Hide in a Closet

[Rain McKellar] There is no snow falling from the sky tonight to break up the cold, and the drab, and the dreary. The holiday lights have been put away, sequestered in boxes that dim their cheer, hidden. There's no strings of tiny hope-lights. There's no faux green. There's no countdown, only the realization that there are months more of this cold to go before spring breaks through.

And then it would only be rainy again.

The Gaian kinswoman has hidden herself away in a Lake View tavern. The type with dark hardwood floors and a highly polished bar. The cozy sort where the booth seats are well broken in, and the floor's a little bit sticky there where the door swings back into the kitchen. This is the sort of establishment that bothers with live music beyond the narrow bounds of the holiday season and has a collection of local talent that fill the Monday through Thursday rotations out. Larger groups come through on weekends. There's an occasional open mic.

Tonight's singer is relatively new to their calendars. She's a little bit folksy, and doesn't complain about mid-week gigs. She doesn't drink much, doesn't bring guests; low maintenance. There's a warmth to her voice that's still young enough to be unfeigned and every once in awhile something gritty and real enough to show she's not been coddled. Rain sings with just her guitar for backup, perched on a dark four-legged stool, chatting with people in the audience between songs. It seems more natural to see her there than bundled up in the stout Cabrini church, or safely pressed to the margins of another Brotherhood gathering.

"I'm gonna take a bit of a break," she says, to no one in particular, and the drawl in her voice makes it sound a bit sweeter tonight. She slips her guitar strap over her head, settles it into the rest on stage, and then wanders toward the bar to get a glass of water. It takes a few minutes for her eyes to adjust, for the barkeep to bring a water to the young girl at the end of the bar who doesn't entirely look like she's old enough to drink. Away from the stage for a moment, Rain seems more tired. Thin.

[Imogen] The bar is narrow and small, with tables pressed as close together as possible. The booths are not for the obese, as they are narrow enough to make a bulging stomach uncomfortable. The tables are scarred with years of dings and bangs, a few blackened rings where someone was careless with a sweating glass of ale. That Americans prefer their beer cold is something Imogen found difficult to accustom herself to.

As it is mid-week and the folk-singer is a little unfamiliar, the bar is not full, but there is still a steady rumble of conversation, the click of glasses and utensils on dishes. There is a woman with red hair, isolated amidst the din. She's taken a booth for herself regardless of their popularity, and sits, facing the stage. A pint glass of beer sits in front of her, a half finished plate of salad pushed to the side for a waiter to retrieve. The kinswoman is not dressed casually - instead, a pair of charcoal slacks, a dark purple blouse, beneath an open suit jacket. Her hair is back as it always is, held in place by clips, though strands have escaped to curve against her temple and cheekbone.

Rain moves off the stage and walks to the bar. As the Gaian girl looks out over the audience, Imogen may catch her eye. If she does, the redhead inclines her head in greeting, before tilting her head to the bench opposite her in absent invitation.

[Rain McKellar] It is hard to miss Imogen. Even in a dark room, her hair is ember-bright when the light catches it. She has a presence, a gravitas, a reputation that precedes her. To Rain, Imogen is the eerily efficient and always professional Dr. Slaughter. She is a force to be reckoned with.

Rain leans over the bar a bit to say something to the barkeep, tips her head in the direction of the rowan-haired woman at a booth all her own. Then the Gaian hops off her barstool, gathers her water up and weaves her way through the narrow spaces between booths and tables on her way toward Imogen.

She's wearing dark jeans and a sweater that drapes more femininely than her usual fare. Rain's still got the glint of gold around her neck, though the heart itself is turned so that the outward face reads Family not her Tribal glyph. Her hair is mostly down, willfully curly in places around her crown, the top section pinned back at the base of her neck to keep it out of her face when she places. She wears a little make up, to give her the illusion of a few more years.

"Evening," she says, when she arrives. Rain's smile is wide enough to feel infectious, broad and well-placed on her features. She seems vibrant, so much warmer than she'd been the last time they saw one another (over spaghetti [after a skirmish]). "I didn't know you came here," she tells Imogen, sliding onto a place on the opposite bench.

[Imogen] "Hello," Imogen greets Rain, and though the kin's smile is infectious, the doctor appears to be immune. There is not even a twitch at the edge of her mouth. Her face presents the sort of immobility that brings truth to the phrase: 'if she ever smiled, her face would crack'. Rain has not seen it, though she's certainly seen the doctor's caustic smirk.

"From time to time," she answers, picking up her beer as Rain sits down. "There are others I like better."

Imogen's dark eyes move to Rain's water glass, a copper brow arching. "Only water?" asks the woman whom some call Fianna.

[Rain McKellar] That Rain's smile does not edge the corners of Imogen's mouth up, doesn't cause something echoed to play there, doesn't bother her. Rain doesn't think you can measure a lot about a person by how readily they smile, or smirk, so it's no matter between them.

"Mm, yeah. It's not really my favorite either, but they pay decently, and the owner's not too much of a jerk." She shrugs a bit. It took all kinds to make the world go around, sure, but Rain's world went more easily when people said please and thank you, or when she didn't have to worry about unwanted advances from an under the table employer.

If Imogen was called Fianna, Rain didn't know. From everything she'd seen of Dr. Slaughter, Rain would have put her money on Fenrir. In fact, Imogen seemed more "fenrierier" than some of the True she'd met -- to use Howard's hideous and yet intelligible word.

"I don't drink when I'm playing," she tells the doctor. But in this sense playing means working. "Maybe a pint before I go home, if it's not too long ways. It doesn't seem smart, you know? 'Specially as I'm usually at work on my own."

[Imogen] The aforementioned smirk twitches her mouth. "Those are always pluses," she observes.

