Goldie
The first day of October came in like an angry old lion from out of the mountains. The skies were a particular bright blue above, without many clouds except a few here or there to show how quick and harsh the wind was blowing up above. The day was bright, but it was very chill, and to the west storm clouds were building a big gray bank over the tops of the mountains. The forecasts called for thunderstorms, and from the looks of it this evening would be a doozy.
It was early evening, or late afternoon, depending on who you asked. Around the time that many office workers and nine-to-fivers were getting off work and beginning their commute home. In the LoDo district of Denver, downtown where the buildings were old and grand and marked as historic sites with little plaques out in front to explain their history.
In Denver a large number of people drove, but it was the heart of the city, so many people walked and waited for buses as well. It made for good cover to slip unnoticed from one place to the next in.
Enter Goldie Lennox, taking advantage of the surge of human traffic to exit a building she certainly wasn't supposed to be in without drawing unwanted attention. One of the historic buildings that housed a financial advisory business on the bottom floor and several offices (contractors and legal services and the like) in the six other stories above it.
She dressed in a big burgandy sweater, large enough that it fell past her hips in length and slouched from her shoulder in its width. She had a black knit cap on her head to bite back the chill, as well as a gray knit scarf around her neck. Dark jeans so tight that it was a curiosity as to how she got them on and then proceeded to walk the town comfortably in them dipped into ankle-high boots; brown wood at the heel, gray leather elsewhere.
The wind immediately picked up her sandy-blond hair, for it was worn unbound, and tossed it about her face. Goldie made a bit of a face and took the sunglasses that had been (somehow) tucked away into her scarf, and put them over her eyes instead, blotting out the bright-bright sun from above so she wouldn't need to squint while she scanned the sidewalk and street she was about to step onto, making good use of her vantage point from the top of a broad, squat, grand looking staircase that led up to this particular historic treasure of LoDo Denver.
Otto
In his black overcoat and deep gray suit, he should blend in with the crowd of humans that move like schools of tuna, trapped in the narrow streets of the urban sea. He walks with the group, following along one side of the sidewalk, dodging the strays that weave and duck through the rest, trying to get to the front of the line. With him is a brunette who is reasonably tall by his side, slender in her pant-suit and similar overcoat. Otto presses a hand to her back, guiding her through the masses, using his body as some protective guard against the onslaught coming the other way. Unlike her, he shines in the crowd. It has nothing to do with his blonde hair or his features and yet everything to do with it. She can't smell him from stairs, wouldn't be able to even a couple of steps behind him, not with this mass of pungent after-work colognes, but his ancestral aura nags at her gut all the same.
He doesn't notice her, the sandy haired young woman standing atop some stairs, but he pauses all the same. Stepping back from the crowd, he fits into little alcove at the base of the stairs and slips a phone from his pocket. While he checks the screen and proceeds to answer it, the brunette - who may very well just be a human in her late twenties - pauses with him and politely watches the crowd while her companion is busy on the phone.
Goldie
There was honest surprise that the little Fianna had to process upon arriving in Denver. Well, not when she arrived exactly, but more when she started to branch out into the Garou community here. It was astonishing how this place was a magnet for heroes and their kin. It seemed that many royal lines of old, for a couple of the tribes, had sent representatives out here to try and crack the code that was the Pit down in the basement of 1999 Broadway. She would feel more self conscious about her own lineage if that was the way that Goldie operated.
As though to illustrate a point, there came a misplaced sort of cold breeze, different from the one that tugged her hair, as though it had blown in from another continent and era entirely, and as though it could cut a chill past her bones and into her core. Behind the big black sunglasses she was wearing, Goldie's eyes went wide with interest and she skimmed the crowd, hunting hunting hunting for where that cold could have come from. It didn't take long to see the shining silver man in the crowd of people that Goldie herself would never call sheep but let's face it they may as well be.
"Ooh," she said to herself, and grinned. "And who's this?"
"Me?", inquired a woman in her thirties that was passing down the stairs to Goldie's left.
Goldie ignored her.
Instead, she stepped down with a few bouncing steps off the old stone stairs she'd been previously stationed on, and dipped her way into the sea of bodies. It was her plan to blend in with the crowd, but as it just so happened the crowd she was trying to meld in with while being watchful of the Kinsman and his companion with eyes and ears both had been gathered around a sign that marked a bus stop. The bus pulled up with a sigh of brakes and suspension, and the crowd filtered on leaving Goldie oddly exposed on the sidewalk a dozen feet or so away.
"Well shit," she muttered to herself, and settled instead for jamming her hands into her pants pockets and leaning against the bus stop sign to watch and grin and look downright malicious if you didn't know better.
-----------
kenna @ 6:11PM
[Dex 3 + Stealth 4: Shadowing in the crowd!]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 7) ( success x 1 )
Otto
It's like the curtain has drawn back and poor Goldie is exposed, alone on the stage. Such a dramatic difference in the scenery gets the Kinfolks attention, even if he was preoccupied on the phone. When his gaze first lands on her she's of little interest but as recognition dawns he smiles and lifts his chin, in time with a raise of his brows, in a universal silent greeting. Then, he's looking away, going so far to turn his shoulder to her so that he can finish his phone conversation with a little more privacy.
"No, that won't do," he tells the caller. "Arrangements have been in place for two months now and contracts have already been signed. I understand that unforeseeable circumstances arise but they should have called earlier."
After a longer pause, which has the kinsman nodding; "Yes. Do that. Between noon and one tomorrow should be fine."
"Yes." - "Yes. Good."
The brunette with hazel eyes looks at Goldie throughout this time, at first just stealing small glances but, as it becomes obvious the girl is watching them, stares back at her more solidly. She has a professional demeanor, hands clasped around a briefcase she holds before her, shoulders relaxed but spine straight. Attentive now, no longer sweeping lazy glances across the sea of people.
"Talk then, Dean."
Otto hangs up the phone.
Goldie
It's difficult to gauge if eye contact is being made or not when the other person is wearing sunglasses, but this particular other person had a spark of Rage to burn embers from behind those tinted lenses. So when Otto glanced over, then glanced again when the lithe petite figure and dusty-blonde hair struck a chord of familiarity, he knew full well that Goldie was looking right back at him. She even went so far as to return the smile and take a hand from her pocket so she could wriggle cold fingers at him in a wave.
Then there was the woman with the darker hair that was watching her attentive and careful. Goldie canted her head a bit to the side and observed the professional demeanor and grip on the briefcase, but oh of course you know she had an ear tuned in to what she could catch from the phone conversation across the abbreviated distance.
