Quick and Plain [Fire Claws, Cordelia]

[Cordelia] At least the moon wasn't full. All things considered, she was glad the meeting was over, because it meant she could try and find a bus stop and get a ride home already. Cordelia was starting to wonder whether or not she should actually learn how to drive. She was wondering about a lot of things, really. Her mind wandered.

She has realized, after this meeting, that she was going to need to acquire a front man, and acquire one pretty damned quickly. Maybe she could hire Ray. Maybe Ray would charge too much... no, no, she wasn't too sure about Ray. He was savvy enough that he might pull one over on her, and she was self-aware enough that she knew she would have to plan ahead for all sorts of contingencies if she was going to outthink him. Or, conversely, she would just have to trust that he wouldn't throw her money out the window on stupid things.

It's hard to get good help.
It's harder to get good help when you aren't a citizen.

While Cordelia is making her way down the street, she's thinking. Which is unfortunate for her, because the blonde in the godawful glasses and the nice business suit. One hand is in her pocket, the other is in her cell phone. She's in her early twenties- one can only assume she's walking and reading text messages.

[Fire Claws] The threat of the full moon was passed from the month now, but that didn't mean the threat that rode just under the surface of his kind didn't wane all that much. It never went away, it always looked to claw ans scratch its way out and just kill. And it didn't seem to peek out any worse than through the eyes of the lupus. He was already an animal, a predator looking for the hunt.

And hunting was what he was good at.

Tonight he was tracking a little demon of a wyrm from bar to bar, just waiting and watching him. Fire Claws never went into those monkey watering holes of spoiled water, opting to wait outside and watch. Waiting until the target came out and moved onto his next target. Hopefully he would find a spot to bring down the kill.

But as he passed from one bar top the next, a smell started creeping in his nostrils. A familar essence that muddled the mind of their kind, and should the wyrm come across this little doe of breeding there would be worse things to deal with. Better to let the wyrm go, find the trail again when the silver fang was no longer around.

He tracked her down, hunting down the smell of the foreign fang as she walked through the Mile waiting for a bus to come. And he was no sight to behold, where she was dressed for success, he was dressed just to avoid the biting chill that this skin threatened him. No phone to distract him, nothing but the job at hand.

"Duj 'gain. Ya know ya can be a distra'shun."

[Cordelia] She looks up from her text messages to the road, and was interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice. She turns in that direction, a full body motion instead of just her hips her waist, her head. About face and pay attention. She looks up at him and blinks once, twice, and smiles.

Her lips stay closed, because she knows better than to bear her teeth.

"I interrupted something?" she sounds playful, but she has no idea what he was doing. And, in reality, the female doesn't seem to realize what kind of overwhelming distraction she can be. Like a person wearing perfume or a particularly tasty smelling pastry. Cordelia might be aware on a theoretical level, but on a functional level she has no clue. There's nothing that she can roughly equate being impacted by breeding to.

Except, maybe, finding a really good sale somewhere.

[Fire Claws] There was nothing human in his approach to the kin woman except for the fact that he looked it. He moved as if he would overtake her and potential rob her, if not worse. That was what it would look to others, but that would not be so. He knew what she was, her elder was also his elder in one way. If something happened to her, well that would bode ill for him too.

"Wha'ja doin' out here? Wha' wit dat clothes?"

He practically ignored her question about interruptions, it could have been possible that he just didn't understand her, hell it maybe he didn't know the word either. But he did seem to keep an interest in her, eyes running over her form, stopping to look at her glasses intently.

[Cordelia] He approaches- far too direct, far too predatory- and she doesn't curl in and Cordelia bites back the desire to put space between them via force of will alone. Her stomach muscles tighten and she adjusts jst enough that, if she got run into, or bumped, she wouldn't fall over.

It doesn't happen, though.

"I had a meeting," she tells him, "you have to dress nicer for business."

She explains, surprisingly patient with him. She puts her phone back in her pockets and looks back at him. He's looking at her glasses, and her eyebrows perked up, "I got them back today."

[Fire Claws] He watched her with strange intent, pondering over the little (relative in stature and by no mean size) kinwoman as she stood in what had to be an uncomfortable set of clothes looking back at him. And after one deep inhale through his nostrils, he wrinkled his nose and nearly sneezed, nearly. The smell of perfume hitting him strongly than he would have liked.

He huffed a little at the assault of odor against his nose and let the gift fade away as it was making standing around her a little difficult. He turned a little from her, looking off towards where he came from, pondering if his prey were still inside as he could no longer smell him. Damn these weak senses of the monkey kind. Turning his head back to her after a beat.

"Hmm."

[Cordelia] Hmmn, he says.
"Hmmn?" she replies. Her eyebrows raise up and she cocks her head to the side.

[Fire Claws] "Ya monke' waman. Where ya mate? Why ya not in heat?"

It came out plainly, without any shame seemingly attributed to it at all. It was almost a matter-of-fact statement. Like she wasn't doing her job properly if she wasn't pregnant. Which in some cases was the truth. She was of age, she could bred many possible warriors for Gaia afterall.

[Cordelia] "Human women are constantly in heat," she tells him, which is strange because she's not reacting like she should be angry at him, "we don't have a season."

Okay, we take that back, maybe she was a little more exasperated than she should be. Cordelia looks at him, and straightens up. The corners of her mouth draw in, her eyebrows knit together, and she folds her arms entirely too carefully across her chest. Cordelia turns again and starts to head on her way to the bus stop. It was close enough that she could. The female topped and looked back at him.

She opens her mouth, and language fails her. She just huffs and shoves her hands in her pockets. Fire Claws might not know the word for what she's doing, but it's fidgeting.

[Fire Claws] He narrowed his brow when she spoke about being in heat constantly. Trying to wrap his head around the idea of always being in heat and yet not not always pregnant. What were they doing then, if not making sure the future warriors were not being born.

"Den why ya not wit pup?"

He moves in line behind her, hunting her down even as she tries to walk away to the bus stop and.... hell there was no where safe when it came to garou and following what they are looing for.

[Cordelia] [WP: This is my patient face]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Cordelia] She knows, on a functional level, that she has to answer this question very carefully because it's a difficult question to answer. And her dealt answer doesn't exactly work with garou. It's the kind of thing that would get her shaken, repeatedly, or sent back to Spain. or shacked up with a mate that she didn't particularly want to deal with.

"Reason one: I'm not heavy enough. Reason two: my boyfriend isn't here right now. Reason three: you have to be having sex in order to get pregnant. Reason four: I can offer a lot more to the nation than functioning as an incubator," she says it all in a hum-drum droll sort of way. She's said it all before. Sometimes, she's yelled it at people. Other times? She's thrown things while doing it, "anyone can get pregnant. So, leave that to people who have no other viable skills to the nation."

[Gwen Sullivan] Precisely what a girl like Gwen was doing in a part of town like this was difficult to say. She wasn't old enough to be hanging out at dance clubs or sports bars, and she frankly didn't seem the sort anyways, appearances aside. Her attitude was too flat, her Rage too unfamiliar yet for her to be subjecting herself to that many potential irritants. She didn't have any large group of friends that she palled around with after school, and she was too low class to be interviewing for internships out in this part of town.

Errand girl was the name of the game tonight. She had a package wrapped in brown packaging paper tucked into a tote bag, something long and vaguely cylinder shaped, poking out the top of the lime green bag it was being carried in. Gwen moved on foot, as typical, in a pair of bright red canvas shoes, jeans, and a large hoodie with the Chicago Bears emblem on the front. Her hair, espresso brown with streaks of brilliant pink in the back, was pressed down and back by the black-gray-and-white striped beanie on her head.

Her destination? The same bus stop that Cordelia was trying to edge toward. She'd only just turned about the block to find it, and to spot the familiar stork-like Kinfolk and russet-headed Fenrir up ahead.

[Fire Claws] "Den ya 'ave mate. Hmm... can ya not do wha ya do whil' bein' wit pup."

He watched her, eyes careful on how she moved, how she acted. The breeding was seemingly being wasted if she wasn't going to be giving the Nation any pups soon. But then something else dawned on him. He looked her over again, she was not built to hunt. She didn't seem to be able to do any hard labor that he had come to know as... monkey work. And she didn't seem the type to fight. Which lead him to the most logical question next.

"Wha ya do?"

[Cordelia] "Well," she starts, and she thinks about this, and she replies, "I can get places that you can't. I have a good memory, and I am a damn good researcher. From a functional standpoint, I'm good at figuring out problems and their solutions and what we can do, as kinfolk, to help you as True do your job better."

A moment passes, and she offers a cheeky smile. A playful smile, "and I'm adorable. And being sociable doesn't hurt."

[Gwen Sullivan] "Is this the part of the night where we talk ourselves up?"

Gwen introduced herself to the conversation with this particular question, walking up from behind Cordelia. Fire Claws, of course, would see her approach, sense it in other ways as well. She greeted him with a brief meeting of the eyes and a visible inclination of her head, what she thought to be a respectful nod, before positioning herself to make something of an oblong triangle with the three of them together, her back to the sidewalk rather than the street, so that way she could see more of their surroundings rather than be stuck with a wall and limited peripherals.

"Looking sharp," she said to Cordelia with one of those corner-mouth smiles that she was becoming recognized for, and shifted her eyes over to Fire Claws again, moving her hands to adjust the brilliantly green strap that cut across the chest of her hoodie, slung over one shoulder so the bag was rested against the opposing hip. Less strain on a single shoulder that way, the weight of the parcel was more evenly distributed then. "How's the night, -Rhya?"

Because she remembered well-- you use that word when you don't want your ass beat.

[Fire Claws] He looks at the cheeky smile the silvery (tongued) fang offers in response to his question about being pregnant. Contorting his face so it looked crushed, out of mere confusement, he ponders her response.

He turns on the approaching pup, only catching her when she closes in on the bus stop. After nearly going into a sneezing fit around Cordelia and her perfume, among all the opressive odors that stunk up the city, he was not very perceptive without his enhanced sense of smell in the homid form. In that moment his tone changed from the curious search of answer, to a stern, almost father-figure voice.

"Pup...Come here."

His eyes fell on Gwen, glaring at her with keen intent. It was almost as if he lost all interest in the kin for the time being. But lets not mistake that for forgotten her altogether. He had business to deal with first and then... well back to idle curiousity.

"I am ya mentor by 'onor's Compass~rhya decree. I 'ave rules. Wait....Wha ya do ta ya 'air?"

Looking at the streaks of pink he did not seem pleased at all.

[Cordelia] "You haven't missed it, there's still time to brag on yourself," she says. She can't wipe the grin off her face. Fire Claws loses interest in Cordelia and the blonde looks at him and rolls her shoulders back. her frustration and whatever composure she had is pushed away for the time being and, instead, she starts her migration back to the bench. There had to be a bus headed this way soon enough.

She catches a look- Gwen has pink streaks in her hair. Those are new. Cordelia seems to approve. (this from the girl who had a blue wig a few days ago. She has a horrible love of interesting hair colors).

She plops herself down on the bench at midpoint. She looks back at the two of them. For now, Cordelia is just watching. She is listening, yes, but her attention is split. She's got to get home somehow. Can't afford to miss the bus or she'd have to call a cab. And that? Is just irritating.

