Goldie Lennox
Federal itself was no glistening
stretch of road in some high-rise and sleek-glass city. The buildings
didn't stretch for the sky here, and the people who walked the streets
didn't trod payment in expensive high heels or loafers. The one thing
that Federal did have to match the big city, though, was neon. Neon and
plenty of it-- in the windows of bars, pawn shops, tattoo parlors and
the like.
It wasn't the kind of place that you found classy bars,
but if you were to spend any time reading reviews in the city paper or
searching for recommendations online, a good number of names popped up
with an address on Federal Boulevard. It wasn't pretty, but it was
precisely the kind of place to be if you found yourself wanting a drink
on a Tuesday night.
Which was precisely what seemed to be Otto's
case, since he was leaving one of those very bars less than an hour
before the clock would strike midnight and princesses would turn into
pumpkins (or however that fairy tale goes). The bar he exited was built
into a row of other building faces, and shared the sidewalk block with a
business for rent, a bicycle shop, two tattoo parlors, and a Mexican
drive-thru restaurant. At least he was being responsible enough to see
himself home before midnight.
Or, perhaps, he would have, had a
familiar voice not called to him from the narrow alley that existed
between the bar and bike shop.
"Your Eminence, what a pleasant surprise. C'mere, c'mere!"
Otto Larsson
He’s
left the bar wearing a pair of jeans and a simple cotton, long sleeve
shirt under a warm suede jacket. He had a scarf too, some light grey
thing that probably cost a pretty penny, it was all smooth knit, maybe
cashmere. It’s this that he’s folding into place, tucking it into the
collar of his jacket and so forth, when he hears his name called. Well,
ahem, not his name but…
There’s only one person that calls him
that and he’s certain that he hasn’t drank that much. Just a few, maybe
one too many, or at least too many to get behind the wheel of a car. For
him that could be three drinks, depending on what was on the menu,
because he’s responsible and safe and all that.
Pausing, he looks
first behind him, then back over the street until he takes another step
and can see down the alleyway. How he hates those things, particularly
at night. He expects to see some inappropriate behaviour in places like
that in neighbourhoods like this. Neon lights, indeed.
Goldie Lennox
No
inappropriate behavior to be found in the alleyway, but Otto is smart
to distrust them. If you didn't look up the alley to see someone
jamming a needle in their arm or chugging mouthwash because the liquor
store wouldn't sell them Sunnybrook anymore, then chances were equal
that you might find two bodies entwined against a wall, or against a
wall but with guns and knives in the picture instead of alcohol-loose
tongues and fumbled belt buckles.
No, nothing of that sort. The
alley was full up with shadows, even while stark moonlight (the moon
nearly full, reaching and stretching but not quite there yet) cut pale
streaks across the topmost walls. If anything, that contrast of pale
bright light on the bricks above made the depth of the dark below and
within seem that much more daunting.
But through this alley, it
seemed, there would be a guide. Goldie's there, a couple feet back from
the sidewalk. She was wearing a black miniskirt and sheer black
stockings up the length of her legs as well. Brown boots were on her
feet, flat-soled and laced up, and she was wearing a forest green jacket
of some sort. It was pulled closed, and she had one hand tucked
underneath it like she was posing to be Napoleon Bonaparte. The other
hand was on the alley wall itself so she could lean, but it may as well
have been crook-fingered in front of her for how she was grinning at the
Kinfolk that peered inside.
"You wanna see something wicked?"
Are all of her questions so loaded?
Otto Larsson
Looking
down the alleyway, he searches the shadows even after spotting Goldie
posing there, seeking to see through the depths. He immediately wonders
what she’s doing there alone because wolves are meant to run in packs
but everytime he’s seen her – no, there was Mary.
He focuses on
her, down to her brown boots, then up to the hand in the jacket, and the
gap-tooth face. She asks him such interesting questions and he
remembers clearly the last time that he saw her, what they spoke about
then. Matthew. Cultural expectations. Faith. Love.
“I… don’t think
so,” he anwers with a lift of brows and the ever so brief downturn of
his mouth. Like, this girl is crazy, sort of look, that is much more
open on his features that are loosened with alcohol. Otto doesn’t
continue to look at her after either, casting a glance while he buttons
up the jacket over the now neatly folded scarf.
Who knows what she
was about to show him. But now he’s in that awkward position where he
can’t just walk off, even if he might like, and he didn’t want to go
into that alleyway either. Or see her little wicked surprise. Was she
stalking him?
Goldie Lennox
Inky shadows filled
the rest of the alley, but there are still shapes that can be made out--
light existed ambiently behind the alleyways somewhere, trickling in
from the back, some waxy orange color to indicate light thrown from some
other adjacent parking lot. Otto could make out a small fleet of
garbage cans against the bike shop wall, some discarded cardboard boxes
creating a tower against the bar's wall instead. Lumps on the ground
near the trash cans that must have been garbage bags that didn't quite
make it all the way to the cans.
