more than fair.

[Ilari Martin] There is a silence that coats the interior of a house in the moments before routine begins anew, like the insular world holding its breath until sheets are peeled back and feet returned to the cold floor. This isn't the case in a house occupied by creatures who hold no set schedule, who are on-call so far as the Nation is concerned. The amount of peace such beings are afforded only comes in stillness, if sleep itself is beyond reach.

Rage isn't an obtrusive thing, a blaring air raid siren in a time of war. It's more like the pervasive hum of electricity on an unprotected conduit, a third rail or a downed wire, louder and more unsettling in greater concentrations. It warns of consequence for coming too close. At the Loft, it is everywhere, constant. These days there are few Kinfolk who spend ample amounts of time at the Loft.

There is one, in particular, and he has grown complacent, comfortable, in the knowledge that he has thus far been able to sneak from Kate's bedroom to the front door without being accosted nearly every single time.

When he steps out of the master suite this morning, he is not remotely prepared to leave from the Loft to the office. He wears the same clothes he had had on last night, the smell of cigarette smoke settled into the fibers but only loud enough to be scented at close range. His hair is finger-combed into compliance, but he has not showered nor shaved. Compared to his typical means of presenting himself to the world in the winter of 2009, however, this is still a vast improvement. There is color in his cheeks; he is not a skeleton; he walks steadily, his vision bleary from sleep inertia and not hangover.

The door is closed quietly and cautiously behind him, and he shrugs into his peacoat as he tiptoes down the hallway. So far so good.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] ...but not for long. Three steps up the hallway and Ilari can smell someone cooking. It smells light, like cream and butter -- breakfast food. Pancakes, maybe. It can't be the hired help, though; Kate's housekeeper hit the kitchen at 5:45am every morning, on the dot, and it's only 5:30.

Besides, Kate's housekeeper is more experienced than this cook. Ilari can hear pots and cupboards banging. He can smell the unmistakable scent of something burning. And he can hear --

"Kurva. Shit. Fuck. Shit shit shit."

-- a low muttered string of curses that are definitely not Spanish, spoken by a voice that's definitely not female, definitely not fifty-something, and definitely, definitely familiar. At least passingly so. A second later the stove vents go on. Then footsteps, and then Lukas is jogging out of the kitchen and heading for the pool room to open the doors, open the windows, let out the smoke before Kate smelled it and woke up and freaked out because oh my god that's so unhygienic, burnt food will cause cancer don't you know -- and then he sees Martin.

The jog slows to a walk, a stop. He looks at the kinsman for a moment, his face setting into stone. A beat; then he twists his head on his shoulders as though something niggled at him. It passes.

"Morning," he says, cordially enough, and goes to open the windows.

[Ilari Martin] The amount of noise filtering out of the kitchen, alone, is enough to indicate that someone vastly inexperienced and probably more than a bit impatient is lurking within. Muttered Czech, a staccato burst of monosyllabic swear words, and then a streak of tall, powerfully-built Full Moon rushing out of the kitchen towards the pool room.

Without a sound, either exclamation or invective, the kinsman stills in his return of his peacoat to its place on his torso and watches. An eyebrow lifts, amused more so than alarmed; he gives a deft tug to return his collar to rights, and then he's spotted.

Lukas's face becomes stone.
Martin's is as legible as air.

Morning, the Shadow Lord says, and while the kinsman manages a game smile, neither tense nor particularly warm, he does not receive the greeting in return. The father of two looks after the Ahroun, looking to see what sort of a mess he's managed to leave in his wake, before dragging a hand down his face and pacing into the kitchen.

"I won't tell Kate you tried to burn the place down," he says, as though that's a concern on the Ahroun Elder's mind this morning; the stove, if it's been left on, is immediately turned off.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Windows opened, icy air immediately begins to stream in. Lukas is in what looks like an undershirt: plain, white, crew-necked. His jeans are nice, though. It likely means there's a buttondown shirt lying around here somewhere, and possibly a sweater over that, and a coat over that.

None of that's in easy reach. The hairs on his arms stand up from the cold, so he gets away from the open windows; heads back into the kitchen. The damage isn't catastrophic, thankfully. Just a thin, blackened -- oh, he wasn't making pancakes, he was making [i]crepes[i] -- crepe dumped upside-down on a plate, and a pan cooking in the sink.

Lukas snorts. He reaches past Ilari to punch the vent fan down to low, a wave of rage scalding the back of the kinsman's neck like flame. Then he's widening the distance again, pulling a fresh pan out of the cupboards to try again.

"Why don't you stick around instead," he says - it sounds midway between an offer and an order. "Help me make some crepes. I've been meaning to talk to you anyway."

[Ilari Martin] Now, for all of his standoffishness and his compulsion to keep talking well beyond the point where it has been proven necessary or even harmless, Ilari Martin is not a pillar of strength within the Kinfolk community. He cannot stand up to the mightiest of Black Spiral Dancers and casually lift a handgun before blowing it away; there are even some Gaians, like the one standing in this room, at his back, who cause a splash of cold anxiety to flood his stomach and flood up the back of his throat. There is little question that the hairs on his arms are standing on end not because of the cracked window but because when Lukas reaches past him to hit the vent he has no doubt in his mind that it is a monster standing behind him.

This is a monster who holds very little mapping in his memory banks, however. That night in the bathroom at the Brotherhood is a blur. His name, his position within the Nation, his relation to Kate, are all artifacts he has picked up since digging his way back into Chicago's landscape.

He takes a deep breath, washing the instinctive fear back down his gullet, and turns away from the stove.

"That sounds ominous," he observes, mild rather than mocking, as though this is the closest to making conversation he's capable of drawing. He shucks up the sleeves of his peacoat and approaches one of the sinks. It puts his back to the Ahroun, again, as Martin washes his hands. "What about?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "It's not meant to be ominous," Lukas replies. They're facing nearly opposite directions now, the Ahroun buttering the pan, the kinsman washing his hands. "We got off to a very bad start. And in all honestly, left to myself, you're probably the last man I'd try to befriend. Or even to know.

"But Kate seems to want you. Not just for a night or two, not just for a fling, but for the long term. And Dani&+269;ka," there's that name again, spoken the way no one else in the city speaks it -- not simply because he gets the Czech right, because god knows Chicago was chock full of Czechs, but because of the way it's intoned. The rare, involuntarily, unconscious softness that touches the edges of his voice when he says it, "seems to at least respect you enough not to write you off completely."

He turns the fire down a little. Low, this time, letting the butter heat up slowly while he picks up the mixing bowl of batter and starts whisking again. Lukas puts his back to the counter now, facing Ilari -- or Ilari's back, if that's the case -- his big hands holding the bowl and whisk with a comfort that says cooking, at least, is not entirely foreign to him.

"I love them both," he says then, and perhaps it's rare to hear a Shadow Lord -- to hear anyone -- admit such a thing with such unfaltering simplicity. "One's my sister, the other's my mate. I trust them, and I want them to be happy. And Kate, at least, is never going to be happy if we can't at least occupy the same space peacefully."

[Ilari Martin] When he has to be, when it's necessary, Martin can hold his tongue.

He washes his hands for thirty seconds, scrubbing under his nails and around his knuckles, spending far more time on his hygiene than a man who looks as though he quite literally just crawled out of bed and pulled on what was closest likely has any right to. It's a habit, perhaps, one small measure of serving as a model of appropriate behavior for his children when nothing else about his habits or his behavior could be considered remotely appropriate during their formative years.

Wash your hands before you touch something that someone else will touch. It's one of the few things the soon-to-be doctor and the soon-to-be Ahroun can claim that their father passed onto them as a direct life lesson rather than something they inferred via observation.

Drying off with a paper towel, Martin does not actually move to help prepare the crepes. Either the notion is beyond him--given that he and Kate have been conducting this affair of theirs clandestinely for several months now, one cannot imagine he has had much time to learn how to prepare her preferred dishes in her kitchen--or else he understands that the purpose of this conversation is not bonding, or preparation for breakfast, but to smooth out the wrinkles.

Martin watches Lukas adjust the burner's temperature, idle rather than with the sharp gaze of an anxious parent, and he comes to stand a sizable yet not ridiculous distance away from the Shadow Lord. He rests his hands, bereft of rings or tan lines indicating there was once a ring, on the edge of the counter and listens.

Strangely enough, he doesn't interrupt, doesn't even draw a breath to speak until Lukas has concluded.

"I'm willing," he says, with the good grace not to sound completely beleaguered, "to try to be civil." He makes no mention of befriending, or attempting to get to know, the younger creature. "For their sakes."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Well; Ilari Martin might think the only purpose of his hanging about is to talk, but Lukas is cut from a different cloth. Shadow Lords are many things. They run the gamut between charming and conniving, villainous and heroic. The best amongst their number are the most self-sacrificing Garou in the entirety of the nation; the ones willing to give up everything, even their own souls, in the name of victory. The worst are monsters, plain and simple.

They all have one thing in common, though. They're all pragmatists. Practical to the bone. Firm believers of hard work and results, even if that hard work is the manipulation of others. So when Martin's done washing his hands, he finds Lukas putting the mixing bowl aside and passing him some kiwi fruit. A small plastic clamshell package of blueberries. Another one of strawberries. And a peeling knife. Even at this hour, even performing so mundane a task as cooking crepes, Lukas's hands are not unadorned. There's a single ring on his left hand -- on the finger, if one bothers to check -- and it's brushed black tungsten with a thin rim in rose gold.

Kate hasn't even noticed it yet. But Martin knows what a wedding ring looks like, even one so nontraditional as this -- not by appearance, but by the where and the when, the ubiquity of its existence on a man's hand.

"Good," Lukas says. "So am I."

He picks up the mixing bowl again, then, turning back to the stove to tilt the pan this way and that, spreading the butter evenly before carefully spooning out some batter into the pan. Then it's more tilting and spreading, the Ahroun silent with concentration as he tries to get an even layer over the pan. It goes better this time than last. When Lukas sets the pan back down, nothing smells like it's burning yet.

"Why don't you tell me what you want from me," he says, "and then I'll tell you what I want from you. And then you can tell me what you're ... willing to give," a sense of stiltedness here, as though negotiating on such near-level footing with a kin -- not his mate or his sister and parents but just some kin that, for some reason he may never understand, is important to his packmate -- is still utterly alien to him, "and I'll tell you what I'm willing to give."

[Ilari Martin] He notices it.

There isn't much he typically does notice this early in the morning, the Martin that used to rely on cups upon cups of coffee to wash the sand out of his eyes, or line after line of cocaine to get his blood pumping again, who used to swear by the eye-opener to keep him from lapsing not into hangover territory but into profound alcohol withdrawal. Nearly two years of sobriety has not eliminated the fact that the twenty-one years to precede them were not only punctuated by but comprised entirely of words wrenched from the addict's diary.

These days he does not even drink coffee, on the advice of his doctor. A truce had to be called there, some sort of compromise between complete cessation of anything remotely resembling a chemical substance and being able to still smoke. Caffeine was sacrificed so that nicotine could remain behind.

That's neither here nor there. Martin functions quite well without caffeine these days, and while he notes the presence of the black metal on Lukas' ring finger, he does not question it. Not even a brow quirks as the considerably shorter, considerably smaller, considerably weaker kinsman reaches out to take the fruit from the Ahroun and begin the task of washing and peeling fruit.

It isn't surprise that has Martin's dark eyebrows rising up on his forehead but... disbelief, perhaps, or amusement, some strange melding of the two. Lukas wants to know what he wants. The last time he refused to answer a question he found himself met with the Ahroun's annoyance but not the threat of frenzy. He had not been beaten for his insolence or thrown into a bush or the fountain.

Kate had been thoroughly and unduly embarrassed, which was another matter entirely.

"I hadn't given it much though--"

Or any though, knowing him. At certain times throughout his speech, particularly as the previously sleeping man gains momentum, the Fang gesticulates.

"--but since you're asking: I would like if, whatever disagreements, ah... arise between us--and I do mean 'disagreements,' obviously any breach of Litany lies outside the sensible boundaries of my request--could be kept there. At my advanced age, Lukas, I've come to realize that not only am I difficult insofar as my personality is concerned but I'm also bizarrely resistant to change."

Fruit washed and chopped, he sets down the peeling knife. As he draws a breath to continue, Martin reflexively examines his palms, Kate's obsession with cleanliness subconsciously driving him to pluck a seed from the pad of his hand and flick it into the sink.

"Not unwilling, mind."

[Ilari Martin] [Don't ask how I typo'd "thought" twice. I did. It is "thought," not "though," though.]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] While Ilari peels and slices, Lukas patiently makes the crepes. By the time the kinsman is done -- done slicing, done talking -- there's three or four laid out, and Lukas is spooning batter in for another.

And there's a silence. Thoughtful, not empty. There are Ahrouns who are empty-eyed, slavering monsters; Lukas is not one. Tries very, very, very hard never to become one. Even the times he's apparently lost his temper -- at Martin or at anyone else -- have been carefully crafted detonations, tightly reined, tightly controlled. He was taught early on that the only line between a Lord and a monster was control; that that line was particularly faint, particularly flimsy, for those of his auspice.

He clings to it, though. Sometimes to a fault.

"You want to make our relationship personal," he muses after a while. "You want to spare Katherine the humiliation of having to pick up after us. I understand that, and I can respect it. But that's a difficult request, Martin."

He turns from the stove again, letting the latest crepe cook over the fire. "We're not two men," he says. "We can't keep a sort of gentleman's accord the way men can. You're kin to the Silver Fangs, and I am a Shadow Lord. There's hierarchy involved; there's politics involved. For all intents and purposes, I am the Shadow Lords in this city. I represent them, speak for them, lead them. The same for my pack, and my auspice, though of all three titles, the tribal one is by far the most treacherous.

"My tribe abides no weakness. None. And my tribesmen only follow me until they smell or imagine vulnerability. It's not that I can't fend them off, or that I can't hold dominance by force if need be. It's that I don't want to. I want to lead them and keep our collective attention where it belongs: on the war. But to do that, I have to maintain my position in the hierarchy. And if I let a kinsman defy me, it'll look like a faltering. That's why every time you speak to me with disrespect -- and you are so very good at that -- I only have two choices. Bloody you myself, or drag you before Katherine for her to deal with. And while the latter might embarrass her, it'll at least allow her to maintain sovereignty over her own tribe."

The Shadow Lord's speech is almost formal; cadenced and measured. This isn't how he talks to his packmates, though Martin likely has no idea how he talks to his packmates. It's certainly not how he talks to the woman that wears the complement to that ring on his hand.

It is, however, at least thoughtful. Thought-out. Not a rant of fury but something about as close to a discussion as Martin might hear from him.

"So -- I suppose this is a roundabout way of telling you what I want from you in return. If you want me to keep things personal between us, to keep Katherine and politics and all the rest of it out of this, then I need your cooperation. I need you to restrain that difficult personality of yours as much as you can, at least in public. I don't need you to interact often with me or in any great depth, but when we do interact, I need some semblance of basic courtesy and respect from you. At least in public, I need you to minimize opportunities for 'disagreements.'

