Aftermath

[Kora] It's snowing.
In winter.
In Chicago.

- fancy that. The gray sky sends drifting currents of gray snow into a gray world. Already the snow has covered the tire tracks over the sidewalk, between the rusting chain-link fence posts, leading up the walk to the abandoned church; there's been no more than an inch or two since morning, but it's enough to cover up a multitude of sins. Kora stands on the wide stone-porch that fronts the old cathedral, wearing a black wool coat, sheltered from the slow-drifting snowfall. The hood from her cotton jacket is pulled up over the crown of her head, and her hair is loose, pulled over one shoulder, spilling out from beneath the hood, over the lapels of the old coat, a bright counterpoint to her dark clothing and the snow drifting down from the sky.

Hands in her pockets, she hunches forward to conserve heat and watches the street, listening to the city's sounds, muffled as they are by the snowfall.

[Imogen] The kinswoman had been at the church until the wee hours of the morning and left, simply to go to work, the wear of the night showing beneath her eyes.

What she has done in the interceding hours between then and now are not details available to the Garou, though there are certain facts which offer the opportunity for conclusions to be drawn. She has changed, dressed now in work attire, despite the late hour, and her fatigue is hidden artfully by makeup, carefully applied.

She parks her Volvo much where she had parked it in the past, and shuts the door firmly, glancing up at the snow-strewn sky before walking up the uneven walk way toward the stone porch. She is dressed in charcoal slacks, a black wool coat open over her dark blue blouse.

"Kora," she greets the other when they are near enough for polite speech.

[Roman Turner] The soft thump of the big door heralded his arrival just before he bumped against Kora's shoulder. A steaming cup was offered to her. His head tipped to Imogen as he spoke to Kora.

"Soup in a cup, careful, it's hot."

His breath fogged out and already he was regretting leaving his hat inside as flakes gently landed on his head.

"Howdy Miss Doctor Slaughter, Ma'am. Ya got a hankering for some hot soup?"

[Kora] There's still blood under her nails. Dark now, and in the gray shadows here no more remarkable than dirt under her nails. Kora unearths one of her hands from her pockets and reaches out to take the steaming cup of soup, giving her packmate a sidelong glance, brief and still, as he bumps her shoulder.

She bumps back, carefully lifting the cup of soup to her mouth for an experimental slurp. Finding it so hot that it burns off the first layer of her taste buds, she asks - " - chicken noodle?" with a lilt of inquiry at the end of the phrase.

Kora watches Imogen close the door of her Volvo; watches her walk through the slow drifting little snowstorm, her footsteps incising a precise line in the new-falling snow. Then looks up, flicks a glance at the city behind her, what is visible of the downtown skyline from here a dark silhouette against a sky the color of orange sherbet rolled in volcanic ash.

"Doc - " says Kora, her voice quiet, but not so quiet that it does not carry to her companions. "No trouble, I take it?" She narrows her eyes, gives the sidewalk, the quiet streetscape another moving glance, then hooks her head at the door. "C'mon, let's go inside."

[Linus] "Mnnggghhh..."

It's the sound Linus makes as he pulls himself from the back of one of the pews, where he'd promptly passed out after the excursion from the previous night. The clean up had taken it's sweet time and effort and he'd been no where to be found for the last leg of it all, vanished inexplicably into the umbral domains on a hunt for some 'Elusive fucker with a funny bone' as he'd artfully put it. The Godi had been there upon the rest of the group awakening or returning from whence they'd come and was only now just waking up.

He clambers, clatters and ultimately pours himself into the aisle, dressed only in a pair of long johns (gray), a white T-shirt and the borrowed (stolen) flannel blanket appropriated from who knew where, wrapped pretty firmly around his shoulders and lanky frame. A cigarette dangles in one hand, face a mask of crushed and narrowed everything, one eye still refusing to open while the other is a fiercely thin thing. His hands curl protectively around the edges of the blankets, while he goes tumbling out toward the small set of stairs.

"Mneed a fugg'n light'r.." Are his first words of the day.

[Roman Turner] "Yessum, Cup O Soup, chicken noodle."

He anwered Kora and moved to open the front door for the women, washing frigid air in towards Linus in his thermal drawers. He was beat, sure enough, running on fumes, but he was young, not pregnant and they had survived. Add to that, here was the Goddess Imogen and he was about to show her Linus in his long underware in all his glory.

"Nice drawers Linus, they got a flap on the backside?"

That door was shoved wider so Imogen would be sure to see it while he air-conditioned Linus further much to his own glee.

[Imogen] Her shoes today are heeled. The shoes she had worn last night, aware of potential trouble, had been flat. The kinwoman's grace is the same, a sharply contained and concise way of moving, beautiful in its simplicity.

