[Imogen] Her shoes pound the cleared pathway along the lakeshore, her breath coming shallow but steadily, lifting her ribcage, contracting it, causing a faint steam of breath with each exhale, which she has no chance to see.

The temperature has dropped to rather colder than spring-like of late, but it does not keep her from this - her torture. For whatever reason Imogen runs, for health, for adrenaline, she does it full-throttle, until her breath is ragged and burning in her lungs, until her muscles tremble with exertion. High quality work out material wicks the sweat from her skin, the cold air does the rest for her exposed flesh.

She has earphones in her ears - music or perhaps Einstein's Theory of Relativity playing in her ears.

[Kora] The Bradford pear trees lining the riverwalk are in bud; some - those that get the most sun - are already in bloom. Covered in bright, white, sturdy flowers. There are daffodils naturalized in the little copses of trees are bristling with early color, and the tulips planted in tended rows in the stone planters near the fountain are peaking up through the soil, but not yet in bloom.

Still, it's cold - cold enough to snow. There's that promise in the air, metallic - and the people drawn out of their apartments and condos to bask in the late afternoon spring sun are driven in as soon as dusk gathers in the shadows and the wind rises from the lake.

Most of them. The street vendors are open later, flanking Millennium park, the fountain square. There's a sausage vendor - the sort who stir fries peppers and onions to go with the Italian sausage he serves up by the pound - still open, though he's dismantling his umbrella, hoping to unload the last of his cooked sausages for whatever he can get for them.

She buys two, with the works, and a large bag of Salt and Vinegar potato chips. He thinks he should offer her a hand, or a discount, or ask why a woman that pregnant is alone in the park at this hour, eating dinner from a street cart. Then he offers her a drink as a bonus and she picks chocolate milk and the light gleams across the surface of her eyes and he can feel the animal in her. Thinks better of whatever he was going to say, and does not even ask when she's due.

She carries the brown paper bag - translucent with grease from the sausages, onions and peppers - in one hand, the milk in the other, and finds a picnic table near the lake's edge. It's dark and cold, and the lake seems limitness from here. Kora sits on the top of the picnic table, her boots on the seat, and unpacks her meal. It's nothing like running, every step feels heavy.

From a distance, Imogen is unlikely to recognize her until she shakes off the hood of her jacket. Fair hair catches the light as it uncoils around her neck. She looks up, eyes narrowed against the glare of the path lights, watching the jogging kinswoman with the unerring precision of a wolf.

[Rain] After a late night in the Brotherhood and the subsequent trip across town to return to the stout Cabrini church, Rain had precious little time to sleep before morning broke and wriggled her fingers through the bright places in grimy window panes, through the fainter colors in the stained glass. Monday began all too abruptly, sweeping in with a crispness unbecoming of Spring. She was up and moving before she had time to grouse about the cold, barely stopping in the kitchen to make something hot to drink and a little bowl of instant oatmeal before stomping off into the morning to catch her ritual assortment of buses that brought her into the city.

Moreover, of late, she'd been going into town without her guitar. Last Watch knew little of the why, save that money and food kept finding its way into the kitchen, stocked away in the pantry and coolers or tucked into an envelope and secured to the aging fridge with a very strong magnet. The Gaian songbird was scarce, and not because of whatever was hunting the Kinfolk or the company that Kora's people kept.

She was busy. There is light, still, in the sky, painting it with exalted pastels, framing the clouds in last gleaming edges that will dim to pewter, dull to an orange-dark in the reflected light of the city all too soon. The sky dims to lilac, to indigo, to night.

Rain walks with her hands in her coat pockets and her chin tipped up. She does not look like a thing afraid of what may linger at the water's edge, or behind the sausage vendor's cart, or at the margins of the park where it meets the metropolis that engulfs it, buries it in city-noise and people. She's watching the slip of a moon, already transited most of the way across the heavens, wasting away, waning. This path will bring her past Kora's table, across Imogen's running route. It's incidental, but a simple fact.

They will convene. For now there is solitude; soon there will be company. Nothing lasts for too long in this Windy City.

[Imogen] The chill, the time of night, makes this a rather barren place. She's not seen anyone for a while, and the heavily pregnant woman in the distance gets little more than a passing glance, at least until Imogen is close enough to recognize the Fenrir Jarl.

At this point in her pregnancy, Kora must feel like she will be pregnant forever. The memories of her swift litheness, the visceral power of her body, more shadow than tangible. The sight of someone else performing a task of which she is currently incapable, bringing a sense of disconnect as she can only look at a movement of muscle and joint and feel precisely how her body cannot do that anymore.

She slows some distance from the picnic table, is walking by the time she reaches it, plucking a water bottle from its mesh container strapped to her body.