"In return," he adds, "I'll treat you with the courtesy and respect I'd give any kin of another tribe. I'll stay out of your private business and your tribe's business. I'll do my part in minimizing public disagreements as well. And when we're in private -- here or wherever else I might run into you in relative privacy -- I'll do my best to deal with you man-to-man ... such as we are, anyway."

[Ilari Martin] For what it's worth, the kinsman, nigh unto notorious for his refusal if not his inability to keep his thoughts inside his skull. It isn't enough that he can't seem to control what comes out of his mouth; it's that what does come out of his mouth is so articulate and well-constructed that there is not a doubt left in his audience's mind that he means to be this scathing, this thoughtless, this disrespectful. Perhaps it's true. Ilari Martin is, by the Nation's standards, an old man. He has borne and raised two children, one of whom will join the ranks of a people who are slowly dying out, the realization of their impending demise rising like a blood-red star on a distant horizon. He has buried both of his parents, buried a mate.

He looks old. The man standing at the counter is weathered, his skin like a map that has been beaten by the elements. Whatever has occurred in his life has driven him to drink, to insufflate a substance that contributed to a heart attack at a young age, and while it did not kill him, while he seems no more depressed or ungrateful to continue to live, anyone looking at him can tell that his life has been difficult. Even if it was only drugs--and with an addict, it is never 'only' drugs; there has to be an element of misery in place long before the first hit is taken, even if that misery is caused by an absence rather than an overabundance--it has been over half of his life wasted by only drugs.

That is enough for most people, let alone the demands placed upon him by the Nation, his family, his mate. He no longer wears a wedding band on his finger, has no reminder that he once loved a woman who was fair and regal yet tempered and immovable.

His daughter could draw comparisons between Marya Alkaev and Katherine Bellamonte if she were inclined to discuss the fact that her widower father is in this undefined relationship with a woman her age. She isn't.

Lukas is formal, structured, almost detached in the way he speaks to the kinsman, who is purposefully not making eye contact with a man larger and angrier than he will ever be. There is no fear written into Martin's frame. To anyone looking, he is just focused on his task of setting out fruit to be spooned into the crepes once they're finished.

When the Ahroun has finished, leaving space for a response, Martin uses the back of his wrist to push a shock of hair off of his forehead and turns to face him. In addressing him, his amber-colored eyes rise no higher than Lukas's nose.

"For what it's worth," he says, then pauses to switch gears. "This is likely to be of little consolation to you, but thus far I've treated you no differently than I treat anyone else. Hold it against me if you'd like, but the majority of my time here two years ago isn't a blur. It's nothing. What I know of you I've heard from Kate. What I know of our interactions prior to my first week here... I've heard from Kate. Anything I said to you, anything that... occurred... while we were in each others' undoubtedly pleasant company, I've heard from Kate. It isn't a memory, to me. It's... a story.

"Now," he goes on, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. It's a nonchalant posture, keeps his body language open. "You speak of weakness, Lukas, as though it is something to be exploited or ashamed of, and maybe it is. Maybe your tribe is onto something. Maybe Kate's and my tribe is an ouroboros threatening to consume itself because madness is accepted rather than fought. My behavior was abhorrent and there isn't a thing I can do to atone for the fact that I neglected my children, drove away my mate and abused everyone who came into contact with me, but I'm not asking for forgiven for what I did, nor am I attempting to excuse myself on the basis that I was weak. All I can do is... try to be a better father and mate and... human being... now that I'm sober.

"We can dwell on the past, but it sounds to me as though it would be in everyone's best interests if we attempted to move past that.

"I'm not asking you to forget anything, or forgive anything, and I'm not attempting to use drug-induced amnesia to brush aside the fact that I said and did destructive things. Whether or not you respect me, or dislike me, is irrelevant. If it means anything to you, my word... my intention is to show you a greater allotment of respect than the average stranger is afforded. That doesn't mean I'm going to jump whenever you tell me to, but I also won't tell you where you can insert a request if you make one."

Get to the point, Martin.

"If we've moved on to what I'd like from you, I'd... I'm asking that you recognize that while I'm sure you have ample supply of instances where I was an insufferable prick when I was here two winters ago, my memory is not quite so hale as yours. The first clear recollection of spending time in your company is from that night in the park in... what was it? October?" A pause, and whether or not he receives assistance, Martin confirms, "October." His hands come out of his pockets. "A weakness, certainly, but don't mistake a weakness for an excuse. It is what it is. Kate's asked me to try; I will damn well try."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] This is perhaps the first civil conversation Lukas and Martin have had. Hell, it might be the first conversation they've had. Everything else falls under the category of interrogation, argument, or outright fight.

Or bullying. That's what Danicka called it, anyway.

And -- it is a conversation. There's give and take. There's speaking, and then there's listening. And Lukas is listening right now, leaning the small of his back against the counter, arms folded loosely, comfortably across his chest. He pauses only to flip the crepe on the stove, adjust the heat a little, and then turns back.

By then Ilari is wrapping it up, and after he's finished the Shadow Lord considers him another moment, lifting a hand to scratch idly at his beard-bristly jaw. Back when Martin lived with Danicka, Lukas never spent the night there. Never even visited. Now that Lukas spends the night more often than not, Danicka and Martin barely seem to be friends anymore. The point is: Martin doesn't know the Ahroun's personal grooming habits, that he shaves with a straight razor, old-fashioned and deft; that he shaves every other day or so, which is long enough for a decent crop of dark stubble to roughen his jaw. Even from his distance, Martin can hear the faint scritching his fingertips make across the stubble.

When he lowers his hand, he drops his arms to his sides, thumbs hooked into his jean pockets.

"I can't just wipe away what happened," he replies, "but you're not asking me to. You are asking me to try to believe that you're trying to ... do better with your life. For Kate's sake, if not your own. And I can believe that, because if you weren't you wouldn't even be having this conversation with me.

"As for respect -- I think we can agree to try, in our own ways, to give one another the respect we get in return. Sometimes that exchange won't be completely fair, and I suspect it'll only rarely truly be equal, simply by dint of what we are. But I'll try if you do. Is that fair?"

[Ilari Martin] Without the span of history on Martin's side that Lukas has dwelling on his, without the expansive conversations about what it is he's done and what it is the other man has done and how it is that they could potentially move past this rut that they've gotten themselves into, it is still somewhat impressive that they are able to not simply talk at each other but have a conversation. That first night they encountered each other in a year coming to a close, Martin had been dismissive, even rude, brushing off Lukas with the same attention he would have paid to a creature after his blood or his body heat. The kinsman does not appear the type to be capable of loving anything with which he does not share DNA; that he has taken on a mate in the past, that he returned to this city that nearly killed him to be with Kate--whether or not he would admit to this to what was, essentially, a complete stranger--says something about him.

What that is, exactly, is difficult to pin down. Closeness is something every human being needs, whether or not they will admit that it is something wanted, and yet Ilari Martin fights it. Whatever he and Danicka had shared in their relationship did not survive his sobriety and the physical distance between them. Every excuse he could find to keep Kate at bay, he had used. He used his addiction--his illness--as a reason to keep Imogen from seeking and finding friendship.

That his children not only continued to speak to him, let alone agreed to attempt a relationship with a man who was not the man they knew growing up, says more about them than it does about him. In Ekaterina and Peter Martin is a point in the favor of nature in the nature versus nurture debate. Those children essentially raised themselves.

Yet they, somehow, gave him an nth and final chance. It took.

When Lukas finishes speaking, Martin does not give a knee-jerk response; he does not offer up the first thought that comes into his skull, but rather draws a deep, almost cleansing breath, his eyebrows rising in due consideration of what it is they're discussing, and when he lets it out, what almost ends up being a smile twitches onto his lips.

In the presence of someone as primordially angry of Lukas, he can't bring himself to bear teeth.

"That sounds... more than fair," he says. After a moment, not quite so protracted as the previous, Martin lifts his right hand and extends it to shake, his eyes lifting higher up on Lukas's face for the first time since he emerged from Kate's suite.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas does not often shake hands like this -- like men, and not like bloody warriors or fabled beasts -- but there's no hesitation in the way he straightens up from his lean against the counter. His right hand comes up; he takes Martin's firmly.

The smile that doesn't quite make it onto Martin's face doesn't quite make it onto Lukas's, either. Different reason. In the end, Martin's memories are lost to the mists of addiction; Lukas's are starkly clear, and harder to forget. Harder to forgive. But then, that's not what they're trying to do here. They're trying to move forward. Move on.

They're trying, period.

After a moment, he lets go, turning around to take the crepe off the fire -- just in time to save it from charring past golden-brown into black. "Let's have breakfast," he says, a casual invitation to the oldest ritual of truce and peace of all; older than humanity, older than the Garou. "Do you want to go get Kate?"

ugh!

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] Katherine Bellamonte received a phone call, it might have gone straight to voicemail. Who really cared where the phone call went first, because Cordelia left a message or wasn't inclined to talk for too long. The moon is waning away to half, and she doesn't particularly notice yet. Or care yet. Some part of her would be upset that it wasn't her sister that she went to first regarding these matters-

No, no that's not true. Not entirely, at least. But we digress. Cordelia is taking off her contacts in the cab, and travels half blind through the way. She waits to leave a message, and-

"Ms. Bellamonte? It's Cordelia, I recognize that it's late and I'm sorry, but I just had a thought and I needed to come talk to you," and that's about all the message that she left.

Soon enough, however, she's on the doorstep. She's taken her heels off, and holds them loosely in one hand. Her mascara has since streaked and her eyes are red. Her foundation is smudged, her lipgloss is non-existant and her hair has been haphazardly taken down. This is the nature of updos, when you take them down they look half-assed. Her shoulders are back, though, and her head is high. Katherine knows this expression, because she has no doubt worn this expression, though in a decidedly less discheveled state.

This is the look of triumph.

Cordelia waits for someone to answer the door, and she can wait all night should she need.

[Katherine Bellamonte] It is well after hours so it's Katherine herself that answers to Cordelia's knock. Lucille has retired for the night, apparently, or headed home to her own apartment -- wherever the lady of Bellamonte Houses' long suffering maid is, it's not with her Mistress, that much is certain.

Katherine looks as she typically always does though perhaps a touch softer than her day to day face would suggest. She wears no makeup, her skin clear, her golden waves brushed smooth and her slender figure encased in a peach blouse and jeans; her feet in slippers. There was a fine necklace of some stone strung around her neck and the fingers of one hand held a set of reading glasses.

They were perhaps her maid's; who knew. Perhaps she'd been tidying when the doorbell sounded.

"Cordelia," she greets with perfunctory coolness, and waves her inside; swinging the heavy door secure behind her and preceding the young Kinswoman into her living room. There was no fire-place in the Silver Fang's home, but it retained the warmth of a space that did have some facet of heating. "Your message sounded urgent, what can I help you with tonight?"

Katherine folded herself back onto one of her black leather sofas.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] She smiles. There is something to be said about looking radiant. She's either put on weight or lost weight or filled out in the right ways. Or maybe it's just hte way that she's holding herself. Or maybe it's something else entirely that doesn't have anything to do with her clothes or what would have been fineries from the evening.

"I recognize that it's late, and I apologize," she says. She wipes her eyes again and sniffs inward. It's a complete cognitive disconnect- she should be crying and upset, but she's not upset. She's far from upset at this moment, "it hit me that there is more that I could be doing for our tribe, and we'd discussed needing a liason between the other tribes' needs and our own, but I wanted to know what our clear cut goals were so I could help with this."

A moment barely passes, "and it's more than that, I think I can do more for our tribe and your pack. I feel like I owe it to you and to Christian to try and help."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine watches Cordelia through those pale eyes of hers that are so clear that they sometimes appear more gray than the ice-blue they are. Her gaze was forever not without some edge of discomfort, for although she did not possess her pack-sister's degree of predatory grace she did have an impressive amount of Rage, and the added benefit of a nature at once steady and cancered by her tribe's insanity.

At some point; perhaps as the lean Kinswoman reaches the point of I feel like I owe it to you -- the Garou raises a hand to signal she should cease, should allow her to answer. "Please, slow down, Cordelia. I can appreciate your enthusiasm to aid the tribe, I even applaud it," there's an edge of a smile now.

"But why the sudden need to discuss this with me tonight? It could have waited until at least dawn, no?" Her eyebrow rises, voice curious, more than anything; her eyes wander her dress, the state of her hair. "What has brought this on?"

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] "Tonight, I was at my wits end," she says. It's the only phrase she could think of. It's a good thing the Spaniard wasn't pacing or fidgeting or looking completely nervous or upset or... okay, maybe her nerves would come down. Maybe she would be upset later, "I went out with Ivan tonight and-I-"

She inhales, deeply, and exhales.

"We had a heated discussion regarding duty and civility towards those of our own tribe. He's a good ragabash, and by the end of our conversation it dawned on me that... this is going to come out untoward... some of the faces of our tribe range from being entitled and privileged to the point of callous, while others come off as traditional to the point of dogmatic, static, and unyielding. And While each force has benefits, ultimately I feel like some of us lose the point of what our position and what being a leader is.

"I've had a full night and a cab ride full of self-reflection, and I determined that I needed to speak with you first because you're my tribal elder here, instead of my sister who isn't affiliated with Maelstrom. And, as that her pack has commandeered my living room, I needed to come here first."

A beat.

"It could have waited until morning, though, and admittedly my timing is adrenaline fueled at the moment"

[Katherine Bellamonte] I went out with Ivan tonight, she begins, and the Half Moon leans back, her long fingers linking together atop her knee. One slipper taps against a heel idly as she goes on and it ceases as she notes that Ivan is a good Ragabash. "Is he?" The Philodox asks with no less sudden abruptness, nor sharpness, than a knife wields as it slices through cheese.

The words are enough to silence anyone; but she allows Cordelia to finish her speech of empowerment before going on. "I would barely know what Ivan Press is, Cordelia and do you know why? Because I do not hear nor see the creature unless its at an occasion I summon him to.

You could express to me that he had taught you the Venetian Waltz and I would have little to add but a very similar remark."

A moment; she could seem so lazily reproachful, Katherine, but at once her compassion seared you with its pressure. "The goals of our tribe, Ms Diego are several-fold, but if you wish to be a liaison for our needs it is going to require more than a single meeting between us and it is very possible that it will be a position not simply held by a single Kinfolk but rather many.

I do not doubt your commitment to the Silver Fang tribe," a beat, her pale eyes pin the girl, "but I would suggest you go home and rest on your new found adulation. We can discuss this more fully when you are well rested." It was less a put down and rather more the gentle push of an elder to a cub to steady their thoughts.

Perhaps the guidance of a Half Moon.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] It really is like dealing with her sister, except tonight she doesn't have the history between them to back it up. It's the feeling of being pinned in a bug collection. On a certain level, she's waiting for a cotton ball full of nail polish remover to finish her off. She smiles anyway, and adrenaline starts to wear down. She slouches for the first time in probably recently history, not because she's defeated but because her back hurts and her dress is uncomfortable and she's reminded, briefly, of why you don't pretend to be someone else-

When you're left with only yourself and your skn, it's hard to work when some part of you doesn't quite fit.

"Speaking of," she says, "there's a girl named Kristiana Coleman that you might need to meet. She's nice, but she's very traditional and she might need help. Or not. She's a grown woman, but she's young."