"Roman," she greets the boy, flicking a gaze toward the mug he offers. "No," she says to his offer. "Thank you."

Her breath mists as she speaks, and her skin is pale with cold, and she smirks faintly as Kora speaks. "One o' the eyes exploded rather messily; caused a bit o' a mess. Apparently the wyrm can have flammable vitreous fluid. Who'd ha' thought." Her question is clearly rhetorical.

Roman speaks, opening the door wider so Imogen can see Linus in his nightwear. "Charming," she observes, though the comment is directed more to Roman than Linus's choice of attire.

[Kora] "Morning, beautiful," Kora says to Linus, her shadow against the open door a handful of seconds after Roman pulls it open. She's awake, dressed, showered at some point, as the coil of her hair down from underneath her hood is soft and fine, the color of plaited moonlight in the indirect, indifferent light around, not stiff with blood. There's something wry to the tone, the sort of affection buried beneath noogies and accusations of wild improprieties just before a bedroom door is slammed, and someone's shouting for MOM with all the breath in their lungs. " - you made it back."

Her footsteps are a quiet against the solid marble floors. There are new stains close to the door, where blood soaked its way into the porous stone. Without direct light, though - they just look like the mottled imperfections of the marble. "We still need to figure out what to do with their truck, Doc. Roman's got it stashed around back. There's enough junk back there that it won't draw suspicion, but I don't like having it on our land. Or anywhere close. And I want to know who the fuck owns that house Drew went to tour. There's something - "

Kora pauses, mid-complaint, and remembers her manners. Not the way Roman does, tipping his hat, addressing everyone respectfully, but the way Fenrir do. "Hey - " a glance back at Imogen, when the kinswoman follows into the great open space of the old sanctuary, warmed by the glow of a few dubious spaceheaters here, underneath the choir loft. " - you want a beer?"

[Roman Turner] "Did ya hear that?"

He asked Linus beaming ear to ear. It was so true, Imogen loved him, she found him charming. He waited till the women both entered, then closed the door behind them.

He had gone unscathed the previous night and even if he had been half dead, he'd be walking on air right now just because he believed Imogen called him charming in completely different light than really meant.

[Linus] "..Mmfugiscold!"

He doesn't yell. Doesn't really have the capacity for it right now, eyes screwing shut against the frigid blast that claps through the church and forces him to hug the flannel blanket tighter around himself. He doesn't retreat though, or step out of the cold air, pushing bravely forward still in search of a lighter, the flicking thumb over a fist signal made at Roman, Imogen and finally Kora without any real thought behind it's reflexive gesturing.

"...No back flap. S'pain in the ass, really..." A little more coherent now, one eye widening enough while the other remains crushed shut, to regard Roman "...You wish you were this Stylish, Kid..."

And then on to Imogen who gets a "Sup sexy..." and finally around on Kora as the newly minted Fostern and Jarl declares a bunch of stuff, while offering Imogen a Beer. Obviously he isn't going to get his lighter from this lot, or at least not immediately and he stashes it behind his ear. He moves forward to kick the doors closed...then shove them when his legs fail to produce enough power to do the former, alongside Roman.

"...Yeah. Found who I was looking for. They like the proposition..."

A pause, features growing confused.

"Wait...Beer? What fuckin' time is it?" And he glances out one of the windows, barking loudly.

"Where the fuck did the sun go?"

[Imogen] She climbs the steps to the stone porch and enters the church, glancing at Roman as he passes, her eyebrow arching slightly, though she does not disabuse him of his perceptions.

Imogen fixes her gaze on Linus when he addresses her, "Find something else t'call me," she says mildly, "if you please. 'Doctor' seems appropriate for our current relationship."

Kora speaks of the truck and Imogen takes a seat on the edge of one of the pews, balancing herself on the carved wooden side. "I know o' a bloke who will take care o' the truck. S'illegal, so more or less untraceable."

She's offered a beer, and Linus demands to know where the sun has gone. The kinswoman merely nods at the offer, accepting it.

[Roman Turner] Linus asked where the fuck did the sun go and what self respecting Ragabash could pass up an opener like that?

"Miss Doctor Slaughter Ma'am, said she fancied the sun. So I done roped it and pulled it down from the sky so she could wear it on her fanger."

Sometimes his accent came out a thicker hick sounding, especially when he told a whopper.

[Rain] It might have seemed odd to them when Rain packed up her guitar and left this afternoon, like she usually does on a Friday night, like nothing so terrible after all had come crashing through their front door just last night. But it's the only way the little Gaian knows to cope with the sort of thing that did happen, and the long and bloody night that followed, and the press of extra Rage in their house and people and ...