"Dinner, is it?" she asks, her voice breathless about the edges.

[Fiona] [*descends*]

to†Imogen

[Maddox] [kinfolk, prepare to surrender your undergarments to me: char + perf]

[Kora] She dreams of running; all fours, the ground under her feet, her pack arrayed around her, their song rising against the vast, impenetrable dark. She wakes with the remembered scent of blood in her mouth, the pulse of adrenaline in her veins sending her from sleep to waking in an eyeblink. The kid - restless, restless with her dreams, restless in her body - moves, will not settle, and she rises and paces, arms crossed, silent through the corridors of the old church as if that movement - walking, two-legs, one body - might somehow soothe her need to run.

The steadiness of her gaze on Imogen as she runs is - sharp, shearing, though the hunger there is lost in the shadows. At least the moon is small tonight, a sliver, its song long and quiet in the back of the beat of her heart.

By the time Imogen is that close, Kora's broken off the look, started to unpack her meal from the brown paper bag. The scent of the sausage and peppers is distinct, savory in the cold air.

"Mid-evening snack," returns the Fenrir, wry as she flattens the paper bag to serve as a placemat. The sausages of overloaded with peppers and onions, and the extra valu! bag of chips crickles in her hands as she opens it. The sharp scent of vinegar fills the air when the foil bag gives way. " - of champions, mind. I suppose since you're out jogging I won't be able to tempt you with a chip or twelve."

[Maddox] There is a shadow in residence at The Brotherhood of Thieves. It is slight, and for the most part, it stays out of sight, taking whatever bed happens to be free for now. More often than not, this means the door to room 4 is closed at night. The Coltranes have met this shadow, of course. It has flirted shamelessly with the scarred blonde woman, in full view of her husband no less. It hasn't claimed a spot for itself, though, and it comes and it goes.

Tonight, it's out, sitting on a bench facing the darkened lake. It is a slight beast in human form, tall and lanky, with dark disheveled hair and eyes hidden behind sunglasses for now. Maddox Cartwright, so far still an unknown to most of Chicago's Garou population, sits with his acoustic nestled in his lap, fingers flying across the strings. If it were earlier in the night, with the western sky still light with the freshly set sun, the melody would be slow, mournful, melancholy.

The tune he plays is light and free, fingers deft despite the chill. Somewhere nearby, the elder of a tribe and a pure bred kinswoman meet. Somewhere else near is a songbird, walking alone. And on the bench is a shadow, the dull bright cherry of the cigarette held between his lips the only light. He draws them with his melody, draws the humans but it's not for them that he plays.

Without missing a beat, his head turns toward the Child of Gaia. There's no breeding to call out to his senses and let him know what she is. Even so, the shadows of his face shift, and if Rain happens to look his way, the guitarist is smiling around that cigarette.

[Imogen] Imogen's mouth twists slightly as she takes a deep swallow from the bottle. "If I thought yeh smoked," she says, "I might ask yeh for a cigarette. I don't think I can stand judgement on a few crisps."

She leans forward, one hand lifting to her face to push loosened strands of hair back, tucking them back behind her ear as she turns the bag slightly so she can read the flavour.

"However," she says, pushing it back as she straightens, "I can't abide what yeh Americans call salt 'nd vinegar. You're on yer own."

She can hear a guitar playing, a quiet, light tune and she turns her head slightly to the sound.

[Rain] The sound of music in the park slows her steps. Soon Rain's chin has tipped down again and she is rooted to her place, off center of the path, hands in her pockets still and eyes unwaveringly open. An accutely tuned ear does not need to cast about for the source of the melody, no, she knows from where it emanates. Her feet may be rooted, but her gaze is cast toward that source, her shoulders turned toward him.

So it is that she doesn't quite make it to the table where Kora and Imogen are gathered, not yet. And it's possible that the guitarist catches her looking his way, with a note of appreciation on her features, something less admiring and fawning than the average fangirl. Rain, in turn, offers him a small smile, a little lift of her chin, a show of some sort of imagined solidarity.

She does not approach. Her blood is silent as to her Tribal ties. There's a moment, then, when they take each other's measure. A moment of exchanged smiles. Rain stands where she is and looks not at him while he plays, but across the distance to something unseen. She takes a moment to listen, and soon, he can imagine, she'll pick up with her walking again.

[Hunter] Where there is food there is a gnawer. The smells of sausages waft through the air of grant park and out of one of the bushes stalks a wolf. It doesn't look like any normal wolf, it looks like a man in fact.

Hunter Matthews turns his head left and right before green eyes settle on the Fenrir in Fianna clothing and the Queen of the Vikings. Then he sees the food. It's this that makes him grin and it's this that makes him wander over more than anything else. Or at least that's what he would claim if questioned.