She takes a second, and ruminates with it. Winds down and finds herself more and more aware of her own thoughts. She and Katherine are similar in age, but the fact of the matter remains that she seems so much younger. It's amazing what a different upbringing will do.

There's silence. Long after silence is appropriate.

"... Katherine?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine, it should be noted, is not some terrifying beast.

She is, as noted, not so much older than Cordelia herself; the only thing which separates the two is Katherine's Rage and her upbringing. She had been raised as a child of a relatively new house within a much broader House. The name of Bellamonte had another generation to it now, thanks to Edward. Perhaps the only deed he would truly accomplish that would echo through the ages -- for who knew how many younger Bellamontes his daughter would bear?

Presently, Katherine is the picture of a young woman who is also a monster who was also attempting to council her family without the benefit of anything but her words. She did not wish to frighten Cordelia into submission, or quash her ideals of being some better figment within the tribe than she currently was -- she simply wanted the girl to have a solid grasp of her own ideas, and not the after shock of adrenaline pumping in her veins.

"Kristiana Coleman?" She makes the name an adventure; hinting at a life in France if only through the idea of it in her voice. Then: "Yes, Cordelia?"

[Ilari Martin] Waking up completely sober in an unfamiliar location does not bring with it the same confusion and panic that comes with initiating the same process while somewhere on the spectrum between Wildly Inebriated and Hungover. This building, this bedroom, is not so unfamiliar as it ought to be, but considering the fact that it is not his bedroom in his apartment, it is close enough. This is the first night he has not spent the night in what could be considered his own home since... well, it doesn't bear dwelling on, but suffice to say the only reason he is here at all tonight has to do with the fact that the kids left Chicago early this morning with the intent to visit their grandparents for the rest of the week.

It doesn't matter why he's here, really; Cordelia Sarafin-Diego and Ilari Martin have never met before tonight, and the former isn't aware that the latter was here when she texted Katherine Bellamonte, nor when she arrived.

What emerges from the master bedroom is old enough to be Kate's father. This is not an exaggeration or a hyperbole: the man is in his forties, easily, with the salt-and-pepper hair and worn skin to show for it. He is no taller than the Philodox, yet he is just as well dressed if one is willing to ignore the fact that he appears as though he has just emerged from a miniature comatose state. His feet are clad in black socks, his attire full-on formal save for he is missing his tie, belt, and suit jacket. His hair is a mess, his steps are uncertain, and he's rubbing his eyes as a yawn sneaks out of his throat.

"Kate," he mumbles, "I had the strangest--"

His hand comes down from his eyes in time to see the tall blond stork speaking with Kate. He reconsiders what he was about to say, holds up his finger as if to say Never mind! and walks into the kitchen to fill a glass with water.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] [how bad is this...]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] "Christrian's n-" she is almost to the word, and it's a damned good thing she doesn't actually finish that train of thought, or ask someone who might know so, instead, she can hang on to speculation. Guess. Not play the role of a good girlfriend but be whatever the Hell she needs to be at that moment, because it's taken years for her to figure out that they aren't fragments, she's not compartments, she's a package.

She is interrupted, of course, by a man who is old enough to be her father. Who probably drank the same cognac or smoked the same cigars or something to that effect. There's a man in a suit, looking like a mess and she just looks at Martin. Her eyes are wide, she pushes her glasses up, and they both look like they just woke up or were shoved in a confined space and wedged between two squishy, smelly boulders. Her mascara's streaked, and she simply doesn't care.

Can't be bothered by it.

Back on subject. She looks at Martin. She blinks. Her cheeks turn pink inexplicably, and she shakes her head, too, when she looks back at Kate. Apparently, both of them can wait.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Through the glass sliding doors, the faint sound of splashing: someone making good use of that olympic-sized pool.

There are a lot of things that could be said about Katherine. That she's cold. That she's squeamish. That she's haughty, and arrogant, and remote. Some of them, Lukas reflects, might even be true. Probably is true from the right angle, the right point of view.

There's this to be said, though. Katherine's love for her family -- her blood and her spiritual family alike -- is complete. Filthy rich or not, she didn't have to spend her own money on a too-large home so her packmates would always have a place to stay if they needed it. She didn't have to upend that home and remodel everything just because two of them insisted on a bigger pool, we want a bigger pool, pleeeeease, Kate?

Her devotion to her family is absolute. But when push came to shove, Lukas was willing to publically shame her over tribal matters.

The steady, clockwork freestyle stops. Lukas will never be the natural athlete Sinclair is. He doesn't swim like a fish, or even like a damn sea turtle. What he has instead is determination. Will. A monotonous, powerful, regular rhythm that could probably carry him across an ocean if need be, but only if need be. At any rate, it stops, mid-stroke. Lukas bobs up in the middle of the pool, pushing his goggles up, wiping his face clear.

Hey, Kate. This sort of comes out of the blue. I should have said this earlier, but I'm sorry about chewing you out the other night. I was so hellbent on teaching that dickhead

-- clearly, he has no idea 'that dickhead' was currently in the building, and not only that, coming out of Katherine's bedroom --

a lesson that I didn't stop to think how it'd make you feel. We're Alphas of our tribes, and we have a responsibility to uphold -- but you're also my sister. I didn't have to be such an ass.

There's a pause.

Anyway, I'm sorry. He hauls himself out of the water, goes to take a quick wash in the open corner shower.

[Katherine Bellamonte] "Christian," she prompts Cordelia before she stalls as Ilari Martin has just emerged from her bedroom.

To her credit, the Silver Fang does not color; her blushing days (save very few) are long done when it came to moments such as these. There is almost a touch of amusement to the manner she simply re-adjusts herself and raises a hand over her shoulder at the scurrying figure vanishing into her kitchen.

"My apologies, Cordelia. I did not expect him to be awake, that was," a beat, she smiles a little more naturally, for Katherine, "is, Ilari Martin. He is your family, another of ours in the city." She's quiet a beat, then adds; somehow gentler; comprehending.

"I suppose is he to me as Christian is to you."

Then: Lukas is on the totemlink and Katherine's pale eyes fiick to the right a touch, she cocks her head. Thank you, Lukas, for apologizing, , a beat, I must however caution you for tact's sake that Martin is in my kitchen at present and if you are ungracious to him, I will be throw you out on your behind.

Another beat.

With all due respect.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [hello typos! ahem. "I will be forced to" that should read.]

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] "Oh," she says, then calls out to Martin, "does she yell at you in a foreign language and throw things, too?"

[Ilari Martin] Though he isn't visible, the smile--and mild confusion--that stains the kinsman's voice can be picked up from where the two females are standing.

"That isn't even the half of it!" he calls back.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He -- what?

A minute later the glass door to the pool room rattles noisily open. Lukas doesn't quite storm out, but it's a close call. His footsteps are heavy, his shoulders swaying. He tugs on his swim robe -- a blue almost as dark as black -- as he comes. Ilari gets once glance and a single "Ugh!" before he swings around to look at Katherine.

What are you, together again? There's a pause -- the totem link close enough, permeable enough, that some of Lukas's dislike and disgust leaks through before he clamps down on it.

This is level, his eyes intent on Katherine: Do you love him?

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] This suddenly becomes too much sensory input. She laughs at the reply. She doesn't even know the older man, but it seems that Katherine's house is full of people and they're emerging from strange places. The enxt thing she knows, some tall, soggy man is coming in. The first thing Cordelia notices is that she is no longer the tallest person in the room. The second thing he notices is that he and Katherine are just staring at each other.

The blonde takes this opportunity to turn, slowly, and go investigate the kitchen. Water sounded nice. Also, washing her mascara off.

[Ilari Martin] The kinsman is on his way out of the kitchen when an Ugh! catches his attention. Bleary-eyed and subdued by sleep inertia, he looks over at the source of the noise to find a tall, dripping-wet Czech. It isn't enough to grab his attention, or if it is, he's too groggy to summon the gall necessary to fire off a thoughtless yet nevertheless incendiary comment in passing.

Granted... Martin is forty-one years old; his memory isn't what it used to be, and the odds of him having forgotten Lukas since their paths last crossed over a month ago are strangely high. He stops only briefly, then cuts the Ahroun a half-hearted, silent wave before continuing on his trajectory towards Kate's bedroom.

[Ilari Martin] [Yeah just make that post make some semblance of sense, I r tired.]

[Katherine Bellamonte] Yes, she says without rising physically or emotionally to the sensibilities present in her Alpha's voice, projected into her mind. And yes, there's a brief moment when Katherine's attention skirts back to Cordelia and some semblance of apology resides there before her attention returns to Lukas.

What Cordelia must see, or imagine she does is an unvoiced conversation; perhaps even a confrontation. She cannot hear it, but somehow, she senses it is occurring. I never stopped loving him, Lukas, I know you do not like him, I know you believe he is not my worth, but I believe he is, and I wish him in my life. I know Sinclair dislikes him also, we have discussed it. I would be a poor Half Moon to say I was not saddened that you put so little faith in my judgment of others as to assume I have no idea of what I'm doing to take up with him again.

I am not always sane, Lukas. But I know my own heart better than you. Trust that, if nothing else.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's a strange thing, watching wolves communicate without words. Lukas bursts out of the pool room. He not-quite-storms into the living room. He faces Kate, they stare at each other -- the Ahroun leaning forward slightly, feet apart, body language speaking of aggression and bewilderment, though not violence. In response, perhaps there's something more like weariness in Katherine, and perhaps even a touch of wariness, but only a scarce few seconds pass

(not long after yes, and yes, for that matter)

before Lukas, inexplicably, starts to shake his head and wave a hand in the air as though to deny or brush away whatever inaudible things Kate might be saying.

That's enough for me, he says simply. If you love him, then I'll accept that. A long time ago I told all of you to fuck off because Dani&+269;ka was my business and mine alone. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't allow you the same freedom. Even if I think he's a --

he cuts himself off there. He cuts himself off on several levels, and most especially on that truth that burns him even now. As far as Lukas knows, Katherine still doesn't know about Ilari and Danicka. It's one truth -- perhaps the only -- that Lukas chooses not to divulge. It's the one time he chooses to conceal the truth like a Shadow Lord, and for the most unLordly reason of all:

mercy. Because it's in the past, indelible but over and done with. At best, absolutely nothing good can come of Katherine knowing; at worst, it could lodge under her skin like a splinter, bite at her for years to come.

-- well. It doesn't matter what I think of him. If you love him, you love him.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] It would have been one of the more bizarre things she's watched had she nod had a pack in her living room recently. It was eerily silent in the apartment, aside from the occasional laugh, the asking of her to get something, or the beginnings of a fight breaking out.

There wasn't a fight breaking out, though. They were just standing in the living room, gesturing at each other ever so often.

She turns on the sink, and takes her glasses off. She splashes some water on her face, rubs her cheeks, and concludes that untucking her shirt and using the tails might make for a good wash cloth if she can't find the paper towels. Cordelia is a great and many things, but kitchen-savvy is not one of them. However, she had been here in the past, and with minimal effort she finds a paper towel and makes what's left of her mascara disappear.

The puts her glasses back on, and takes the opportunity to test message her sister.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine had known Lukas a long time, as far as Garou went. A longer time, as far as pack-mates went. They had been through much together, they had grown up as warriors and people together. Her respect for the Shadow Lord was tantamount; she trusted him, she advised him; she understood him. The latter had not come without significant effort on her behalf, and on his; their tribes were not, in historical terms, known for their tolerance of one another.

To follow under a Shadow Lord's totem, had tested the tolerance of many in Katherine's family.

But his approval; his understanding also meant much to her. Katherine had tried hard to overcome her initial dislike of his mate to become if not friends, at least tolerable to her to make occasions when they were forced into association bearable for the Kinswoman. She does not echo any of these thoughts at Lukas, but he can feel her initial defensiveness, and then her gratitude for his understanding -- if not his appreciation for Martin -- of her desire on the matter.

He is not all bad, Lukas. One day, you will see it, as I did with Danicka. Katherine's final word on the matter is a raised eyebrow, and then she rises, pats her Alpha on his wet shoulder, and pads into the kitchen after Cordelia.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's only reply to that is a sort of disgruntled noise. She pats him on the shoulder and he says aloud -- albeit in an undertone, "Sweaty. Sticky. Gross! Bacteria!"

Then she's past. He listens for the kitchen faucet turning on, trying not to smirk.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] Katherine comes into the kitchen, and Cordelia's got a paper towel in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She looks decidedly less a mess- more like she woke up on the wrong side of bed from a night out than she does a bad night out.

"I couldn't find your waste basket," which translates out to I didn't look for it.

[Katherine Bellamonte] The Philodox's brow wrinkles; she tshes at her pack-mate and does indeed head for the sink to wash off her fingertips but but not before she nudges open the cabinet beneath the sink for Cordelia and exposes the concealed trash can. The Half Moon stands to one side as she disposes of her ball of paper towel and adds; lightly.

"Cordelia, perhaps tonight is not the night for our discussion. However, we shall talk about it, I promise you. If you wish it," here is a curious thing; a moment of true comprehension from Katherine. "I have no truly touched Christian's room since he left; you would be welcome to sleep there."

Her pale eyes suggest what she does not voice.

[Cordelia Sarafin-Diego] She doesn't say anything for a moment, she just throws away her paper towel and makes sure that she has her things. Perhaps it's best that they not have this conversation tonight. She nods, confirmation that, yes, she does want to talk about it. Whatever it is. Be it tribal matters or what was eating her or what she can do and all those flavors in between. Kate gets it, Cordelia smiles. It's that genuine thing again. She really it pretty, funny it's been so hard to notice until now.

"I appreciate it," she says, "goodnight, Katherine."

She starts to head off in the direction that she knows Christian's room is in. She even turns back and, "goodnight."

Lukas got one too. And it's off to bed with her.

and he's back.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The waterfowl are long gone from the Great Lakes, and with them the bulk of the summer's tourists. It's a quiet around the now-dry Buckingham Fountain - late enough that the day crowd is gone and the evening crowd is at dinner, at shows, at home.

There's one man pacing a slow circle around the rim of the fountain, head down, a cell phone to his ear. He's quite tall, broad across the shoulders; a monolith of black and near-black in his overcoat. He's also quite absorbed in his conversation, which is low, perhaps just a little strained. Once in a while it strays into some other language, full of aspirated consonants and odd vowels.

[Ms Grant] The weather was cold-ish. It was going to get worse - but this middle ground was still difficult to get used to. It felt colder than it actually was. Thus, August was bundled up today in a soft pink pea coat, a black and pink hat and a pair of mittens. A scarf was wrapped lightly aound her neck - but it wasn't obstructing any of her features (it wasn't that cold..)

Tonight, the park was merely a way to get from point a to point b without having to traverse the dangerous streets of Chicago at night.

She had a bag of groceries with her. And.. nothing else. No baby tonight. Just a bit of worry etched on her previously soft features.

[Martin] If one spends enough time associated with the Nation, the state of the moon begins to be a part of life that is checked with as much frequency as the weather, with the difference being that the weather is dictated by fallacious humans who, try though they might, cannot predict what the fuck nature is going to do from day to day. Luna never deviates from her set pattern of waxing and waning, and if she's absent one night it goes without saying that within a few days she is going to get bigger, and brighter, and her servants are going to get testier and testier.