So off she goes, to the places where mortals gather, and she sings for her supper like it's any other Friday. She gets lost in it for a moment, long enough to convince everyone around her that she's just somebody's songbird.

It's a good night. Good enough for her to get groceries on her way back -- real food, not cider packets, hot cocoa and a bag of day old pastries. Rain's lugging them all back from the nearest bus stop, which is a bit of a walk on a good night, with her guitar in one hand, stopping every block or two to smooth out the lines that the plastic handles wear into her palms despite her knit gloves. She's redfaced and tired by the time she makes it to the Church's steps. And of course the steps go up first. It's always onward and upward when you're tired.

The door scrapes open again, and there's the clumsy sounds of someone carrying too much trying to work their way through the doorway. Then it closes again. Rain leaves her guitar by the door and trucks the blissfully lighter weight of just groceries back toward the kitchen. It brings her across the great sanctuary with its aging pews. Her hair is unruly under her cap, blown about by the wind and the cold. Her nose is a little runny.

The bus stop is far from the wolves' den. There used to be one closer. No one stops there now.

[Kora] Kora huffs near-silently at Roman's tall-tale, and gives the younger Garou a brief, wry look. The particulars of her expression are lost in the shadows; it's just a twist of her mouth, the native good humor - the easy curve - subsumed by the sobriety of her steady gaze, just a hint of laughter steady evident in her dark eyes.

She nearly sang some half-remembered line from the Sound of Music back at Linus when he questioned the sun's whereabouts; but then Roman made his move and the moment passed. This is what she settles for, Kora - the truth, unvarnished. "It's night. You slept all day."

One she's reached the scattering of benches, the used couch someone rescued from a dumpster, the yellow bean-bag chair gradually losing its beads - that serves as a loose knit living room for the pack and its guests, Kora sets her cup o soup aside, unbuttons her dark wool coat and sinks to her haunches in front of a cooler tucked beneath a folding table, pulling out a couple-three dark bottles of beer.

"No chance your guy'd pass on the particulars up north, right doc?" Kora asks, passingly, looking back over her shoulder at Imogen as she straightens, stands.

"Hey Rain - " Kora calls out as the Gaian kinswoman enters the sanctuary, arms full of groceries. " - want a beer?" She hasn't closed the cooler yet.

There's enough for everyone.

[Rain] "Yes, please," Rain calls back, even as she heads toward the kitchen's cooler with her offerings to the pack's combined foodstuffs. If she doesn't stop moving, if she doesn't sit down and pretend that it's time for her to rest, then she'll make it through getting home somehow.

"I got stuff for spaghetti!" she calls back to Kora, pleased with this. It sounds more like s'ghetti, by the time the word clears her scarf, and her accent, and makes it across the room to the Alpha, but Rain's been kin long enough to know to choke pasta sauce full up with meat to make it suitable for wolves wearing human skin. And that hiding a few extra vegetables in the sauce won't hurt the healing kin who slept in Kora's bunk last night.

Once divested of her food offerings, Rain will make her way toward this promised beer, unwinding her scarf from her neck and pulling off her gloves as she goes.

[Imogen] Imogen steadily meets Kora's gaze. "I wouldn't use him, if I thought there were," she remarks, mildly.

[Linus] His thoughts seem to be out to lunch for the moment, the prior necessity of socializing taking a brief backseat to the need to find his clothes again. He doffs the flannel blanket onto one of the nearby pews, muttering and gritting his teeth in the chill of the air even as he reaches the pile of clothes he'd left on the floor, rifling through the inside out bits and pieces.

"Always figured the Doc for a Moon and Stars sort of girl. Learn somethin'-...tha' hell did my left shoe go?"

Under and over several of the pews, until a brief 'aha!' moment and he's near fully dressed in the space of thirty seconds. That the clothes are from yesterday (and probably a few days before that) doesn't really matter much to him apparently. He comes winging out of the dark of the Church's corners, the flannel blanket deposited on the pew closest to the dinner table. His clothes are a touch ruffled, jacket pulling on and eyes scrubbed simultaneously.

"Need to go check on a few things flip side. You need me for anything right now?" A flick glance up at Kora.

[Roman Turner] He rushed off towards Rain to help relieve her of her packages as soon as she entered. Calling over his shoulder.

"The sun is a star."

Then he was helping Rain, sticking his nose in the bags as much as carrying them.

"Here let me help with that. Whatcha get? Ya need help making it? I made Cup O Soup."

[Linus] Linus blinks and then scowls, hooking a thumb in the direction Roman vanishes.

"I'm pretty sure No Moons aren't allowed to be that smart ass..."