When the phone disconnected, Goldie lifted her chin and called a greeting.
"Nothing refreshes after a long day at the office quite like this brisk mountain breeze, right? Or an incredibly stiff drink, if it was that kind of a day." She smiled and shifted her eyes to the hazel-eyed lady; this next question was addressed to her specifically. "You two aren't on the way to a meeting, right? I don't want to be making anyone late."
Otto
The moment he's off the phone Goldie is already addressing him. He closes his mouth, pausing in his greeting, to smile at her. Youth. They were always in a rush, quick to say something, do something, be somewhere. He understood it though, this quick pace that makes the world turn, quicker and quicker, like time is running out. Maybe the humans knew.
"Goldie, this is Sarah, dear friend and business associate." He introduces the Garou to the stranger at his side first because of some ingrained courtesy protocol. And it's better to introduce the potential dangerous hazard to the less likely one to cause harm, like introducing a dangerous, dare he think it, animal to a friend when bringing them into the home.
Then he follows with: "Sarah, this is Miss Goldie. An associate of the nation." There's capitals there though not as obvious as to throw around some quote signs. These are two savvy Kinfolk that don't need everything spelled out.
"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Goldie." Sarah extends her hand, stepping forward to offer a polite handshake.
"And no, we're done for the day and heading to catch a bite to eat," Otto tells Goldie, fitting his phone back into his pocket.
Goldie
Space had to be closed for the conversation to become more proper and personal, and when Goldie recognized this (as Otto was doing the kindness of introducing the woman and revealing her as a Kinswoman (he did mention the Nation, after all) she pushed away from the bus stop so she could stride on over to the shelter created from the crowd by the staircase she'd walked from several minutes before.
Sarah, as she's introduced, has her hand shaken in precisely the manner you would expect a young person without a lick of professionalism to do; she was not firm or slow, but instead squeezed Sarah's hand lightly and wriggled it up and down enthusiastically a few quick times before letting go. She presumed the woman was probably a Glass Walker, based on the business attire and lack of breeding. You didn't come across many Silver Fangs that didn't come from some extended line of thrones, after all.
"Good to meet you too, ma'am!" Look at her, she even threw a 'ma'am' in there.
The wind kept on blowing and Goldie adjusted the sweater and scarf both so she was better covered (less bare shoulder for now) and rubbed her hands together to generate friction heat for them. These little take-cares didn't distract her from the conversation at hand, though.
"Oh? A proper date? Golly, how intrusive of me, I really ought to just let you be on your way.
"Although....," she drawled out immediately afterward, arguing her own observation and rolling her eyes up toward the sky, toward the storm clouds thoughtfully. "It would be downright irresponsible of me to let the two of you off unescorted; do you know the wriggly slimy beasties that nest in these alleyways? No joke, just some five or six blocks that way--" and Goldie gestured vaguely to the east to indicate, "I killed a fungus monster last week. It wanted to eat my roommate. Makes me nervous that another might be waiting to gobble you two up as well."
Otto
"No, not a date," Sarah interjects, killing that idea before it could grow some legs. Her personal feelings about that matter, about that whole idea, where quite firmly squashed away. They were dear friends and business associates, Otto had said himself, and she seems quite willing to go along with this idea.
Otto, at the same time, had laughed softly, which was probably the wrong response in front of any woman that might be gushing over him and gave a light shake of his head. "Nothing proper about the cafe on the corner." A proper date would involve so much more than that coming from this man. Expectations, reputations, these things went hand in hand.
There's proper and then there's the very casual way in which Otto, after Goldie has explained about fungus monsters, which doesn't make the Fang or other Kin bat an eyelid. "You can't escort us everywhere, Miss Goldie. But you need no excuse, I was about to ask if you should like to join us."
"You," Sarah says, throwing Otto and Goldie an apologetic smile. "I never agreed to dinner and I've got to get home if we want to get this contract drafted before tomorrow's meeting."
Goldie
To say that there wasn't some brief flickering lightning bug of relief and minor excitement when Sarah insisted that this wasn't a date, and Otto confirmed there was nothing proper about it, would be a lie. Goldie Lennox was a New Moon, a creature born of mischief. With her Philodox mother absent for everything past the first decade of her life, the firm authority that she remembered as a child didn't quite carry into the years that developed her into an adult. Goldie knew that there were boundaries to be minded when it came to bantering with Kinfolk from other tribes (especially the Silver Fangs, Goldie dear, so don't be stupid), but still... that much promise on blood and visage would still provoke little dances in the gut and whimsy clenches in the chest.
Even moreso when he extends the invitation to a casual cafe dinner to you directly.
Goldie was all big brown eyes of hope and glee while this went down, up to Sarah's smiling decline to join. At which point...
"Well that's a crying shame," she said, per Sarah's need to get home and finish some work. "Because you know cafe dinners, it's sandwich and soup and that's fine but the coffee, that's always what keeps you around talking and talking until that thing--" and she pointed back up to the West, to the sky, where the clouds gathered and built upon themselves into an ever-threatening bank.
"But," she smiled big enough that her lips parted now (not painted any particular color for once, left nude for what was truthfully the first day in a week) to show teeth, ever so slightly bigger in the front two (buck-toothed, charmingly in an odd way [Americana]) and looked to Otto instead.
"I'm real glad you invited. I would be delighted."
Otto
He watches on with a small smile playing on his lips, just a dash of mirth with his politeness, as Goldie tries to (not) convince Sarah about the greatness of coffee and something about storms. The gesture to the sky does make tilt his chin to glance up to the dark heavens above, while Sarah continues to look squarely at the young, animated before her.
"Not all coffee is great," she disagrees as though she's an expert on this and she probably is. It's easy to imagine a great whopping machine on her slick kitchen counter, with all the bells and whistles of modern technology, spitting out some fine brew of coffee beans imported from exotic places where it's been exported for centuries, filling her over sized apartment with the heady aroma of coffee brew. She probably has her coffees with skim milk, too.
"Good," is all Otto says to Goldie, glad rather than being short with her, before he turns to Sarah.
"There will be time to do that in the morning, so take some time out. You can't burn at both ends of the candle." He leans in and kisses her cheek in a familiar gesture that also lives in the gentle way he touches her arm before pulling back.