[Gwen Sullivan] The 'come here' was obliged without fuss, she was heading on over anyways. Even if she wasn't? Well, there still wouldn't be any fuss. Cordelia replied sassy and sharp, and this earned her a faint lift of an eyebrow and an expansion of that grin before Fire Claws snagged her attention with his firm (if not somewhat garbled) way of speech.

The Kin stole the opportunity to escape, or at least escaping was what it looked like she was doing, even if she didn't go too far. Perhaps a dozen feet away or so before she sat down at the bus stop bench and went to watching her and Fire Claws curiously, openly, with a trace of distraction on her face. She had other concerns, but she knew it wise to keep an eye on her People.

Fire Claws cut through to formalities, he was officially her mentor by decree of Honor's Compass, who she deduced to be the head honcho. Of what, precisely? She was unsure, but she was willing to bet that she wore a headdress. He was about to go into a spiel on what his rules were, but got sidetracked by noticing the tufts of pink mixed into the dark brown of the rest of her hair. She blinked, half surprised by the question, then reached up with one hand to tug off her beanie, and used the other to tug the underside of her hair forward onto her shoulder, displaying the pink dyed in.

"Colored it," she stated simply. "What rules?"

[Fire Claws] He stared at the streaks of pink in her hair like they were signs of poison, even if his higher mind had come to learn that is not the case. If he were still in his birth form, looking at a creature with such colorful decorations would give far warning she may be poisonous, or dangerous. But she was not prey, she was monkey-born. A silly monkey born girl who needed to learn in the middle of a war.

"Wha ya do... is wha I do. Ya actions are mine. Screw up, its on me. Understan?"

He turns to look at Cordelia once more, as she walked away. Looking at her own hair and then back to Gwen wondering if it was just because she was a pup or because she wanted to piss him off for doing something... strange.

" 'ere 'air ain't colored... why is yas?"

Strange train of thought lupus, bouncing back and forth.

[Gwen Sullivan] "I understand."

As usual, her voice was somewhat raspy, but not with sickness, and the tone itself was matter-of-fact. She nodded to reinforce her response to his simplified version of 'the rules', and moved hands once more to tug her beanie back onto her head, tucking her bangs back so they weren't pressed into her face, then settling by shoving her hands into the stomach pocket of her Chicago Bears hoodie.

He looked at Cordelia, and she did as well, glancing curiously to the obscenely tall woman and watching her curiously until the Get spoke again, drawing her attention to him once more. She stared for a second, up into his face, thinking of how to answer the question in a way that would explain further than 'because I want to'. That was a rough one. Her head turned so she could rub her nose against her shoulder, scrubbing away an itch without having to bare her knuckles to the cold air again. "Because she likes her hair the way it is, I suppose. I wanted to change mine, so I put some color into it. It's a cosmetic thing of little importance."

[Fire Claws] He crinkled the left side of his face as he pondered something over again. It was hard to keep track of everything he was thinking and therefore could only really address whatever. He had something else he needed of his little ward garou-to-be.

"Pup... wha' a researc'a do? And can ya be wit pup ta do it? And wha is soc-see-bull?"

He looked over at the pure bred kin once more he planted herself on the bus bench, waiting out the crosstown express and escape from the onslaught of questions to come.

[Cordelia] She couldn't leave herself out of the conversation. Cordelia perks up and listens for now. She pays attention to what they're saying, and drapes one arm across the back of the bench. They're on to talking about her again. Cordelia's attention switches to Gwen, and she observes. Looks at her pointed look, until it finally dawns on the blonde that she can't very well communicate telepathically with this girl she barely knows. Or at all, really, they've yet to hit that awkward stage of feminine hive-mind.

"He is very invested in the idea of me being pregnant," she says. It's very... very flat.

[Gwen Sullivan] And so the topic of hair coloring was left alone, and all for the better. Gwen would have had a difficult time letting him give her flack for her hair coloring without giving her shit for the gauges in her ears, the piercing in her upper lip and the one on her nose as well. Remembering well what they say about letting sleeping dogs lie, she simply followed along with the change in subjects and wandered over to Cordelia and the bus bench right along with Fire Claws, remaining standing while he chose to sit. Her left knee locked and the hip above jutted out, serving the purpose of supporting most of her weight while the right was reduced to the sole purpose of balance.

"Well," she said thoughtfully. "A researcher's a person that hunts down knowledge, but that's a pretty broad spectrum of things. Like, say, a forensic researcher'll go to crime scenes ans look for things that could let them learn what happened-- who killed who, where the body is, so on and so forth." Again, her nose rubbed against her shoulder before she continued. "I'm pretty sure you can be pregnant, it's pretty low on the manual-labor side of things... I mean, you'd probably be out for a month or two on maternity leave, but..." She shrugged, and sniffed a little. "So-see-bull... So--ciable? It's being friendly."

Her eyes hopped over to Cordelia and the brows above them lifted in question. "He's talking about you, huh?"

"Well," Gwen shrugged helplessly. "That's kind of the way of things, ain't it?"

[Fire Claws] The look he gave the pair of them after Gwen explained what sociable was... well it was somewhat obvious that the one only known by such a name as Fire Claws was not exactly the friendliest being on the face of the earth. Slowly stalking his way over to the bench when Gwen stood besides Cordelia now.

"It's important... no new pups. No warriors. We all lose."

It was simple enough logic, if their numbers fall to zero it was game over. He could very well give birth to a litter of cubs, that was just silly.

[Cordelia] [Wp: this is my calm face!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Cordelia] "You're lupus," she says, "homid children take at least thirteen years before they hit puberty. It takes nine months for them to mature, and carrying more than two at any given time is hazardous to the mother's health. Wolves take significantly less time... so, where is your mate?"

It's a mark that she's young, because she is ready to go on the defensive. She stops, takes a second, and considers her options.

"I'm not saying that breeding isn't important, or that it isn't worthwhile, but what I am saying is that right now? Determining why I'm not pregnant right this second is... why are you so invested in this idea?"

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen made a bit of a face, something caught between a grimace and another undisclosed unpleasantry. But she didn't say anything, rather she let Cordelia dig her own hole and Fire Claws give his own answers. She didn't need to defend anyone in this situation, but rather she supposed she should seize it as a learning opportunity.

So she folded one arm over her incredibly average sized chest, virtually hidden under the bulk of her hoodie, so her hand was tucked into her armpit for warmth, and began to tug at her lower lip gently and idly with the other hand, where a second mouth piercing had been for quite a while but was absent now. She stood, quiet, and listened.

Mediated.
Learned.

[Fire Claws] His answer is quick and plain.

"Dead."

He turns to his ward and cants his head to the side, almost as if he wanted to confirm what he had heard. Because it just seemed irrational for it to be posible.

"Teerteen years? Really?"

He shook his head and looked back at Cordelia once more, never once did it seem that he was angry about his mate being dead or that it happened several years ago. It was done, time to move on.

"I not Get Jarl... or even beta. No pack to alpha. And no mate worthy yet."

[Cordelia] That... seems to have completely thrown her off balance. Her eyebrows raise and her jaw drops for a moment. He seems completely okay with this fact but she... it's like he told her something that was completely mind blowing. Cordelia stared at him as a result.

The English language fails her entirely.

She blinks once... twice...

"Wow," it's all she can get out logically.

[Gwen Sullivan] Cordelia was left at a loss for words with Fire Claws's plain, incredibly blunt answer, something that came surprisingly quick without even a beat of remorse or hesitation. Gwen's face twinged sympathetic for a moment, and sides of her mouth pulled back in a variation of a frown.

He looked to her for confirmation on how long it takes a human child to mature, and she nodded. "Thirteen to eighteen years, it varies from case to case."

There's more quiet where Cordelia can't answer and Fire Claws has nothing more to say, and Gwen plugs that hole with a sincere, open question to her mentor. "Did you have any pups?"

[Fire Claws] She just sits there and blinks at him like he dropped a bucket of anthrax right in front of then and was just as carefree about it. But to him, it was long gone, the past was an abstract idea that meant little. His mate was no longer around, she could no longer bare pups, no longer could hunt and kill. She was nothing now. That did not change what was. He still needed to eat and hunt. He had a war to fight, wyrm to kill.

"Only one at time. And my bred are goin' away."

He shakes his head, no wonder they are losing the battle, not enough of their kind are being born because homids can bare enough to keep pace.

"Father was pack alpha, he had pups. I was to become alpha soon, but they all died. Good deaths."

[Cordelia] She has completely lost the forethought to continue on with her train of thought. She just stares at him, and she might just hug him, but she fidgets, puts her hands in her lap. He was just going through and... they... and...

"Oh god, I'm so sorry," she immediately regretted saying anything.

[Gwen Sullivan] "Hmmm."

That's all that Gwen really seems to have to say, and it's accompanied with a nod. Again she tugs at her lower lip, catching it between her index knuckle and the pad of her thumb, eyes sliding out into the street, up one direction, down the other, and across toward the alleyways. She didn't see anything immediately threatening, so she hopped her eyes back to Cordelia and watched her for a few seconds, expression (again) borderline sympathetic before she turned her attention back to her mentor.

"If you like, I can see her home safe."

[Fire Claws] He just looks at Cordelia with a blank stare. He was not sure what she did to regret anything, making him even more confused about what goes on in the mind of the homid born. Strange creatures they were, and yet they seemed to dominate every environment they entered. How could they always be so sorry.

"Umm..."

He shook his head as he focused his attention back on Gwen, another new thought coming in his mind. Something he needed to share with her soon, less it escape him again.

"Pup, I need to show ya to da Elder soon. 'onor's Compass wans ta know ya learnin'. But not wit da 'air coloring."

[Gwen Sullivan] The topic of hair color cropped up again, catching her a little off-guard.

Perhaps surprisingly, she answered without much of a fight. Maybe it was the way he approached the topic, the fact that she had to impress some haughty high-and-mighty, or maybe it was because he'd caught her by surprise and that was all it took? Regardless, she answered, and it was with an easy nod. "Yeah, sure. What color, then?"

[Fire Claws] He narrowed his eyes when she asked what color. He didn't know much in the way of colors. Just the few he had come across, but he wasn't exactly sure what to say about her hair. And considering that homid born can change their appearance to whatever they wanted, because they felt like it, he didn't want another strange color in her hair.

"Normal. Ya regurla one."

He turned and looked back from the bench to the bar he was scoping out before. Now that there was someone to watch the pure kin, he could go back to what he was doing, what he enjoyed.

"Ya watch 'er. I find ya soon cub."

And with that he turned and moved back to hunting. No deep, heart felt story of how his whole family died. Why he left his home, what happened to his mate and his pack. Nothing. Just what he was meant to do, hunt the wyrm. Kill it where it dwell.

[Gwen Sullivan] "Aye aye, captain." Despite the words, the tone wasn't sarcastic in the least. She nodded her head, and watched as he moved back toward the bar, eyes following his steps until he was out of sight.

Once gone, she sniffed the kind of upward-drawing sniff that became a sound as common in the winter as birds chirping in the spring. Again, she rubbed at her nose, this time with the crook of her elbow, before she jammed her hands back into her hoodie pockets and shifted her attention back to Cordelia.