[Rain] "Got more juice, for Miss Drew. And some stuff for spaghetti. Lots of meat for the sauce, and some eggs for breakfast -- we got more people, and folks are healing up, so we need some more food, right?" she asks Roman as he helps lighten her load. They get all the groceries put away.

"You want me to make s'ghetti tonight, or tomorrow? If you've already got noodles, it can wait til tomorrow," she tells him. In Rain's book, there's nothing wrong with Cup O Noodles, if everyone's happy.

There's a few other things to find. Some cereal, but no milk as it would have been too heavy to carry amongst the other things. Some cans of tomato sauce. Things that look suspiciously like fresh vegetables. Bread and garlic to go with. No attempts at salad fixings; she knows better.

[Kora] "And garlic bread?" This to Rain, as she fishes another from the ice. "I think I could eat my weight in garlic bread tonight."

Probably dipped in chocolate. With a chicken noodle soup chaser.

So it's four beers that Kora pulls from the cooler; that she lines up on the gate-legged table that would wobble if someone hadn't wedged half a torn phone book underneath the right back leg. They're slick and cold from being buried among the ice cubes. Unbuttoned, Kora's wool coat hangs stiffly open , revealing the horizontal stripes of her hoodie underneath. She balances forward easily, as she goes searching for one last beer, in a dark bottle like the rest, with IBC in raised lettering across the front.

It's not the same, but at least with her long fingers wrapped around the long-necked, dark brown bottle, she can pretend she's drinking along with the rest of them.

Straightening, Kora reaches to pick up the beers by the necks, threading her fingers through them with the remembered expertise of someone who spent an awful lot of time drinking in bars, once upon a time. She leaves a pair out for Roman and Rain, and offers a third to Imogen, followed by a bottle opener in her free hand.

"Not now - " Kora tells Linus, with a shake of her pale head that sends the hood of her cotton jacket falling backwards and leaves her loose hair to uncoil over her shoulder. Her look is direct, considered, flickers from Linus to Roman and back again. " - but you and me and Roman need to get a few things done, Li. Tonight, yeah?" The statement is quiet, mild really.

"They're getting bolder." That comment, quiet, is as much to Imogen as it is to Linus. "Did you hear about the Winchester?"

[Roman Turner] "I think tonight would be good. Soup only goes so far. And ya heard Miss Kora, she's got a mighty craving for garlic bread and who are we to deny Mr. Trent that treat when he kisses her next?"

He was smiling, but it was more with the thought of Trent's face when garlic breath hit his tongue on that kiss.

[Imogen] Imogen smirks faintly. "Good luck tryin' to stop him." The kinswoman absently rolls her neck, stretching the muscles of her shoulders. When Kora re-enters, she speaks to the Fenrir Skald again.

"I thought yeh should know, Simon's asked me to tell him if I find any cursed ones. Somethin' about it's time t'stop bein' the hunted and become the hunter. What's the Winchester?"

She reaches out to take the bottle, "Ta," she says, taking the bottle opener and snapping off the cap expertly, before handing the opener back.

[Rain] "Yes'm, and garlic bread. It's not spaghetti night without garlic bread," she says, in all seriousness.

"What about Miss Quinn's place?" Rain asks Kora, interjecting where maybe she shouldn't. But Rain's familiarity with the Winchester is hard to miss. So is the worry that flits across her features.

[Linus] "...Yeah, I did." There's a cloud there. Something flickering and dark, but not for the body that went Valhalla's way. Something else (One less Godi to stand the tide, pay respects). He adjusts his collar and begins to wrap a scarf about his neck, even as he's replying to Kora's mention.

"I have a few eyes I can talk to before tonight's over. Might be able to put a pair there on the Flip to keep an eye on things but...that's a long ass way from our neck of the woods. Ain't my sort of fun dealing with shit outside of our boundary, let alone our Tribe when there are perfectly good bodies in this Sept who could." Another flicker of that same cloud, a frank sort of disapproval that he doesn't do anything to hide.

"I'll be back soon. I just need to make sure He hasn't flown off and left me hanging dry again. Gonna talk to those Scab birds of yours too and get some things straight-" A sneer, unpleasant and vaguely disgusted "-and then try and find something for the Uni' I pulled service from last night to do- Oh yeah..."

He flicks a glance to Roman and Kora both, brows perked.

"He's strong and friendly but don't go thinking that's going to last long. He says he'll help with healing and keeping this area clean of any Taint but he's not fighting for us. Never will. Part of the agreement so don't ask him to. He'll be squatting the Church grounds in the meantime-" And then on toward Rain, a chin up nod. "...Might think about playing a little more here in the Church. I think he might like that..."

And then finally back to Kora again, eyes settled in.