Humans are affected by the pull of the full moon for reasons that psychologists can't quite reason out, but on nights like tonight hospital emergency departments and jail cells are loaded with people who can't keep their shit together when the sky brightens like this. Martin learned years ago to avoid Garou in general and Ahroun in particular on full moons. One would think that, following that stipulation, he had also learned to keep his damn mouth shut on nights like tonight but his mate would tell a different story if she was still alive to do so.

So it goes.

The Silver Fang kinsman hasn't made his return to the city public knowledge. Those who read the Chicago Sun-Times would notice his name had started appearing in print again, and his tribal elder was well aware of it, and the few, the proud, the long-suffering who called him a friend had been informed, but he hasn't exactly sent out a warning to other people.

He's walking through Grant Park because it's, by Midwestern standards, a nice night. It's not pissing rain or blowing snow, and it's above freezing, so walking from Point A to Point B isn't an exhausting prospect. He knows what this park has had happen to it, and for whatever reason he still isn't afraid to walk through it at night. He's not even wary.

He's armed, though, so that helps; and he's here not for a stroll, because he doesn't want to get home with any great celerity, but because he's meeting someone. His phone isn't plastered to his head, but there's a cigarette in his hand, and his breeding gives him away to those who know what to look for. There's a tower of Rage by the fountain, attached to an imposing physical stature, but Martin doesn't turn tail at the sight or even slow his approach.

Maybe he doesn't recognize him. There wasn't a single occasion that his and Lukas' paths crossed that he wasn't high or drunk in the past.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Another minute or two, and whatever conversation Lukas is having comes to an end. The small screen of his iPhone -- previous-generation now -- lights up as he lowers it from his ear. He frowns at it for a moment, thumb swiping over the glass, and then puts it aside.

When he looks up he looks directly at Ilari Martin. The last time he did this -- raised his eyes to stare the kinsman directly in the face as though expecting him to be there -- he pushed Martin's head into a toilet bowl and held it there. This time there's no indication of such intentions in his mind. His eyes are as icy-blue as they ever were, direct and fearless. Time barely touches his kind; war, however, touches them often and deeply. He looks no different at all. He looks entirely different.

"Ilari Martin," he says, and steps off the rim of the fountain. It puts their heights closer together; nowhere near close. "I thought you went to Florida."

There's a young woman in this park too. Wyrmbreaker heads toward her, his pace leisurely, his body language an invitation for Mr. Martin to follow.

[Ms Grant] Yes, August had agreed to meet someone here - but she wasn't as alert as she should be. In fact, there was some question as to if she was paying any attention at all to her surroundings.

Finally, she approached a bench and set her bag of consumables down atop it. It was heavy, she needed a break. A mittened hand dug into her pocket and she pulled out a stick of chapstick, which she promptly applied. Of note, was a still healing gash in her lip. It looked at least a week old at this point - and appeared to have possibly been stitched together. Only the scab still remained.

Hazel eyes flicked down to her watch. It was the appointed hour.. but.. it didn't help she wasn't sure who he was looking for.

[Martin] Lukas steps down off the fountain, and it does very little to put their heights in an even fighting range. He still has a full head on the Silver Fang, who, it's worth mentioning, bears very little resemblance to the man who he briefly submerged almost two years ago. What physical changes are worth mentioning are the result of a change in lifestyle. His skin is not pale any longer but sun-darkened; his eyes are not glassy and unseeing but alert and warm; he walks confidently and purposefully rather than lurching to wherever it is he needs to be. Sharp alcohol doesn't waft off of him like a noxious cloud, and he is not sniffing or rubbing his nose, which is red due to the cold and not because he has been inhaling powder stimulants since five o'clock this morning.

It's a man standing in front of Lukas instead of a husk, and Lukas addresses him by his full name rather than anything else. The fact that he even remembers his full name ought to cause Martin some degree of concern, but he just regards the blue-eyed man for a moment, attempting to place him. Recognition of Garou for what they are is one thing. He can pick up on the Rage, on the bearing, and form a picture in his head but he cannot tell tribal affiliation or rank or anything that matters to Them. So it takes him a moment. Two years is a long time.

He thought he went to Florida.

"You thought I went to Florida and stayed there, you mean," Martin says, and continues on toward August without acknowledging the unspoken invitation.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It takes a man a lifetime to work his way up a corporate ladder. It takes years of schooling, years of effort, years of wheeling and dealing to get anywhere at all. Not so for the Garou. The last time they met, Lukas was a Cliath -- the near-bottom of the totem pole, barely authorized to function on his own. These days he's nearly an Adren. He's been sitting on Adren renown for the better part of a year.

It makes a certain sense though. A man can be expected to live seventy, eighty years. A Garou is lucky if he survives seven or eight past his First Change. So in a sense: it takes a Garou a lifetime to work his way up the ranks, too.

Not that any of this matters much to Martin, or that he can even discern it the way a wolf might. As far as he's concerned, whatever changes have happened in Wyrmbreaker's life manifest themselves only as a certain gravity in his manner; a sort of drive and confidence that comes not so much from a youth's idealism and utter certainty that he's right, of course he's right, he knows the answer to everything and he'll fix the world --

but from hard, cold experience. Packmates come and gone. Septmates lost and dead.

"Yes," he replies, "that is what I meant. What brought you back?"

[Ms Grant] The young woman who stood alone, now moved to sit on the bench. She smoothed her coat beneath her - to shield her backside from the cold surface of the bench. And there, she just seemed to wait - oblivious to the world.

[Martin] Comparing the hardships and trials of Garou and Kinfolk is somewhat pointless. Interesting, from an anthropological and sociological standpoint... but ultimately, there is no comparing them. Neither can imagine the lives the others lead, nor is there any reason for them to have to do so. To compare Garou to soldiers is asinine. They were not drafted, nor did they volunteer, and the only end that comes to their service is the end that's granted by death, or being cast out, which some would argue is a fate far worse than being buried. Without Kinfolk, some argue, Garou would not survive; but without oxygen few organisms on this planet would continue to survive, either, and yet the planet is decaying at a rate that is absolutely appalling because human beings can't take care of things that are precious to them.

Martin is older than most Garou can ever hope to see, and he has been part of the movement for longer than most of them will survive past their First Change, yet the only rank or authority he holds within their society comes from the general consensus that no matter their reputation, elders are to be respected. Among their kind Ilari Martin is a goddamn dinosaur. What he has managed to do for the Nation--producing Trueborn offspring, finding and combating the Wyrm, protecting Garou, and on and on--is overshadowed by the fact that he has spent his adulthood doing not-so-respectable things to himself.

That's really neither here nor there. Lukas wants to know not what he's doing back, or why he came back, but what brought him back. Whether or not Lukas possesses the intelligence necessary to recognize the importance that his words have is not what Martin thinks of when he answers.

"A woman," he says, and like most things Martin says, it sounds like flippant bullshit. A moment later he spies a blond woman sitting on a park bench. The sleeve of his peacoat is shucked up so he can reveal his wristwatch, and he clears his throat before calling out, "Miss Grant?"

[Ms Grant] She perked, hearing her name. The young woman turned, and stood. "Yes?"

Ah, that must be whom she was meeting. He was older than she expected. But, oh well. One cannot afford to be picky with friends when you can count the entirety of them on one hand.

Hazel eyes - no longer full of life and sparkle - shifted from Martin to Lukas beside him. Her gaze dipped then and a small sigh escaped. He wasn't exactly whom she wanted to run into. "Evening, Rhya."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] A woman, Ilari says, and like most of the things out of his mouth, it sounds like flippant bullshit. Lukas's eyebrow quirks, and like most of the times he hears what may be flippant bullshit, he confronts it rather directly.

"Which woman?" A beat. "My packmate?"

And then the kinsman -- this very man who, nearly two years ago, Danicka Musil stood on a wintry street and shouted at Lukas was twice as old and half as strong as you, how could you, how dare you, how could you be just like my brother although Lukas didn't know that was the question she wanted to ask, then, or what it meant --

the kinsman is going to greet the no-longer-pregnant kin of the Children of Gaia. Lukas's pale eyes turn that way too. He's greeted by August Grant. He returns it with a nod.

"Hello, August." His tone is level, courteous. "Have you found new lodgings?"

[Ms Grant] "Yes. Aanon has offered me employment as his housekeeper. The job comes with lodgings." Where there used to be a lightness and warmth to her tone.. it was just gone now. She was just getting by day by day. She was alive, it counted in her mind.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Lukas is not the only pack member of the Unbroken sitting on the renown for Adren. Katherine, perhaps his longest standing (see: surviving) pack-mate and the woman who he had once struggled for power over, who had once led him and now stood without complaint behind him as his unspoken second, appears from the quiet night's shadow like some pale vision in a starkly white winter's coat; a black knitted cap set stylishly over her golden waves.

Her feet are encased in knee high black boots, the heels enough to set most hardened females feet to throbbing simply by a glance and her mouth painted with striking red lipstick tonight. Honor's Compass was nothing if not a creature who made impacting entrances. For a Half Moon, her Rage rode high, and as she crosses toward her Alpha, her presence stokes the pressure of the park with another supernatural creature.

[Martin] Unfortunately, Lukas' question is not justified--or, more likely, blown off--with a response. He asks whether the woman in question is his packmate, and Martin calls out to the seated kinswoman.

It's a convenient excuse not to answer which woman has him coming back to this godforsaken city, but Martin is an intelligent man. He can't possibly think that it isn't going to come up again, or that Lukas isn't going to read confirmation in what has or hasn't been said. Lukas and August greet each other, speak a bit about people and circumstances of which Martin is only vaguely knowledgable; he glances away from the woman not because he's mentally checked out from the conversation but because there is another Garou nearby.

Speak of the devil.

Martin, being the worldly man of means and age and experience that he is, simply pulls a gloved hand out of his peacoat pocket to wave to Kate as she approaches.

"Miss Grant," he says, "we spoke on the phone earlier. My name's Ilari Martin." He pronounces it Ih-LAHR-ee. "I'm Katherine Bellamonte's kinsman. You, ah... you want a hand with those groceries?"

[Ms Grant] "Ah.. a pleasure Mister Martin." She smiled lightly. "No, thank you - I have them."

In fact, she snagged the bag up, as if to prove her point. Yes, they were heavy - but she was quite able to carry them.

The approaching (beautiful) form of a familiar Garou got another small smile and a few fingered waved. August did appreciate all that Kate had done for her before the baby was born.. thus, her arrival was not unwelcome.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I'm glad to hear it," Lukas replies to August. "Would you mind giving Ilari and I just a moment?"

On that note, undeterred, the Shadow Lord's eyes come back to Ilari. He's clearly waiting for his answer still. Katherine's approach is neither noted verbally nor in overt physical reaction; all there is is a faint sense across their link that Wyrmbreaker recognizes his packmate's proximity and presence.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine doesn't return the waving of either her kinsman or August with a little wiggle of her fingers in return, rather, her hands remain securely in the pockets of her coat and her mouth instead curves upward a little at either corner in a delicious little suggestion of amiable greeting at both.

As she draws near; her hands emerge long enough to tug rather abruptly on the neck of her pack-mate's coat with one gloved hand; before it falls away and her pale eyes fix on August. Slip to her flat belly; skate back to her face; she makes a study of it, before her lips part and those white teeth of hers are bared in a smile. "Ms Grant," Honor's Compass all but purred; it was the moon, you see. It turned her more than ever into that dangerous combination of Silver Fang and Garou. The madness danced in her eye, there and gone -- masked in a smile, hinted at in a head tilt or the particular sharp dig of her words.

For all this, though. Katherine was perfectly polite.

"I see you are well. Where is your infant?" Lukas wishes to speak with Ilari, and Katherine makes no remark on it, rather, her focus seems rather steady on the Gaian.

[Ms Grant] In response to Lukas' request.. August merely nod and more fully turns her attention to Katherine. If the Trueborn expected her to move (when they came to her) it was just obsurd and no longer had patience to deal with the Garou's fickle changing attitudes.

"Hello." She responed to the greeting. The blonde kinswoman offered a light smile - though the light didn't quite make it to her eyes. "Ella is at day care. She is well."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Tugged at, Lukas has to respond -- and the response is surprisingly warm. Viewed from the outside, the Shadow Lord is such an imposing, intimidating creature: all strength and muscle, a brooding countenance, an often severe or stern disposition. Then one sees him like this, turning at the tug at his coat, his face breaking in a sudden, mute smile. He bumps Katherine as she passes, shoulder to shoulder, a sort of rough fondness that fades as he returns his attention to Katherine's kin.

There's no warmth between him and Ilari Martin. Katherine is only part of the story there. The other part is perhaps best left undisturbed.

[Martin] Lukas asks for a moment, and the oldest of the lot of them looks away from August with one eyebrow raised not in genuine concern or confusion but in what looks like an approximation of what one would do were one attempting to feign such a state of not knowing what another wants to discuss. It is no more serious than anything else that he's said tonight, and with a quick glance back at the females, Martin takes a few steps back as though to give themselves the illusion of separateness. There is no door to close, no curtain to draw, and Martin doesn't find himself in the luxurious position of having no idea what Lukas wants to know.

The moment between packmates is witnessed not so much with the whole of his attention as it is out of the corner of his eye. Martin pulls out a pack of Dunhill cigarettes and prepares one, lighting it without watching anyone around him. His dark eyes focus on the tip of the cigarette for a moment as the flame flicks at it. It's not smart, taking his eyes off of someone who had attacked him once, but either the incident has faded from his muddled memory or else he's more forgiving than one might credit him for otherwise.

Unless the Ahroun speaks first, Martin asks, "Yes?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "You know what I asked," Lukas says flatly, "and you haven't answered me."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine nods at August's words without comment for a moment, the waves of her hair bobbing in silent agreement as the Silver Fang regards the young Kinswoman before her. Then, she flicks her wrist, straying her fingers from their momentarily resting point beneath the sharp point of her chin.

"I had heard," Katherine's words were very faintly accented with a touch of french, it softened them, and gave her the air (much as she no doubt desired) of some glamorous foreigner, passing through the dreary Chicago streets. "through the grapevine that you were having some issues with your mate." Her eyes gleamed, she lifted a slender shoulder as if to shrug off Paul Kellogg.

"Former, I perhaps should name him. I wanted to personally offer you the Loft as a place to stay, and extend my own services if you have need."

[Ms Grant] "It is likely true, what you have heard. I no longer have a mate - Paul revoked his claim." She shrugged some - also shrugging off, or brushing off the thought that made her stomach twist into knots.

"I do appreciate the kind offer.. but I am currently working for a Lord - Aanon - perhaps you have heard of him? He was in need of a house keeper, and I was in need of a place to stay, so it worked out. Your offer is very kind, Katherine - and had I heard it prior to accepting my position, I would most certainally have taken it.."