The Kin was surveyed for a few long seconds, and the Cub pulled her lower lip in between her teeth, still unfamiliar to the sensation without the piercing, before popping it back out so that she could articulate.

"Just going home, huh?"

Maybe she expected that Gwen, like her mentor, would interrogate about babies and how many a well-bred Kinfolk like herself should be popping out. Like teacher like student after all, right? They were supposed to be the prodigies, the pupils. Rather, she was blase. Or seemed to be anyways. Maybe she was just polite enough to leave things alone.

[Cordelia] "Just going home, apartment, though, not the Brotherhood," she says. Cordelia looks down the way at the street. She waits, and slinks back in her current position. She drums a litle on her non-existant belly.

She looks over at Gwen, over her details. The look is somewhat incredulous, expecting something.the worst the best, who really knew what she was expecting. Like teacher like student, she was expecting the worst here.

"If you could continue to not explain the difference between a boyfriend and a mate to him, I would be forever grateful," she says.

Impetuous little shit that she is, she's well aware that she's wasting her potential. She's well bred. Compared to so many people in the city, she's average. Compared to so many in her tribe, she's average. All things considered, though, there are very few who could hold a candle to this girl. She's well-educated, she's reasonable, and she has a tendency to throw things when angry. It's for the best she stay off the market.

[Gwen Sullivan] There was another wintertime sniff, and Gwen tipped her head from one side to the next, and with each tip of the head there comes a 'pop' sound. The young Philodox shifted her weight, so that now the right leg locked and the right hip jutted out into the frigid Chicago night air. Cordelia asked her to work on Fire Claws and how he viewed relationships, and Gwen barked out a harsh sounding laugh, more a spoken vocalization than a true, natural sound of humor.

"Does that sound realistic to you at all?"

Her shoulders rolled, and after a minute of standing with her weight on her right leg now instead she moved to sit on the bench next to Cordelia, but rather than sitting the way average adults do she put her feet on the bench itself and her butt on the back of it. Her body leaned forward, her elbows propped on her knees, and her arms curled around her chest for better warmth. She's quiet for a second or two more before speaking up again, in the same low and mellow tone that ws typical for her.

"He's Wolf. They don't court like we do. If you're with someone you're with them, there's no interim." Another pause, a pulse of air, and she continues, turning her head to look at Cordelia, face to face with the height difference closed from how the Cub perched. "I... didn't think the 'boyfriend' thing was done in this culture, though? All I hear is the word mate."

[Cordelia] "That's it, there is no interim with wolves. And boyfriend doesn't round up, or down, to mate. Husband doesn't even round to mate. Mating is born, primarily, from the need to procreate. It's not the same," she says. A little more harsh than she realizes, "your mate isn't your spouse. They aren't your fuck buddy. They are your mate. By introducing the human concept of being in love with someone or anything to that effect, you fail to take into account whether or not your breeding with said person is what is most beneficial to the next generation."

A moment passes, and she corsses her legs. She has managed to keep herself pretty calm. She's managed to keep herself from yelling and screaming and throwing things or completely wearing herself out doing who knows what. She is, however, faced with a great opportunity to say the least.

"So, our culture doesn't necessarily do the whole dating thing unless both parties are keen on the idea and- okay. Depending on what your tribe is? It gets complicated."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's quiet while Cordelia talks. She does a fine job, as always, of listening. Gray-green eyes stayed on the Kinfolk's face, straying only occasionally to check motion in the reflection of the Fang's ungainly glasses. That aside, her attention was focused entirely on her for-the-evening ward. When she was done talking, mentioning tribes and how complicated it could get, Gwen was just watching her with a rather bland expression of contemplation on her face.

The bus clunks and chugs its way around the corner, and Gwen glanced toward it briefly before looking back to Cordelia.

"Do you really think he didn't love his mate, though?"

The bus brakes hissed as it came to a stop in front of their bench, and Gwen hopped up to her feet with a faint groan, the tote bag and the parcel within thumping dully against her side as she rose. She would wait for Cordelia to get onto the bus first, like she was practicing at being a real bodyguard, and only once the Kin was sure-footedly on board Gwen would follow up.

[Cordelia] "I think, to his closest approximation, he cared for her and wanted her to live well, and for her to be well. Wolves don't live long, and they are wired differently and have different needs and wants and thought processes," she says. She even stands when the bus comes up. Cordelia gets up the steps, and goes about the motions carefully.

She doesn't have any problems getting onto the bus. She even pays Gwen's way on. You have to make sure your bodyguard doesn't get thrown off the bus, after all.

"But in the human sense, no, I don't think he loved her," she says it, surprisingly, without malice.

[Gwen Sullivan] The pair of girls, vastly different in so many ways, moved somewhere to the middle of the bus and sat on a vacant seat, Gwen waiting for Cordelia to take the window before sitting on the outside of the bench. She propped her tote bag in her lap and wrapped her arms around it loosely.

Pipe pieces for Harleys got expensive, she didn't want to have to answer for damaged merchandise when she got home.

"I would be inclined to disagree. Just because it's not 'love' in the human mind doesn't mean it's not love in the wolf." There's a pause, then a small quirk of a grin at one side of the Cub's mouth. "Maybe you gotta broaden your horizons a little, huh?"

And so the bus would take them from one stop to the next, until they got close enough to Cordelia's apartment for them to get out and walk comfortably. Gwen would see her home, decline any invitations (if any) to come inside. Tonight she opted to get home instead. A nice warm home, the space heater under her desk in particular, sounded the most appealing.

Delight [ST'd for: Linus, Cordelia]

[Delight] There was something about this part of the city at this time of night. When the sun had set solid and sure behind the horizon, when dusk fled and took its dull grays of early evening with it. When the moon, a fattening crescent tonight, rose behind the slate colored clouds that choked the sky. The city lights gleamed off the bellies of the clouds and reflected back down upon the city, giving the illusion of light, changing the natural darks of the clouds to a dull reddish glow instead.

You see, Thursdays were the new Fridays. This was the night to go out and party and drink and revel. People crowded together on sidewalks, and even more tightly once inside past the weak chill of autumn evening, snugging up against one another on the dance floors of whatever bars, clubs, or dusty dingy taverns they could find.

Here in Chinatown, the Dens were making their money, and the street vendors siphoned a prophet as a result. The entire neighborhood was alight with the glow of neon, blues and greens and pinks, bright yellows and oranges and reds to draw tourists in, to declare authenticity, promising the closest thing to a Hong Kong nighttime experience that the average person could hope. In basements and backrooms, illicit and largely illegal pleasures were peddled, and in alleys those that couldn't handle themselves with such stimulation were tossed to sober up or totter home, unstable, from side doors by large men with shaved heads.

In the shadows, though, ticked the things that you should be most worried about.

[Cordelia] To say that Cordelia partied was a bit of an understatement. She was bound and determined to make Wednesday the noew Friday, which made Thursday the new Saturday, which meant it was the day to continue your partying instead of, you know, just getting warmed up.

She'd told her friend that she was going to call it a night though, namely because even though she was bound and determined to party hard and fast, the rest of the world wasn't. And Cordelia had dance classes to teach in the morning. Which she determined she couldn't do while hung over.

Which meant, of course, she wasn't drinking tonight.

So, Cordelia left wherever she was, with the expressed intention of calling a cab and going home. Cordelia holds her ridiculously expensive, not-to-be-named cell phone in one hand and has her ridiculously large, inexpensive blue purse slung over one shoulder. Cordelia takes a few steps away from the door of wherever she had been for the evening, and got on to calling for a ride.

[Linus Ulricson] "I want! A Fucking! Piece! of Duck! You Stupid Chinaman!"

She was screaming at him. Namely because she didn't understand much english except insults and the ignorance of white men. Linus was using both with excessive impressiveness, leaning as far over the butcher counter to yell at the top of his lungs. His fists, wrapped in the same gray gloves without fingers, were set on the edge of the cabinet, while most of the restaurant's patrons were oriental, offended and half out of their chairs on the old woman's side. The only reason they hadn't jumped to was the vicious level of heat coming off of the old woman behind the counter, hand grabbing at a Cleaver bigger than a pig's head.

"Flied Lice?!" Linus is grasping at chopsticks in search of a weapon of his own, eyes on the Cleaver and the Woman inbetween. The restaurant was across the street, convergently enough, from Cordelia's hotspot of choice.

[Delight] Cordelia had been out to party, goodness knows what event she was celebrating. Freedom? Veteren's Day? The fact that her family was an ocean away and she didn't have a proper guardian keeping a proper watch on her? Goodness knows, goodness cares. The fact of the matter was that Cordelia (sober this time around) was dressed in her Thursday finest (which meant it was likely a sparkly short-hemmed dress, or something of the like.

That would make her blend into the crowd were it not for her height, her face, and the thrum of royalty that hummed on her skin and flashed in her motions. An average joe couldn't tell her apart from any other model-esque figures, but those weren't what she had to worry about. It wasn't Harold Hammond in Accounting that she was warned about on a nigh-daily basis.

It was what lurked beyond him as he purchased a Chinese streetwalker's services along the side of a small convenience store.

Back in the slim alleyway, snug between a crumbling and (miraculously) still in business hotel and a closed down banking building, came a sound that stood out from the thump of music within clubs and the call of workers soliciting their goods (food, admittance to dens, sex). A child's screech that dissolved away into a declaration of 'No!' found its way to Cordelia's ear. She was just close enough to hear.

[Cordelia] She'd broken her glasses recently. As such, she was wearing ridiculously expensive contact lenses, which means she's a tall, noble statuesque blonde without ridiculously nerdy glasses to temper her. One of the benefits of short-hemmed sparklie dresses is that you can actually cover a decent amount of ground.

Cordelia turns, catching a somewhat familiar voice talking about how he wants. A fucking. Piece. of duck! It's all information overload. She turns her head, and her attention was elsewhere until she hears a declaration of No. Her attention snaps back to reality.

The benefit of being in a short, short dress is that she can really cover some ground. Doesn't have to worry about getting stuck on anything. She's unhindered.

So, she turns. And she walks. She walks towards a slim alleyway with the kind of purpose that said you need to get out of my way. If there were crowds, she would push through. If there was no one in the way, she didn't have to worry too much. She rounds the corner, and tightens her stomach muscles-

"Hey!"

[Linus Ulricson] Hey!

Linus is half-way through something about 'Chinks and Chongs' when that sound arrests his attention and he pulls back, with chopsticks in hand all threatening and demented. His brow perks beneath a gray skullcap and he might well have bellowed something at the purebred kin dressed for semi-success were it not for the sudden

Thunk!

of that Meat cleaver splitting the plastic siding on the metal cabinet that houses all the meats available for your dining pleasure. He snaps his attention back to the old woman, who only managed to miss his hand by a few inches, due to her diminutive height and the generous size of the Cabinet she was behind when striking. He snarls, something vaguely inhuman only for thought processes to begin to grind in his head.

Purebred fang vs. Angry Chinawoman = I want my Damn fucking Duck already

He continued sneering at the old Woman even as he raised his voice in the shop.

"What The Fuck are You Doing?!" A brief glance told him stories of what she might be contemplating standing infront of a dark alleyway, yelling at the top of her lungs. A few dozen yards between him, her and whatever she was yelling all nobly at, with a drunk crowd and three types of Litany between his best ace in the hole.