Boots touch down heavily on grass and path and grassy path until he's entering their little bubble. Somewhere there is music drifting along like the soundtrack to a lovers dream. Hunter fucking hates romcoms.

"Sup Kora, Imogen."

A beat.

"I see ya' have food."

[Maddox] Soon she'll pick up on her walking again, yes. Maybe. Possibly perhaps. They watch each other, Garou and Kin, not fully aware of what rather than whom they are looking at. There's Rage, of course, some vague sense of menace emanating from the man on the bench, playing the beautiful tune, but it's as insignificant as a candleflame compared to the gathering over yonder. This is nothing the Child can't handle.

They smile to each other. She's too far off for him to read her expression all that well, and it's dark, and he's wearing sunglasses. He doesn't need to see the exact features of the girl's face, anyway. Still grinning, the rougishness faded in the twilight, and still playing, he tips his head at her, tilts it back. Come closer, my sweet. She may not see the gesture, looking away at something far off as she is, and Maddox doesn't let his attention drift for very long. Eventually he turns his head back to face straight ahead, and tips his chin up. One might imagine that his eyes are closed behind his sunglasses. One would be correct.

[Fiona] The landscape's a lot like one of those hidden pictures images where there are a number of - get ready for a revelation - hidden objects within the landscape. The landscape could be perfectly serviceable: a park - a path; an evening sky, shading bright into dark; it could be benches, and trashcans, an abandoned water fountain with rust pooling at its base like a relic of some barbaric sacrifice [city funds]. But then! The closer look reveals: well, fairies, wings folded, cruel-faced, laughing, if this hidden pictures book belongs to Fiona Rogers, age six, which it doesn't, because she isn't aged six anymore, hasn't been for practically a whole decade, but it could reveal other things: clocks, thieves, whatever. Werewolves. Werewolf kin. Grant Park: thrown into sudden relief - the man playing gorgeousness froma guitar, smoking and smiling at the woman walking with her hands in her coats pockets, Unicorn-blooded, feet drawing her closer to a woman whose carriage tells stories of savage, poetic monsters, whose carriage is a queen's and whose hair is a torch, to a woman who's heavy, who's a stoppered jar of transformation contained, denied, and there's Hunter, hungry, grinning - and yeah, these people.

They're hidden pictures, see? They aren't what they seem.

And here's another -

Girl. Teenager, young, youthful, very, with a coat that has sleeves just an inch too long, that's just a little too big, just a little too awkward. Dark jeans that're dirty at the knees, grass-stained on the butt. Werewolf, though whatever rage she's got is well-buried, well-hidden, which is a good thing because it's a school night, because it's Monday, because homework was due and not done, because, because they tease, they do, and earlier she was sitting on the school bus with her skinny legs hauled up to her chest, determinedly reading her book while Someone poked her arm, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again, snickering when she didn't know how to react, moving on to tweaking her hair, and she'd looked over her shoulder, known who it was, KNOWN, but they didn't stop, and sometimes telling yourself that seriously you can totally turn into a monster and KILL people is not the comfort one might imagine.

Which is all to say, Fiona Rogers decided not to go home, decided to go to the Docks, was there upset, decided to bus to the park, and now it's late, and she's "walking" -- wandering in a line that sort've heard about what "straight" means once upon a time -- with her head down, squinting at the book in her hands, trying to read before the twilight's entirely gone, reading by path light, by shadow, reading:

'Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am,' said the Dwarf cheerfully. 'But that's a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You've no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.'

But blood tells. Blood tells! Blood up and YELLS.

Fiona does sneak little glances up now and then, mostly gauging the light and the pathlight, more and more hunched over Prince Caspian, and her gaze snags across Imogen and Kora -- then skitters (! noise!) over to - a sound. There's a sound - it's - a pretty? - and - no, that was soundtrack, that was - maybe it's the fairy people because it is twilight and that is when they come out maybe maybe oh please maybe and that must be Slaughter and she is a queen so of course they would play by her oh god oh god do I look okay -

And she is so distracted by her speculation on the origin of guitar music that she walks

smack

into Rain. Unless evasive maneuver is immediately accomplished.

[Kora] "The street vendors don't carry Pringles," the Skald returns, pulling back the bag of chips as Imogen dismisses all American iterations of salt and vinegar. Maybe a bit mournful. "And he was out of barbeque." Which is the closest flavor to Bacon Double Cheeseburger she can imagine. Maybe if you took a bag of cheese and sour cream and crushed it up with a bag of barbeque it would begin to approach the taste bud nirvana of bacon double cheeseburger Pringles to the pregnant Garou's warped, twisted taste buds.