"Said the pot to the kettle." Sarah's smile brings warmth to her face, shattering the illusion that she's a stiff, incapable of anything but a boardroom stare. She stole a kiss from the Fang's cheek in turn and steps back to give Goldie a small wave of her hand, a lift of fingers from the briefcase really. "Good to meet you, Goldie. Take care."
Otto watches her walk off, disappearing into the moving crowd, before looking back to his much younger companion and offers her the crook of his arm. "Shall we?"
Goldie
Goldie laughed, the sound the same rash and bold sounding thing you'd expect out of a spritely thing like her (of a Tribe, her own line not established of heros but of peasants, of the earth that has always been there, faithful and steadfast and sure) and scrubbed her hands together for friction-warmth once more, for golly that wind was nippy and sharp even though the sky was deceptively pleasantly blue (though the occasional cloud did race across the sky to give a visual to how the wind did blow).
"Is that actually how Silver Fangs live life? I mean, like, it's a completely different level of existence when you have to...," she thought about it, twirling her right hand in the air in front of her while she searched for the rest of her thought. The left hand, meanwhile, found home in the crook of the considerably taller, considerably older man's elbow. Though she lived on the wild side, to her credit she managed to walk like an adult with a sense of balance, did not smell of any afternoon beer or toke of weed.
"...be polite and customary and think about how you look and what other people think about you all the god damned time. That sounds absolutely exhausting. Do you have any idea what my Kinfolk back home think of me?" And she did, very specifically, state Kinfolk with that capitol letter. She wasn't being down homesy when she used the word.
At that point a more dense patch of clouds scooted its way across the sun and dimmed the world like a light switch had gone to 50% all at once. That once-twirling right hand pushed her sunglasses up into her hair instead, and Goldie peered over and up at Otto to see as well as hear his response.
Otto
There's a bit of bulk under his arm, that bicep of an apparent pencil pusher holding a slight curve, where he tucks her hand to fit nicely into the crook of his arm and escorts her along the street. He would propel her along with a hand to her back, as he had Sarah earlier, but Garou, in general, do not like to be pushed around. This way it's less like he's herding her and more a gentlemanly accompaniment.
"We don't really know any different," he tells her. "Like all others, we're taught from knee high what is and isn't acceptable in, not only a social situation, but in general. It's no different to the way you have been raised or any other, only that we have different cultural expectations." Otto's accent clips at the heels of his words, sometimes flowing through the middle, but the English, which he has known for as long as his native tongue, makes the words more crisp. He balances this by a light tone and quiet, conversational voice that is strong enough to carry up and over the wind or, sometimes, cut right through it.
"It's no more exhausting than the habitual selection of the day's attire." Glancing down to her, he takes in the bare lips and, now, the naked eyes, and smiles. "Though I hear that can be an exhausting adventure for many women." He knows first hand from those of the fairer gender in his life, before and current.
Tucking his collar further up his neck, he snugs down into his overcoat, the chill in the wind growing and taunting the warm skin under the close clipped hair there. "I think that they may believe you're adventurous, courageous and, dare I say, a little cheeky."
Goldie
"Dare you say?" She chuckled again, and shook her head a little bit-- not as though in disbelief of his assessment, odd though that may be for the way she's presented herself up to this point, but rather like what she was coming to say next was something maybe nostalgic, and she was shaking her head for whatever sentiments that may have come along with that.
"Ma Murphy might say that, maybe my dad but you know, he kind of has to in a way. But plenty of the rest of them?" She crooked a finger, almost conspiratorially, and continued with the sort of drama that tended to come from Galliards but seemed to ride the coattails of the Fianna as a whole. "They'll tell you that I'm a fuck up. That I needed a good strong Philodox in my life from the get-go and it's a crying shame that it didn't shake out that way." She didn't sound self pitying, but rather like she was gossiping about somebody else entirely, or even a character that was made up for a story.
He spoke clear in his English, but his accent was unmistakably Scandinavian as well. It was more stereotypical a thing to hear from a Fenrir tongue, more Iron and Steel than Silver and Gold, but the north had long run wild with the white wolves of the nobles, and that stretched more continents than just Asia, that's for certain. Where there was royalty, in time, there had been Silver Fangs as well. Goldie, on the other hand, did not speak as though she came from the Rocky Mountains that bordered Denver or the plains that stretched nearby. There was an almost twang, a somewhat musical quality to her speech that marked her someplace south in the United States-- southeast, mind you, not west.
"I don't sweat that at all, though. But, from the sound of it, you don't sound like you mind that you've got your name plus twenty others tagged on to that lineage of yours that you can't get mud up on the mantle of. My name has the right to roll around in the dirt a bit while building that foundation."
Otto
"Well," he says, considering whether he knows her well enough to risk the polite version of his thoughts, which aren't that bad by the way, "they're entitled to their opinion as you are to live your life as you see fit. The two rarely coincide. We all have an opinion how another should live, particularly if we're unsatisfied with the weight on our own shoulders. We're always too quick to blame others for our dissatisfaction."
Touching cool fingers of his other hand to that of hers, stuck in the crook of warmth at his elbow, he leans part way down to murmur to her. "If you don't like what they have to say, tell them to fuck off." A flash of teeth in a too-quick smile, and the tall man leans back up to his proper height and lets his fingers trail off the back of hers and into his jacket pocket.
"Depending who you ask, I've muddied those names plenty," he admits freely an without guilt or any passing expression over his calm features. He's looking at the world like a man that is completely comfortable with who he is and the choices he's made. "But I've gained plenty of credibility along the way. A delicate balance."
Approaching a cafe on one of the corners he slows his walk and pauses their conversation just long enough to look inside the window. There are tables, no booths, seating five to two, with a spattering of people fitted in groups. Some are eating, chatting merrily over plates and bowls, while others brood over steaming coffee cups while warming hands. "How's this? Or somewhere less crowded?"
Goldie
The advise that she should tell her Kinfolk to fuck off got another laugh from Goldie, like the comment struck one particular chord with her. Lucky for him, she was about to explain.
"As a matter of fact, I kind of did. It's part of what landed my ass in trouble and--" She paused, conspiratorial, and glanced over her shoulder as though almost genuinely concerned that someone may be sneaking up on her to eavesdrop on what she was about to share. In finding no one in their proximity that she could recognize, nor that pulled the hairs up on her neck any further than what curling fingers 'round the arm of a King-Kin of Wolves did already with their history-riddled blood, Goldie looked back up to Otto and continued.