[Martin] "Oh, I'm sorry," Martin says. He takes a moment to blow smoke out of his lungs--away from both of them, but it doesn't really matter. The tobacco burning still smells. "I didn't realize you were hanging on my response. Is investigating a matter that, so far as I can tell, is none of your concern more important than making sure this young woman gets home safely, or can we save it for another time?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] It was perhaps the Philodox in her -- "What was his reasoning for revoking his claim over you? It is not something to be taken lightly." -- there is interest, keen interest certainly, but no apparent anger directed at the female before her with her bags of groceries stayed in her arms.

Katherine does not offer to take them, perhaps this is a sign of respect.

At the mention of a Shadow Lord, there's some minute narrowing of her eyes in thought, but no vocal reaction.

[Ms Grant] "He gave me no reason other than he has chosen another. I was the best mate I knew how to be. I had proven I was capable of providing him children and even now, I regretfully carry one of his."

[Katherine Bellamonte] A perfectly plucked eyebrow rises.

If ever a woman's voice could be the worrying calm before a storm, it was Katherine's at present, her words dipped in ice: "He chose another while still mated to you?" Her pale eyes were riveted, now. "With knowledge that you carried his offspring in your womb?"

There's a flash of Rage. Her breath rushes from her lips before she presses them together into a fine line. "His tribal elder should know of this. I would know more of his reasoning for such seemingly honorless behavior."

[Ms Grant] A slight nod. August no longer could make eye contact with the ever increasing anger/irratation of the trueborn before her.

"Yes - he chose another while still mated to me. And, before he formally revoked his claim and removed his mark, I informed him of the child so that he could make that choice with all of the information. His mind was apparently already made up."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Nothing but silence for some time, cold and hard. Long after Martin's finished, Lukas is staring at him, raptor-eyed. The silence becomes obvious, then unsettling. Just before it becomes overwhelming, the Shadow Lord folds his hands gently at his back and takes a step closer, his voice low and level.

"I don't like you," he says: this has more the sound of a statement than an invective. "I don't like how you can't hold a conversation without snarking, and I don't like how you can't answer a question straight. I don't think you're good for my packmate, and frankly, given how your last little fling turned out, I'm not sure she's altogether good for you.

"You're right in that it's not my direct concern. You're Katherine's kin, her concern. But she's my packmate. My concern. So if you're going to drop little hints that you came back to Chicago for a woman and refuse to elaborate on whether or not that woman is my packmate, I'm going to hound you until I get a confirmation one way or another."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Full of wrath she might have currently been but Katherine was also a Half Moon and so; lauded for her capacity for reason and balance. She took another deep breath and then one more. Her crimson lips twisting for a moment in obvious irritation at the Garou in question's actions.

"This other Kinfolk," here her voice softens, for all that she has been accused of being an unfeeling monster there is compassion now. "I know it must be painful, but I wonder, do you know her name? Is she a member of our Sept? Of your tribe?"

[Ms Grant] "I do know her name.. it is Kaitlyn. I do not know which tribe she is of - but is not mine, nor Paul's."

"She is living in my former home, with Paul. She would not be difficult to locate - if such a thing were of interest to you."

She peeked up a bit - and there once more was a little sparkle. Someone was at least taking interest in the wrongs that had been done to her and it clearly touched her somewhat.

[Martin] Let's get something out of the way: standing here the way he is, talking the way he is, affecting an air of not-giving-a-fuck, is not easy. When he first met Lukas, the kid was a Cliath. His Rage wasn't as high as it is now. Standing in front of him didn't feel analogous to standing in front of a slowly moving military tank refusing to move.

Somehow Martin had managed to have more than one conversation with one Decker Rohl without finding his head smashed through a wall, though, so somehow standing next to Lukas Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is is like a tepid bath compared to the molten lava cascade that the Modi had been. Beyond that, Martin is not a young man who has very little experience with Garou. He's over forty years old, was mated to an Adren Silver Fang Half Moon from the time both of them were old enough to consent to adult activities until the time she died not long enough ago, and has fathered a future warrior with what little purity is left in his blood.

Still, he knows damned well that if he doesn't watch what comes out of his mouth that Lukas could snap and kill him.

So, Lukas says he doesn't like him, and he tries not to look amused. He goes on about Martin's inability to hold a normal conversation; how he's not good for his packmate; how he's right. All the while, Martin smokes. At the end, when there's either space for a response or indication that one is warranted, Martin exhales and ashes his cigarette. They're scattered on what little breeze there is.

"That 'little hint' you are so thoroughly hung-up on was a joke," Martin says. "An uninspired joke, if we're speaking frankly, but a joke nonetheless. Even if it was not a joke and I had, in fact, decided to leave a rather comfortable existence in Florida to come back to a city that was, when I left, a goddamn war zone in every sense of the word... your packmate, last I checked, is nearly Adren, holds several demanding positions within the Sept, and is of the age most people consider quite capable of taking care of herself."

Should Lukas try to interject, Martin doesn't give him the opportunity. Two can play the lecturing game.

"Do I understand your concern? Absolutely. I have a daughter Kate's age, and if she expressed interest in dating a man twice her age who was an absolute train wreck up until the Obama administration took over I wouldn't be too happy either. However, as I said... what I'm doing in Chicago is Kate's business, not yours."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine, when August risks a look up at the Adren-ready, if not yet ranked Garou, has her arms now crossed over her chest and a deep frown etched into her features paired with a particular faraway look that most could pinpoint as one of supreme concentration. In actuality, she is talking to Lukas.

That's Great has abandoned a pregnant mate of good breeding for no apparent reason good enough. Now he is apparently having sex with some new Kinfolk, having claimed her as mate from what I gather. Can he really be so stupid? Have you heard of a Kinfolk named Kaitlyn?

After a moment, Honor's Compass returns, her eyes focus and she blinks, looking at August.

"It is of great interest to me, as Philodox Elder I cannot overlook such an apparent affront. I shall be tracking down, if I can find her, Paul's tribal Elder. If I cannot, I will take matters into my own hands."

[Ms Grant] "Thank you, Katherine. I would also know why Paul would dishonor me so. Perhaps you will have a better time obtaining answers from him than I did.."

[Fire Claws] The scab was cold, it was dark, it was gloomy. There seemed no hope for anyone in this god forshaken hell hole that the monkey's called the Second City. It was bad enough he would have to abandon the comfort of his pelt and claws while he trod around the stench of this worthless place, but the winter chill was difficult to endure while stuck in the monkey skin as well. Then there was this stupid monkey thing called a... job. Strange work that got him pieces of paper with pictures on it that the monkeys used to get stuff otherwise available to him when he was in the wilds. Things like protection against the cold, water and food.

However he did find some places within Chicago bareable. Places along the waterfront where the wind kissed both the water and the land, the caern and the beating of Gaia's heart so dear to them all and there was the unnatural attempt at the nature in the middle of the city called Grant Park. Tonight that was where he found himself, sitting among the trees just listening to the wind while he contemplated the dirt under his fingers. But something seemed to catch his.. well.. nose. A scent on the air seem to shake him from thought. A scent he needed to speak with eagerly.

With the new thoughts dominating his mind, he gets up and begin to hunt down the Philodox Elder, moving from the shadows of the tree to the walkway heading towards the fountain. His nose leading the way as the determined and intense looking man moves with his head down, eyes watching the ground but moving as if he knows exactly where he's going. A average looking man, decked in a worn thick coat and an even worse for wear hat.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's no indication that the Ahroun intends to interrupt. There are those Full-Moons so afire with their own rage that they can't sit still. Can't think straight. Lukas has met more than one. He's packed with more than one. He was never like that, though -- a colder beast, gifted or cursed with control and a dreadful sort of patience.

So he listens. And he waits. And when Ilari is finished, he lowers his head for a moment, as though in thought.

Raises it again.

"I'm going to speak candidly, Ilari. Your relationship with Katherine may be primarily her concern, though I'll admit I'm relieved to hear you have no intentions of sullying my packmate's honor again. Your presence in this city, however, is very much my concern. Although you might not realize it, when I first asked you why you were here, I was only making conversation. Giving you and your personality a second chance, you might say, for Kate's sake and for Dani&+269;ka's."

It's the first time that name has come up all night. The way he says it is different -- unlike the way anyone else in this city pronounces it.

"But," he continues quietly, "your stubbornness, your sarcasm, and most of all your flat-out refusal to answer have escalated the situation needlessly. Now, at the very best, you're challenging my authority -- a kin to a Garou. At the very worst, you're actually hiding something, which makes you a potential threat. My honor cannot ignore one, and my duty cannot ignore the other.

"So I'm going to ask you one more time. I suggest you answer while I'm still feeling polite. What are you doing in this city, Ilari?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] The Half Moon nods, her attention waning for a moment from her own conversation toward the rather intent one her Alpha was having with her Kinsman and her -- her... well, that was rather the problem in hand, wasn't it? Katherine's eyes stay on the men only a moment before they shift to the approaching figure; whose attention is on his own two feet.

The Silver Fang does not rush to greet him, but rather more simply tracks his movements with her pale eyes.

Expectant, perhaps.

[Ms Grant] Quietly, August speaks up - to Katherine. "I hope to see you again soon.. and if you would, would you please tell Mr. Martin our meeting will have to be another time? I hate to interrupt their pressing conversation for something so minor. I do need to go get Ella.."
(Okies guys, gotta get to bed!)

[Ms Grant] And after she was acknowledged in some form, August took her groceries back towards her new home.

[Fire Claws] There is little to his movements while he seems to track his way along the concrete pathway, his shoulders are arched over he moved towards the gathered group. It isn't until he is just over 6 or so feet away that he raises his head to cant his head at the little pure bred kin girl skittering off then back over to pair of packmates. Dark brown eyes seem to search them over, but it was his nose twitching that actually gave him the info he needed.

" 'ello."

The words were garbled, touched with a southern-ish accent. It was difficult to tell as even in that single word, it was obvious he was about to butcher the english language in ways that only can be attributed to the uneducated and ignorant. But the very least, he has come to learn using more formal terms within the city was not looked well upon. What with all the monkeys running about.

[Martin] To his credit, he doesn't attempt to prove anything by just laughing at Lukas; whether that's a credit to his intelligence or to his sense of self-preservation is up for debate at this point, but there is something greater than cowardice keeping him from doing so. His cigarette is still burning, still being smoked. Lukas hasn't grabbed it and used it as a weapon yet. The younger man hasn't reached the point of nearly losing control yet, but if this conversation continues on any further that's going to become a very real danger.

Martin isn't impressed. The combination of nicotine and the adrenaline that comes from being around someone whose Rage is so heavy isn't so much giving him a rush as it is making him feel hypoxic. His heart is slamming in his chest, beating quickly behind his sternum without outright racing. His pupils are dilated because of the darkness, not because of his sympathetic nervous system responding to a perceived threat, and his palms, if they're sweating are encased in black gloves. His fingers don't shake. There is, however, wariness in him. It's entertaining to him, occasionally, to verbally spar with other people, but an Ahroun is an easy target even on nights when the sky is dark.

He blows out another lungful of smoke. This entire time he hasn't smiled or laughed.

"Alright," Martin says. Which basically means: I'm about to do the exact opposite of answer your question. "Two things. First: it's mildly distracting hearing someone who I haven't slept with call me 'Ilari.' Not cripplingly distracting... just to the point where I lose the ability to focus on what it is you're saying for about five seconds after I hear it. Now, I don't really mind being called Ilari, but with that in mind you might want to just stick to 'Martin.'"

There's a chance, yet, that he'll answer the damn question on the second item of his agenda... but if whatever hope Lukas had had that Martin had decided to stop being an asshole in the twenty months since he entered a state of sobriety and left wasn't completely dashed into the sidewalk by now, it seems as though that's his aim. This is, of course, assuming Lukas hasn't crushed his windpipe by now.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine nods at August as she excuses herself and bustles off with her groceries, the Half Moon's eyes follow her for a long moment, even as the stranger shuffles up, his nose twitching. Honor's Compass finally switches gears, in a manner of speaking, and raises an eyebrow at the greeting.

"Good Evening," she said, her screaming red lips parting to reveal straight white teeth. If Fire Claws was the image of Southern breeding, the young woman before him cloaked in designer clothing and reeking of Chanel .05 must be the image of European upbringing; from her diamond earrings winking in each ear to the black cap perched atop her head; one lock of hair arranged to fall over the side of her cheek.

"What may I do for you?"

Perhaps she knows what he is already, though her tone was polite, not warm. Eyes the precise shade of a winter's eye regard him levelly.

[Katherine Bellamonte] [winter's eye? really? winter's sky]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "You have about ten seconds to get to the point," is all Lukas says.

[Fire Claws] There is little mistaking what he was if one looked closely enough. The way his stances seem all too edgy, not so much a twitchy person, but as if he was ready to run or fight within milliseconds. His back was slightly slumped over, but it did not seem to come from bad posture, more an attempt to mimic his natural form in this skin. And his eyes, he did not directly look at Katherine, but when lifted, were wild, dangerous eyes. Not something that could ever be or raised in the human world, but earned struggling in the heart of the wild. And of course there was that oppressive rage surrounding him like a warning beacon of a predator ready to fight, and no there will be no mercy.

" 'ry..err.." Paused, as if trying to find the right words, lost to him. "Miss.. I foun' ah.. kid. Unlearned. Our.. kind. She wis' me ta teach 'er. I seek you 'bout dis."

[Martin] [-1WP, avoid compulsion.]

Three seconds are wasted taking a drag off of his cigarette and holding it in. Another second and a half is wasted blowing it out. It just so happens that he's smoked it down to the filter, but there's a degree of finality in the way he tosses it aside. That leaves him with five seconds to say what would normally take him forty times that long.

"Was that ten seconds starting now, or--"

That was ten.

[Katherine Bellamonte] There are two very different conversations occurring within hearing range (just) of one another. Katherine can surely feel the Rage washing over her from Lukas, can no doubt feel his temper fraying with Martin. But Honor's Compass is also greeting a new Half Moon.

She is on duty, so to speak.
This is no time for a fight.

Honor's Compass leaves her arms folded over her chest, but her brow is furrowed. She tilts her head to one side, perhaps trying to tease out what Fire Claws is saying in his thick accent. He calls her Rhya, and some of her tension eases. But not all, the moon is too high for that, it is too full. Bearing down on them all. "When you say our kind, do you mean simply of the Nation, or of the Half Moon?"

A beat, she studies him.

"What is your name, I do not recognize your face?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The last time something like this happened, Martin ended up facedown in a toilet bowl. A clean, flushed one -- at least there was that. Surely he expects something of the same now. There's no water in the fountain, but there's tile. And concrete. And ledges, and arabesques, and other nice, facebreaking oddities.

Lukas's hands move behind his back, his fingers opening and closing over his opposite wrist. It goes unnoticed by Martin, of course, who cannot see it.

"I see," he says quietly, "that you still haven't learned that when you make an absolute fool of yourself, it's Katherine's honor you besmirch. It's Katherine that needs to drop everything she's doing to tend to your bullshit. It's Katherine that suffers in your place.

"You arrogant, self-centered little shit."

There's no change in his tone on that. He turns his head, calling to his packmate:

"Kate, a word with you?"

