Victor's Plight.

[Slaughter] It's a full moon on a Friday night. Emergency Departments are getting some of the strangest cases they'll see all month. Psych Wards get some of the most disturbing admissions.

This is the best time to harvest certain herbs. The time that dogs and other animals go a little crazy. The time that women bleed.

Or so all the wives' tales go.

Some of these tales are true; she knows this. She's worked in Accident & Emergency in England, back when she touched live flesh, for a handful of months before moving on. She's heard stories from psychiatrists. She sees the dead when they come in to sit on her metal tables.

She's more aware of the moon than most. Certainly more aware than humans. Though it is not as important as it once was - that fact bringing out emotion which she will not name or admit, she knows the rhythms of Luna still.

Certainly, at right this moment, it's impossible to deny with the moon high and bright and pregnant in the sky. She walks down the street, a brief case in hand, a cigarette in the other, aware of it without ever looking up.

Though the hour is late, though it is a Friday, she's dressed in business attire. Slacks, a blazer, a silk camisole beneath. The fabrics all light weight and soft, slippery for summer. The night is sticky against her skin. It adds a little extra chaos to her hair, which is barely contained with its clips and pins. The air feels like water as she breathes it in, heavy with moisture.

She wishes for rain.

[Roman Turner] "Back home when the moon is full ya can see for half a mile without need of a light. Round here there's so much in the air, so many false lights that the only thing that is the same is the feeling scratching inside my head. It's like termites trying to eat their way out."

He started talking as soon as Imogen passed his sitting place where he had been stuffing his face with Snicker bars. A Fun Sized bag rest between his feet and there was a plastic shopping bag sitting on the stoop next to a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

[Slaughter] She turns her head to look at the boy, her eyes narrowing, the expression easing when she recognizes him. What he says causes the corner of her mouth to twist up. Doubtless, the love-struck teenager will think she's smiling at him, no matter how unlikely that is.

"I lived in London once," she says. "There yeh couldn't even see the stars."

The smirk fades. "I suppose we're both a long way from home."

[Roman Turner] "Did it rain all the time in London, with lots of fog like in those Sherlock Holmes movies?"

He bent and retrieved a mini Snickers bar, holding it up in offer. He was still trying to push the last bite down pass the sudden lump in his throat that formed when she smiled at him. They didn't believe him back home when he called and told them that all the women were beautiful and so full of breeding he thought there was a law about low bred Kin in the Sept.

[Slaughter] She shakes her head slightly at the offer of chocolate. "It does," she answers. "Rain and fog both, though the latter's less common. Rains about every other day, though, at least in winter."

[Roman Turner] "I don't think I'd care for that. I like my weather fair enough with rain enough to go around when it's growing season."

He tore open the candy bar he had offered her and popped it into his mouth. Little one inch squares of chocolate, each individually wrapped.

[Slaughter] She lifts her cigarette to her lips, taking a deep drag, her eyes narrowing as the wind blows toxins back into them. "You might think differently if you'd grown up there."

[Victor Oseragighte] (( Mind another? ))
to Roman Turner, Slaughter

[Slaughter] (not at all. It's open!)
to Roman Turner, Victor Oseragighte

[Roman Turner] fine by me
to Slaughter, Victor Oseragighte

[Roman Turner] "I might, you could be right ma'am. They always say ya miss home most, no matter how long ya been away."

He fished in the bag and started opening another little foiled square to pop in to his mouth.

"Ya sure ya don't want some? These things are great."

[Victor Oseragighte] He has a lot to think about. He's seen a lot in recent days. His windbreaker was sacrificed to bind Iona's wounds, so he goes in blue jeans, black tank top, and hard-toed boots tonight, trudging along, his steps normally so very certain and stable seeming more rooted, mired, as he is lost in his own head, thumbs hooked into his pants pockets while he walks.

[Slaughter] "They do say that," she answers, a little absently, as she lowers her cigarette to tap ash toward the ground. She glances up, briefly, down the street, then up it, then back again as Roman speaks. Her hair is a bright flame on the sidewalk, as she stands in front of the boy, seated on the stoop of an apartment building.

Roman offers her a mini snickers bar, and Imogen regards it half-suspiciously before fitting her cigarette back between her lips and holding out her hand for the offered candy-bar.

[Roman Turner] That earned Imogen a huge smile as he handed her the candy. He had to fight not to say something that would make her put his eye out or something.

"Ya wanna sit?"

It was about then he noticed Victor which earned the other Garou a wave.