"You, me 'n Roman can figure out that shit when I get back. I gotta have a talk to Hermodr to while I'm off..." A grunt, a breath sucked in. "'n Figured out what stupid shit I wanna throw off into that flippin' Maytag whirlpool of a Caern Totem..."

[Roman Turner] Maytag whirlpool of a Caern Totem. He almost said something disrespectful along the lines of how the swirling reminded him of a demented toilet when flushed. Instead he was in the doorway of the kitchen, looking back at Rain.

"Wait, Miss Quinn's place? Ain't that the place you came back from all hurt one night?"

It hadn't even clicked in his head about the Winchester.

[Imogen] Imogen's gaze sharpened, glancing toward Roman, then to Rain. "You've been hurt at th'Winchester as well?" Though her previous question had made it clear she was not familiar with either the scenario nor even the bar, she is quickly connecting the dots.

[Kora] Kora takes the bottle opener from Imogen and tosses it underhanded to land on the table. Her root beer is a twist-top, and she opens it with a faint grimace, and a twist of her wrist. She sits on the flat arm of one of the old pews, long-since unmoored from its original place facing the altar, and swings a look between Imogen, Roman and Rain. "Trent likes garlic breath." - she says, without much inflection to Roman, just a faint curve to her mouth that smooths out a stutter-step later.

Imogen mentions Simon's requests, and Kora breathes out again, a quiet flare of her nostrils; something on the border between frustration and laughter. "I sure as hell hope he doesn't go on a kamikaze run up north." - she says under her breath.

"The Winchester," clarifying, with a glance at Imogen. "It's a pub owned by a Fianna kin. A mile or so from our territory. Apparently her staff are all kin, too." Then Kora glances up, meets Rain's eyes across the gloomy interior expanse of the church, steady. "Quinn was attacked by a pack of cursed Garou, right outside, after closing. One of them tried to seduce her. Night's Reprieve was killed protecting her, and she brought his body back to the Caern, but two of them got away."

Kora's expression narrows briefly; thoughtfully at Rain. She doesn't repeat Imogen's question, but it's clear she's waiting for the answer.

[Kora] A moment's afterthought, then - Kora sends Linus a winging look. "Truth-in-Frenzy-rhya and I saved a unicorn gaffling before the spring equinox, Li. Said it owed us, after. I dunno if they're all connected, but if you need to you can cash in my chit. I don't want you spread too thin. Not right now."

[Rain] Rain looks to Roman, and then to Kora as if she was expecting the question that ultimately came from Imogen. She doesn't look trapped or surprised at being asked for an explanation, but there's a skewed and somewhat displeased touch to her expression.

No one likes getting shot. That had been a bad night.

"Ah, yeah. It is. I was going over to the Winchester to help before opening night -- Miss Quinn's sort of a friend, I met her at the Brotherhood. Her and Mr. Howard and Mr. Patrick and Mr. Ennar were all fixing up the place before it opened. Some guys grabbed me when I got off the bus not far from the bar, block and half away maybe. I got free and ran, thinking that the True'd be there, or that at least Miss Quinn's shotgun would be.

"There weren't touched or tainted though, that we could tell. Just human folk, doing hateful human things. They're both gone now," she says, but there's no ambiguity there. She means dead.

[Rain] Something in Rain's memory flagged and she adds quickly: "It was the night of the eclipse. Something was wrong with N.R. He couldn't change, he said. Were a bad night for everyone, I guess."

[Linus] "I ain't gonna be thin just..." He looks more annoyed. Aggravated. Like the kid being forced to hug their moustache wearing Aunt, rather than a Godi pushed into a difficult bargain. "I'll deal with it."

He leaves the collective there to push and interrogate Rain on the matter, deciding the fate and function of Quinn's Winchester route and just how safe they all were. It isn't until Rain pops in with something about the 'Eclipse' that Linus attention returns to her with a frown.

"...That ain't right..." An eye flicks toward Kora, brow furrowed. "...Least that ain't what's supposed-...fuck's sake, later later..." And he turns, one of the nearby mirrors serving as a goto. The air balloons, ears feel the pressure and Pop. Linus is off on errands.

(I'll be a bit slow here folks so it's a good time for me to take a break. If you guys are still going in an hour or so, I'll bring Linus back in.)

[Imogen] "I don't think he knows what he's going to do," Imogen answers Kora absently, referring to Simon, her answer almost as quiet as Kora's mutter. "Given that he was asking me fer advice on how to find 'em."

She listens as Kora explains, and there are a steady shift of reactions, minute over her features. A lift of an eyebrow as the Winchester is explained to her. A careful attention as the attack is explained. Then, a frown, a bare line between her brows as she is informed of Night's Reprieve's death. Her gaze shifts away, then returns, shifting to Rain as she explains what happens.