Purebred kin + Dark Alley + no shifting + Weak kneed geek = Beatdown in Spades of Epicdom

"FuccccKKKKKKKkkkkI'msocomingbackformyGODdamnduckyoucrazycrackjobgranny!" Like lightning he speaks, confusing the blistered air of chinese standing at tables and from chairs. Enough that's inching toward the door, chopsticks at the ready.

[Delight] Linus is creating a fuss over duck in a restaurant, effectively insulting and pissing off most everyone there, be they working or sitting at a table enjoying their own slice of duck. The old woman that he was harassing, however, had seen to much in this godforsaken city to take abuse laying down, no matter how unnerving the offender was. She screamed right back, and when a young man stood to come to her aid she seized a meat cleaver and brandished it, a clear sign to get the hell out of her store, even if she was too worked up to relay it in English.

Cordelia, along with everyone else on the city block, noticed the ruckus, and stared/squinted to identify the familiar voice. She was pulled aside, though, by the protest of an unidentified child. She turned to investigate, marching proudly toward the alleyway, intent on rescuing some helpless kid from some bad person, maybe by scolding them into their place or whisking the child away from whatever danger they were escaping. Maybe 911 could help in this case? Maybe it wouldn't be something involving monsters and mayhem?

(Doubtful)

She rounded the corner into the alleyway, body tense, with air in her lungs to shout out and scare off the bad shadows, and almost like a scene in a slow motion movie Linus noticed, recognized the thought process and intent, and started to edge back, to make his way to the door, to escape the insulted anger of more or less everyone in the establishment with him and save the Kinfolk from her own idiocy.

Around the corner, Cordelia was met with force before 'Hey!' had fully escaped her lungs. Not violent force, not an attack, but rather a small person that was about as tall as her belly button slamming into her. A young boy, maybe seven years old, dressed in a red T-shirt and blue jeans and covered in dirt and dust, had been running headlong out of the alleyway only to have the giantess of a young woman step into his path. He'd yelp in surprise more than pain and topple backward, hands flying in front of him like he could defend himself with aimless, weak-wristed slaps at nothing.

"Ahhhdon't! Go away!"

[Cordelia] It's like the little boy ran straight into a Barbie doll. He comes up right about to her belly button, and she makes a little squeek. The female crouched down, knees on the ground instead of towering a head above everything else. She looks to the inside of the alley, trying to get a good look at what was going on. Cordelia looked from there to the young boy.

Her stomach growled at her, but it stays quiet and understated. She reaches forward, and offers the little boy the phone.

"What happened? Are you okay? I'm sorry," she apologizes for contributing to knocking the youngster over. She purses her lips, and her attention doesn't really waver. A beat passes, "do you have someone you can call?"

[Linus Ulricson] "What the Fuc- Ow! Hey! Fuck off Lee!"

Linus, for all intensive purposes, starts out a slapfight with one of the young Chinese men in the restaurant, who is a good four inches shorter than the Godi. He scrunches up his face in the process, turning a momentary deaf ear and shoulder to Cordelia in the middle of the restaurant's front door.

"Said Fug off!"

[Delight] The kid that had collided with Cordelia had fallen backward and hit the pavement hard on his rear end, but bounced right back up to his feet as though nothing had happened, arms folded in close to his chest, shivering and staring wild-eyed at the real life Barbie that had crouched down so that she wasn't towering over him, holding out a phone and talking with a heavy accent that spoke of Mediterranean seas and bull fights.

He blinked at her, wiped his nose on his wrist and the side of his hand in the same shameless way that every child seemed capable of, and shook his head.

When he spoke, it was clearly, free of any adorable childhood speech impediment, such as lisping or stuttering. "My uncle... He's fighting with some man. He's supposed to be taking me to a movie! We're missing it." Clearly, he was more upset about the fact that he was missing a movie than he was about his uncle fighting. That, it seemed, was a commonplace thing.

(But then why the shrieking to begin with?)

[Cordelia] She clears her throat, and starts to put her phone away. He has a guardian, right. Barbie nods again. This is common for children, they are largely egocentric. They're more concerned with their immediate needs than the larger picture. But... something seemed odd.

The female looks at him again, and starts to stand up. She eyes the child again, "you sit out here and wait. I'll go check to see if things are okay."

Cordelia eyes the alleyway again. Her stomach turns and something feels wrong about all of this. She wants to help. She wants to do something, but... Cordelia knows that something about this doesn't feel right. All of this doesn't feel right. The blonde adjusts the bag over her shoulder and looks in again.

Tall blonde women have no business running headlong into trouble. This did not seem right.

She stands up anyway.

[Linus Ulricson] Linus is caught up in a headlock, delivering kidney shots to the Chinaman while two of his brothers throw half-assed karate chops and jabs at the Godi's ribcage and back. There isn't much skill involved in the entire thing to really warrant any actual damage being done except for egos lost in the melee but then, those were usually a post-combative issue. Ask anyone, the cheering spectators, cursing participants, even lil' granny in the doorway waving her cleaver around encouragingly?

They're having a ball.

[Delight] Linus was having what any Get of Fenris would call a jolly old time, caught in the restaurant with arms around necks and old ladies waving large cleavers in the air.

Cordelia, on the other hand, was walking face-first into the heart of an alleyway in Chinatown. She advised the boy to stay and wait, and started back into the alleyway where the boy had come running from. The boy, though, like any other seven year old being told what to do by complete strangers, tagged along right at her heels, arms curled into his chest for warmth. Whatever jacket he might have had, it was discarded or lost somewhere, or maybe he simply hadn't worn one at all. Maybe his uncle was a negligent man and really shouldn't be watching his nephew for any period of time, be it thirty minutes or overnight?

It was rough to say, precisely. But what could be sure was that the kid hadn't been lying (by much), because the deeper they got back into the alley, where it met a T-junction with the broader alley that set behind the hotel and boarded up old banking building, the sounds of a scuffle and the 'HaHA!' of fight enthusiasm could be heard.

[Cordelia] There's a fight going on behind her, and she looks back. there are limbs flying and large meat cleavers and the blonde squints before she noticed- yeah. That's... she knows whoever that is. Cordelia starts pulling for names. Lukas or Litmus or- Linus. That was his name. Linus.

She looks again at the alleyway. Cordelia takes a few steps in. One, two... she gets far enough in that she can hear that there is fighting going on over there, behind a hotel and a boarded up old bank. She purses her lips, looking back because she noticed the boy is following her.

"Chiquito, you need to go wait," she insists. The sounds of the scuffle are heard, and Cordelia takes a few steps back. She seems determined to not go much further than she has gone right now. She shoos the boy off to the mouth again.

[Delight] "No."

The boy's word was firm and determined, stubborn and complete with the outward pout of a lower lip. He shook his head, and scraggly brown hair growing out of a bowl cut, streaked with dirt, waved in his face and tickled over his ears. His little nose, freckled (or was that just more dirt?), wrinkled up in stubborn defiance and he planted his feet when she stopped, refusing to shuffle even an inch backwards. "I have to stay with Uncle Jake. Mom said so."

He could be too interested to see what's going on to listen, he might be ignoring her orders because he didn't think they were important. Or he could be a scared kid in a strange part of town that didn't want to be left alone, putting on a brave face so the pretty lady didn't know he was scared.

One way or the other, the sounds of fighting came to a stop up ahead with a low 'whump!' sound, and the boy refused to move.

[Linus Ulricson] "Enough! Enough!"

He's flailing his limbs around spasmodically, fists collecting on shoulders and chests, enough to get some distance between himself and the others. His features are a little red-struck and angered, breathing laboured and clothes ruffled. Grandma is waving her cleaver still and the Chinamen are standing just infront of her, fists up and breathing just as hard.

"I need a minute." And he leans down on his knees, shaking his face until his cheeks flap. It is momentary, a sneer crossing his features briefly before a gloved hand raises and wipes under his nose. The crowd is beginning to bark for more and Linus is sucking in deep lungfuls of breath. He dips a hand inside his jacket, under the shirt, rubbing at his collarbone briefly...

Then, cursing, turns a quick glance over the crowd to see if he can spy Cordelia, who's vanished briefly into the alley. Another quick curse and-

"Hey! Hey Farm Boy! Yeah! Yeah! You fight now huh?! You Fight now?!" To which the response is a snapping finger and a sudden flare of [b]Rage[b], leveling that deadly digit at the sneering oriental.

"I will rip off your lower jaw and piss freely down your throat without a moment's hesitation you Gump-fed dumpling, don't Fuck with me."

And a roar comes up from the crowd, drowning out the noise from across the street.

[Cordelia] "No, chiquito, it's not safe, you need to go wait," she insists to the little boy. He doesn't seem to be moving too much, but that's neither here nor there. She pushes towards the front of the alley, and places a hand on the boy's shoulder to try and usher him out of the alley with her.

Not good, not good, not good, is all she can think. He doesn't seem to be listening to her orders, though, so instead fo she choses to reason with him. Her voice takes on a half-sweet quality, like she's trying to get what she wants. It usualyl works with adults, so why wouldn't it work with kids? "We'll both wait. It will be okay, come on."

Cordelia doesn't have that Motehr Theresa smile, but she is far from plastic. She doesn't seem like the type that's going to come down and give the shirt off her back and do anything someone asks. More Princess Diana than Mother Theresa. (doesn't matter which, they're both dead.) She's trying to put on the face of an authority figure, but it's really hard to be an authority figure when you are, in fact, a Barbie doll. All tall and long-legged and blonde.

[Linus Ulricson] "You Pull hair!"
"Get a haircut you fucking hippy-"
"Fight like girl!"
"Fuck you say?!"
"Grandma cut you Round eye!"
"Racial terms now?!"
"You call me Chink!"
"I called Grandma a Chink! I called you a Gook!"
Things went downhill articulately after that.

[Delight] Cordelia believes firmly that there's something bad in the back of that alleyway, and she doesn't want the boy going back there, even though she's willing to go back there herself, even though he'd come running from that direction in the first place, which says he'd been back there in the first place. She puts a hand on his shoulder and starts to steer him toward the front of the narrow side alley that they'd collided in initially.

Unfortunately, the boy doesn't want to go easy.
"NO!" The word is screeched out, and he jerks his shoulder out from under her hand and yells out: "Uncle Jake!"

It's uncanny, the response to this boy's distress. Maybe 'Uncle Jake' wasn't as bad an uncle as initially mused, because he's stepping around the corner into the side alley before the exclamation from the young boy is finished completely. He's dressed in a pale blue button up shirt, the nice crisp kind intended for nights out and club hopping, along with a pair of dark indigo jeans overtop black boots. He's a heavier set man, not obese, but thick in the way that said he had heavy muscle under a cushioning layer of fat. His hair was short and gingery-red, and grew down from the sideburns into a beard over his weak chin, no doubt to define it better.

"Hey." The word is calm, and his voice is deep like a bass drum. He's taking his hand out of his pocket, like he'd just tucked something away, and letting his hands hang loose and relaxed at his sides. "Pretty thing, you want to let him go?" And then, to the boy, with a slow and treacherous smile. "Patrick, quit throwing a fit, get back over here."