The foil crinkles with every movement of the bag, and the scent of the damn things - mixed with the deeper, heavier smell of the sausages - is particularly sharp in the cold air. Kora's sitting forward on the picnic table, enough that it looks like she's turning on the fulcrum of her stomach somehow. Each movement is made more awkward by her stomach too. She cannot bend forward, not far, cannot see her feet, cannot (it seems) ever ease the tension in her lower back and lower abdomen.

She cuts a glance over her shoulder, following the direction of Imogen's glance with the music in the air. Dark eyes touch on Rain, then Maddox, lingering on the former rather than the latter. She turns back as Hunter approaches, offering the Bone Gnawer a faint curl of her generous mouth by way of greeting, then holding out the bag of chips by way of offer. "Italian sausages. That dude with the yellow and red stripped umbrella by the fountain makes the best around here. Got an extra if you're hungry."

[Starla] It isn't coincidence that brings her to the picnic table, just a secret dalliance with one of the other vendors that had taken one of Roman's kin away from Kora's side in search of a certain craving for coffee. Starla had kept a pace behind the Jarl's heels, accompany her for no other reason that to not be alone in the church. A mumbled exchange saw the dusky-skinned kin off in search of that a warm beverage; the quest complete, the journey home was wrought with - no excitement.

A warm mist curls around the dark crown of hair that sweeps down her shoulders, twisted and plaited, two loose braids meet at the points of her hips. She wrinkles her nose, savoring the sweet, aroma of hazelnut and chocolate coffee that mingles together in the large white Styrofoam cup, warming the palm of her right hand through the thin cotton glove.

Starla arched an eyebrow, pale green eyes skimming over the small gathering of faces that collect around the Jarl. First to Imogen, and then straying to Hunter before she finally pulls them back to the Jarl. Music wafts in the air, she tilts her head away trying to listen for it, to understand the melody, but it's appreciation is lost on her. She wasn't as musically-inclined as others.

[Kora] "What the hell's wrong with American salt, anyway?" Kora continues, dark eyes swinging back to Imogen. "Or with American vinegar?"

[Imogen] "Hunter," Imogen returns the greeting as she stretches, a small muscle at a time, her movements subtle. When he asks about the food, the doctor's mouth quirks slightly. "Bone Gnawer, aren't you?" she asks.

Kora demands a question - Imogen's smirk lingers as she turns her head. "S'not an insult t'yer entire nation," she remarks, placidly, for once meaning nation with a small 'n'. "Yeh just can't be expected to get th'balance right."

Starla is nearby now, in sight. Imogen's gaze flicks there, before lifting her chin toward the younger woman, pointing her out to Kora.

[Rain] They have been admonished to be alert, to be mindful, to be wary, to be watchful and Rain has listened, more or less, in the way that children and young adults listen, more or less, when told to do things that they already do, but this time with some urgency, with some immediacy, with some pressing Something hanging over their heads that was (imagined to) not (be) there before. She is not entirely lost to the music man's song, not ready to hie and and away with this pied piper, no. She sees the teenager approaching, just in time.

No! Not just in time. Just a moment later than just in time. In time enough to not fall over when the redhead wanders, straight line or otherwise, into the left half of her back. Rain turns a bit, gets an arm out in front of her, either to steady the girl or herself should they fall. Or to something. Something. Surely she had some sort of plan that wasn't base and instinctual reaction. Right? (Maybe.)

"Oh, hey, are you okay there?" she says, and maybe her voice reaches the table, or the bench, filtering into the awareness of someone beyond this entangled duo. It's possible, see, because they are all close enough to hear the dulcet strums of an accoustic guitar and that is neither so loud nor so throaty as to carry for far. And her voice is warm, it has a note of rising above, of carrying: she carries, more and further than they might suppose: endures. It does not die out easily into the night.

She doesn't say with sharpness watch where you're going. No. Rain looks the girl over, making sure she's alright, pats her on the arm once as she steps away. No harm done.

[Hunter] "If I'm hungry." He repeats back to her with a scoff and reaches his hand for some of the goodies. Crunch. "I'm always fuckin' hungry." Which is probably not the right thing to say becomes Imogen has this to offer:

Bone Gnawer, aren't you?

And now he has no defence. He can't claim tribe-ism or oppression by those who think they are better because he just walked right into that stereotype. All he can do is give her a flat look, but with raised eyebrows like: Ha Ha very clever Imogen.

He's not very clever about these things.

Eyes follow the gazes and the point and he spots Starla. The kin gets a warm smile and a beckoning wave: come have a sausage!

"So," he says to Imogen and Kora. "Did ya' fill Imogen here on the fuckin' joyous occasion that was the meetin'? I'd hate for her to fuckin' miss out on all the fun."