"It sounds to me like Quinn has chosen a very bad place fer her bar."

[Rain] "I don't think she chose it," Rain says, her expression creasing for a moment. "I think it was her family's, and now it's hers. Something like that. Might be hard to get her to give it up, if it's inherited like that," she says, thinking aloud.

There's a lump in her throat now that the Godi's passing has been brought up so baldly. It's a hard thing to swallow down.

"I heard two votes for s'ghetti night, so I'mma start cooking," she says, rolling her shoulders a bit under the weight of everyone's scrutiny. Cooking gives her something to do, although it'll be far from gourmet -- let's say it's more like rustic home cooking -- or fancily prepared.

[Roman Turner] He looked from Rain to the others with a frown marring his brow.

"I think this place is like a bad magnet. Like one of them Devil Triangle places, but in this case it's a Spiral shopping mall where they go looking for breeding material."

[Kora] Kora listens - quite seriously - to Rain's explanation. Her dark eyes are quick on the kinswoman's features, dropping down with the movement of the young woman's mouth, the subtle physical movements of muscles underneath her skin. There's nothing invasive about the regard, just this close-eyed attention to the details of things. When Rain finishes - Kora cuts a glance to Imogen, a flicker of a look. Then Rain offers an addendum, and the Fenrir looks back to Rain, the right corner of her mouth moving upward.

"That night - " with a brief current of familiarity embedded in the tone. "That was messed up. It sounds like that one was coincidence, yeah? A block and a half away from the door."

"This one, though." Kora looks away, cuts a glance back to Imogen, voice "Three of them, lying in wait outside at 3 a.m. The place isn't safe anymore. If I was them, I'd have eyes on the place. A kin in the apartment across the street, a couple of spirits - something. I told Quinn to stay away for the time being, and sid we'd try to get eyes on the place, but we're spread thin. I suggested Simon get in touch with Rory, see if her tribe was interested in getting in on it. Maybe that'll give him something to do."

[Roman Turner] "Has Miss Quinn told her own Family about this? Seems to me there's been a whole bunch of them blow in to town recently."

He still had that thoughtful crease between his brows as he leaned against the door frame with crossed arms.

[Rain] "She's probably told Mr. Patrick and Mr. Howard," Rain tells Roman. He's the intermediary between her place and the greater living space. There's nothing certain in the girl's statement, though. She hasn't talked to Quinn about what happened. "They were livin' at the Brotherhood last time I was there, if y' need to talk to 'em."

Rain uses the busy-ness of getting a meal started to distract from how unsettled this is making her, but the Ragabash knows her well enough to see through that if he wants to. She starts cutting up vegetables -- the onion might be pungent enough to bother his delicate senses.

[Roman Turner] "Yeah, right. That's where I would be if ya told me there was trouble coming to the church. Yessiree I would say, well why don'tcha go see that there Jarl from that there other Tribe and maybe she will help ya cause well see, it's cold out there and we got things to do."

He shook his head slightly, sending chestnut hair sweeping across his furrowed brow.

"I'm hoping that ain't the case, that they ain't knowing what has happened over there. I also hope I'll win the Lotto even if I don't buy no tickets."

[Kora] "I don't know - " Kora says, low-voiced, firm back to Roman. " - and I don't know that we have much time to find out. There's something brisk underneath it; something efficient. That some part of her is willing to let this go. The sound of rain in the kitchen is a quiet background sort of noise, domestic in a space made for other things - which softens in the vast space of the sanctuary. In places, the roof is a ruin, and snowflakes drift downward in soft, outward spirals.

"Doc," Kora frowns, her brow creasing minutely with thought. " - did you hear all of Drew's story about the attack?" A brief pause, as she expels another faint breath. "Or any of it?"

[Imogen] Imogen shakes her head in answer to Kora, "Only tha' she'd been attacked, and tha' there was expected t'be trouble here."

[Roman Turner] "She turned up here out front lastnight with Eve in this old truck that I'm guessing is Miss Drew's. Both were seriously injured. I still ain't sure how they climbed in the truck under pursuit and Miss Drew managed to drive and not kill 'em."

[Rain] It's harder to slip things like vegetables past a sixteen year old Ragabash who's watching you cook, so Rain doesn't even try to hide it from Roman when she cuts the carrots, onions and celery into little bits and heats it up in the bottom of the second biggest stockpot she finds. When they're limp, she adds the ground meat she brought and cooks that until it's brown, then dumps in the spaghetti sauce (and something that looks suspiciously like chopped up spinach) and leaves it to heat through.

Meanwhile, she gets the larger pot ready to switch onto the hotplate so she can heat up water for the pasta. She makes garlic bread. Soon it smells like a real meal's brewing in the kitchen, and that it might just be an edible one too.