"Can I tell you something secret?" That was a dangerous question that she didn't wait for an answer to-- whatever she started to see in his face, affirmation or otherwise, she'd answer all the same. "That's part of why I'm out here in the first place. I didn't just strike out on my own, oh no. I'm out here on a mission. Because besmirching the name of my Adren showed that I clearly needed more direction in my life."
They came upon the cafe, and Otto inquired if they should go someplace more secluded. "Nah," Goldie answered, peering through the window as well. "People don't actually pay attention to what the people around them are saying, not as much as some of us like to claim; Constant Vigilance and all that." She shook her head and grinned.
"Besides, I've heard good things about their espresso machine."
Otto
Could she tell him a secret? That was a loaded question and it's good that she doesn't wait for him to answer because hew as still trying to formulate one that wouldn't come and bite him on the backside later down the track. He is trustworthy and, by his pedigree, should hold honour as one of the highest values, and so she should be completely safe telling him what she does. Which wasn't all that much really, he expected more. There were underlying possibilities to her confession but that's if he probed deeper.
"I'd be concerned what new direction that you might decide to take, if I were the Adren." Otto remarks. Dismissing someone with a chip on their shoulder was a dangerous thing. Not that she had one - though she might - but bad blood rarely fuelled anything good and bad blood between Tribes or families often made history. Silver Fangs were renowned for it. Also for marrying cousins and inbreeding.
With a smile, he pressed on and opened the door to let her in first. "I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss, Miss Goldie. You're a bundle of youthful energy and plenty of eyes stray your way." She was Garou, they were human, and while she wasn't the sort of Garou he would be able to pick out of a crowd, the sort that lashed the world with their anger or passion, she was a bright flame against the spattering of dim embers.
He follows her inside, allowing her to pick where they're sitting, and peels off his overcoat on his way to the table. The heavy wool trench is dropped over the back of his chair, hung neatly across the back, and, if she hasn't already seated or is about to, he pulls out the chair. He doesn't make it look like an effort or disappointed if she's already slung herself in a seat, however, and is soon sitting opposite her. "The coffee smells good." So do the focaccias grilling in the sandwich press and the steaks on the grills in the kitchen, cooking with the bacon for the toasted sandwiches. Or maybe she prefers the array of sweets lined up behind the glass cabinet in rows of sugar filled decadence.
Although there's a specials chalked up on a blackboard, there's only a few and the variety is thin, but there's a larger variety in the menu that the Kinsman plucks off the table and offers to her first. He relaxes back in his seat, getting comfortable and fixing his blazer over his collared shirt, while he looks around the cafe and lets her muse on her order.
Goldie
Offering up a secret was a loaded thing to do indeed. A particular move in a game of chess, it could be perceived, to offer up a piece of information labeled as classified. He'd met the girl twice before, and one of those times hardly counted because she'd bailed out on the pair of Silver Fangs to address some 'family matter' (as she'd put it after returning briefly from the phone call just to say goodbye). They were fighting the same secret war, but was that a token of trust strong enough for a secret?
Turns out it was something minor. Cliath Ragabashes badmouthed Adrens all the time. It might strike Otto as perhaps a bit of a fib, a white lie, a thinly stretched truth; no doubt there was more to the story than that alone to have the girl sent so far from home at what appeared to be (but she insisted wasn't the case!) so tender an age.
But they're in the cafe, and Goldie chuckled and pulled the scarf loose from her neck while picking out a table partly against the window, pressed into a corner. Of course someone that made her mark as a sneak (even if she did make a shoddy display of it just before) would want to sit in the chair that put her back to the corner; it let her see the whole room.
"Matty'd tell you the only thing pulling eyes my way is my, and I quote, 'big fucking mouth'." She sounded happy to share this insight, that this 'Matty' person would say such a thing. Like she tended to hear it through a filter of endearment. Her scarf was draped over the back of her selected chair, as she wore no coat to take the space. The menu passed her way was flicked open and to one page specifically-- soups. She'd mentioned a soup and sandwich and apparently that was all she had in mind. Given the pink-red tinge to the tip of her nose and skin of her fingers, it was an easy guess why soup sounded so appealing (October in North Carolina is balmy, after all).
She knew he didn't know who Matty was, so she enlightened him while flicking the menu closed after surveying it for only twenty seconds and offering it back across the table.
"He's my roommate. A Kinsman who helped move us out here. You could call him my 'charge'."
As for the coffee, which he'd commented on smelling so nice, Goldie nodded and grinned in agreement. "One of the gals I work with mentioned this place once or twice before. Suggested that we sneak in and steal the machine they have. Maybe I actually will when I'm ready to leave that place, as a goodbye gift."
Otto
The idea of someone being her charge doesn't quite terrify him but certainly puts a few things into perspective. Sometimes he wonders what the Gods plans are and why they would entrust the young to save the world, the universe. His son was just shy off the age where most young men go through their first change and he can't, for the life of him, think how that was going to pan out well. They had no life experience, as it were, and were still developing. But then, he must remind himself that his son is not human and, really, nor was he. He may look and act like one but his genetic coding is mysteriously different. Maybe humans didn't see the world this way either.
"Well, I hope he says it affectionately." Otto has little comments to say on a man that might say as such to a young woman, or Garou for that matter, but cultural differences are painstakingly obvious and needn't be voiced. He's polite and warm enough about it, and moves on to fetch his own menu for his growling stomach.
He browses the options, flicking a glance up at her when she mentions the idea of stealing a coffee machine. His silver gaze searches her face, takes in her grin, and drops back to the menu. His smile is small but shines in his eyes all the same. "I doubt it's the machine that makes the coffee good."
Goldie
"Eh," Goldie answered the Fang's hopes with a shrug. He had his own menu, so the one she'd been offering was tucked back against the side of the table that was flush with the wall. She worked on rolling her sleeves a quarter of the way up her forearms while expounding: "Kind of. Maybe. As much as brothers do, anyways."
As for coffee quality... "It helps. I mean, it also helps when the water is good and the barista doesn't burn the hell out of your espresso, but y'know: ingredients to a recipe."
After she was finished rolling her big burgandy sleeves a comfortable way up her arms, Goldie propped her elbows on the edge of the table. Her fingers laced together so that they were prepared to do the job of supporting her head when her chin came to rest in the hammock her hands had made. She was watching Otto with very open interest while he skimmed the menu.
He had almost a full two minute's peace before the New Moon piped up from out of the blue.
"Were you here when the Big Bad B.H. hit town? What happened to the Kinfolk, were you all recruited up or hidden away?"