[Victor Oseragighte] He almost did not notice the wave, but the motion caught his eye and he raised his eyes from the pavement before him. There was a moment of hesitance, considering keeping to himself for a time longer, before he decided otherwise and responded with a nod and a change in direction toward the two.

[Roman Turner] "Think quick!"

Was the call when Victor got within striking distance, that was when a little foil wrapped 1" square of candy was thrown at him. On the wrapper it said Snickers.

[Slaughter] The kinwoman's dark eyes flick toward the stoop before she shakes her head. Her gaze flicks toward Victor as Roman waves at him, as the other approaches, watching him idly while she drops her cigarette to the ground, crushing it out beneath the sole of her respectable black leather pump.

The paper rustles as she peels it back, revealing the small block of chocolate within.

"Victor, wasn't it?" as the other reaches speaking distance, ignoring the earlier excitement from the Ragabash on the stoop.

[Victor Oseragighte] He blinked as his hands went up and caught the hurtling bit of chocolate. He captured it with both hands and then opened them to look at it before smiling faintly and tossing it back once he was close. "Thanks. Can't have it, though." He turned his dark eyes to Imogen, remembering her now that he was closer and nodding. "Yup."

[Roman Turner] He caught the return throw, shrugging as he opened the square himself and popped it in to his mouth to mumble around it.

"Ya watching your girlish figure or something?"

[Slaughter] Imogen snaps her bar in half, popping the bite sized piece into her mouth, chewing before she swallows. The kinwoman does not seem to overly relish the consumption of the American chocolate.

She swallows, arching an eyebrow briefly at Roman while he speaks with his mouth open.

"I can't understand a word you just said," she observes, though it is doubtlessly an exaggeration.

[Roman Turner] "I asked Victor if he were watching his girlish figure cause he can't eat chocolate."

More than happy to repeat it.

[Victor Oseragighte] He laughed softly and shook his head at them both. "Just can't. Since my change. Mostly meat now. Little else here and there." He discusses this pretty matter-of-factly, having come to terms with it some time ago. Indeed, as his predatory instincts has grown, he'd come to little miss what he could not have now.

[Roman Turner] "No really? Dang, I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want."

He offered another square to Imogen.

[Slaughter] Imogen shakes her head slightly, refusing the offer of more chocolate and palming the remaining for the moment.

"What happens when you do?" she enquires, absently curious, an eyebrow arching.

[Victor Oseragighte] "Depends. Nothing good, though. One way or another.... well, nothing good." The face he made said it all; they really did not want the details.

[Roman Turner] "Well shucks, now I want to know. Do ya break out, barf or get the runs or all of the above?"

He was grinning ear to ear while asking about Victor's misery.

[Slaughter] Imogen casts Roman a disparaging glance before taking a few steps away to throw the remains of her chocolate bar into the trash.

"Lovely," she says.

[Roman Turner] "Not really if you think about it, but it is morbidly fascinating, like finding a two headed snake. I ain't never heard no one restricted to only meat after the change, so I am curious the effects."

He smiled wider.

[Victor Oseragighte] He shakes his head; he should have known better than to give the Ragabash an opening of this sort. Rather than answer, he gestured to Imogen and her reaction, the meaning clear: "not polite in front of the lady."

"Have noticed animals don't much like me, though. They know the change also. All instinct."

[Roman Turner] "But animals got nothing to do with what you can or can not eat."

He waved off the gesture towards Imogen, stating.

"Ask Miss Doctor Slaughter what she does for a living."

[Slaughter] "I've rarely known an animal to like a Garou," she observes as she absently brushes her hand off the side of her thigh. "And never known it to affect their ability to consume anything but flesh."

A flick of her gaze toward Victor, a smirk twisting her slender mouth. She does not express much, Imogen. It is all restrained, barely there, beneath the surface, except for those things she deems acceptable. Caustic humour being the most acceptable.

"What Roman means to say," the doctor says, "is that I'm not as easily disgusted as I might seem. My sense of etiquette however," a flick of her gaze, pointed toward Roman, "remains perfectly intact."

[Victor Oseragighte] Good thing HE wasn't the Ragabash. He laughed softly and shrugged, nodding to her explanation of the state of things, then shrugging again to them both. "Don't know why. Just is. Not like we're all that rational, you know," he reminded them with a touch of a smirk.

[Roman Turner] "Heh, maybe ya had problems before and just didn't realize the intensity till after your first change?"

He shrugged it off though he did manage to smile at Imogen with her pointed look. A moment later he was opening the screw top on the Mountain Dew to take a swig.

"I'd offer ya some Victor, but don't want to upset your delicate constitution."