[Starla] Starla's greeting is more verbal, friendlier to Imogen as she finds it easier to meet the smaller woman's eyes than she would Kora's or Hunter's. "Evenin', Doc Slaughter." The mid-western twang rumbles around her words, rolls off the tongue in a merrier drawl when she spoke.

She wasn't quite sure what the topic of conversation was revolving around, something about being a Gnawer and food, which pulls her eyes to Hunter again. A warm smile begets a broader grin from the Gaian kin, the freckles dancing across her skin on her left cheek and the bridge of her nose, scrunching it up cutely. She lifts her free hand to offer a small wave to the Gnawer, "Hey" as she's maneuvering around them to the empty half of the picnic table.

The coffee is set down, Starla turns with her back facing the edge, dropping her hands back to cover over the table's wooden surface and leans back, pushing herself up as she hops up to sit on it. The coffee retrieved; Starla's eyes widening slightly as Imogen is asked the question of the hour.

[Kora] "You know Starla, yeah?" Kora to Imogen, as the latter lifts her chin mildly toward Roman's cousin, pointing her out as she returns with coffee. To Hunter, too. There's a general tilt to the introduction. It's encompassing like that.

Nevermind that this isn't her territory, nevermind that this isn't a feasting hall, nevermind that they're on a park bench on a cold spring night and all she has are sausages, crisps and chocolate milk rather than mead and great haunches of meat turning on the fire: she'll share what's there. There's an instinctive grace to that that's larger than the place or position. Hunter grabs a handful of chips, and Kora holds out her chocolate milk a half-second later. Like it was a greeting cup, for fuck's sake.

Like Thorngrim Ghostsinger's giant paws were ghosting over her long, slender fingers. (Less than slender; she's retaining water.)

A glance back there, the collision between Rain and Fiona. A quick, close glance over her shoulder, a level look that is not alarmed, followed by a lift of the bag of chips by way of salute to Rain and Fiona.

"Naw," Kora returns to Hunter. "Too busy debating the finer points of crisp manufacturing. You heard about that though, yeah Doc? GE summoned the kin and tribe leaders, invited everyone to air out their grievances then - " A quiet, subtle snort. "Fucking - " Here, her mouth flattens, twists the rest of whatever she might've said next away. " - meetings. So damn much talk."

[Fiona] Fiona is not complicated. Fiona is no literary nymphet, adored by HH and other such suspects. Fiona mystifies noone except perhaps people who actually know her. Fiona, running into Rain, who saves her own balance and lends a steadying hand to the younger girl, makes a hiccup-gasp of surprise, and drops her book. The warm voice and the warm hand do something to assuage the anxiety that fills her eyes, the shy, kneejerk worry, chased by a sharper pang (but the fairyland door will leave now [if it's there] and the elfguitarist'll vanish [if he's really an elf]), and then a cautious smile. Her forehead crinkles up, eyebrows arcing, "Uhm. I. Uhm, yes. I'm - gosh, just so fucking stupid, I'm sorry, it's just," and she stoops down to collect her book, which is when tragedy strikes. The pages: they're bent. They're smooshed! The corners are folded quite noticeably in a way any booklover would just cringe at. The dust jacket is

[ominous music]

[a chord of doom]

ripped. "Oh no," Fiona murmurs, wretched, "Oh no, oh no oh no oh no oh no," and she pulls her turtle neck (she was wearing a turtle neck under that coat) up over her nose, to muffle the, "Oh no oh no." She gives Rain a look full of travesty, the utmost, utterly forgetting she doesn't even know Rain. "Do you think it can be fixed?"

[Maddox] Rain is right to be cautious. Something delivish and dangerous lurks the streets of Chicago. Of course, there's always something devilish and dangerous prowling this city's streets. One might suspect the guitarist on the bench is one such creature. After all, none present has seen him before. That doesn't mean he's a complete unknown. Two of his auspice know his name, one of them the elder in this city, and a third knows of him, thanks to a chance encounter in a hotel hallway. He's been sighted in The Brotherhood, but so far hasn't gone out of his way to impress himself upon the citizens of Chicago. There are those who know that he hasn't danced the spiral.

The kinswoman notices the girl coming toward her a moment too late. Maddox notices her a moment after that, when the sound of bodies colliding catches his attention. His playing stops abruptly, and he turns to look over his shoulder at the girls on the path.

And he laughs. The sound is slightly higher pitched than one might expect, but not piercing. It could be annoying to the right (or wrong) ear. Probably is. That's just Maddox all over. He doesn't start playing again, but rises, and shifts his guitar to rest against his back. With one hand he pulls the cigarette from his lips to blow a plume of smoke into the night air. The other removes his sunglasses, pushes them up his face to displace his hair in all directions before finding a natural spot to perch.