[Cordelia] She puts her hands up immediately, like she just put her hand on the stove and realized oh, yeah, that's hot. Her eyes widen and she blinks once, twice, then looks at the man with the gingery red hair and the slightly fat lip. He looked pretty well built... all things considered. He's a bigger guy, but he probably played football back int he day or something.

Defensive lineman. Big wall with a weak chin, obviously not with a glass jaw because he wasn't bleeding any or he hadn't lost consciousness in the fight.

"He told me you were in a fight, maybe you should go," she tells him, half warns him. Again, it's difficult to be an authority figure when you're tall and thin. She puts her hands on her hips, and her shoulder bag stays exactly where it was. She looks at the uncle again.

"... where's the other guy? Is he okay?"

[Linus] Several fists and bellows later and Linus emerges from the crowd of spectators with a bloody lip and a vaguely swollen eye, snarling and spitting clots of red off to one side while pausing just long enough to throw a one-finger salute up at the China-boys who are producing much of the same in their own language. Of the exchange, Linus seems to have been dealt the worst of it, foregoing fair numbers for a brief spasm of bloodlust that most Fenrir seem to possess. The only difference being Linus' inability to cope or be satisfied with the end results.

His hands and arms are dancing, trying to bestill the adrenaline pumping through his system even as he shoulders and shoves his way through the crowd, who shoulder and shove back with generous laughter. A bumper car ride later and he's outside of the rapidly dispersing crowd, eyes lifting to try and find a priority he has half forgotten.

"Tha' fuck she go?" He turns in place, wobbling slightly in the process before righting himself with a grunt, a snort and a hacking wad of phlegm, blood and spit into the gutters.

(2 Bashing)

[Delight] 'Patrick', once released, actually didn't scamper to his uncle's side. Rather, he shook his shoulders like he was offended to have even been touched at all. If he had a jacket, he probably would've adjusted it, but seeing as that all he had on his back was that plain red T-shirt, he just plucked at the chest of the garment and moved casually, perhaps even grudgingly, toward 'Uncle Jake.'

'Uncle Jake' in turn watched Cordelia with nothing but amusement lighting his eyes. He took his time rolling the sleeves of his pale dress shirt back down, buttoning the cuffs appropriately around his wrists. He glanced sideways to the kid, and when he was near enough and the sleeves were back where they were supposed to be, unrolled from the elbows, the large man reached out and ruffled the hair on the boy's head, then gave a small, harmless shove of the kid's skull to direct him back off to the side. A glance was cut to his knuckles, sporting a small pair of cuts near the center (probably from someone's teeth).

"Oh come on, you don't actually care about a smart-assed stranger nursing his wounds and digesting his booze behind a club." That said, he started to walk toward Cordelia, his gait slow, lazy, and far from threatening. "One question, though, what're you up to out here, huh? Where's your boyfriend?"

[Cordelia] [I'm good at lying, I swear!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Cordelia] "He's pulling the car around," she says, with a certain degree of commitment. She fails to mention that her actual legitimate boyfriend is... somewhere. Probably the American south, but not here, and certainly not pulling any car around, "he'll be here in a minute."

She's normally a much more socially graceful person, but she's operating in a language that she only mostly understand the rules of. She offers that vaguely disarming smile and takes another step back towards the mouth of the alley instead of the back of it. She looks at Patrick, then back at the man who he had referred to as uncle Jake.

"You didn't answer my question," she says, more stern than she realizes. Cordelia reaches into her purse for her cell phone, riflling around

[Linus] (Perception 3 + Alertness : Where she be?! +1 Diff. for disorientation. -1 for wounds)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Linus] "The fuck are you mad?"

It's a hushed sort of thing as Linus comes and goes like a train-wreck on the sidewalk, or more accurately, like a train-wreck in a roller derby of the drunken. He snarls and snaps his jaws at some passing girls, who fail to shriek as their sober selves might and instead yell and bellow uncouthly, reaching out to shove as well before giggling amongst themselves. Loudly.

It sends Linus to the curb and nearly into traffic, before he stops short with a grunt and the shrieking wail of a passing car's horn. Another one finger salute, followed by a-

"I'll fuck your mother without paying you son of a bitch!"

-and the inevitable turn of his head, snapping, finally in Cordelia's general direction, the tall, lithe young Kin and her blonde ideas serving as a compass point as he attempts to find a gap in the traffic, wiping under his nose and spitting into the gutter again.

[Delight] "Hmm...," is all that Jake has to say to Cordelia warning him about her boyfriend. He lifts his chin, peers out toward the mouth of the alley, and seems to seriously contemplate the addition of a boyfriend. He didn't stop walking toward her, though, his strides were uninterrupted, slow like wading through a swamp while trying not to disturb alligators.

Jake shifted his hands into his pants pockets and hunched his shoulders forward, leaning in toward the girl as he approached, ducking his head down so as he could look up into her face. He had perhaps four inches of height on her, he was a large, solid man, but he didn't have to crouch down, didn't have to take her face and force her chin up in order to get a glimpse into her face. She was, after all, taller than the average man. He was too, so it came out relatively even.

When she glances at him again, he's smiling, but it's a warped, stretched thing. Difficult to describe what's different about it, why it's wrong exactly, but it's chilling and abnormal for certain.

"Best make this quick, then."

[Delight] Patrick [Init +4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Cordelia] [5+d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Delight] Jake [Init +5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Delight] Order
Jake- 10
Patrick- 10
Cordelia- 7

[Cordelia] [OMGdon'tpanicdon'tpanic
1a: punch this Jake guy
1b: Run like Hell

[Delight] Patrick [Stand by and wait for seconds]

Jake [Smack Cordelia's pretty little head into the wall]
[Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Cordelia] (ack! Dodge!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Delight] Jake [Damage: Str 4 + 1 wall (B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Delight] [Let's try that again right the right number of dice]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Cordelia] [Oww, soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Cordelia] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Delight] P[Init + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Delight] J[Init + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Linus] (7+...)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Delight] Order
Patrick-13
Linus- 12
Cordelia- 7
Jake- 7

[Delight] Jake
Punch Cordelia
R1. Punch Linus

[Cordelia] [actions!
1a: block,
1b: try and get a gun out of her purse]

[Linus] (Reflexive: Resist Pain (1 WP)
Action: Charge!
R1: Body tackle Jake into alleyway)

[Delight] [Patrick
Go Gaseous]

Jake's first order of business was to take Cordelia down. After all, the unconscious put up much less of a fight. So he surged forward and threw his hand out directly toward her face, like he was going to punch her with an open palm. She saw the motion, had just enough time to jerk down and to the side, and while the heel of his palm still clipped off her forehead, she managed to avoid the worst of the damage. Her head bounced off the wall behind, but she wasn't even dazed.

He rolled his shoulders, clenched his fists, and wound up to try again, and the little kid that had been standing by looking impatient flicked his gaze out from the mouth of the alley into the crowd and spotted Linus, the face of the werewolf, the intent and the Rage, and paled.

"Look out!" The warning was quick, squeaky in that prepubescent voice, and immediately the boy started to fade, like he was disappearing, becoming see-through.

[Delight] Jake
[Punch: Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Cordelia] [Devoting full action to blocking, ack!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 7)

[Delight] Jake
[Damage: Str 4 + 3 sux + 2 botch penalty(B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Cordelia] [ohshitoww]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 5, 5 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Linus] (Body Tackle: Dex 3 + Brawl 1. Diff 6. WP Spent)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]

[Linus] (Damage. Str + 2 sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Stay Standing vs Body Tackle: Dex + Athletic]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 8 (Failure at target 9)

[Linus] (Dex 3 + Ath 1. Diff 6)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Punch: Dex + Brawl, +2 diff prone]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 8) [WP]

[Delight] [Damage: Str 4 + 2 suxx(B)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Linus] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 4 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Delight] New Round!
Jake
[Init + 5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Cordelia] [stunned!]

[Delight] Patrick
[Init + 4]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[Linus] (7 +..)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Delight] Order
Patrick- 13
Linus- 12
Jake- 7

Jake
[Stomach Pump on Linus]

[Linus] (Reflexive: Shift to Glabro, 1 Rage. Draw Spear. 1 Bashing healed)
Action: Downward stab on prone Jake.)

[Delight] Patrick
[Flee!]

So as it turned out, that lie about a boyfriend being on the way was only half of a lie. Linus wasn't her boyfriend, and he wasn't bringing a car around to pick her up, but he sure did show up on time to save her ass. As the Godi was vaulting through the crowd, shoving his way past the people that got in his way and dodging a car bumper on the way over, Jake sunk a meaty fist into Cordelia's stomach. The girl thought, somehow, that she could hit his hand out of the way, but she missed entirely and wound up flinging her body onto the big guy's arm instead. He smirked, his mouth seemed too wide, and turned just in time to see Linus flying at him.

The Godi knocked the linebacker to the ground, and the man responded by throwing a fist up into his shoulder. The damage wasn't great, but the man didn't appear to be shaken in the least. His eyes glinted and, disgustingly, his belly, then chest, began to swell under the straddling legs of the Godi riding his chest.

The red-and-brown cloud that had been the little boy a few seconds ago began to float away, up the building with all the erratic motions of a plastic bag riding a breeze upwards. This one, it seemed, wasn't much of a fighter.

[Linus] (Dex 3 + Melee 2. Diff 6 - 2 for prone. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 5 at target 4) [WP]

[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 for Spear + 4 for sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Cordelia] [5+1d10]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6

[Delight] Jake
[Stomach Pump: Dex + Athletics, -1 diff proximity]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Delight] [Linus: Soak 2 Agg]

[Linus] (Soak)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Delight] [Rerolling with updated rules: Dex + BRAWL, -1 diff proximity]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Delight] [Linus takes 2 LETHAL, not Agg]

[Delight] Now!
Standing Order
Patrick
Linus
Cordelia
Jake

[Delight] Jake
[Seize Spear
R1. Dependent on if spear is won-- Stab if won, punch if not]

[Linus] (Reflexive: Step out of grabbing range. 9 foot spear length.)
Split action:
1a) Stab with spear.
1b) Stab with spear (WP)
Rage 1 (gained this round): Stab with spear)

[Linus] (Whoops. Consider that after Cordy)

[Cordelia] [-1 WP to ignore wound penalties]
1a: seriously, get the dang gun outta your purse
1b: 3 round burst for Jake. Poooor jake.

[Delight] Patrick
[Fleee, fleeee]

The spear that Linus had pulled out from his very skin was an impressive piece of work indeed. His body morphed into something larger, stronger and far more primal, and with this added muscle he thrust the tip of the spear down toward the fallen Fomor. Jake had to have some thick skin or a whole lot of blessing from the Wyrm, though, because the spear simply glanced off the large man's swelling chest, and as it hopped off to the side Jake lurched upward, belching a voluminous amount of stomach acid (mingled with the pinkish-red of partially digested meat) onto Linus's chest and all down his stomach, scalding through clothing and skin as it sludged downward.

Meanwhile, the vaporous cloud that stank like something dead just dug out of a bog was drifting up over the roof of the three-story building that framed the alley and making its way to freedom.

