Reading between the lines, I think that whole business last night served to establish a line of communication for those wanted it while neatly leaving the question of who actually takes the lead amongst the kin wide open. And while Amunet means well, I think she's lost the trust of the kin and the Garou."

On that note, the Shadow Lord gets to his feet, flicking a scrap of bark off his coat. "I'm going to see if I can catch up to one or the other. And Izzy ... whatever it is that really haunts your past, maybe you should talk to Kora about it. She's your tribal alpha. Your welfare is literally her business."

[Izzy Montoya] "She knows." In fact, she's the only in a city full of members of the Nation that does, anymore.

And then, a casual smirk, with a shake of her head before she takes a final drag off her cigarette and stands herself, gathering the remains of her dinner to be disposed of on her way from the park. "I'm a grown ass woman, Lukas. My welfare is my business."

Thousands of years of tradition be damned.

[Wyrmbreaker] "It is," Lukas agrees, "but you're not happy. You obviously want someone to listen. Why not Kora?"

[so sorry about the tiny post. i got distracted!!]

[Izzy Montoya] "What good would it do?" She looks... tired. Worn down. Weary... all of these things under the strength that she shows the world, the backbone of iron, of steel, with which she faces the world and the horrors thereof every single day. Not only in her job, both jobs, but in her past, her present... everything.

"Nothing will change. Children will continue to dictate to folks more than twice their age, evil will continue to abuse, good will continue the same and me? Well, I will continue to survive, and be a fuckin goddamn gift to all who need my talents. Happiness is a myth, Lukas. Don't buy into it too much. You'll just lose it the moment you are comfortable."

She drags her hand through her hair, then straightens her shoulders, her back, her stance. It's like pulling on a costume, a mask that she is well used to hiding behind. "Fuck it. It's all bullshit anyway, right? Someday, somewhere, someone or something will be a faster shot than me. Till then - one step at a time." Of course, she's likely to be old and gray before that happens, but no matter.

She turns and moves to the garbage can, and tosses the rest of her dinner. "Goodnight, Lukas." And, unless he's something to add, she's pulled out her phone again, and dials in to the station once more. Seem's her work day is not over yet. Not by a long shot.

[Wyrmbreaker] "Izzy!" -- he does call after her. "Happiness isn't a myth. You will lose it. It will hurt like a bitch when you do. But until then, it is worth it. And if you've known happiness at all, then I don't believe you'd honestly give those memories up if you could."

[Izzy Montoya] She chuckles. "Ah, the optimism of youth." She lifts a hand, a brief wave that is more an acknowledgement that he said something, than agreement, or even farewell. Then, her call is answered, and she is all business, instantly, as if someone flipped a switch.

"Montoya.
..where at?
Fuck you too, Finn. be there in five."

[Wyrmbreaker] [thanks for the RP! *ditches*]