[Fire Claws] It is not unheard of that she does not recognize his face. He hates the monkey skin, even if it is necessary while staying in the city. But among their kind, when it is possible, he wears his natural form with ease and comfort. At the moots his lupus form is the only one he is found in. BUt just before he is able to speak, announce himself properly and get back to the matter over Gwen. Katherine is called away by her packmate and he does not speak, merely looking off again.

While waiting for the business between packmates to conclude, his eyes move over the silver kin, sniffing the air in his direction as he just stares at him. Never in the rest of the world has he found so much purity running about. There is no wonder the city is in a constant state of war.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] [totemphone! so sinclair would be hearing this, obviously, not danicka.]

Your kinsman, Lukas's mindvoice is thick with disgust and plain old dislike, is once again reminding me why I hate his guts, Kate. Since you objected the last time I meted out punishment, I thought you'd prefer to handle it this time.

A pause.

I'm trying to get it through his thick skull that if he acts like an idiot, you're the one that has to deal with the mess. So don't expect me to go easy on you.
to Danicka Musil, Katherine Bellamonte

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine turns her face, her profile offered to the Lupus born for a moment.

He can see the proud line of her brow, the thin nose, the shape of her cheekbones. There is architecture there, wrought from noble hands, after a moment she turns back to Fire Claws and offers him a brief smile. "Excuse me a moment, I will attend to this matter after I see what my Alpha wishes."

As she walks over, she is hearing Wyrmbreaker's voice in her head; it is as much sound and shape and color as it is words; the sense of his frustration, the bleeding through of his dislike for the smoking Kinsman beside him. Katherine's mouth thins; but she says nothing as she comes to a stop between them; bringing in the sweeter scent of her perfume, unnaturally melding with the smell of smoke.

Her eyes pass between them; remain on Martin a moment.

"What seems to be the matter here." She queries, as if she does not already know.

[Danicka Musil] Danny Boy is a different creature than the one Martin last saw, most likely, seeing him off at the airport. They hugged.

She didn't tell him over one of the rare phone conversations they had that she was still -- or again -- seeing Lukas. She never wrote him a letter or a postcard to tell him what had developed there, and frankly, other than the way Lukas said her name a few minutes ago, there's no reason for Martin to assume she's still with him. Mated to him. Not the sort of thing you write in a birthday card -- and she did send one -- after lying about it earlier in the year. Not to someone you called every few weeks

then talked to every couple of months

then... less.

It's how it works. People drift apart when they share so little in common, when their relationship was never that deep to begin with, when they hardly knew each other, when they knew each other during a time when one of them was certifiably insane just due to the chemical wringer he was putting himself through. People drift apart when their lives no longer intersect.

But as soon as she starts walking along the path, as soon as her presence is near enough to alert her mate, then her scent to notify his packmate, then the sight of her to be in Martin's range of vision, maybe he can tell how much she's changed. How much stronger she is. How much less likely it is, now, that she would lie to an older friend about the man she's dating.

Danicka's dressed well, but Danicka has always dressed well, at least since any of them have known her. Underneath her coat there's a sweaterdress, a midnight blue that's adorned at the cowl collar and sleeves and hem with impressionistic prints of peacock feathers. Her black leggings could be tights; they go straight into a pair of cream-colored boots. Her coat is a shade lighter than they are. She's carrying a travel mug, and a tea tag dangles from underneath the lid.

Her eyes find Lukas first; she looks around briefly for packmates and notices Kate. She puts her eyes back on Martin

and sees that it's Martin

and her brow furrows, and her head tips slightly, and it's that prettily confused look she was always so good at, because her features all but seem to lend themselves to a somewhat spacey, bewildered cast. Nevermind what Martin once said to Katherine about her. He knows a good actress when he sees one. And if he dared look other-than-at-Lukas right now, he'd see one.

But he might not be able to tell if she's acting.

"&+1057;&+1099;&+1085; &+1089;&+1091;&+1082;&+1072;!" she bursts out.

[Cordelia] "Mira, you look terrible in turtlenecks," Celia said. The girls were out, or something to that effect. Celia had brought on her boyfriend, who this week was a Puerto Rican man whose name Cordelia couldn't remember.

Celia had a lot of boyfriends. Or, rather, she had the same boyfriend that she kept seeing, breaking up with, and getting back together with. Cordelia had known Celia for a matter of months and she had already broken up with what's-his-name twice. They were back together right now.

"Don't remind me," she replies. Cordelia pulls her coat a little closer and continues on with the walking. She's done a good job of bundling up and trying to go through the motions.
"Your hair looks cute, though," her friend offers. They continue on their walk, go about doing their usual tourist-ie things that they liked to do while Cordelia was sober and her companions were not. They'd talked about that club (yeah, I was there) about the dead body (No, I didn't see anything.) they continue on.

Moon's full, anyway. She's been asleep most of the day, anyway. This is where the blonde in the contacts enters the scene- bundled up and off to observe a fountain. Or a statue. Or something like that.

[Fire Claws] He continues to stare at the silver fang kin with the cigarette burning in the cold night air, a strange man that seemed to have done or said something that has otherwised annoyed or pissed off the Ahroun Elder. Part of his wolf mind wonders why the little kin is not bloody already, as a proper lesson. Soon enough that starts to give way as he raises his head. Another scent has come over the night air, a scent he has learned over a couple of encounters.

As Kate and Lukas continue to talk, the wolf in human clothing begans to track down the smell he of the other silver fang girl. Wandering away from the group as another kin begins to gather near the fountain, like a supernatural watering hole.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] This seems to be a law of nature in Chicago. When two members of the Nation congregate, others soon come along. There's a small cadre building in the middle of Grant Park, in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason. Two of them are packmates, so perhaps they gravitated together the way bonding elements do. Three of them have History together, and a fourth is joining them.

Danicka sees her mate first. This is could as much be because he is easily the most visible of the group -- his height, the width of his shoulders -- as because he is, in fact, her mate. Could; but perhaps not. He looks serious, which is to be expected whenever he's like this, out in public, on duty as he once called it. He looks warmly and well-dressed, though conservatively, without Danicka's own unerring sense of varying and sometimes eclectic style.

He also looks distinctly annoyed. His hands, clasped behind his back, are curled into fists. Something about the line of his back is piqued. If he had a tail -- which he does, though not in this form -- it would be wagging back and forth, low and steady, not at all a gesture of friendliness.

Then Danicka sees it's Martin. And perhaps one can begin to guess why.


Lukas glances at his mate only briefly, though -- over his shoulder, finding her as though he were looking before he knew what he was looking for. His eyes look directly at her for a moment. There's something, a shadow of a wince. Then he turns to Katherine, who joins their circle.

"Your kinsman," he says, "has refused to state his purpose in the city even when it was made clear to him that further refusal would be viewed as insubordination or, worse, an attempt to disguise some ulterior motive. He has disrespected me and dishonored you. You're his warder, the Alpha of the Silver Fang tribe, and the Alpha of the Half Moons. I respect your right of discipline. I'm asking you to deal with this."

[Martin] Kate can probably guess at what the matter is before she hears her Alpha's voice in her head, before she comes over to join the two men who are not, on a surface level, even remotely similar. There isn't a single thing that they have in common, it would seem, from simply observing the two of them. This entire scenario could have been easily avoided if Martin had just answered the question in the first place, if he'd told Lukas "No, not your packmate" and meant it, or "Yeah, your packmate" and meant it. Joking, and then continuing to refuse to answer the question not because he had something to hide but as a matter of backwards principle, has Lukas calling Kate over to deal with her kinsman.

With his cigarette gone, Martin returns his hands to the pockets of his peacoat. Standing in front of the mountain of a Shadow Lord, he looks miniscule. His fragility compared to the Garou has always been apparent: if Lukas decides to grab him, decides he wants him to stand over there instead of where he is, if he tries to put him somewhere, if he attacks him, there isn't a whole hell of a lot Martin can do about it if he can't somehow avoid it.

Keeping his mouth shut or doing what's asked of him without arguing is a simple way of avoiding physical violence, but somehow he hasn't learned that lesson in however long he's been aware of what he is and what he means to the Nation, what's expected of him, what he can and cannot get away with. There is an expression of amusement on his features when Kate gets there, but he doesn't make eye contact with her. He doesn't drop his gaze, either. He watches Lukas as he explains what the problem is, and then he hears:

&+1057;&+1099;&+1085; &+1089;&+1091;&+1082;&+1072;!

His eyes slowly slide off into the distance, pulling the rest of his head with them a second later. When he shouts back, it is without hesitation or any real emotion. Whatever's there is distorted by volume. He doesn't bellow, but his voice is raised to carry.

"T&+1072;&+1082;&+1086;&+1081; &+1089;&+1082;&+1074;&+1077;&+1088;&+1085;&+1086;&+1089;&+1083;&+1086;&+769;&+1074;&+1080;&+1077;!"

He doesn't dispute anything Lukas has said or try to defend himself. Martin reaches up to rub the corner of his eye, breathing slowly, and waits.

[Cordelia] Monuments, water, it all seems to make sense. Cordelia's friends react before she does. The man puffs up a little, false bravado, and tries to hide the fact that Fire Claws seems to make him nervous. Celia conspicuously checks her cell phone and clears her throat. Cordelia blinks slowly.

"Hmmn?"
"Hmmn," Celia says. She glowers at her phone and looks up.
Cordelia looks at her expectantly.
"Mmm-mmmmmn," she gestures with her head in the direction of something coming.
Cordelia blinks and cocks her head to the side. She turns her head in the direction that Celia was looking.

"Oh," she says, she squints, and waits for him to get closer. Contacts or no, Cordelia's vision isn't what it should be.

[Katherine Bellamonte] There's a lot happening all at once.

Fire Claws is moving, in search of a new scent in the mix. Lukas is telling her that her tribesman has been disrespectful, and insubordinate and what is she going to do about that and Danicka is arriving and calling out in another language and Martin -- Honor's Compass is quiet, for several moments. This is not unusual for her when she is faced with trying situations, when she is being asked to stand up and be held accountable for another person's behavior -- which, let's be honest happened not a small percentage of the time for her as Silver Fang Elder.

If there is something personal between them, if what Lukas wished to know to begin with is so, there is no hint of yielding tenderness in the way she addresses her Kinfolk. There's no clear hostility, either. There's just this, very levelly spoken: "Ilari, you owe Lukas Wyrmbreaker an apology. You have over-stepped your bounds as a Kinfolk, and disrespected me in the process. For that," her pale eyes shift to Lukas, and do not shy away for all that his Rage was powerful tonight.

"You have my apology, Shadow Lord Elder. But, I assure you, I know all the comings and goings of those of my blood within the city limits. Ilari Martin holds no secrets from me." Katherine's eyes pin the Kinsman down as surely as if there were physical force behind her stare.

"He has returned to a position with the Chicago Sun Times, and wishes to make some use of himself in the Nation," there's a touch of wryness here. "However unflattering a beginning this is. So, Ilari," she gestures. "You will make your peace with Lukas, and to make further amends, should he need your particular talents for a task you will offer yourself gladly, and without remark.

Are we clear?"

[Fire Claws] He does not slump over when approaching the trio of monkeys in the park, not all that far from Kate and Lukas. But when a lupus gets something in their head, others issues seem to fall away to the side. He knew that scent, the silver fang kin once again was out at night, but at least this time she has someone with her.

Fire Claws is not someone that you would want to meet alone in a dark park, hell you wouldn't want to meet him with a group of friends in a dark park. He could be an intimdating individual, especially to those not used to the pressure that rage can force upon the unfamiliar. And then there is his dark, intense stare that could bore holes into the mundanes as if they were plywood.

"Cordelia."

His words were messed up, broken and a toture, perfect for someone of Cordelia's standing.

[Danicka Musil] She hears -- not the first part of what Lukas says, and not a moment of it when Martin is yelling back -- some of what is being said right now, because Danicka never stopped walking towards them. Danicka, perhaps true to form, doesn't interrupt. She doesn't say a word, and though her eyes watch Lukas for a few moments as she comes up alongside him, after awhile she looks at Martin.

[Cordelia] "Hey," she says. Her voice is fairly warm. Her friends look... concerned.

Celia gives Cordelia a look, like she isn't entirely comfortable standing there. Her boyfriend is somewhere between aggressive and wanting to turn around and wander away... quickly. Cordelia offers a tiny smile, "it's okay, I know him."

Celia gives her a look and takes a couple steps back. Two, three steps. They converse back and forth for a second, and Celia turns to leave with her boyfriend. She is all buy dragging him off. Somewhere in her ranting, there's the words mujer and batshitfuckingcrazy. Cordelia shrugs.

"How are you?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's chest rises and falls beneath his fine wool coat as Danicka comes up beside him. He doesn't look again at her, though there's a stitch in his forehead now, a line between his dark eyebrows.

"That's insufficient," he interrupts quietly. "I don't want an apology from your kinsman. I want an assurance that it won't happen again. I want you to have the assurance that he won't embarrass you again. I want consequences set, a price that can be exacted, should it happen again."

He looks to Katherine then, blue eyes to blue, crystalline, clear. The wolves of the Unbroken are, and always have been, almost all blue-eyed. These two are quintessentially, cuttingly so.

"I don't, and never did, believe that you would be so blind as to allow a danger into our protectorate, Honor's Compass. And I am not that interested in why Ilari Martin has returned in Chicago. It was simply conversation at the outset. But when your kinsman not only refused but sidestepped it, ignored it, and responded in the most flippant, rude way possible on every occasion -- he insulted my honor and, by doing so, dishonored you. He's a Silver Fang. What he does reflects on you. When he angers some Garou, it's you they'll think worse of. A year and a half ago he didn't understand this. Or perhaps he didn't care. As far as I can tell, he hasn't changed.

"That's what this is about. That's what I want dealt with."

Another beat; then Lukas steps back from Fang and kin. "I'll leave you to settle this with your kinsman."

[Danicka Musil] Around the point that Lukas says that it's Katherine the Garou will think worse of when Martin mouths off, Danicka sips her tea.

And walks on her way.

[Fire Claws] He does not seem even slightly concerned with what Celia thinks. She has the right idea, the smart idea of self preservation. But when the bravado of boyfriend finally gives way to what he knows is the only possible answer, somewhere on the primative level, Fire Claws all but ignores the pair as they stumble off to get away from the rage that charges the air.

"Okay. Tried ta talk wit ya elda. Busy."

He looks her up and down a couple of second as he begins to really take in her sight. Something about her was not quite right and it could be seen all over his face, like any canine, hiding his emotions was not for him. And as he frowned, it was even more obvious in his human form. Finally when leaning in, he takes notices of the strange absence around her eyes. And his hands make the circles about his own eyes, forgetting the word for glasses.

[Katherine Bellamonte] It's curious how Garou after Garou have said worse things to her, have physically beaten her or disrespected her and found no sign of hitting a target, some weakness in her. Tonight, though, for whatever the reason. Her cheeks color; they flush as she is dressed down by her Alpha. Her friend.

For a moment; Katherine Bellamonte is flustered -- and she does not know what to do.

She does not look away from Lukas as he steps back; but the embarrassment; the humiliation is clear in the set of her shoulders, the way they slightly slump. It's no screaming statement, but from Honor's Compass, it's an unwanted, and perhaps uncommon sight.

She looks beaten.
Resigned.

She does not look at Martin, then, but raises a hand to her face and fusses with her hair.