All the while Rain's quiet, seems focused, until she gets to a place when she can just be still for a bit. Then she rests her hands on the countertop, stares blankly at the cupboard before her, exhales slowly. And finally gets around to drinking that beer that Kora handed her.

[Kora] "She was looking for a house to rent," Kora explains, tipping back the bottle of root beer as if she were drinking the real thing. A glance back at Roman, then Kora drops herself from the arm of the pew to the seat, dragging over a handy stool by snagging it carefully with her booted toe and pulling it back to herself.

They are still in the circle of warmth created by the space heaters. Deeper in the bowels of the church, the warmth would be more complete. The walls are solid, the windows antique, but well-made. Even the social hall - an addition added by some optimist in the 1950s - is solid masonry, bricks manufactured right here in Chicago, stacked and mortared by union men, layers of insulation stuffed into the plaster walls. In the sanctuary, though - even the 'living room' underneath the choir loft is like standing around a bonfire. Half of you roasts while the other half slowly freezes. "And was ambushed by the rental agent or the owner. Something like that, when Eve showed up. Since I can't imagine a cursed Garou making a living as a real estate agent - it had to be a set-up. Or something. Maybe they've got some interest there.

"I'd like to know who owns the property - or - well," Kora gives Imogen a brief, faint look, nearly a smirk. " - whatever you can find out, really. If there's some connection we can follow now that we've taken that pack out, I want to follow it. I want to know who's pulling this shit."

[Drew Roscoe] Some time in the wee morning hours earlier today (or way late last night depending on who you asked) Drew had climbed into Kora's bed and fallen into the deep kind of sleep that follows way too much excitement and staying away some handful of hours past when your normal schedule dictated you would. She's been up there since that time, sleeping like a log, back turned to the door and the interior of the room, curled up with an arm under the pillow and the covers pulled up to her ear. Nothing but a lump with a lot of brown hair on the pillow.

It wasn't until the sun had gone down that she awoke again, the entire day slept away while she recovered. She woke with a hell of a headache and her eyes hurting as they tend to do when you sleep too heavy for too long. The clothes she'd borrowed from Rain last night after the shower would be what she'd wear still today, so she'd tug on the jeans that she'd left off so she could sleep comfortably and make her way down to the kitchen, hoping she saw a coffee pot somewhere in the mix.

Drew doesn't enter through the doorway Roman's blocking, but another in the back of the kitchen. She's got her thick chestnut hair pulled up into a loop at the top of her head, it would be a regular ponytail if she'd pulled her hair completely through on the last tuck. She's got on a plain gray long-sleeved tee that was intended more for layering than solo wear, a pair of jeans that are too long at the leg (and so rolled twice at the cuff), and a pair of soft white socks. She's scrubbing the pad of her right thumb against the corresponding temple and squinting into the room, at Rain and Roman both as she walked in and shuffled about on the hunt for coffee, and if she doesn't find the things for that, anything else to drink. She was parched.

"How long was I out?" She asks, and follows up with her manners as an afterthought. "How're you guys doing?"

[Imogen] Several strands of hair have fallen free of the clasp at the base of her neck, and Imogen lifts a hand, pushing hair back from her eyes and tucking them habitually behind her ear. At this moment, Drew enters, and Imogen glances over, saying simply, "Hello," without answering either question.

Her attention returns to Kora, "I can look into it," she says, getting to her feet. "I don't imagine I'll hear much 'till early next week, but I'll see what I can find."

Her gaze shifts once more to Drew, "Would yeh be so kind as to get me the address o' the rental house where you were attacked?"

[Rain] "All of today," Rain answers, when Drew wanders into the kitchen that smells more like dinner than breakfast. That poor hotplate's getting a work out tonight, trying to do the duty of a full range top. Rain's making do, she's good at that. Her hair is loose, all puffed up on the top from being recently released from her knit cap. She glances over at the other kinswoman, and they're features are similar enough that it's like looking at a sister.

Or a cousin.

"How're ya feeling?" Rain asks. "I'm makin' spaghetti, but there's lighter stuff, too. Brought you more juice. Ms. Kora's got beers. They're talkin' 'bout what happened," she cautions, in case Drew isn't awake enough to rehash the previous night.

[Drew Roscoe] No coffee, but juice sounded good. Sounded smart too. She smiled at Rain, and it was a cloudy half-asleep expression that still managed to give good feelings that spread like pollen on the wind in springtime. She went to the cooler, hunted down some juice, and stood leaning against the doorway not too far off from Roman and the doorway he blocked, making a lopsided triangle between herself and the two Children of Gaia. "'Preciate it, Rain. I'm sore as hell but doing alright. I'll skip the beer, feel close enough to hungover as it is."