Otto
"Human error, machine errors, and bad ingredients make poor coffees." They seem to be in agreement there and that's what he was saying about the coffee machine being of little use. It wasn't the machine that made a good coffee. But this is an idle statement, offered while he's flipping over the menu, eyes darting across lines and words, looking for a combination that made his stomach growl with pleasure. It was hard to find something.
At first maybe he didn't hear her, but he took his time in folding the menu over and setting it aside. "Pardon? I'm not sure what you're referring to." Though he's trying to figure it out, rolling around possibilities and coming up blank. Big Bad B. H means nothing to him and it becomes more evident by the way he looks at her, stares really, across the table.
Goldie
The expression of confusion answered her question well enough, it seemed. It gave Goldie a moment's pause, one where she blinked at him and the momentum behind her bright-burn energy of youth slowed up. He didn't know who she was talking about, or what. She realized that perhaps he was new to the area, and that's why he didn't know. That doe-eyed stare gained a cast of sympathy, of all things, just for a few moments.
Then she blinked and tucked her head and cleared her throat with her mouth hidden into her hands (so as not to be 'hem-hem'ing all over the table).
"Oh, Otto the Eminent. Were you sent to Denver as well? You weren't given the brochure when you arrived; maybe that would have changed your mind in coming at all." She shook her head and removed her elbows from the table's edge. When sitting upright again, her hands were free to gesture light and occasional along with her words to illustrate the explanation she was about to give. To her credit, she did cast a cursory glance about the establishment (making sure attention wasn't being paid to them in particular by the patrons), and she did lower her tone so Otto would need to key his ear in to make out what she said.
"The Big B.H.-- Beloved Horror. It's a pack of Black Spiral Dancers that has been harassing this community for, like, years. Plural. They got so big and bad that they had an entire Totem living inside their bellies to make them scary-strong with bellies full of green fire and hate. They were stealing and killing people. Their totem needed souls, was trying to cross over from how I hear it. There was a big showdown end of last year, and the pack was sent running, but they weren't caught. and history's repeated itself before.
"They're after something, something that the Sept has. Something the Sept doesn't know what it is-- it's a mystery. That's why people are exodusing out here. They sent Galliards all over the country to round up the troops."
Otto
She explains and he listens, attentively, with an expression that does not betray horror at the story she tells him, or fear, or anything much really. She could be telling him what she has decided to order or what she got up to that morning, though maybe that may have more of a reaction out of him in all honesty. Instead, when she's finished, he nods once and eases back into his chair now that he's no longer straining to hear her across the clash of crockery and rise and fall of patrons chatter.
"That does sound terrible," like the word could just be thrown around at anything, "but, unfortunately, not that uncommon." Which is really the core of it for him. People killed. People kidnapped. Torture. Death. Mayhem and Chaos. The evil seeking to destroy the good. The good seeking to destroy the evil. It is just the way things are and he's lived long enough to accept this without his knees quaking in his pants or, it seems, get much of a rise out of him when mentioned. It's all to do with that Air of Confidence. Well, and more than that. They're Kings. They always have someone wanting to have their head or poach their Kinfolk.
"Are you ready to order, Miss Goldie?" Because he is. He's hungry.
Goldie
Measured calm and stride are how Otto take the news of what he's moved into by coming to Denver. He earned himself a surprised, perhaps a little impressed, raise of eyebrows with the dismissive attitude toward the current events at hand.
"Uhh," was she ready to order? "Yes." She looked around, not sure if there was a waitress or if they were supposed to head up to the counter. She'd probably end up following Otto's lead-- if he waited for someone to come take an order then they stayed at the table, whereas if he stood to go place himself in a line to order Goldie would follow along with.
"Really, though? Not even batting an eyelash at that? I mean, yeah, terrible things happen a lot, but this was big and less than a year ago. You aren't worried that you're going to get yanked on your way up the steps to your house? 'Cause you're a sore thumb." She looked out the front window of the shop, as though a thought just occurred to her. "You don't have security, do you?"
Otto
His laugh is low, rich and laced with kindness. "Are you trying to frighten me, Goldie?" The way he says her name he might as well be calling her little one. He doesn't mean it in such a condescending way but right now she's young, closer to his son, he thinks, than the maturity of his. It's nice, too, this seeming innocence, easily impressionable by a man, a Kinfolk, that isn't swayed by the threats of the world. "And no, I don't have security. Unless you're talking homewares."
Lifting his hand, he indicates for a waitress, trying to catch a gaze. They're busy, the place filling with more people as the staggering work hours finish and people seek some hot soup or coffee or teas, and to get out of the growing darkness and blustering winds outside. The cafe is cosy, warm, and offers comfort in the way of food. "It's called faith," he tells Goldie more seriously while waiting to be noticed. "You either have it or you don't. And if you don't, you has best find it quick." That's a motto that works for him.
"When you are born of Kings and Queens, there are, as we said earlier, expectations. Some of these are that we are primary targets for our enemies. We always have been and we always will be. It is just the way of this life." Catching a waitresses eye, he throws her an appreciative smile and, as she walks over, glances back to Goldie in time enough to say. "You accept and move on."
Goldie
There's a reason that Goldie's roommate has already been quoted on commenting about Goldie's loud mouth. She was inquisitive and talkative alike. It was easy to see her playing the part of the Fool at a Moot, pressing weak spots in arguments with a sharp little thumb and twisting the laws of the Litany like wet sheets left out to dry on a particularly blustery day. And speaking of blustery-- already outside the sky was beginning to cast more dim-- a combination of the sun setting toward the West and dipping directly into the bank of storm clouds that were making their gradual way over the city.
Talkative Goldie seemed ready to leap all over what Otto had said, but her lips pressed closed and words were tamped down when the waitress, caught by the crook of a Kingsman's finger, came over their way. A cup of cream of broccoli soup for Goldie and a cappuccino as well, she'd asked of the waitress, ordering with little banter and few words; Goldie was instead distracted by the riddle presented by clashing ways of life within the Nation. When the waitress had moved along to submit their order and start getting their drinks, Goldie fixed her gaze on the gentleman across the table once more.
When she spoke now the tone was more deliberate than before. This was less an inquisitive jaunt through another man's woods and now more of a perimeter search of new territory. Less jovial, more focused.