[Cordelia] She looked at him, and for now she was as composed as she could be. Cordelia did what was necessary; she held still. Waited until Fire Claws did what he felt he needed to do. Take in scents, be close, assure himself that this was, in fact, who he thought it was and- he started frowning. This, in turn, made Cordelia frown. She cocked her head to the side.

She pressed her lips into a firm line and cocked her head to the side. He leaned in, and she didn't lean back. Her expression shifts, and her brows raise, "Oh!"

A moment passes.

"I broke my glasses. I get them back on Monday."

Aw, the contacts aren't permanent.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Leaving Kate to her kinsman, Lukas turns away. He pauses briefly by Fire Claws and the kinswoman he only vaguely recognizes -- or perhaps does not recognize at all, except by scent. Silver Fang.

It's the male he speaks to, at any rate: "My apologies for interrupting your conversation with my packmate. If you don't catch her tonight, she usually takes her shift at Caern patrol in the mornings."

A nod to both of them -- then, unsurprisingly, the Shadow Lord follows his mate, his long strides catching him up in a matter of moments. He doesn't say anything as he falls in beside her.

[Martin] The Philodox who had called herself Ilari Martin's mate could have told more than a few stories about the trials that the kinsman put her through, were Marya Alkaev the sort to drag her beloved's name through the mud for her own purposes. This, right here, is tame compared to the sorts of things he was known for back in New York. More than a few people would simply sit and stare while waiting for the punchline if they were told that Martin had been disrespectful to a Shadow Lord... or, anyone, really.

As Kate mets out a suitable punishment for his transgression, Martin manages to hold his tongue. To attribute either veracity or fallaciousness to the claim that he was here because of Katherine Bellamonte is nigh unto impossible, seeing as Martin never actually came out and confirmed or denied Lukas' suspicion. That's none of your business may very well be code for Well, duh in certain circles, but it also could have been the truth, insofar as the kinsman was concerned.

They don't hand out a roster to Kinfolk when they arrive or return, updating them on who holds what rank, who holds what position, who is doing what with or to whom. When last he was here, Lukas was a Cliath who held no titles within the city. Now, he's not dumb enough to think that is still the case, but if things like Warleader or Adren meant anything to him as a Kinfolk, it hasn't affected his behavior.

It's expected that young Kinfolk will have difficulty with the idea that their respect and their cooperation are not mutually exclusive, that they cannot fulfill their duties without acknowledging that they have to show some semblance of deference to those above them in station. Kinfolk who live to be Martin's age don't struggle to understand; it's a conscious decision by this point.

Martin doesn't have to bite his tongue throughout all of this. It isn't helplessness or complacency, though, that has him standing still and listening, for once, instead of opening his mouth. In a few places his eyebrow quirks, or his eyes flit away from where they had been stationed to focus on the person speaking. When Danicka decides she's seen enough and starts off, his eyes flick after her but he doesn't call out again.

When the Shadow Lord steps back, that's when he actually gets a look at Kate. She's flustered; a blind man could tell from her silence, her toying with her hair, that she doesn't know how to respond. His jaw sets, but he doesn't reach out to touch her. Apologies, at this point, aren't going to do a whole hell of a lot.

He wants to say something. Kate knows him well enough to know that he has a fucking answer to just about everything. He has to take a deep breath and look at the Garou next to him for longer than half a second to control himself, but by the time he looks back to fire off a response to Lukas, he's gone. Martin lets out that captive breath, then drops his voice.

[Danicka Musil] There isn't much in the way of catching up done between one kinfolk and another. At the moment they're both in the presence of their elders, one is being reamed out and told to apologize, while the other seems to have both the freedom to escape and the good sense not to interrupt Martin's dressing-down. Or maybe it's a lack of loyalty, a lack of caring, who knows what. She doesn't tell him she'll catch up with him later, but simply leaves Lukas, Katherine, and Martin behind.

Or, as it turns out, Katherine and Martin. Lukas comes alongside her, and Danicka glances over at him, but primarily keeps her eyes forward. When she talks, it's light, but level. Careful, almost.

"I'm not looking for an argument," she says. "We both know we've wasted enough angst fighting one way or another about the two Silver Fangs we just walked away from. But considering how much drama your packmates -- Katherine included -- stirred up once upon a time because they didn't like me, thought I was disrespectful and would only cause trouble for you, I'm ...surprised, by what I heard back there. And a little disappointed."

[Fire Claws] He cants his head to the side, glasses were a strange idea to him still. Fixing one's eyes by using glass was hard to understand when you had no knowledge of sciene, the idea of contacts seems to be far out of his league. And if she were to explain the process by which contacts were used, he might just blink at her and shake his head figuring she was lying.

"Monke' kin. Mus be car'ful. I told ya."

He didn't actually ask about the reason behind the glasses. It didn't matter. He didn't want to think too much on it, the purity in her blood was beginning to start to have an effect on him. And he didn't want to have his mind all muddled up before he finished his business for the night. When Lukas informs him that Katherine is finished, he promptly turns to speak with Kate once again, only pausing one moment to see if the silver fang kin wanted to follow. Maybe she could fill in the gaps in his english if needed.

[Cordelia] There are not a lot of people who are taller than Cordelia. There are even fewer people who can boast that they are, in fact, taller than Cordelia even if she's wearing heels. Lukas is one of those people. She looks from Fire Claws to him, and keeps her mouth shut. If she's met him, it's very clearly not registering with her features. All she recognizes is that this is one tall, dark, and ragey young man. Then? He's leaving.

Which seems to be just fine for her, because she's snapped back to reality by being told that she needs to be careful by her current companion. She nods once, twice, and follows along. Cordelia might not be able to climb trees or open doors, but by god she knows how to keep up.

"I've been careful," bullshit, "es just a bad month."

A beat.

"What were you talking to Katherine about? May I ask?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] They have precious seconds -- minutes, perhaps -- before Fire Claws and another of Katherine's Kinfolk, for they were all hers all of them her duty, her obligation to protect -- reach them and they can no longer speak like this, in low murmurs. In French. Martin speaks to her and for a moment Katherine's features and masked by her hands; she turns her hand over, brushes her cheeks with her knuckles in a bid to cleanse them of the blood that had rushed there in the wake of her sudden and unexpected embarrassment.

"Je vous entends," she says in a tiny voice, then lowering her hands she breathes out; her breath stutters and catches in her throat. "Je sais, mais cela ne change rien." There's a heartbeat, she holds Martin's eyes; her eyes are overbright for a moment with this private confession while she can tell it: "Parfois je souhaite que j'étais resté là." Then, she's blinking and all sincere regret abandons her -- she hardens, like a brilliant, beautiful but in the end empty shell and says to him as an aside.

Every inch the Garou Elder again.
"We will discuss your punishment at a more suitable time."

Her chin rises; her lips framing a smile that for once someone can see how hard she has to work to forge. "Cordelia, what a pleasure to see you once more." She nods at Fire Claws.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] So they're both walking now, and they're both largely looking ahead at the path that leads them -- to the parking lot, to the metro station, somewhere. Lukas's coat collar is up against the evening chill. If they weren't not-arguing, if they weren't tense, there's every likelihood he would put his arm around his girlfriend. His mate.

He doesn't, though. He puts his hands in his pockets, and when she says that word, disappointed, his mouth tightens and he frowns.

"You've never spoke to Katherine or anyone else the way he spoke to me. You've never done your utmost to earn their enmity. It's different, Dani&+269;ka."

He glances her way, then away again. A breath drawn and released. Quieter, "You've taught me a lot about how to treat people. How to not behave as a monster towards those weaker than myself. That might be the only reason Ilari Martin's head isn't cracked open on the sidewalk right now.

"But I didn't disrespect him because he's kin and therefore mine to abuse, Dani&+269;ka. I show him no respect because he's done nothing to show me he's worthy of it, and much to show me he's unworthy. I'd hold anyone to those standards."

[Fire Claws] He pauses a second, almost in midstride back to the fountain when the kin said she had been careful. He gave her a sidelong glance for a second, almost as if he picked up something in the air. But it was gone in a matter of seconds and he couldn't pinpoint it, especially with that breeding soiling his thought process. He just shakes it off and continues to where Martin and Kate are now.

"Cub. Forseti cub. Needs a learnin' sum'one ta teach 'er. ~Rhya need ta kno'."

He doesn't seem all too annoyed with her questioning him, again most likely the breeding is making it difficult to be his normal self. Stopping abruptly when he finally can speak with the Philodox Elder once more.

[Cordelia] Cub, he says, and she follows.
Forseti cub, he says, and Cordelia looks at him like the word doesn't quite match up. She speaks half a dozen languages and forseti doesn't match up to any of them. That rather distracting young woman nods, and keeps her hands in her pockets. Eventually, they catch up to Katherine.

Cordelia smiles, and it's genuine. She doesn't have half the difficulty pulling it off that Kate does, but something in her expression makes Cordelia pause. She raises a hand and waves hello, "how have you been?" Pleasantries, all. Curiosity, certainly.

She seems to notice something, it causes her to hesitate. But she presses onward anyway.

[Fire Claws] He does not begin to interrupt the Philodox Elder when she address the silver fang kin over him. He may not have liked it, but he did not have the right to dictate to his elder what should and should not be done. However he did not cough, or make some simple acknowledgement to his business. He canted his head to the side looking at the silver fang kin again and then turn to Honor's Compass once more.

"Fire Claws."

She asked him who she was before, and only know does he remember that he did not answer her. Something has to be said about wolves and their process of non-linear thinking. Maybe that's why Gaia favors them so, their minds are so similar to the wyld spirits that are so few and far between in this world.

[Martin] Kate had only borne partial witness to the abuse Martin was hurling Lukas' way moments ago. It was fairly typical of him, the same sort of casual disdain that he has been touting not just since last year, or the year before, but his entire life. If he'd had anyone call him on it before now, it hasn't made a difference, or else it has simply made him even more resolved to just keep on doing what he's been doing since, likely, he learned how to talk.

He has his moments. There are times when his overriding need to run off the mouth doesn't sublimate itself into actual logorrhea, when he can sit still and shut up for as long as it takes the other person to tell him something, to express a concern or a fear or a desire. The woman next to him has seen him be reasonable before, and has received answers to questions without having to dance around like a trained chimpanzee beforehand.

When, exactly, Martin decided he didn't need to show Lukas respect has left his memory banks. It may never have been a decision at all. They aren't the same people they were in 2009, but so far as either one is concerned, not a damn thing has changed: Martin is still an arrogant piece of shit, and Lukas is still a sanctimonious douche bag.

In the dark, distinguishing Martin's irises from his pupils is difficult. He used to prefer dark meeting places to conceal the fact that if he was conscious, he was likely walking around with cocaine in his system. All that anyone really has anymore is the fact that he talks slower, that his baseline is not 'giddy' while the rest of him is prone to violent mood swings, that he seems aware of the consequences of what he's about to say. With the last of these, though, with Lukas, he's demonstrated a profound lack of fuck-giving.

No one is watching him with Kate. He's quiet, his eyes on her, and even through the dark he's concerned: not for himself, not for someone else hiding under a bed in the other room, but for her. When she speaks, Martin keeps his mouth shut. When she says something he doesn't understand, not because of some lapse in his proficiency but from lack of context, he frowns. But he doesn't ask for elaboration.

Now isn't the time.

When she pulls herself up, tucks her mask back into place, there is little emotion on Martin's weathered face. It's in his eyes, sure, but no one's looking there. The rest of him is placid, still for a moment, until he flicks his eyebrows and says, his tone strangely subservient despite the lingering traces of befuddlement considering her French, "Yes, Katherine."

That's it. His gaze lingers on her a moment after she steps away to approach her auspicemate, and the kinsman walks off, car keys jingling the last sound anyone hears from him tonight.

[Danicka Musil] From the look of things, Danicka -- for one -- isn't tense. Lukas is tense. Lukas was tense when she first saw him tonight. It may be one of the reasons his pack thought she was no better than a life-destroying slut when she first arrived, and it may be one of the reasons it took him so long to trust that she wasn't going to wreck him for some amorphous personal gain, but she can tell Lukas tonight that she was surprised and disappointed by him just now without hesitating over the words. Without tensing up. Without flinching from it, even under a full moon.

She's walking towards the parking lot where her Infiniti is waiting for her, ready to take her to whichever home she feels like visiting this Friday night. She's not mentioned what she was doing out here at this time of night, but hse hasn't been asked, either. It isn't unusual to see her out and about. It isn't even strange to find her in the most unexpected of places.

When he tells her why he gives no respect to Martin, Danicka turns her head to look at him. She shakes her head after regarding him for a moment, looking forward again. "I don't think you've tried that hard to learn anything about him but what was most immediately obvious to you, and judged him based solely on your own reaction to that. I think you give me a pass because you care for me and ignore the fact that I flat-out lied to you and your packmates multiple times, ignored their feelings or concerns, and coasted along quite easily because you refused to discuss me with them, or allow them to discuss me with you."

There's a small pause where she takes a sip of her tea. "It is different. Martin suffered abuse from you and Katherine both, and still he was loyal to her and defended her -- but you, to whom loyalty is supposedly so important, don't think that's worthy of your respect, or don't care enough to look past his sarcasm and glibness to find that out. He nearly died because of multiple addictions and immediately walked away from the people his behavior was hurting and worked his ass off to become and stay sober and clean, but you -- to whom strength and self-control seems to matter so much, don't think that's worthy of your respect, or just don't care enough to remember it. He's fathered two children to the Nation, one of whom is trueborn, and he'd die for them. But because he mouths off when you interrogate him -- on a matter you admitted wasn't even that important -- he's 'insulting your honor' and you have to protect Katherine's reputation from him.

"None of us like having Garou breathing down our necks, Lukáš," Danicka says, exhaling. "The difference I see is that Martin has done more for the Nation than I have, put up with just as much abuse as I have, but he doesn't get the same chances I did with you because his defense mechanism is rudeness and mine was just deceptive."

Another beat. "Though the fact that you started falling for me essentially from the second you saw me might also play into it."

[Danicka Musil] [Several notes, here.

1. remove 'and clean' from fourth paragraph.
2. to whom strength and self-control seem to matter so much. no plural.
3. mine was just deception. nouns! parallelism!]

[Martin] [THANK YOU CHICAGO GOOD NIGHT *throws drum sticks and stumbles off stage*]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's rare now that Lukas interrupts Danicka before she's finished speaking. One more thing he's learned. Or at least, one more piece of respect he gives her that -- truth be told -- he doesn't give any other kin. May not even give any other Garou outside, perhaps, of his pack.

It's an effort not to interrupt, though. More than once, his teeth clench. Once he actually bares them, his rage spiking in the darkness.

Still. He keeps his silence. When she's finished, he takes the time to draw a slow breath.

"You weren't there," he says. "You didn't see any of it except the end. You didn't see how it began, or how it evolved. Yet he's still the one you defend. And your reasons are because he survived an addiction he brought down on himself. Because he fathered children he's all too willing to abandon altogether to fuck around with my packmate and with cocaine. And because he was so fucking loyal to Katherine he went and fucked you."