[Linus] (Dex 3 + Melee 2 - 2 for split. Diff 4 for prone Jake)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 5 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 spear Damage)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Linus] (Split 2: - 3 dice. WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 2 at target 4) [WP]

[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 Spear + 1 Sux)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Cordelia] [1a: nothin'
1b: dex3+firearms 1+3rb= 7 - 3 = 4, diff 7]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7 (Failure at target 7)

[Delight] Jake
[Changing action to getting up, +1 diff to changing actions, +1 diff wounds]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8) [WP]

[Linus] (Rage: Stab with spear. Dex 3 + Melee 2)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Linus] (Str 5 + 1 Spear)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Delight] Jake
[Screw this! Crawl away!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Linus] Linus could smell the curdling of his own flesh and clothes, the gray jacket he'd been wearing smouldering under it all, scarf falling away into two sloppy sections that dripped and sizzled on the ground underfoot. Yet even as the sloppish mess burned through to muscle and poured blood down the back of pants and across the alley floor, he marched.

A hand strode out to reach for the hair of the creature, punched through the chest twice, the second having clipped the spinal cord and left him a paralytic mess of coughing blood and burping bile. He left behind a trail of reds, browns and pukish greens as he reached the corner he'd previously walked from.

Just in time for Linus to snag up his hair and drag him back around the way he'd come, leaving Cordelia to listen to the odd hum of the drunken crowd behind her, startled only momentarily by the fading gunshots that had licked the alleywalls and little else. People had hurried on or taken a glance at her and the gun in hand and moved just a little faster.

...And from down the alley, something gurgled. Louder and louder, than strangled and finally hissed to an eventual pause.

...Linus emerged once more, shaking off the remains of his coat and turtleneck, the turtleneck part still snug around his neck, like some cotton collar, wet and sticky around the bottom edge. His eyes are livid and his wounds, sealed shut, leaving a wiry kid on a direct charge in Cordelia's direction hands already flailing.

"What the fuck?"

[Cordelia] [This is where I'm not panicking.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Cordelia] "Stop yelling at me!" she doesn't quite growl, she doesn't quite yell. Cordelia is, however, on the edge of something that is close to panicking. Her hands are shaking, and she's holding onto the gun in her hands like it's a lifeline. Like it's the only thing standing between her and the rest of the world.

She looks at Linus, actually looks at him, and the color drains from her face. Cordelia keeps that death grip on her gun, but she isn't running away screaming just yet. Yet, of course, being the operative word. Cordelia took another step back and just stared at him.

Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She looked like she might just be sick. She looks at him again, shaking her head at whatever had popped into her brain. Whatever was right in front of her. Her stomach hurts, and it's not just because some guy punched her.

[Linus] "Put the gun away now for fuck's sake! Drawin' more attention to us that Chick who beaved the crowd two minutes before you walked up to a Dark Alley all by your fucking lonesome!"

He stops inside the relative darkness of the alleyway, beckoning her forward before some wouldbe hero gets it in his head to step up and play Knight. Because this didn't look like a mugging, no, not at all. Linus half-naked, soaked in his own blood, shivering slightly and glaring hearts with daggers at Cordelia all the while motioning with a hand for her to get. Back. In. The. Alleyway.

[Cordelia] She looks at him, he's beckoning forward. Her movement is decidedly stiff, the gun goes back in her purse, after the bullets come out. Unloading seemed like a completely alien gesture to her. He's glaring daggers and somewhere, in the back of her mind, this isn't registering.

She's back in the alleyway, and some part of her realizes that the sooner she gets somewhere dark, the sooner she can get out of looking at the fact that Linus is a blood-soaked shivery mess.

"I need to clean this up," she sounds smaller than she realizes.

She is keeping about as far away from Linus as she can possibly be. Which is difficult because there's only so much space in the alley

[Linus] "You're not cleaning anything right now. Right now you and I are going far far away from this mess and the dumpster I put the remains in which I will come back and deal with when I am not freezing, naked and pissed off enough to choke a bitch."

It is a hiss sort of sound that emerges, stepping back down the alleyway with an expectant snap of his head. He wanted nothing more than to leave the humans behind to their Friday evening and for no more trouble to befall them just now.

"On the way to wherever you call home, you're going to describe for me the kid that was here. I didn't get a good look at him and after I wash up and you get me some new clothes, I'll go deal with the loose end."

[Cordelia] [WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Cordelia] She clenches her jaw, and digs through her purse for her wallet. Cordelia leaves her purse in the alleyway and takes time to compose herself. Enough that she is there and could fake her way through picking Linus up some clothing. Cordelia heads down the way, and she's not quite taking her time, but...

She is taking enough time that she's pretty certain that either Linus is going to want to stab the ever-loving crap out of her or he's cooled down sufficiently that she doesn't have to worry about losing a limb while doing the trade off. It's starting to get colder, so she picks him up some cargos from somewhere that she doesn't get a second look. They're cheaply made, unlike the tee shirt she picked up. It came in a three pack, and was one of the off shoots of Fruit of the Loom.

She looks at the shop keeper, who eyes her warily. The female smiles like nothing happened; it's taking all she has to lie effectively.

She comes back t the alley, slips in pretty quickly. She tries to be non-chelant about it; she may or may not succeed. Cordelia eyes Linus warily-

"... you're a medium, si?"

- and holding the bag out to him like it's a bomb.

Droning On [Martin, Kate, Simon]

[Gwen Sullivan] Unseasonably mild weather continued to linger over the city, coming and going as though the temperatures were a tide, yesterday having been low tide, today being high. Winter jackets were no longer necessary, the ear-muffs had gone back into the closets when the weather reports were checked this morning. The celebration of the Chicago Bears moving to tie for number one in North had whittled into the evening hours and still seemed to reign high at sports bars through the evening while the Monday Night game was being watched. Most were inside at this time of night, having a final beer before moving to bed, lingering at the bars and shooting the breeze, cramming a final bit of work (or an affair) into the last hour of the evening at the office.

Gwen Sullivan was escaping her house for what was probably the tenth time this month, she wasn't exactly counting. She gave some flimsy story to her parents, largely surrounded by a simple 'I'm going out'. She didn't need much more, she always managed to make it to school in the morning so they didn't mind one bit if she was out, so long as that didn't start to change.

She needed air, a breeze, the moon and the crisp smell of oncoming winter to fill her lungs. The house was too warm, the walls and ceiling too close for her tonight. So she'd donned a plain gray hoodie with some skating company's symbol on the chest in bright greens and blues, with her hood left down and her hair down as well. She was standing out in the open, not lost amongst the trees and grass, standing in skinny jeans and checkered sneakers, with a stone bench in front of her knees and the colorful display of the fountain shooting up into the night playing before her eyes.

The best place to get lost, Gwen thought, was right in the middle of everything where you could go overlooked. That or out in the trees, but that would require more time of the evening than she was willing to dedicate.

[Ilari Martin] This park has a long, sad, strange history. It's nothing that the mortal population of Chicago is aware of, though they've heard stories. There are tales that are passed around, tales that have plenty of basis in the real world with which they are familiar and comfortable: tales of drug dealers and muggers who come out at night, pale-skinned and aggressive. Last year there was a bear attack. The city has had several episodes of randomly decided to dig up subterranean power lines or make room for a septic tank. A mounted police officer on patrol in this very park went missing in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week. They never found his body.

Plenty of other horrific occurrences have been noted throughout the years. Gunshots can be heard at random. There are screams sometimes, and the copses of trees hold far more potential for hiding unsavory characters than anyone would readily care to admit. That doesn't stop people from coming here. It certainly doesn't stop the tourists, who wouldn't know any better, and for some inexplicable reason it doesn't stop the people who do know better, the people who have fired guns and bled their own blood onto the grass trying to defend this stupid fucking city from a festering evil that will inevitably consume the entire planet because there just aren't enough warm bodies, because it takes less time to possess a weak-willed human or convince a devastated lone wolf to dance the Spiral than it does to raise a Garou up from infancy.

There are times, like right now, that Martin wonders if he hasn't gone completely and utterly batshit. He has absolutely no reason to be out here after dark, yet here he is, walking through the park by himself because dammit, the kid is old enough to be left alone by himself and it's a relatively nice night outside and the thought of having to stay inside when there isn't snow on the ground or a review to be written is too depressing for him to tolerate.

So, he's out walking. He has a lit cigarette in hand. It's nothing so marvelous or expensive as the brand that Imogen carries around with her, but it doesn't come off the bottom shelf, doesn't have a name like Maverick or Monarch, so it will do for now. He's dressed for the weather: that is to say, he is not bundled up as though Hell hath frozen over. This is nothing. This is mild.

As he walks, he becomes aware of another presence. This presence has a distinctive physical appearance, piercings and dyed hair, and she also has the dubious honor of having made Mr. Martin's acquaintance not so many days ago that he can't remember having met her at all.

His memory is a far sight better now than it was a year and a half ago.

[Gwen Sullivan] Making the acquaintance of Mr. Martin had been a rather brief thing. He'd pulled her and a pair of Garou boys out of the hands of cooks/bouncers at a nice restaurant nearby here, claiming to have fathered the lot of them with Dr. Slaughter and taking responsibility. No one had believed him, but they let them all go anyways. She would remember his name just as well as she remembered everything else, all logged away to be accessed whenever she pleased in perfect detail, even if their meeting had been brief, interrupted both by duty and by a severely pissed off wolf.

He'd slipped away from the action along with the doctor, and that was all that she recalled of him.

So when his face came up as the only thing moving nearby (others avoided her at night, it was a part of the Rage-having package, and most tourists were either at clubs or in their hotels by this time of night), she turned her head to look at him, staring for half a second before placing the face to a name and memory. Her chin hopped up in a nod of greeting, and her shoulder moved forward in some incredibly lazy invitation for him to come join her in watching the fountain display. Her hands were resolutely set in her hoodie pockets for the time being.

When he got nearer, he'd note that she'd added some pink to the underside of her dark brown hair, and that she'd removed the lower lip ring, leaving only the one in her nose and the 'medusa' in her upper lip.

"Martin," she'd greet when she got near enough. She didn't know better as to whether that was a first or last name.

[Ilari Martin] Teenagers are always putting all sorts of ridiculous shit into and on their bodies. The man who had appropriated a small coterie of young adults from the grasps of an annoyed kitchen crew at a rather nice restaurant can claim to have raised two children if one uses a very loose definition of the word "raise." He changed diapers and made meals and picked them up from school and consoled them when their mother went off on one of her mood swing-inspired tears. Occasionally he went to parent-teacher conferences, usually high, sniffing and rubbing his nose and running off at the mouth. It was not much of a childhood for those two children, but one of them is currently doing quite well in her major at her chosen college and the other one is doing the best he can in school considering the fact that if the damn war hasn't been won by the time he hits puberty he's going to be joining their ranks.

Really, that has nothing to do with Gwen, unless one considers the fact that Peter Martin is only a few years younger than her and may very well wind up being one of her comrades soon. Likely not tribesmates: Gwen doesn't have the breeding or the bloodline that Peter Martin's tribe demands.

Martin wanders closer, moving slowly because he's enjoying the night and his cigarette and not because he's inherently afraid of the young woman just whiling away the hour by the fountain. He blows a lungful of smoke away and tips his cigarette-wielding fingers in a sloppy salute as they come within respectful shouting distance. When she says his name, it's not with the insolent what-can-I-get-away-with tone of a child and more like... well, that was the name Dr. Slaughter gave them. He doesn't answer to 'Ilari.'