There's something of a shake of her head, and she looks to Imogen. The other Kin is requesting an address, and Drew acquiesces by gesturing for Imogen to head on over, holding the juice bottle by the rim with her teeth (her dad would smack her in the back of her head for wracking up a dental bill for doing that-- holding things with her teeth so she could free up her hands-- through her childhood and teenage years). A wallet was extracted from her back pocket, something simple slim and brown, and flipped open to look through receipts and other such things.

In the front of the wallet where a driver's license normally goes is a picture, a snapshot somewhere outdoors of Drew and some man whose shoulders absolutely dominated the shot, with a bald head, ice blue eyes, a gap between his teeth and some offensive scrawl of hateful tattoos across his throat and arms. One can only venture to guess where his roots trace back to.

A folded over purple post-it note is removed from the wallet and held out for Imogen to take. It has an address written in pen that corresponds with the twelve-or-so blocks southwest that Drew said this whole mess had begun.

[Imogen] "Ta," Imogen says, reaching out to take the post it note, glancing at it before she pockets it. She takes another swig from her beer, letting her arm swing down to her hip, her attention flicking toward Kora. "I should go. Touch base wi' you next week, shall I?"

[Rain] "I'm glad you're doing better," she says, and there's enough infectious good will in the room between the pair of them to brighten up even this dark Friday of doomspeak and war councils.

Rain won't say that this foray into actual food for dinner is more for Drew than the Changing types. They have other ways to recuperate, to build back what they've lost. Kinfolk just had to make do with what their bodies naturally knew how to do: heal in human ways, at somewhat inhuman rates. But something solid in their stomachs was good for everyone's piece of mind.

While Drew's passing on an address, Rain's draining the pasta and mixing it all up with the sauce. It's an inelegant presentation -- everything in a bucket-sized stockpot -- but it's a meal large enough for their Stone Soup family. She finds plates and cutlery, then has the Ragabash relay to Kora that food's ready.

"You want some dinner before you go?" she asks Dr. Slaughter, and there's an invitation there but Rain won't be offended or surprised if the more efficient, effective, restrained kinswoman declines. Offers don't come with strings around this part, at least not from the Gaians.

She'll eat last, because Linus has a thing for her to do while the kitchen is stuffed up with people. Also, because she's used to eating last in mixed company. It's just another hallmark of the places she's been before.

[Kora] "Thanks, Doc." Kora's voice is low. While Imogen gets up, crosses the space to get snag the address Drew's written down for her, the Skald remains where she is, seated a pew in the middle of the sanctuary, listening to the sounds of cooking in the background, watching the snow spiral down from the ceiling.

She should shift. She doesn't, but she knows she should. Her minor wounds are half-healed, but this form does nothing to regenerate itself, so the shallow claw marks she sustained last night remain a faint pink wound on her shoulder where the skin should be otherwise whole. She can feel Roman, his presence in the space, and she glances up as he figures out that Miss Doctor Slaughter Ma'am is about to leave and dashes up from where he's guarding the kitchen door to clean off Miss Doctor Slaughter Ma'am's windshields of the snow that has accumulated over them in the last hour, pausing long enough to relay to Kora that the food is ready.

"Next week," she affirms, lifting the dark bottle she's drinking in ironic salute. "Root beer's on me." Then, she swings her legs down from the pew and stands up, and easy arc of motion, ambling back toward the kitchen, the scent of cooked meat low and rich in the air.

"Smells great - " Kora tells Rain, when she rounds the door into the kitchen, a genuine note of appreciation for the warm meal in the pack's space. She's keen eyed enough to note the spinach in the sauce, and it makes her mouth curl into a bemused half-smile. " - all of it, thank you." There's another look for Drew, then, an assessing glance that ends with the young (wolf) woman's dark eyes on the slight kinswoman's familiar features. In contrast to the kinswomen's infectious charm, Kora's a reserved thing. Still, her mouth is wide, and even when neutral it seems to curve in a faint half-smile. That neutral expression is made serious tonight by the watchfulness in her dark eyes. "Evening Drew."

[Imogen] "It's a deal," Imogen replies to Kora, before detouring to the kitchen to drop off her beer bottle, now drained. Rain makes her offer and the kinswoman turns her head to look at the Gaian kin. "No, thank-you," she answers simply, "Good night," this last to everyone and no one in particular, and then she departs, headed out the front door of the church.

For some time after her departure, they can hear the sound of Roman's voice, talking a mile a minute in Imogen's direction, and much quieter, Imogen's dry reply, attempting to disentangle herself from the Gaian Ragabash. Eventually, she is permitted to enter her car and leave.

(thanks for the RP guys! sorry, I am EXHAUSTED!)