[Slaughter] Imogen shakes her head slightly, "Yer rational," she says with a certain assurance. "Just not understood."

She has her handbag slung over her arm, and lets it slide down to her elbow, before reaching inside to retrieve her cigarette case and zippo. The good doctor lights up with a practised ease, and if Roman gets it into his head to offer her a swig of Mountain Dew, she refuses with a shake of her head, taking a deep inhale of poison and nicotine.

[Victor Oseragighte] "Eh, I handle liquids better. And I can do a little bit of non-meat. Just... not a lot. Don't have a taste for much of it anyhow," he admitted. He looks a bit weary to them both, a bit more strained than usual.

[Roman Turner] "Yeah well maybe ya should take in more water or something you can stomach cause ya look like the dog that lost his bone or like a horse that got his intestines all twisted with colic or something."

He was eying Victor as he screwed the lid back on his drink.

[Slaughter] (okay, don't wait for me to post anymore! *grin* I'll jump in when Imogen has something to say or just generally post a wee bit slower, since she won't be taking active part of the conversation every round.)

[Victor Oseragighte] "Rough night. Had to get rid of a dead Spiral. Help out with one of our own." He still was not certain what the end result of that would be, too, which weighed as heavily on him as the problem with the one who'd dropped her.

[Slaughter] This catches Imogen's attention, an eyebrow arching. "How did you get rid of him?" she asks.

Sympathy for his plight does not seem forthcoming.

[Roman Turner] "Well hot damn, ya got some action!"

He slapped his knee.

"Ain't had a confrontation with a Dancer in a week or two, just the usual run of the mill Banes."

[Slaughter] (rid of it, sorry. not him!)

[Victor Oseragighte] "Had two since I got here. Neither of them much to celebrate about," he declared with evident distaste, looking to the Doc.

(( And.... I'm not actually certain yet how we got rid of it yet, so he'll just state it for now. ::laughs:: ))

[Roman Turner] "There's plenty more than that around, as ya likely figured out. And far as I'm concerned, each small victory is a reason to celebrate. Heck, I wake up alive it's a reason to celebrate."

He grinned digging back in to the candy bag.

[Slaughter] "Two's less than some," says the kinwoman, mildly.

When Victor explains how he got rid of the body, Imogen's gaze is intent, attentive, even if the description is short. When he's done, she doesn't have any more questions or comments, merely looks away, fitting her cigarette back between her lips.

[Victor Oseragighte] "Well, the first two I ran into are still walking. This last one isn't, that helps." He was surprised the kin was so interested in the final arrangements for the dead Spiral, wondering if it was just her professional curiosity.

[Roman Turner] "Ya mean the first two done got away?"

That made him hesitate in the middle of opening candy.

[Victor Oseragighte] "Long story. Short version? Talking to Adrian, got jumped. One is drowing in a fountain, other is snapping at me. World went red, dropped her... guy drops me without leaving Glabro. Without stopping drowning Adrian. I wake up, bastard's still holding him down. I'm feeling my wounds, hardly move. Crawled over, took out my knife, forced him to trade Adrian for the woman. Only choice I had. Couldn't take the guy frenzied. Sure couldn't when I could barely move. He takes her, goes, I get Adrian breathing. Not about to get somebody else's kin killed. Especially since I'm pretty sure they came for him."

[Slaughter] A tension forms along Imogen's brow, faint but undeniable.

"Told the Fenrir what happened, did you?"

[Roman Turner] He stared at Victor for several long moments before glancing towards Imogen and grunting.

"Huh."

[Victor Oseragighte] "Karl knows. Not sure about anybody else," he admitted; he did not really know many of the Fenrir to inform. "Like I said, wasn't a good situation."

[Roman Turner] This was one of those moments when about the only way to make his mouth close was to stuff something in it. So in rapid fire he started eating chocolate. One square after the other was peeled and shoved in his mouth.

[Slaughter] The silence from both are deafening. Imogen merely studies Victor, her expression still, her mouth an unmoving seam. Her cigarette burns between her two fingers. A moment or two later, she looks away, lifting her cigarette back to her mouth, inhaling deeply.

She fills her lungs with poison as her gaze moves down the street. It shifts up skyward toward the moon.

[Victor Oseragighte] Well, there was an odd reversal. He's usually the silent one. He peers a bit at Roman. "You're going to run out of chocolate you keep holding back like that."

[Roman Turner] "Heh, more where this came from. I know where Sparrow keeps her stash."

Of course he was likely to end up bouncing off the sides of buildings with a sugar rush.