"Faith isn't some magic substitute for Luna's Armor, pal. It isn't gonna keep claws out of your chest plate or demons out of your backyard. From the sound of it it's actually Luck that's done you that favor so far, and that works fine and well until it doesn't." She frowned now, and the expression was a worried one. Yet it seemed that worry for Otto's own personal, physical safety was only a percentage of what really worried her. It was dawning on her, as she formed her side of the debate in this conversation, that Denver really was intensely less safe than the home she'd come from, right down to the point that they had very little reason to trust even their backyards. The security of community wasn't entirely a geographic concept in a city like this.
"There was a phone tree that the Kinfolk had back home," she started thoughtfully. "There's something like that set up here, right? Just in case Shit Gets Bad for you?"
Otto
"No, actually," he disagrees with her instantly and, as forceful as his demeanor could be, he's quiet and calm with her. "Faith has everything to do with it. It is not luck or good fortune."
He draws his arms to rest on the edge of the table, folded neatly and looks at her more level. He's tall, this Kinsman, across the table from her, and his gaze is steady against her hidden beast. "You, who is born of the moon and the earth, and who sees and smells spirit, as no other can, can not sit across from me and say that it is luck and fortune. It is your faith in yourself, in your Totem, in your Gods and cousins that let you fight another day."
"You see more than I can ever imagine. You can speak to demi gods, have them watch over you and your kinsman, and you are going to sit there, Miss Goldie, and look me in the eye and tell me that it is some nonsense roll of the dice. That my belief in my Gods is, in fact, hogwash and that it's luck that has me live for all these years?" On these words hangs something, a balance of hope and disappointment and he's not sure which way she's going to make him fall. These are not in himself but his view of her - this Garou sitting across from him in an oversized burgundy sweater, talking about phone trees.
And it is this comment that makes the Kinsmans eyes drop down to the table then slide off to the side to look at the rest of the cafe, that draws his arms slowly back from the table to let his hands disappear once more. There is a subtle breath, an inhale of a gentle sigh. "Yes, a phone tree is going to protect me from the renowned Beloved Horror with a Totem in their bellies." It's clear this is a ludicrous idea.
Goldie
"Well, no, but it's going to at least help us find your body faster." The comment was sprinkled with powdered sugar, almost saccharine while the message was so bleak and dark. A razor's edge was hidden in there somewhere, a promise of a sharp bite (that low-pulse of <b>rage</b>), but Goldie herself did not bare teeth or crease her brow or snarl any warnings. She just smiled sweetly, folded her hands into her lap, and even went so far as to bounce-wriggle her shoulders a bit to find a comfortable place for that open neckline of her sweater to set.
A beat of quiet ticked in between Goldie's observation about the benefits of a phone tree, like to let an anchor sink further in the cold waters, but then Goldie kept right along as though she couldn't see the consequences of hope and disappointment laying on either side of the balance beam that she walked.
"I know what Totems and Spirits can do. And I know what Kinsmen and women can do with Spirits and Totems. So unless some Theurge sister has granted blessings for you, or unless you're Blessed yourself, that Faith is just going to be sitting there swirling like untapped energy in your breast doing nothing but maelstroming itself and putting you to comfort. That Faith doesn't become anything tangible until you have a conduit for it to reach these Gods.
"I figure what's kept you alive is some balance of circumstance, surroundings, wise decision making, and some sneaky-hidey bit of Something Particularly Skillful that you have tucked up your sleeve." When she smiled again, the expression spread like butter on a warm scone. "Don't worry, if I were to draw it in a pie chart, the Something Skillful would take up the biggest slice."
Otto
"We'll have to respectfully disagree, Miss Goldie." Otto leaves it at that. It's polite and concise. This conversation could snowball into something else and this is not what he wants or expects his dinner to go. He does not fuel the fire by offering more words on the subject, a persuasive plea to argue his points. He is comfortable with his choice and does not care enough to challenge her belief like she has his. But nor does he try to conceal anything behind a sugar coated smile and he does not buy into her buttery warmth.
This leaves a potential awkwardness across the table except for the fact that the Fang Kin does not buy into that either and he has had plenty of situations, daily, that puts him in situations where his authority and values are challenged. It does not make him any less Nice but it does pull back some of that laughing, easy going humour which, if offered now, would indicate that this subject was of less importance than it was and he's not into cheap tricks.
Instead, there's: "My Tribe is aware of my whereabouts and has my contact details. Don't concern yourself with me, Miss Goldie." And, tapped onto the end there, is a small but genuine smile.
Goldie
Respectfully disagree. It was questionable how much any Garou would be able to do that-- a Galliard for their Passion, an Ahroun for their Rage, or in this case a New Moon for their love of discourse. Otto didn't back up his belief in Faith any further, nor did he dismantle Goldie's points as she had tried to do his. This could have lead into an awkward situation where silence would fall as a curtain and the conversation would die in the water like a tired old motor on a rental boat.
But Otto did not subscribe to that, and Goldie seemed to roll with the punches pretty well herself.
"Of course," she said with a small shake of her head, as though something obvious has just occurred to her. "You're a grown ass man after all. You've got this figured out." Spun in a different tune, cast in a different light, the words could have been aimed under the ribs and meant to passively mock. Goldie spoke them as though reminding herself that it was a fact, not like she disbelieved them.
There, the waitress at Otto's elbow, with the drinks that they had ordered on a tray. Goldie smiled a bright chipper little smile to the woman and eagerly lifted her broad-and-shallow white cappuccino cup from its saucer to sample the drink. Foam still rode her upper lip when she declared it "Delicious" and settled to cradle the cup in her hands-- her fingers had since warmed up, but the hot ceramic felt nice to hold anyways.
"So, speaking of your tribe: is it just you out here, then? I mean, obviously there are other Silver Fangs, but I mean in your family." Her eyes shifted out the window, distracted by someone who scooted by on a pair of roller skates, then back to Otto again. "I mean like brothers or sisters or anything like that-- ones that Changed. More to the point, ones that I should keep an eye out for in case they want to come cuff me for sniffing around their Kinsman. Mary doesn't seem to mind, but she's chill that way."
Otto
He is a grown ass man and she may be reminding herself of that and whether he chooses to believe that this is how it is, or if it's a crack to his ribs, he gets the same reaction anyway. Which is nil. A glance, instead, to the incoming waitress with their drinks and, to her, he smiles warmly and easily. "Thank you, Miss."
While she goes, he sets down his coffee just so and lets it cool. He likes his coffee's hot but he enjoys being able to taste it, not sear the tops of his tastebuds and cause them to become numb. A few minutes, at most, should take the edge off and he can enjoy something in his belly then. He's looking forward to the foccacia he ordered, filled with peppered chicken and lots of add on salads.