She takes another draught from her drink, her gaze moving briefly toward the stage then back again. Imogen's features are finely chiselled. A clear brow and high cheekbones frame dark eyes rimmed with roan lashes. A firm jaw cups a fine mouth. Her skin is pale as porcelain, her hair a brilliant shade of red that is incredible even in the dim lighting of the bar.

There is grace in her, even in a gesture as simple as setting down her pint glass. Even in something as simple as sitting, poised, shoulders back, spine straight, her head high.

"Really?" she says, an arched brow denoting scepticism. "Yeh're be a rare musician with that attitude, aren't you just?"

[Rain McKellar] Imogen comes from a line of Kings and King-singers, a bloodline that reaches back toward the blur where human history becomes the stuff of myth and legend. Her blood sings. Rain's is oh so very quiet, muddled and unpurposed, bent toward no tales or histories. There is little to be implied from the pleasantness of her features about whence she came or where she's going. She has something within the Nation that Imogen never will: anonymity.

There are merits to having once been truly Lost.

"It's one of the last things my Pa said to me before he let me go out on the road. T' take care of m'self, and not fall in with none of that." Which begs the question, of course, of how young Rain might have been when she flew the nest and tried her hand a gypsy's life. Young enough to still hear her father's words. Young enough that she might be Found, and then grow into her place in the Nation before she settled here. Rain doesn't tell Imogen that it's one of the only good things she'd heard from her father.

"More of it is stuff like last month. There's enough trouble out there when I'm sober that I kind of keep to drinking among friends when I do." Still she lifts her water and seems pleased enough with how it slakes the parched thirst from her throat.

"How've'ya been?" she asks, lumping the words all together, easily. It hasn't been long since they saw one another, but time seemed to move like molasses or a freight train for Rain. All or nothing. Ponderous or heavy and likely to kill you if you stopped to contemplate its advances.

[Imogen] Imogen's briefly quiet, then distracted by the waitress who drops by to pick up her plate. As she does, the kinswoman lifts her nearly empty glass moving it in a universal gesture of request. The waitress leaves, and for a moment, still, Imogen says nothing.

"At least you've come to the conclusion tha' this city is unsafe." She drains her glass and sets it down at the table's edge.

"Well enough," the answer is meaningless, offering Rain no details. "And you?"

[Rain McKellar] "Don't... most people figure that one out?" she asks, feeling ever so certain that this is the sort of stupid question that should indicate she was falling into an obvious trap. Rain had been part of two assaults -- one mundane, and one most certainly not -- and heard of a large handful of others since she arrived less than two months ago. She casts Imogen a wary look, full of some sort of suspicion, evidently waiting for the other shoe to fall there.

[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twitches. "Look at how many half-bloods walk about wi' guns, convinced it will make them safe."

[Rain McKellar] Imogen's mouth twitches. Rain's eye does. She breathes out a sigh and shakes her head a little.

"Won't make 'em safe, but it might make 'em safe-er. Depending on what's coming, and how much warning they get, but most'a that's luck. Honestly, though, most of us wouldn't stand much chance against the things that find y' alone at night."

[Imogen] Imogen pauses.

"How many fights have you been in, exactly?"

[Rain McKellar] "You mean in, or in the area of? When we were in Louisiana, Eve was pretty good at getting me stuffed into a closet somewhere before anything big rolled through."

Rain could be joking, but she's not. She's literally been shoved into closets, under cars, behind (or into) large immoveable objects -- usually to some measure of success -- to assuage her Warder's immediate concerns. That Kora sent them to high ground the other night was far preferable to the bruises of Eve's tactic.

"Two here, in the last month. I haven't really kept count over all. I try to stay out of 'em mostly."

[Imogen] Imogen exhales a breath, sharply. "If yeh want my advice, stay stuffed in a closet. Guns do not make kinfolk safer. It makes them think they can make a difference and more often than not, they die."

Her mouth twists. "Yeh'll find me hypocritical, but yeh'll also find me the exception rather than the rule."

[Rain McKellar] She thinks about this for a moment, slides her fingerprints down the sides of her water glass -- it's room temperature, so there's no condensation -- and studies Imogen for a moment.

"I don't find you hypocritical, Dr. Slaughter," she says, with a little furrow in her brow that fades out quickly. "I just think we're different, an' you know that, an' you're not too caught up on making everythin' equal and even to say it. Nothing wrong with that at all."

[Imogen] There's a moment of silence, broken by the waitress arriving with Imogen's fresh draught. The doctor glances at her, but does not say thank you, and the human moves away.

"Ah," she says, finally, a short sound that is nearly accentless - or at least is without region. She draws her glass toward herself, her mouth twisting. "I'll consider yer perspective, shall I?"

Something catches her eye, and her head turns again toward the bar, her chin lifting to gesture toward it, "The 'tender is tryin' t' get yer attention. I think yeh're up again."

[Rain McKellar] Rain glances over her shoulder when Imogen mentions the barkeep. Across the room, they manage to communicate in some subtle succession of glances, pointing and nods. He's telling her her break is up, she's acquiescing with that sweet smile.

"Looks like you're right," she says, sliding off of the bench again. Her smile for Imogen is as easy as ever as she catches up her water in her hand. "It was good t' see ya, Doctor Slaughter," she says. Rain stays for any last words of wisdom, then makes her way to the bar to drop of her glance and heads back to the stage.

[Imogen] Imogen does not answer the goodbye aloud, instead raising a hand in a salute. As Rain walks toward the stage, the kinswoman lifts her beer to her lips and drinks deep.

By the time this set is complete, as Rain breaks down or perhaps takes another break, Imogen is gone.