"I gotta tell ya Victor, if I had been one of them Dancers and managed to knock ya out, ya never would of had the chance to wake again."

[Jesmond Krutova] (*peeks* got room for another? where ya'll at? :] )
to Roman Turner, Slaughter, Victor Oseragighte

[Slaughter] (Yep, it's open! we're on the sidewalk near a random apartment building)
to Jesmond Krutova, Roman Turner, Victor Oseragighte

[Victor Oseragighte] He nodded quietly; he was well aware how fortunate he'd been. "Dancers are crazy. This one... all he wanted to do was hold Adrian under the water. I almost didn't think he'd stop even to save his 'sister,' as he called her. Don't have to tell me I got lucky."

[Roman Turner] "I'm afraid I would of gutted her in the time it took to negotiate and did my best to send him along behind his sister regardless of whom he held under the water. It is also fortunate your friend did not drown in the time you were unconscious. Lucky day for both."

He nodded, bending to fish another chocolate from the bag.

[Victor Oseragighte] "You weren't there." Thats all he says; no more explanations. He was certain a lot of Garou would have preferred to go for the kill over the rescue. Every possibility that he was wrong, too, but he'd made the decision and had to live with it now.

[Roman Turner] "No sir, I wasn't. But I can tell ya this. I would be trailing them now to exact revenge. Yes sir, I would on principle alone. Course where I come from, we weren't taught to bargain much."

He shrugged, rising to stretch with a popping of his spine.

"All this sugar makes me want water."

[Slaughter] She'd chosen silence, not long ago. She keeps it now, smoking her cigarette as she watches the street, her awareness of the Garou's conversation beneath her skin.

There is a tension there too, in her spine, in her muscles. When Victor speaks again, she turns her head to look at him, exhaling her cigarette smoke in twin plumes. It's a scoff.

"Let me gi' yeh some advice," the kinwoman says quietly. "Go find the cursed Garou whom you've permitted to still walk around after threatening a kinfolk. Kill them. Then tell your story. Until then, I wouldn't admit to what's happened without significant inducement. Such as fingernail pulling or the rack."

A beat.

"If yeh don't think yeh can handle it," her voice is even, mild, even, "I imagine the Fenrir are willin' to help wi' the revenge. If Karl does not ha' the time, there is a Garou named Kora who knows Adrian and the worth of his blood."

[Victor Oseragighte] He levels his eyes quietly on one, then the other. "You think I am not looking for them, think again. Not above admitting I'd need help taking them. And not going to lie about what happened. You asked. You think I permitted them to walk away, you're wrong again. I wasn't the one in control there. Next time I see the two of them.... I don't plan to be alone." He started along, then, simple as that.

[Roman Turner] He shook his head as Victor started along after that speech.

"Can only go on what we were told. Luck to ya Victor."

[Slaughter] She says nothing as the Wendigo makes shift to depart. She merely watches him go, her eyes moving to follow until he passes out of the edge of her vision.

She lifts the cigarette back to her mouth and takes a sharp, vicious drag, the tendons in her jaw tensing as clenches it.

[Jesmond Krutova] Lake View is a nice area.

It's the place where the wealthy came to live, came to shop. It's not, typically, the place where you heard things such as cars back-firing, cracking out loud as gun-fire and more than occasionally mistaken for it. The Garou, together with the striking Kinswoman with the blood-hued hair are milling outside a nondescript-apartment building.

There is, not so many streets back, a rather expensive, but quality butchers that the owner of the car, making some desperate last bid at functioning around a corner had been visiting. The vehicle, now with a steady hiss of steam issuing from beneath the hood was uninspiring really. A burgundy shade, it was old, and dented in places and the rear passenger side window had clearly been recently replaced. It gasps to a halt just shy of the corner, and the ignition is killed by a young woman behind the wheel who steps out, holding a hand over her mouth and waving a hand to dispel some of the steam.

She was dark haired, slim, and wearing what appeared, from a distance to be a uniform of some kind. She was also, it appeared, cursing quietly in another language and staring at her car.

[Roman Turner] After a moment he turned his head to look at Imogen, speaking softly.

"Ya think that Karl has told the rest of his Tribe about this?"

[Slaughter] Imogen turns her gaze evenly on the Child of Gaia. "I suppose that's their business," she says, mildly. "I don't imagine I would know."

She does imagine.

But though she never calls herself Fenrir, one might say she's gained some measure of loyalty.

Or maybe Doctor Slaughter merely abhors gossip.

[Roman Turner] He make a vague snorting noise as he gathered all his trash together in to the bag.