"Well well," he says, amused. One hand flicks ash from the cigarette, the other disappears into the pocket of a dark colored blazer. There's also a hooded sweatshirt, and jeans, and trainers. Keeping his pace leisurely slow, he wanders in the direction of Rain and Fiona. His eyes, visible now, are dark, intense, and focused for the moment. "Good evening, little birds. What have we got here?" He speaks with a touch of some muddled, faded accent that almost lends an air of sophistication to the skinny man. He looks at the book in Fiona's hands, his eyes go too wide. The hand removes from his blazer pocket to press to his chest, and he gasps audibly. "What did you do?" He holds out his hand for the tome. "Let's have a look then. Assess the damage."

[Izzy Montoya] Ah yes. The meetings. The stupid fuckin meeting. When Izzy stalked out, it wasn't far - it was to the nearest dive bar where she knows the bartender, where she proceeded to drink half the men under the table, and picking a likeable enough victim out of those that remained standing to follow home. This could possibly be the infamous 'walk of shame' of the day after - if she had an ounce of shame in her. It could be, but it's not, as that was hours ago and she's already put in a full day of work, and then some.

What it is, is a stop for a quick meal and coffee, because she's fuckin' hungry and needs caffeine and the park is one of the few areas she can get both AND nicotine all at the same time.

That she's here at the same time as the Jarl and company? Pure coincidence. Still, it happens that she has a cup of coffee - hot and black, just like... well, never you mind - in one hand, and a sausage in the other as she heads toward the picnic tables.

To her credit, she doesn't stop when she sees who is gathered there. She does have a feeling there will be some sort of... discussion... about what she had to say last night, though. Perhaps, in some way, it's like a bandaid. Rip it off, get it over with, quickly. No such thoughts show in her carefully guarded expression, however. There is simply recognition. That's all.

[Rain] There is a way that wolves know each other, they can scent it in each other, they can see something that kin cannot. Whatever Fiona is, it does not unnerve Rain to be near to her, tangled up for a moment in her; where others might bristle at even the quiet Rage suddenly at their backs, the songbird doesn't seem to notice it. Not at first. And then in only subtle ways. Fiona's wolf is subdued, in comparison to those at the table over yonder.

But now there are two unfamiliar wolves clustered around the kinswoman of Unicorn, and she unknowing of it in this very moment. There is sharp laughter -- sharp but not shrill; high but not piercing -- and deep worry. Rain rests a hand on the girl's shoulder, smiles warmly.

"Bent pages can be smoothed. Just place it under something heavy, y'know?" she suggests, and there's a warmth to her tone that makes it read as genuine, as open, bereft of ill-will or deception. Honest. Maddox takes up the tome, scolding the girl in the process and Rain's mouth thins a bit.

"She feels bad enough," the Gaian says, still unaware that she's standing up for (or up to) True. "You'd best help if you're going to rile her up like that," she says, weariness and some sort of protectiveness for the younger girl stepping in where her manners might have better bridged that gap.

Even still, even unknowing, some part of her twigs to the convergence here. Her hands go back into her pockets when she next has the chance; innately she separates herself a bit from them. The gold charm at her throat is buried beneath layers of cloth just now; still silent her blood offers them no suggestions. There is a glance, stolen, toward the table where the Queen of Vikings dines with pages and Knights from other Families.

[Imogen] "Starla," Imogen greets the other, neatly answering Kora's question as to whether or not the two of have met without saying a word.

Hunter's sarcastic - you are so damn clever - look in Imogen's direction is merely met by arched eyebrows that could likely be translated to a resounding affirmative. Why yes, she is that clever.

The subject moves on and rather quickly. Hunter asks if Kora has filled Imogen in. Kora offers an statement, an opinion.

"Don't worry," she assures Hunter, "I've been t'meetings before. I'm familiar wi' their dynamic." A flick of her glance toward Kora. "I heard a bit about it; Kinfolk Liaison, Sept Liaison." A faint smirk of her mouth, "More o' the same, though I imagine I'm one o' the only ones still about t'recall." Meetings in Hill House. Mary Alice at the centre, a packmate of the Grand Elder's - whose name she has forgotten - in the back as a representative.

A beat. She picks up her water, tipping it back to fill her mouth. Swallows. "Then they want a kinfolk to 'lead them all', I take it."

[Starla] "We've met - Hunter's a real White Knight when it comes to rescuing and protecting damsels." There is a playful jest in the tone of her voice, kept light as the conversation starts to grow heavy with the discussion of last night's meeting. Starla nods to Imogen behind her coffee cup, smiling, "Imogen."