And there it is again. The crux of it. He recognizes it himself; it infuriates him. Lukas stops walking; he lowers his head; he puts his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looks at Danicka again.

"Don't you see," he says quietly, "that the more you defend him to me, the more likely it is I'm going to want to put his head through a fucking wall the next time I see him? Do you understand what it took for me not to tear him apart the second I saw him, but to try to start a conversation, to try to actually befriend that -- useless thing instead?"

He's almost shouting by the end.

[Katherine Bellamonte] She cannot look longingly after Martin, nor, in all honesty, would she even if she were in a position to behave so. She does not wish to give member of her own tribe -- or any other for that matter -- kindling for which they might crucify her. She is an Elder, in more than one way, and she must appear, if not be, utterly without mark against her.

Martin is uncouth, he speaks when he ought to hold his peace. He infuriates Full Moons.
[he was her first lover and the first man she ever loved]

Katherine merely acknowledges his departure and spares him no further gaze. Her eyes are now firmly fixed on Cordelia and Fire Claws; the latter naturally garnering her foremost attention. "I apologize for our earlier interruption. You were about to give me your name, and tell me of this lost member of our Nation." If Cordelia is sensing that her Elder is distressed (and rightly so) Kate does not seem to make any reference to it.

Her demeanor is as purposeful as ever; and while she smiles, that touch of some undefined sadness still clings to her, like an unsolved mystery found; aged and pressed between the pages of a book. "I am well, thank you Cordelia."

[Cordelia] She's a little more observant than she seems. She nods, and for now takes her time to stop and listen. Because, while pleasantries were done, it was business time. (let the grown ups talk). She keeps her hands in her pockets and she doesn't make too many sudden movements. Nothing jerky, nothing that isn't fluid and relaxed and purposefully unobtrusive. And she waits.

[Fire Claws] "Gwen. 'er name. A forseti too. No breedin', no con'ectshun to tribe....... Was bein' taugh by a Rain of Brass Peddles~yuf..... But she needs a teacha who can sho' 'er da 'alf-moon ways. Wants me ta do it. Will do so. But I leave it ta ya Elda."

He takes a moment to blow into his hands. It was cold in the scab, windy as well. Then there was the amount of breeding around him, and the stumbling for words that he wasn't sure if he was getting his point across properly. He wished he could be back in his skin, where the cold did not affect him, where monkey words were unnecessary and his body could tell everything he needed. He was uncomfortable like this and it showed. But he promised to get Gwen the help she needed, and Honor's Compass was the person to go to for that. And if not her, then there was always the Grand Elder, but there was more important issues to deal with than training cubs and he didn't want to bother Balance~Without~Fault on such matters.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Honor's Compass tilts her head.

"I know we have had Cubs in our midst who have needed nurturing, and in some ways, appeared to discover their own Mentors through Gaia's good graces. If Gwen, as a fellow Half Moon desires you to be the one of our Auspice to show her the ways then I have no disagreement to offer you but rather a word of caution. By accepting this duty, you do take on her actions as your own. If she should err, I shall call both of you to account for it.

If we are understood, I have no quarrel with her request. Rather, I should like to meet her myself, is my only demand. I would see that she is developing, and learning the ways of the Half Moon as she ought."

She is succinct, Honor's Compass, in so much as she can hope to be, now. In speaking with the wolf born, this is never a bad thing.

[Danicka Musil] It isn't easy, doing what she's doing right now. It wouldn't be easy if Lukas were just her boyfriend, maybe some mid-twenties guy with more muscles than brains or vice versa, mortal and not really all that dangerous and probably not aware that she carries a firearm. This wouldn't be a pleasant, easy conversation if Lukas weren't what he is.

But he is. An Ahroun. A Shadow Lord. Under the full moon, and already in a foul mood. It can't be easy, walking with him and telling him you're wrong. I think you're wrong.

The first real ripple of tension enters Danicka, though, when Lukas brings up Martin 'fucking' her. She pauses even before she notices that he's stopped walking, and turns to look at him. Her eyes, with their mutable color and ancestral memories of old lands, can rarely be described as cold. But for a moment, that's what they are. Deeply angry, and very cold.

She listens, though, and finally says: "I do. And no, I wasn't there. But you have no earthly idea how or where or why Martin's drug and alcohol abuse began, and you don't know the first thing about him 'abandoning' his children. So stop judging him for addictions you don't know the first thing about."

She breathes in, and exhales. Danicka lowers her voice. "The first time you asked me if I was even capable of loyalty, you know who I thought about? My family. And Martin. More than anyone who cared for me or who I cared for, they were all my evidence that yes, I could be loyal. Not just when it was easy, and not just when they met some standard of worth I imposed upon them.

"I've barely talked to him in the past year, Lukáš. But for one thing, if he was useless or worthless I wouldn't blindly defend him. If I didn't know that a big part of your problem with him is that he went and fucked me," her eyes flash for a moment at that -- it was, as Lukas knew instantly, the worst thing he could have said -- "and if I didn't know that you have a rather consistent pattern for jumping down his throat, I'd have been a little less likely to assume that Martin might not have actually done anything that terrible."

Danicka stops there, exhaling again. She looks aside. "I am sorry," she says slowly, turning back to him, "that my first response was to assume that you overreacted. And I'm sorry --" which sounds, for a second, like she's saying I'm annoyed, "-- that right now we're arguing about Martin again when the only reason I brought any of this up was because I thought the person you were really treating with disrespect was Katherine, not him."

[Fire Claws] "Yes ~Rhya. Unda'stood. I will bring 'er ta ya soon."

He didn't know just quite yet if she was going to be as much of a handful as he should expect from monkey born. But he has come to learn several things about the little cub half-moon already. She was not stupid, she was driven and she could learn very quickly. Molding her would take some time, but he would undertake such a burden and when he was done, she would be worthy of the duties bestowed upon her by Luna.

He had other issues he had to speak with Katherine about, but for the moment they seemed to be forgotten. He was too busy pondering over what he had to do with Gwen now. What he needed to teach her and when he should bring her before the Elder. His mind began to race and it was quite apparent on his face as well.

[Katherine Bellamonte] There's a pause, a beat wherein some amusement rises in Kate. She leans over a little, as if to share some conspiratorial secret.

"Now, will you tell me your name, so I might properly address you in future, fellow Half Moon?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Danicka's eyes aren't the only ones that crackle and burn when those words --

went and fucked me

-- echo back at Lukas. For an instant he's utterly livid; he takes a step forward, jabs his forefinger at Danicka as though he were about to fling something back at her; bites it back, keeps his silence, curls his finger back into his fist and lowers it.

Listens to the rest of it, fuming now, looking away from her, rigid with anger.

"You've barely spoken to him in a year," he repeats. "You said yourself, the last time Ilari fucking Martin came up, you thought you were his friend; you said it like it wasn't true. You barely know this man. But when push comes to shove it's always him you defend first; it's always me you accuse of jumping down his throat, getting in his face, hurting his poor little feelings.

"Dani&+269;ka. When I saw him tonight, I said I thought he'd moved to Florida. It was small talk. You know what he said? 'You thought I went to Florida and stayed there, you mean.' Right from the start he drew the line. Not me. Right from the start he was tense, he was looking for a goddamn fight. So I agreed. Yeah. I thought he stayed there. I asked him what brought him back. It wasn't a fucking interrogation, Dani&+269;ka, it was a conversation. He fed me some bullshit about 'a woman', and then he ignored me when I asked if he meant my packmate. He pretended he didn't know what I was talking about when I pulled him aside to ask again. I asked him again; he started beating around the bush. I told him to answer me. He mouthed off yet again, over and over, and that's when I called Katherine over.

"I started out trying to give him a second chance. He fucked it up. Whatever you see in him, whatever you claim him to be capable of, he's never shown me so much as a hint of. He's never shown me anything but a disrespectful, flippant, self-centered bastard. And that's his problem. It's not my responsibility to chase down his better qualities. It's not my responsibility to take his shit over and over and still believe he's a good man because you say so. I'll judge him as he presents himself to me. For your sake, I'll even try not to hurt him. But don't assume every time I'm trying not to put Ilari Martin through a wall, it's because I'm being the big bad wolf.

"I've changed. I'm trying to respect him. He hasn't, and he's not trying to respect me. It is incredibly insulting -- hurtful -- that you would automatically assume the opposite."

[Danicka Musil] Her eyebrows go up when Lukas steps forward, when he jabs his finger at her. It's a look of affront, of are you really sure you want to do that?, but the fear that flickers in her dark eyes is real. The flutter of her heartbeat and the impulse to flee that shivers up her spine is real. The moon is full, and it takes effort to resist the instinct to run. Her hand wraps a little tighter around her travel mug, and she stands where she is, her chest moving slightly with her breathing.

Lukas pulls his hand back. He doesn't step away, though. Danicka's breathing starts to steady, and she listens.

"I never, from the start of this, wanted to stand here arguing with you about Ilari Martin, defending him against you. I wanted to talk to you about you. But you have to make a decision to let me use this case, which involves Martin, to explain it. And if you can't listen to that without flying off the handle or taking it like I'm choosing him over you or something, then we should go back to walking to the car in silence."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's true; he hasn't stepped away. They still stand close together, almost as close as the lovers they are. He's turned away though, giving her his profile, giving her those hard slashing muscles in his cheek, his temple; the lowered cut of his brow.

"Then perhaps," he says, low and hard because this seems to be the only alternative to shouting, "next time you could say that instead of launching immediately into erroneous assumptions about who wronged whom."

He turns back, then. Anger makes his eyes cold, but then they drop to her hands, tight around her travel mug. Something else flickers on his face then. When he reaches out it's gentler. It's gentle, very carefully so, his fingers just brushing the backs of her hands before they drop away.

"Go ahead," he says; a little less stiff now. "I'll listen."

[Danicka Musil] To the first thing he says, she has no answer. Or none she's going to give right now. She says nothing in defense or denial of her erroneous assumptions. She frowns, slightly, when he reaches out to touch her hand like that, but she doesn't jerk away.

"I am never going to be the kinswoman who immediately agrees with everything you do and say, or automatically takes your side in every issue because you're my big, strong, infallible Ahroun," she says, with perhaps surprising gentleness of tone. "I know you. I know you well enough to see when your flaws are rearing their heads. I know that sometimes, you don't clearly see how much of a hand you have in creating your own problems with people. I know that understanding other people's behavior or motives doesn't come naturally or easily to you, and that in fact you've never been given much reason to believe it was worth the effort.

"I know that when you care very much about someone, you have an often overwhelming urge to protect them at all costs, from everything, to the point that you have to be extremely careful not to disrespect or stifle them," she adds quietly.

"Back there," Danicka says, lifting a finger from where it's wrapped around her mug to point back in the direction of Kate and Martin, "what you said and did made Katherine feel hurt and... embarrassed, I think. You personally stung her, and she weathered it, I believe, because she has so much regard and respect for you. I don't understand her well enough to tell you why it hurt, but I would have to be blind not to have seen it. And I know that if your positions had been reversed, you would have been furious with her. So I think you should talk to her."

She sniffs -- it is, after all, cold outside tonight. Maybe it makes some animal part of him come suddenly alert, the way even a cough to clear her throat makes him take notice. Protective, after all. Overwhelmingly so.

"I never came into this wanting or trying to tell you that you wronged some perfectly innocent victim, Lukášek. I just want you to step back from your own anger and assumptions enough to see how you contribute to situations like that one turning sour. You can do it with me, and sometimes I wish I could see you doing it more with other people, too."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] To that, a longer silence. With his brow knotted, his body shrouded in layers of dark wool and dark cotton, Lukas looks the quintessential Shadow Lord. His mate looks nothing like a Shadow Lord at all, her hair bright instead of black, her eyes more shrouded than piercing. If she were not a Shadow Lord, though, and not his mate, it would not make his arms fold around his chest, hugging himself as though to keep from embracing her, when she sniffs against the chill.

"I had no choice but to speak to Katherine like that. It was no longer a matter of packmates or friends. A kin of the Silver Fangs had insulted a Shadow Lord. It was a tribal matter at that point, and Martin himself made it that way. My only other option would have been to take retribution into my own hands, and that would have disrespected Katherine far more.

"I'll talk to her, though. But as for Ilari Martin - I know my contribution to the situation. I know his. I know whose was by far the greater, and I am sorry, Dani&+269;ka, but I cannot concede on that point."

[Danicka Musil] In answer -- and it isn't much of one -- Danicka shrugs one shoulder, lets it fall, and turns to keep walking.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "I'm not finished, Dani&+269;ka."

Lukas doesn't move from where he stands, though his arms come unfolded now, lowering to his sides.

"You've done nothing but assume the worst of me on every count. I don't need you to be a simpering kinswoman agreeing with everything I say, but I need you to step back and acknowledge that at the very least, you weren't there. But you assumed it was my fault anyway, and you launched into a tirade defending that bastard's right to respect he has not earned.

"It's not about me feeling like you chose him over me. It's the fact that you did."

[Danicka Musil] When he tells her he's not finished, she doesn't stop walking. And when he tells her to at least acknowledge that she wasn't there, she pauses to turn and look at him over her shoulder as though she'd reply, but then

then he tells her she chose Martin over him. And Danicka stares at Lukas for a moment. Her lips press together slightly, turning down a bit at the corners. It's not quite a wince. It's the verbal expression of what she said she felt earlier: disappointment.

"I'm going to go back to my apartment now," she says finally. "We can talk about this another time. Maybe when you've stopped believing that everyone's wrong but you. Goodnight, Lukáš."

She turns away again, and resumes her walk.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It's a dangerous proposition, walking away from an angry Garou like that. An Ahroun at that. An Ahroun on a full moon. An angry, riled Ahroun seething with old wounds - on a full moon.

It takes more effort than Danicka might like to think about for Lukas not to simply chase after her. Grab her by the arm. Whip her around. Snarl in her face. Throw her down. Be a monster.

He stays where he is. He shouts after her: "And you're always right, is that it? You always know best. You always see clearest. I'm not one of your goddamn governed children that you can lecture and walk away from. You assumed the worst of me. You assumed, against all evidence otherwise, that he would change and I wouldn't. I've admitted I should talk to Katherine; you won't even acknowledge you didn't know the whole story before you jumped in. Who really believe she's infallible here, Dani&+269;ka?"

[Danicka Musil] She might be thinking, as she walks away, about how many more steps she'll get before his hand clamps down on her shoulder. And two years ago -- near enough -- she wouldn't have ever considered doing something like this. She knows better. She knows what they're like -- Shadow Lords, that is. Ahrouns. Ahrouns on full moons. Her mother once frenzied and threw her father through a wall. Her mother once felt disrespected and hit her across the face, over and over, until Danicka was four different colors and she had spent enough of her fury to stop herself from killing her. Her mother entering her bedroom at night to check on her, a natural and normal of maternal action, made Danicka's skin feel like melting ice.

He is a monster. And Danicka knows that very well.

She keeps walking.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] It never comes, though - that sudden snarl at her back, the rush of hot air that impends his huge paw on her shoulder. After a moment there's a snarl, but it's distant, and it's human, and it's a curse: fuck! or something along those lines.

He doesn't follow her. He turns and goes the other way. After a while, Grant Park quiets again.