"And pigs fly."

[Slaughter] Imogen's eyebrow arches slightly, her gaze fixing on the Child of Gaia. The corner of her mouth tugs up, just slightly. "I've not seen one yet."

A string of foreign cursing reaches her ear, and she turns to glance toward Jesmond and her suspiciously steaming engine.

She takes another drag of her cigarette, before stepping that way, reaching down to pick up her brief case as she moves. She glances over one shoulder, arching an eyebrow at the boy. "Goin' t'get yer water, then are you?"

[Jesmond Krutova] "Idiot auto," The Shadow Lord is murmuring beneath her breathe, rolling the sleeves on her uniform to her elbow and making a rag out of her jacket. She leans over her driver's side door and pops the hood, springing it open with the silibent hiss of a cooling engine. Waving her jacket before her, Jesmond props it open and leans in, murmuring in exasperation.

"M&+367;žu to, "&+345;ekl. Sm&+283;šný."

She sighed, and straightened, moving around the dying vehicle to open her door, and begin the arduous hunt for her cellphone.

[Roman Turner] "Um, yessum. Ya watch yourself out here."

Like she was likely to listen to him.

[Roman Turner] (( Ok, Iam no longer capable of thought, I am going to slip off to bed. Night!))
to Jesmond Krutova, Slaughter

[Slaughter] In answer to Roman's concern, Imogen merely raises a hand absently in either acknowledgement or dismissal. She closes the distance between herself and the kinfolk. Her mouth compresses slightly and then eases.

"Lend you my phone shall I?" she enquires once she's within speaking distance, reaching into her black leather purse to retrieve it.

[Jesmond Krutova] For a moment, Imogen is presented with the view of Jesmond's posterior emerging from the front seat of her car as she hunts for her handbag and then, within it, her cellphone, only to find as she wriggles back out of the car and looks at the black, lifeless screen that the battery has likewise ended its term of life presently.

She pushes a fall of dark hair from her eyes, Jesmond, and casts the Kinswoman a flushed, grateful smile. "Thank you, that would be kind." Then, she leans against the door, lightly kicking her heel against the front-most tire with a flat-soled shoe. "This must be my lesson. Never allow a Theurge to tinker with your engine," she glances at her wristwatch.

"Especially one raised in a rural Sept who has barely seen one before."

[Slaughter] Imogen's eyebrows are copper. The echo the red of her hair. She arches one now.

"No," she says a little mildly. "I don't imagine that's a good plan."

She pulls out her phone, slim in her slender hand and the buttons chime softly as she presses them, navigating through her address book.

"S'the number fer a nearby tow company," she says, handing the phone over. "The mechanic they'll bring it to charges a fair rate." Said like someone who must deal in cars or at least, have a reasonable expectation of needing a mechanic on a regular basis.

To be fair, the kinwoman does not look like the type to be on a first name basis with her mechanic. Though the hour is late and growing later, she is still dressed in her business attire. She appears the kind to take her car to the dealer and simply swallow the cost.

However: there it is. A number for a tow-company that will get Jesmond to a mechanic who charges a fair rate.

Alright then.

[Jesmond Krutova] "Díky," Jesmond says softly in a dialect that might be Czech, or something very similar. It is almost an absent thing, the way she interchanges so easily between it and English. Certainly, her accent was entirely American, it carried no hint of a birth in other parts, like Imogen's did. Presently, she is put through to the mechanic, and explains where she is, and what she needs.

A beat, she ends the call and passes the phone back, smiling in a sedate, friendly manner at the Doctor.

"They are on their way." Both women are still dressed in their business attire, though on Jesmond's side of things, this simply meant a white uniform dress with a nametag attached over her breast that announced her as J. Krutova - Mercy as if it were the sum total of what the child of Thunder were. She shifts her weight, and adjusts the strap of her bag over a shoulder, noting, as she does, the hour.

"It's quite late, don't feel you must wait with me if you need to be home." A pale wrist flicks hair from her vision again, where it was escaping the confines of a hair-clip. It should have been the point for small talk, perhaps. But Jesmond did not seek after it, at least, not ordinarily. She was content, it appeared, to thank her good Samaritan, and allow them on their way.

[Slaughter] Imogen takes her phone back - her eyes steady on the other kinfolk as she speaks. A tension flickers across her mouth, her jaw while Jesmond offers what should be a kindness. An out, an assertion of independence.

Despite this, the kinwoman only nods, dropping her phone into her bag.

"Ha' a good night, then," she says, turning and starting to walk away.