"No I don't," specifically ones that change - brothers or sisters, or ones that would want to cuff her for sniffing around him - no, he doesn't. But that's cutting a fine line. He smiles anyway, amused. "Mary's charming." He recalls the ice-cream affair and the little chit chat the two of them had while she lazily licked dripping cream and busily bit through waffle cone. "And as long as you don't sniff too close, Miss Goldie, I'm sure that you have nothing to concern yourself over."
Goldie
"Hey," Goldie started, and she did so in a tone that sounded like maybe she was going to defend herself ("of course i'm not sniffing any closer that's inappropriate"). She took pause to lick clean her lip of remaining beverage foam (oh the drink had seared her tongue just a little at the tip but that was okay because she was in it for the foam, baby) before wagging a finger at him and continuing on.
"A girl can never be too careful. I know what year it is and that a lot more people are being more progressive these days but there are still traditionalists among us and if anywhere they reign supreme in your family tree, Sir." Sir, as in Knighted. Sir, as in royal, as in Sir with a capital letter that was stated clearly aloud. "I know that even passing a bat of flirty eyelashes your way could earn me a really literal and uncomfortable kick in the ass if that were the case. Once, I knew this boy named Drake, and he made out with some Shadow Lord girl and her big brother literally punched him in the throat, I saw it happen." There's a gossipy spin to it, but stated as fact. Like something that would have been secret except it happened in a town so small that it became simple lore of the community. That's what happened in a tribe that bragged to have the original Galliard.
"So, really, you can't fault me for making sure." She grinned a bit and leaned back in her chair. For the most part she would look at Otto while they spoke, but her gaze had a habit of sliding casually about the cafe. This mostly happened while she herself was speaking. She tended to watch Otto when paying mind to what he had to say.
"Mary is charming, though," she agreed. Eyes dropped to her coffee, to the dent made in the pretty white landscape that was the top of the drink beforehand. "I like her. She seems like the kinds of Queens and Dames that really did exist."
But that could just be a reaction to the heady effects of breeding talking.
Otto
"That's a chance you take having a coffee with me" he tells her with a smile lurking in the edges of his lips. "I am from royals and not a liberal family line." Not that she would be well versed in the way the Silver Fangs run their Tribe or how fractured they really are when it comes to these things."But I don't see them taking offence any time soon, not being oceans apart."
He lifts his coffee mug by the handle. "I can't speak for the locals." Blowing gently across the surface of the coffee has the froth shift away from the lip of the mug, allowing him to sip with minimal mess latching onto his finely groomed facial hair. This is licked in a discreet flick of the tongue before he takes another sip of his coffee anyway.
"This Matthew, is he a relative?"
Goldie
"Ooooh," Goldie crooned out the noise as though she'd been delighted by some display at a quaint haunted house. She grinned and brought her mug nearer to her lips, but paused long enough to continue her thought before taking a sip as well. "That's just delightful! A staunch family oceans away-- tell me, do they scowl and disapprove of your lifestyle over here in America? Do they know you dine with the rest of us?" Again, statements that could be so mean if spat with venom instead oddly genuine, presented bare and blatant with a curious sort of charm.
She sipped a drink that was made mostly of foam and wound up having to swipe at her nose and mouth with her napkin once she put the cup back down in its saucer as a result.
"Mostly." She sipped water to cool her tongue and fill her belly while waiting on soup before continuing. "His mom and mine were best friends, so our families kind of grew up spending a lot of time together. His younger sister's my very best friend. So he's like a brother, but without me getting the benefit of actually being related to those shining old heroes by blood." Otto would never quite know what all she was trying to describe, but the Wolves around town that had encountered him already knew; Matthew Murphy and the rest of the Murphy clan as well carried in them a lineage that went way back on a path straight and true to times long since past, plenty of great warriors and mystics and scouts of Stag. To stand in that kind of presence alone was kind of sentimental to times long gone, in a way.
But Goldie? She herself had none of that-- another thing Otto wouldn't really know or grasp. There were no names of recent or old that she could name to impress anyone. She was part of the common rabble.
Otto
Tilting his head with a small raise of his shoulder gives an indication of how his family might perceive him or he of them. "We have some colourful disagreements," is how he puts it. This doesn't put his family name in a bad light and doesn't paint a picture of them in an awful way that could come back and bite him on the ass. He's careful like that. At the end of the day Goldie is an unfamiliar. With a loud mouth.
"Mmm," Otto nods slowly, lifting his brows as if he's come across some interesting news himself. "Those friendships that develop into relationships when all else fails." It's a common theme in Hollywood movies. Friends becoming lovers and partners, after seeing the other through terrible relationships and being the shoulder to cry on. It was rare to see friendships stay as friendships if they were of opposite gender. In those cases one tends to be gay, if not both. Same sex friendships were, however, seen as some lifelong and easily obtainable thing. The Fang doesn't really buy into it, he's lightly toying with her.
Goldie
"When all else fails.... Pffft."
Goldie rolled her shoulder, just the one, in almost a mirror of the tiny shrug he'd given a moment before. The motion shifted her sweater so the wide neck slipped down off the cap of that rolling shoulder. She didn't bother to tug it back up, her collarbone was still covered up just fine. She dismissed the tease that this Matthew person she was describing as platonic, but there is just the faintest (if he had an eye to look for it, if he knew the nuances of body language enough) hint of a rise in her-- the kind of thing that would manifest as just the tiniest bit of flush to cheeks and ears alike.
"What, you mean, like, when all else fails with every other opportunity that's lined up? We look at each other five years from now and go 'Well, you're still here, I guess. This may as well do.'?"
She chuckled and shook her head, even waved another hand dismissively. "Please. That's not what we were sent out here for. They still have actual matchmakers in my Tribe, back where we come from in some areas. Me and Matty wouldn't be something set up in a lifetime. That'd be a waste."
Otto
"No, what I mean is, that he is the one that picks up the pieces when your heart is broken and you are the one that fits all his needs. But your history binds you together in ways that makes sexual chemistry dormant until there is an excuse for it to rise up and allow you to acknowledge that there is something at the core of your friendship. It is the fear of losing that, which is already valuable to you, that prevents either of you crossing the threshold." He pauses to sip his coffee.
"So, when all else fails," he explains. "Is when you have seen one another go through hardships and realise that you compliment each other far more than any other will, and pride and fear take a back seat to something sensible." Love advice from a Silver Fang is probably not what a Fianna wants to hear. They have very different values and what would he know anyway?