The Gaian kin had fallen asleep through most of it, only to wake up and find out that Danicka had been placed in an esteemed title position that now made the renowned mate of that Shadow Lord dude, the voice of Chicago's kin. It plays across her thoughts as if she were swimming through murky water, cautious to even drop a passing comment on it.

Air passes through her nose in a noisy snerk, mouth occupied by the flimsy plastic lid of her coffee cup, sitting precariously from the hot beverage as she tried not to scald her tongue. Starla winces; the corners of her eyes crinkling up as she lowers the cup, the sugary liquid burned her tongue, the back of her mouth and throat as it warmed a path down into her stomach.

"That Danicka lady was crowned a liaison of the kinfolk, git's to sit in on moots and whatnots, be a mouth piece for the kin." She interjects at random, mouth flattening into that same thin-lipped frown she wore when she witnessed it last night. "Some guy named Matthieu gets to pucker up wit' Amy's alliance buddies."

Somewhere in the distance, Rain is making new friends, she has become a magnet for a pair of Fianna. Their shapes and motions slide along her peripheral, become the focal point of Starla's attention for several seconds as she watches the quiet display of their actions, unable to make out words that might form - just reads the faint lines of body language. She tucks her swings her legs back and forth, perched on the table, taking another swig at the scorching hot coffee, wincing.

[Maddox] A breath after she soothes the younger girl, the captivating young woman who he thinks might have some deeper appreciation for his playing than some silly, empty-headed thing, scolds. Maddox takes the book, but before he can fully look over the pages, he turns his head. Dark eyes bore into her face, and he does nothing to hide the way they travel down and back up again. He grins around his cigarette, probably because of that lewd glance, maybe for her moxie. "Shhhhhh..." he says, holding a finger up to his lips, and continues in a stage whisper, "what d'you think I'm doing, luv?"

And then he turns away. His focus shifts to the book in his hands. Fingertips slide over the bent pages, his expression thoughtful. Taking hold of the pages, he lets the book hang from his grasp before bracing the spine with his other hand. The pages get bent back, carefully, the touch gentler than Rain might imagine. There's still a kink when he's done, still a slight crease, but time spent closed should set that straight over time.

"That takes care of that," he says, and flips through the book. A brow rises briefly, lowers again, and he looks for signs of official looking stamps or little pockets for library check-out cards. Flicking his gaze to Fiona, he asks, "Is this borrowed?"

[Hunter] "Oh good," he says slyly to Imogen. "Just makin' sure we're all fuckin' equals in misery."

He slips this comment in somewhere though he says it quiet enough that he's not intruding on the flow of the conversation. Nearby there's a kinfolk and she's sitting on a picnic table. Apparently he's real White Knight and while that might make another Garou puff up with pride it just makes Hunter scowl, though there's a certain amusement in the expression.

This description of him obviously isn't a new one.

Silence for the rest of it, until Starla is done explaining and there's a rumble from the back of his throat, a slight bristling of Rage at the comments.

"Didn't say nuthin' at the time, was half fallin' a fuckin' sleep when it all came out. I dunno about this kinfolk at the fuckin' moot crap though. I mean the Gee Eee is the god damn Gee Eee so what does my opinion matter?"

He snorts.

"Just don't know about it s'all. Don't know what the need is."

[Fiona] Elves are cruel. Not in Tolkien: the elves in Tolkien are noble and just and beautiful. They're not real. Fiona's not stupid. She totally gets that (although she is also prepared to discuss matters in their language, should they ever decide to become real). Elves are cruel in all the stories. Maddox's muddled accent does not escape clarity when Fiona listens to it, and she pegs him as a man from a place where a fairy might well decide to pretend to be human. Fiona is standing with the book in her hand like it's a piece of the spear that got Jesus and she's a Catholic like it's some kind of broken holy relic like if she moves it'll dissolve like she's made out of fire and the book's spun of cotton candy and that's not going to last at all. For a second: her eyes go blank. Wide, unblinking. She is considering who she will run down and play a game with for the ability to scent out the true form of strangers at twilight. It'd be useful. Why didn't she think of it before?

And while she's considering this, back of her mind consideration, like an itch, her throat is filling up with despair, is closing with saliva, and she swallows, actually flinching at the what did you do, murmuring, "It's broken. Do you, uhm. Do you really think, do," and her eyes go bright luminous. She's not crying, mind, but the possibility is there. If she blinks, water'll gather in the corner of her eyes. "Do you, uhm, do you think smoothing it will," and she holds the book out to Maddox, shaking from adrenaline and (contained) despair. She is a teenager; these things are dramatic. "That just smoothing it will work?"

When the book's been taken, she starts biting on her pinkynail, although she offers Rain a quick smile, while watching what Maddox is doing like a vicious hungry-for-mice hawk: "It's, it's okay. Boys are always mean and kind of like - uhm they are. They're kind of - what are you doing that doesn't look okay that looks - "

Then he's handing the book back and she stares at it. The dust jacket is still ripped, but, but, but hey, that's not too bad. " - thanks, London."

[Fiona] ooc: Erk! Wait. *adds*

"And uhm." Her shoulders round with guilt. "Yes. It's my brother's."

[Rain] There's something almost magical about having a true teenager in their midst (little does Rain know), whose adept twist at melodrama has nothing to do with Rage (except when it does) and is bent more toward the immediacy of everything in those fragile years. Rain was probably like that, once, somewhere between the ages of twelve and whenever-the-fuck-it-was that she left home.

That year. When she was the same age her brother had been. When it held a certain sort of symmetry. When she'd had enough, and enough means, and a good enough excuse and there'd been an open road. Before she'd been Found, and broken, and remolded. Before she'd been Unicorn's or anyone else's. So maybe it's that she sees a slip of something so profoundly normal in Fiona's hysteria, and in the cruel-kind way that Maddox both toys with it and remedies it, that floods Rain's expression with amusement, twines it around her resident warmth, gentles whatever borderline concern she might have had to be unwittingly amongst wolves in the dusky hours of twilight.

"I've got some tape in my bag," Rain says, offering out the suggestion with a raise of her eyebrow and a little motion that would lead to pulling her hand out of her pocket should Fiona show interest. "I'm almost always fixing my sheet music," she admits, easily, as if it were one of those things that just happened of its own accord, through no misuse or malady. A little shrug.

If desired, this little bit of clear-bodied tape is produced and proferred to the penitent teen.

For Maddox, then, a side-slipped smile, a faint cousin of a smirk, at the way that his eyes travel (but not quite self-possessed enough to bespeak some worldly wisdom, just comprehension, the subtle challenge of a thing that does not expect in any way to be chased: innocence [folly]). "Nice trick," she tells him. For the way he handled the book, or the teen, or maybe even his guitar, which she eyes, now, with a similar appreciation to the way he looked her up and then down again.

There is a measure of approval in her eyes when they meet his, briefly -- another sign that she does not yet know him for what he is.

[Kora] Starla's comment about Hunter protecting damsels earns the kinswoman a longer look; direct and dark-eyed, the unblinking, unbending sort. The sort that recalls the wolf she is, underneath, makes unrevealing reflective pools of her eyes. It's steady, watchful, judgment withheld but the sharpness of it so immediate as to be immanent.

When Izzy approaches, her own sausage in hand, the detective receives a subtle lift of a chin from the heavily pregnant Skald. Just a greeting. Whatever she's dreading appears to be overshadowed by other issues.

"If I have to hear about the concerns of my tribe's kin from the mouth of a poncy, long-winded Silver Fang - " Her nostrils flare with an exhaled breath and she shakes her gleaming head. The empty hood of her seatshirt moves across her spine, half-driven by the slow-uncoiling weight of her hair. "I will eat a fucking hat and then kick someone's goddamned ass."

A glance back at Imogen, then. "We nominated you for the position. Grand Elder picked the Shadow Lord's mate. She's got this batshit chick as her sidekick, too. Doc, I've been here how long, and the only time I've seen that woman was in the fucking underworld." Here, she breathes out. "Monty - tried to work with them last year, remember? Undermined him at every turn. I've got no clue what the next step is, but for fuck's sake, Doc. They wanna make squandrons of attack-kin, or some shit. As if they were Black Eagle.

"The Sept needs more than a Shadow Lord and her batshit sidekick leading the kin."

[Izzy Montoya] Hunter doesn't get it, and Izzy's close enough to the conversation by this point to have heard what they are discussing, and hear who was appointed. She snorts. Which is what got her into trouble last night.

The need. That's what he doesn't get. "Power." She stops, and takes a swallow of toohot coffee and grimaces as it scalds her tongue, then takes another swig anyway.

"Control. She finally got what she fuckin wanted when she headed this shit up before. She just waited till some crazy bitch fucked up bad enough to get to weasel her way in and take control."

No secret that Izzy has very little use for Shadowlords - and since she's not fucking either of them, she has no use for them at all. A simple woman, our Izzy, at the core.

She nods to Kora, and comes to a stop near the table, setting her cup down, so that she can take a bite of her sausage. She was there before. She saw what happened - and that they let the crazy-bitch take any part? She snorts again. "I shoulda shot that bitch when I had the chance."

She might be kidding.

Likely - not so much.

(scene sort of fizzled there from my end. went to bed!)