"Ah, Gwen," he says, as though he's pleased to see her. Or pleased to see she's still alive. Or just bullshitting her. "Out late on a school night, I see."

[Gwen Sullivan] Pleased or bullshitting, it didn't matter. Gwen wasn't going to look deep enough into the guy that she picked up traces of frost and spice from (not nearly so strong as that stork-legged girl Cordelia, though she made her think more of grand marble floors and fine silk robes) to figure out which was true. She resolved herself not to care terribly one way or the other. Because he wasn't her Kin. Because she didn't have Kin. Because he could (from what she saw) take care of himself just fine (boy was she fooled).

He commented about the time and the fact that it was a school night when he came nearer, and that elicited a wry kind of grin on the relatively plain (though truly symmetrical) face of the teenaged girl. "We'll see how long that lasts." She looked away from the fountain to instead study the older (by a generation) Kinfolk's profile, eyeing his cheek and his jaw both before taking in a deep breath and looking back to the fountain, which was concluding its programmed, automated show in a brilliant flash of prism colors and high-arching waters.

"Anyway, there's a coffee pot in the kitchen. And I hear teenagers can run on four hours of sleep these days." He kept his cigarette, and she didn't seem to give a damn. Chances were she smoked herself, or many of her friends did at least. It's not like she had to worry about lung cancer anymore, anyways. Some may turn their noses up, others may ask to bum a smoke, she does neither. Just breathes the cool night air.

"I owe you a belated thanks, I think. For giving myself, Roman and Simon an out the other day."
Even if it was a weak one.

[Simon] What's a man to do with all this free time? It's not as if he wanted free time, it's not how he'd like to be spending his days but with the lack of any clear leadership the war he'd like to be fighting right now was, simply, unfightable. So he found himself at the park, probably doing whatever it is Shadow Lords do in the dark, brooding, and plotting, and mugging and scalping old ladies. It wouldn't be quite as fun if your target could fight back now would it? He's taken to wearing a hoodie since winter is rapidly approaching. He also wears a bandanna around his neck. Dark clothing might make some "lame as shit" fashion statement for some but for Simon there was a little more practicality to it. It's hard to surprise your enemies dressed like some asshole in a white suit just begging to get his ass stabbed. Dark clothing made you harder to see, which was always a good thing... Unless, of course, one was hoping to be seen.

Simon lifted his hands to his face and blew over them, it was starting to get a little chilly, though he wasn't unaccustomed to the cold, in fact he appeared rather comfortable as he approached the pair. He hadn't intended to bump into anyone tonight but rarely does one get to decide the course of their evenings for themselves. Besides if he had the ability to pick and choose his fortunes... This is certainly the last place a healthy young man would be.

His face was stern, and yet there was no denying his youthful looks. He had yet to find his skin perforated with the scars that so many Ahrouns would find themselves covered in. Some would claim that was because of his youth and that over time Simon would accumulate quite a few. Simon, however, would argue that youth had far less to do with it than Skill. Simon might still be a relatively fresh face but he represented a changing of the guard. The older, and more experienced would stick around for some time... But one by one they would fall and as they fell it would be the responsibility of his generation to step up and weave their way into position. Simon wasn't alone in that, and his smile grew when he caught sight of Gwen... She was only a few years behind him but already she was learning her place and position. Give it a few years and the likes of them will be running the place.

Simon's approach wasn't exactly announced. He wove in and out of the occasional bit of light as he approached the pair though he did so with startling grace. He wasn't a clumsy hulking brute he was a skilled, well trained killer... As comfortable in the darkness as any predator, though far more dangerous than most. He approached quietly, offering a little wave of his hand up to Gwen and then a glance towards Martin. A slight smirk growing when he recognized who it was, the man who refused to offer his name. Simon was a Shadow Lord after all and if there is one thing Shadow Lords were legendary for it was just how long they could carry a grudge.

[Ilari Martin] It was a weak out, but it still garners a thanks. The older man's eyebrows rise, as if they're attempting to make a break for freedom, and the last breath off the end of the cigarette remains secured within his lungs as he stares at her for several seconds. Mind, this isn't the stare of a lecherous middle-aged man hoping to make a move on a nubile young girl. He just looks as though he has, legitimately, no idea how to react.

Which doesn't last long. It's rare that Martin is silent for longer than forty-five seconds. He stands still for a moment, convinces himself that, yes, that was a show of gratitude from a full-blood, and then slowly lets the lungful of smoke sneak out of his nostrils. When a thought fully forms within his skull, Martin forcibly blows the rest of the smoke out between his teeth and says, "Wow, for a second there I thought I was going to have another heart attack." He shakes his head, as if to walk off a near brush with EMS, and then gives Gwen a flickering closed-lipped smile before answering her. "You owe me no such thing. Truth be told, I did it to keep your full moon friend from flying off the handle, so really, it wasn't an act of selflessness so much as not wanting to have to deal with a few dozen panicked and-or mangled diners when all was said and done." A pause, a drag, and then, "Which turned out to be wholly unnecessary, in hindsight, but what are ya gonna do, right?"

Something draws his attention away from Gwen, if only for a moment. He smirks, then looses his breath into the frosty air and says, "Speak of the devil."

[Gwen Sullivan] "Another?" One unpierced eyebrow raised, mirroring the expression on Martin's face lopsidedly when he mentioned heart attacks. She was skeptical at the idea, after all traditionally those who had heart attacks were old or overweight. Now Martin was no spring chicken, he was probably about her dad's age, but he wasn't very old either. Still young enough to have his well-being and no chronic conditions. Rather than digging in and insisting that he was too young or too thin to have a heart attack (because she would likely put her foot in her mouth somehow by doing that), she let it drop and shrugged her shoulders to the rest of what he said. "I don't know about unnecessary..."

And, speak of the devil, Simon seemed to manifest from the shadows a few dozen yards away, true to his tribe's namesake. He lifted a hand in greeting, and she did the same, raising a gloveless hand into the moderate chill of the evening air before dropping it into her pocket once more. "Simon." He was greeted the same way Martin was. The word '-rhya' felt weird on her tongue, she conveniently forgot about it at every opportunity given. It seemed old fashioned and useless, respect was more than just a word, as everyone knew when the words 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.' were sneered along with a name.

[Simon] "I did something wrong again?"He asks when he hears Martin's comment about the devil or some such. He found his brow lifting and he looked between the pair with a slight smile taking shape on his face."You missed all the fun the other day."He shrugs his shoulders."Then again you also missed the cleanup so..."He laughs a little and trails off, he was addressing Gwen with a slightly gleeful look on his face. Still glowing from a relatively recent battle... If it weren't for the glimmer he got in his eyes when he so much as thought about battle one might be able to pass the man off as something resembling an over aggressive but mostly sane young man.

Simon didn't seem to care about her lack of Formality. Formality and Tradition were the realm of the Philodox and the Galliard anyway! Besides this meeting was an informal one and he sure as hell wasn't gonna start smacking the bitch around unless he saw something she could gain from it."Hey if you see your mentor can you ask him if he can perform the Baptism of Fire? We've got a kiddo around who hasn't been taken care of and I wanna get that done ASAP."He laughs a little."This was something the goddamn Philodoxes should had their asses on months ago. Oh well I figure I can knock a few heads around till they get out there and do their damn jobs right?"He asks with a little laugh."I've never seen a sept ignore their kin like this as if they weren't even there..."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's hand came free from her pocket so that she could tug the hood of her big gray skater hoodie up (probably borrowed from someone else, it looked like a men's garment more than something to be found in a girl's closet, considering its loose cut and how it was a little too long for her), then settled at her lower lip, where the piercing had been removed just recently it appeared. She tugged her lower lip with her thumb and the knuckle of her index finger, a small, gentle, thoughtless gesture, apparently missing that piece of jewelry she'd gotten so accustomed to.

"I'm sorry, but you've gotta remember your audience. Baptism of Fire...?"
Maybe she didn't actually need to understand what he was talking about to deliver the message, but if there was an opportunity to learn then why not seize it, right?

She didn't leave her lip alone to ask the question, just shifted her hand to her chin for the moment to talk before shifting her gaze briefly to Martin once more. As though he would know what the Baptism was. Eyes landed upon Simon once again to follow up with another inquiry. "What do you mean 'hasn't been taken care of'?"

[Ilari Martin] By god there's someone in Chicago who can talk more than Martin can.

The Shadow Lord appears seemingly out of nowhere, and with sharp hearing to boot. When he asks if he's done something wrong again, Martin quirks an eyebrow as if to counter I don't know... have you? but doesn't find an opportunity to fire off some sort of verbal retort. He placates himself with another drag off of a rapidly dwindling cigarette, taking care to blow the resultant smoke away from the two Garou whose combined ages don't come anywhere near his own total. Attempting to guess the man's age is a task in and of itself: he hasn't gone completely gray, isn't ashen or toting around massive amounts of wrinkles, but he has the weathered appearance of someone for whom life has proven to be a bit much. This is a typical problem among those who have spent the majority if not the entirety of their adulthoods abusing substances that, in turn, abused their bodies.

Gwen doesn't understand what the Ahroun wants. The kinsman clears his throat.

"When a full-blood and a Kinfolk love each other very much, sometimes they make little baby Garou. These little baby Garou need to be marked in the event of being left behind in a Super Walmart or snatched up by Spirals or what have you. There's a rite called--wait for it--Baptism of Fire that binds a spirit to the little baby Garou until he or she Changes the first time." He pauses to take another drag. "It's usually done within the first month after the little baby Garou is born."

[Katherine Bellamonte] Speaking of Illari Martin's heart.

Being away from the city did have a great tendency to deliver Katherine Bellamonte a renewed fondness for it. While she was in no doubt certain it had functioned just fine without her overbearing presence hovering in its corner there was, one had to admit, some truth to the old adage home is where the heart is. Certainly, there was enough invested in Chicago for Honor's Compass to feel at her leisure walking through the lush greenery that made up Grant Park.

Much as a feline rubbed the length of their body against their property upon returning to it, Katherine had plucked off one of her black gloves and was idly running her fingertips along the trunks of one of the trees that lined the footpath. There was definitely no change in the Half Moon's atypical attire; her body wrapped in the folds of a black winter's coat, her shoes and hair the only that seemed to faintly glow in the evening light.

The drift of voices, carried on the night air drew her notice, but did not appear to overly rush her. Rather, she knelt and plucked a handful of grass blades, rubbing them between her fingers as if they told some story naught else would. Eventually, she'd rise and whatever her mood desired, her presence would be detected -- it was hard for a Silver Fang to disguise themselves from others, and even more-so for one who looked as Katherine did.

Her hair was fair golden waves, brushing against the collar of her coat and her eyes the precise shade of the river, frozen at the touch of winter.

[Simon] He laughs a little."Doesn't really matter, I was asking you to convey the message to your mentor."He says with a shrug of his shoulders, he lets Martin answer for him since he seems so happy to do just that."It's kinda how we keep tabs on folks without having to be there every second of their lives. Though if you ask me we should have all the young Garou growing up in the BroHo or damn near to it."He shrugs his shoulders."Not much of a point in fighting a war to preserve your species when you can't actually stop long enough to take measures to preserve your own damn species is there?"He says with a little smirk."The easiest way to win this war is to find our kin, and our children... Since they're weaker and easier to kill all you need to do to end the next generation. Doesn't really matter how many of us there are. You end the next generation and all you need to do is sit back and wait right? We all die sooner or later."

"My job to think about war crap I guess... Maybe I'm paranoid ya know? But something tells me that sooner or later this kinda lax behavior comes back to bite you in the ass. We're soldiers not fuckin' girlscouts... We're actually supposed to take these kinds of things into account. Cause you know, we got millions of scary slimy monsters gunning for us on a nightly basis and all."He laughs a little to himself."Anyway, yeah that's pretty much what I'm lookin' for, someone I can drag out to perform some ritual they shoulda done three damn months ago."

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's attention turned to Martin when he explained the ritual to her, and her brows knit together and stayed that way through his story, all the while thumbing at her lower lip and the small divot left in it from the piercing now absent. The next time she shifted, no doubt, the mark would be gone. Until that time, though, it would remain.

She contemplated why she hadn't been told that, why the ritual hadn't been performed on her when she was young (no one was around to discover her or know what she was, she supposed), and thought about griping but decided that it would be to all the wrong people. If she had beef with how little she knew, she would have to take it up either with Fire Claws or with herself.

Simon spoke up again, and Gwen looked to him next, staring for a minute or so before shaking her head, and doing so while he ran through the commentary about monsters and fighting the war and his job in it. Her hand moved from her mouth to hold out between her and Simon, palm facing toward him, the universal sign for 'stop'.

"If you pile everyone into the same place, like The Brotherhood, not only are they unprotected but they're an easy target. It's not protected by the Warder and his pack, and to stack your young, inexperienced, and the Kin there makes them far too easy to wipe out. One well-placed attack, perhaps during a Moot, and then all that you've got for a future is gone. I'd reconsider that stance on piling us all one on top of the other.

"Plus, how are we to learn unless we can get out and do so ourselves? This isn't something you study out of a textbook, Simon."

And somewhere, off past Simon's muscular shoulder, was a glimmer of light and dark put together. A woman who looked like she belonged in Paris, or perhaps some fine city in Italy, but certainly not Chicago, was wafting about, attracted by voices but not approaching just yet. Keen to the eye and her surroundings, Gwen kept watch on this stranger, noting again the sensation of frost and the halo of a tiara that seemed to exist on the woman's head in the distance. This breeding shit was ridiculous and it screwed with her senses.

[Ilari Martin] It isn't that this isn't an absolutely enthralling conversation, one that he couldn't provide some semblance of guidance and insight to the participants. He's been part of this world longer than either of them, and apparently has an understanding of the occult aspects of the Nation that the Cub hasn't been introduced to yet. That he seems to have either spent a considerable amount of time with a Crescent Moon or else just finds this shit incredibly interesting is apparent: the last time their paths had crossed he'd suggested using the Umbra as a way to track down Fomori without rending the Veil five ways from Sunday.

Simon, however, is talking. And talking. And talking. It's rare that he meets anyone who can keep up that level of conversation for that long; it's even rarer that anyone can talk at length and hold Martin's attention, which is somewhat ironic considering that he himself can prattle on at length without stopping for breath or even to gauge if the other person is still listening after about thirty seconds. Martin, though, writes for a living. He understands the necessity of tailoring his communication style and vocabulary to fit the needs of his audience.

He's a critic. A critic of film, sure, but the fact that what pays his bills is his ability to tear down another person's work means that he likely approaches the rest of his life in a similar fashion. God love him he tries to give Simon the whole of his attention, but eventually, something else proves to be more interesting.

It's a fair woman, not too far from his daughter's age, traipsing through the park with one hand ungloved, reacquainting herself with the flora of the park. Brown eyes watch her without much emotion creeping onto his aged features, but once a break in the conversation makes itself known, he steps back from the small group with an "Excuse me" and starts over to his tribeswoman, slowly, so as not to startle her.

As though she can't sense his breeding when he approaches from downwind.

[Simon] He laughs a little."You're right... In a roundabout way. I mean sure you round up forty kin and stick them all together in one damn room and suddenly you're gonna find that all the badguys gotta do is take out one little room to kill them all. I mean it's logical and it makes perfect sense. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. It's common fucking sense..."He laughs a little and shrugs his shoulders."However, you also don't take them and scatter them about the countryside wherever they might roll in the hopes that it will somehow keep them safe and comfortable when you've got an enemy out and actively hunting them."

"If you've ever seen a modern Military Base you'd see that there are soldiers scattered all about. You know living in their own quarters. Collectively together but far apart enough that one missile couldn't kill them all. By keeping them close enough to cover several city blocks they can not only back one another up from every possible angle but they can also ensure that no one single attack can cripple the entire base. You don't take and scatter your soldiers, and their support about the countryside in the middle of a war and expect that everything is gonna be just fine because something something will make them be fine. The enemy hunts us... We do not let ourselves be caught alone for a reason. We don't fight alone for a reason... Why in the fuck should our kin."He then pauses to think on the matter for a moment or two longer before adding."And this is warfare, an Art man and Garou have been perfecting for thousands of years... There are hundreds of text books on the matter and I would sure as hell recommend everyone get to reading them ASAP cause there's still quite a bit for most of us to pick up."

"The Garou in this city function as a community it is what makes us strong and yet our kin don't seem to be a part of that community. They're left on the wayside to watch and ogle us in all our magnificence..."He laughs a little and follows Martin with his eyes nodding his head as the Kin beings to approach the woman who he, soon enough, recognizes as Kate before turning back to face Gwen."It's not the best way to be fighting a war. Keeping us together... And yet scattering our kin across the countryside like tasty little treats. We've already had one attacked and slain... You can sure as hell bet they'll be coming for more soon enough."

[Katherine Bellamonte] It was one of the casualties, in a manner of speaking, of being a long standing Sept member in the city. Faces came and went, and eventually you simply gave up ever being able to know who each belonged to, and whence they'd come. Galliards were the saviors of the people in that regard, and it was with no small amount of relief that Honor's Compass knew Warcry would have some carefully (and colorfully interpreted) record of anything she'd missed.

She'd likely recount things at Katherine's graveside that she'd long forgotten, too.

She was beginning to comprehend now, the older she got, the higher her ranking crept, just why Garou she'd known like Silence-rhya and Truth in Frenzy-rhya had stopped trying to know every face. There did come a point when all you knew, and had known was swept away under the tide of fresh blood -- younger, faster, more determined. But, with maturity came certain wisdom's unattainable until they were simply known. Lived through, endured past. Experienced first hand.

She is rising to her feet once against, her back to the approaching Kinsman and looking down at the blade of grass in her palm; weighing them before dusting them off back to the earth. Martin can see the tilt of her fair head to one side, the curve of her smile as her face turns and offers first its profile and then the full effect.

"Hello, Ilari."

Still the same voice he'd always known; sweet-sounding, light. "Midnight meetings in the park, what ever shall the locals say." There was a hint of familiar mockery embedded there.

[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's eyes almost glaze partway through Simon's speech, and then three fourths of the way through her attention shifts past him and after Martin, as he walks to meet the woman she'd spotted lingering just out of the way, apart from the group and standing fairly still, yet she still seemed to be circling, judging, deciding whether or not to grace them with their presence. Her attention shifted fully to the Kinfolk when he approached, and Gwen deduced that she had no reason to bother her and Simon now.

She noticed that he'd stopped talking, and acknowledged that with a rather dry comment: "You talk way too much. You're the warrior, but even I know that shit'll get you killed."

And once more she began to tug at her lower lip. The moon was pushing past half, between hers and Simon's phase. The fuller it got, the more anxious she became. She was antsy, she wanted to move, to stretch, to breathe and smell and feel and run. That was precisely why she came out tonight, wanting to smell the grass and the trees for what they were worth within the city. It was odd, but she wanted the forest more than anything else. To be in her fur and running, to fall asleep when she pleased, but only after she was exhausted and content.

It made her curt, and perhaps she'd realize this and apologize another day. Not tonight, though.

[Ilari Martin] Martin could have told her that. If a person survives long enough, which needs to occur if a Garou hopes to ascend in rank, she will in turn survive long enough to see the vast majority of the warriors swearing allegiance to Gaia die horribly and be buried young. They don't lead lives that lend credence to the notion that longevity is something they can aspire to. Most of them won't reproduce, period, and those who do are unlikely to live long enough to see their offspring reach any semblance of maturity. Look at Martin's mate: she died before she could see her oldest child graduate from high school. She left a cocaine addict and an alcoholic in charge of the products of her blood. He nearly died on more than one occasion in this city alone, let alone back home in New York, and only a few of those times were actually related to fighting the Wyrm in any capacity.

Kinfolk are not normally charged with combating the Wyrm, but by god they can die doing so a hell of a lot more easily than their full-blood counterparts can.

At any rate, Martin walks away from the conversation, effectly sacrificing Gwen to the long-winded discourse coming from the Sept's Wyrmfoe. Granted, he does so to approach the Sept's Master of the Challenge and Philodox Elder, which is something akin to going from a bathtub and into a lake. He flicks the cigarette away as he draws closer, abandoning it with a spark of embers against the walkway and a trail of smoke. When she calls him by his first name, the kinsman feels his lips tug into a smile. We've already established this: he doesn't answer to 'Ilari,' but only because the only people who call him that have seen him naked.

Whatever shall the locals say?

"Now, Miz Bellamonte," he says, coming closer to her than is absolutely necessary, "when have you ever known me to care for what the locals would say?"

[Simon] He smiles back at Gwen and shakes his head."No what gets people killed is their inability to communicate when there is time to do just that. You got a problem with something... Speak the fuck up when there is time, because it's lack of communication and not communication that gets people killed dip shit. Don't you ever try to pawn that filth off on me, or anyone else as if it meant something. Everything that matters in everyones lives everywhere is the direct result of communication. Without communication we might as well be fucking monkeys in the trees slingin' shit at eachother's faces. But even that... Is technically fuckin' communication."His eyes glowed, hot and bitter with rage and at that point he stepped around the girl and headed once more on his way. There was no denying that the full moon was furious it was thick in the air around him.

[Gwen Sullivan] "Oh I'm sorry..."

Gwen's Rage flickered with all the same danger of a cigarette left burning once it fell onto the sofa out the hands of a passed out person. The embers were catching, the smoke was curling toward the ceiling, and while it was small now, it had all the potential to grow into something worse. The first three steps toward a housefire had already been taken, all that was required now was the right amount of oxygen. She looked back up into Simon's face, and her expression was nothing but contempt. Respecting her elders was a lesson she was learning in parts-- there were some people that she knew to respect because she had learned to, but then it was just as easy to forget with people so close to her age, the ones that didn't remind her constantly of her place.

"I must have missed the part where you droning on for half an hour about fucking military barracks and rolling eggs, stating the goddamn obvious was vitally important to the survival of our species."

Uppity kids these days.

[[ Cut away-- Simon's Player vanished. Presumed ending, Gwen skulks off with Simon lecturing at her back. ]]