Otto still sits there with a light smile and a hint of an amused glint. "And I think the lady doth protest too much." Good thing their food arrives and he's turning his attention to thank the waitress again, and then look at the food on his plate. This was a thing of pleasure, these colourful foods crammed into a toasted, pressed foccacia.
Goldie
Love advice from a Silver Fang wasn't something that Goldie ever really expected to receive-- certainly not when she'd fit her belongings into several cardboard boxes and crammed them into the back of Matthew's beat up old car in preparation for a move cross-country to a land of strangers. Maybe from Mary, she could see the curvy Ragabash doling up some advice if the conversation took that particular swing these days. They were going to be Buddy Cops, after all-- partners in crime.
But to have what amounted to a Prince in the City sit across from her, a Kinsman of wealth and family heritage, explaining that she would eventually end up with that Matthew Murphy lad just you watch and see? She certainly didn't see it coming. But she didn't cut the man off or interrupt him. Instead she hid her mouth and most of her expression behind the rim of her mug and sip at the cappuccino while hearing him out. Usually she looked at him when he talked, but after the first dozen seconds or so of his explanation had passed the sensation of being ever-so-slightly under the microscope had the girl shifting her eyes instead out the window. From where they sat she could see the sky visible through the street block, and the clouds coming in from the west.
When the food arrived, Goldie smiled that bucktoothed smile to the waitress again and picked up her spoon, only to wag it lightly in Otto's direction.
"You haven't even met the guy and already you're telling me that you know what's up. And this 'sexual chemistry'...," Ah, but to Otto's credit, she did look a bit embarrassed when he'd mentioned that. "I'd tell you reasons why that can't be a thing when you're roommates with a guy, but we're about to enjoy ourselves a lovely meal, so I'll abstain." And with that the spoon sunk into the soup, as though it served as a punctuation on her sentence. A spoonful was cooled with a small puff of air before she took the bite-- she learned about burning her tongue earlier.
"You sound like you're rooting for the guy. Are you an old romantic at heart, there, Otto?"
Otto
"I don't need to." He grabs a napkin, flicks it out and lays it across his lap. He sounds confident in this, not in how she and Matthew might turn out, but in his overall generalisations of such matters and, as earlier, seems to believe what he's saying. His opinion is not fact it's only his opinion, but it's a very confident one.
Picking up one half of his focaccia, the kin balanced it in both of his hands and inspected the neatly cut slice, looking at the layers of colours, piled one after the other, and the strips of pepper coated chicken breast. "Whatever it is that you think is off putting, is a little lie to yourself. Otherwise you wouldn't be living with him." He's about to take the first bite of his food then pauses, cocking his head at her.
"Is your security team with him while you dine here with me?"
Goldie
"The off-putting part is how we're basically family. I mean, he bought my first whiskey for me when I was thirteen. Watched me grow up, all that. Which is beside the point," she said, and took a moment to help herself to another spoonful of soup. "You come from a background that's familiar with this, so you've gotta understand it pretty empathetically yourself; Matty comes from a line of heroes. Like, old kings with crowns of Stag antlers and Faerie calls on the moors, you know?"
She straightened up from how she'd leaned over the soup bowl before and gestured to herself, fingers on one hand curving back to point toward her chest in indication.
"I don't have that kind of history in my family. We don't have it traced back anywhere-- my dad was surprised to learn he was a Kinfolk at all, you know? Those arrangements don't fly. No me? I'm gonna just burn out bright instead." She said this with a big charming grin, like it was all that needed to be said to explain. The young Garou appeared to have already come to terms with the length of time she would spend in this life, and compared it to the kind of things that meteors do instead.
"Nah, he's probably at work still. We can't afford a security team." She said this with a smirk, tossing the playful jibe right back.
Otto
"He may be and I don't know your customs or protocols, but I do know that numbers are in decline and that, by your own admission, he is your charge. So that, alone, tells me that you have some authority, enough weight that you already have claims over him, no?" In the time she had spoken, Otto had taken a bite of his food, chewed and swallowed. Now he takes another bite and eats slowly, with table manners expected of a King. They are natural, without trying, but he's not at any five star restaurant and there's no need to be concerned about which fork when. He is eating with his hands, leaning forward over his plate, every time he takes a bite. Any crumbs disappear quickly.
The banter is left at that. Anything more would be cruel and he was enjoying that they've turned his back around. Instead he eats, pausing when he was almost finished to slide his chair a little back and fetch his phone from his pocket. He checks the screen before popping it back away. "I have to get going soon," he tells her, apologetically, and resumes eating.
Goldie
Goldie shrugged her shoulders when he pointed out the fact that she was, in some way or another, responsible for Matthew's well-being. In truth it was a mutual agreement-- she was responsible for keeping him intact and out of harm's way just as much as he was ultimately responsible for ensuring that Goldie had a place to sleep and food to eat when it all came down to it. That she would have some place to come back to on nights after a skirmish went late or a battle clipped her uncomfortably close to recognizing mortality before she was dragged back from the cusp of it to keep fighting another day. Kinfolk were so much more than mothers and fathers to their children, they were ultimately the support system that every Garou needed at one point or another.
To need to make sure that the foolhardy Ragabash had someplace to come home hollow-eyed and work out Rage in the backyard made sure the Kinsman carried responsibility that was probably heavier and more understated than what Goldie herself was saddled up to. But that was the illustrious life of Kinfolk, wasn't it?
The Garou, as Goldie had put it, burned out bright.
Otto would have to get going soon, he reported, and Goldie had allowed for a lull in conversation so that two hungry people could eat some damn food. His announcement was what broke the quiet. Goldie glanced up at him, made sure her mouth was clean with her napkin, and grinned. "Well of course, your time isn't mine to monopolize. I'm just glad I got some conversation and a bowl of soup for dinner, really. Even if it did take a swan dive into matchmaking and fortune telling," she said that last bit with the grin enduring, and a fleeting raise to her eyebrows. Not a sign that he was being held as out of line for making his conclusions about her and her Kinsman, but rather a watchful kind of 'I'm on to you'. As though she truly did suspect him of being a matchmaker. She was from a rural community of Fianna, it was possible that she believed in the mythical push such people could possibly bring to the table.
She'd try to pay for her food, if he let her. If he insisted, she'd try to convince him otherwise precisely twice before letting it go. Soup was no dent in anyone's pocketbook-- neither of them were Bone Gnawers, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment