[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.
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