Aside from that, though, the alley was vacant-- save one New Moon Fianna.
His
answer earned him a laugh, and the sound was louder, carried better
than her words before that had done. She was being quieter about
calling him over-- not conspiratorially whispering like she was about to
sell him drugs, but more like she wasn't shouting so that pedestrians
in either direction would hear. When she laughed, though, it was loud
enough to hear a flag of exhaustion in her voice. Normally she had true
mirth about her, but tonight the laugh carried something darker and
more hollow there instead.
"That's a real good answer," she told
him. "Smart one, too. Alright then, I won't." Her hand left the alley
wall, but she was still leaning to the same side a little and her other
hand stayed under her jacket, somewhere around the left side of her rib
cage. She looked, for a moment, like she might step out of the
alleyway proper, but decided against it with-- first, a wrinkle of her
nose and mouth with irritation, and second, a chuckle.
"How about just something kind of gross? You don't pass out when you see blood, I hope."
Otto Larsson
His
smile is tight, forced, at this compliment about his answering. He
thinks himself quite smart, some times, at least in the things he does
know. And he does know that Garou asking things like that is rarely a
good sign because Garou live with different values and aren’t, frankly,
human. They see things in a completely different light.
Though
Goldie right now- “You sound like an eight year old boy,” he tells her,
sparing only a quick glance in her direction. Quick enough that he’s
looking back to the street without seeing her full expression. It’s in
that sort of way people do when they’re trying to avoid looking at
something, of paying too much attention. Often this happens a lot on
public transport or even walking down the street. Make no eye contact.
Maybe the same could be said about dangerous predators.
“Sorry
Miss Goldie, but is there something that you wanted? I’m on my way home
and I didn’t expect you to be waiting for me in an alleyway.” Brushing
his hand down his chest, not clearing imaginary dust or dirt, wiping
filth off him, but to compose himself. Guarded, as he turns to look at
her, not with just his head but full body, because he’s been rude and
was only now becoming aware of it. Nevermind that she makes him
uncomfortable tonight.
Goldie Lennox
Another
reason why Otto was smart-- he recognized that Garou weren't humans, and
what all that entailed. Many of them-- most, these days-- were born
from man, certainly, but from varying ages onward they were raised very
differently. They had different understandings of the world, they saw
it in an entirely different scope since they could see the many, many
layers that existed beyond just this Physical plane. On account of all
this, they also had different morals, and when the moon was so close to
full any Werewolf, even a petite Fianna with little Rage in her heart,
could be a predator.
"Waiting for you...." Goldie said it as a
bit of a scoff, shook her head and raked the fingers of her left hand
through her hair-- it was curled earlier in the day, but now those curls
had fallen loose into waves and miniature curls of their own. "I told
you it was a pleasant surprise, didn't I?"
A more
perceptive thing would have picked up on Otto's discomfort, would have
better understood that he was worried about this apparent lone wolf that
kept popping up. She noticed that he was glancing away, about,
anywhere but toward her and the alley as much as he could, and she'd
equally noticed when he had his 'pull it together' moment, but what it
all meant was lost upon her. She was apparently distracted anyways.
Instead,
she cleared her throat into the fist of her free hand and stepped
nearer to the alley mouth. Where she stood, people on the sidewalk on
which Otto stood still could not spy her unless she took a step out onto
the pavement proper. Close enough, though, that she was better lit,
that she could lean her head out to glance left and right both. As she
did all this-- the stepping forward, the cautious glance about-- she
explained herself.
"Anyways. Don't confuse me, this isn't really set up. I'm not here because I want anything from you. But since you are here? I am wanting for some help."
Rather
than explain what she wanted help with in words right away, she instead
pulled open her jacket. Underneath she was wearing a creamy-beige
colored shirt, snug-fit and made of thin fabric with buttons from chest
to neck. Her right hand was pressed overtop her shirt, just at the
bottom of her ribs, and the fabric bloomed red from beneath her palm.
"Maybe a way across town? Where I can heal up?"
Otto Larsson
Some
things are best left alone, like offering some response to her
comments. Silence is golden sometimes and he knows when to open his
mouth and shut it. He’s no man lost to impulse or loose with his tongue.
Kings are diplomats, even ones that have had a few beers and a couple
of whiskeys, all of which she can smell on him when she’s much closer,
peering down each side of the street.
Despite him saying that he
didn’t want to see, she shows him anyway, opening up her jacket. That
downturn of mouth, the beginning of disapproval, matching the slow
forming frown did not begin because of what he saw – but that she had
showed him in the first place. But seeing that blossom of blood and
clear signs of injury, his frown doubles instantaneously.
“Shit,
Miss!” He knows Garou are miraculous healers. “How can you joke around
about something like this?” Chastising a Garou seems to come naturally
to him, but those Silver Fangs are arrogant sorts that think they can
talk to whomever however they liked when they felt justified. In this
moment, he had stepped towards her, touching an hand to her arm and,
with a tsk, casts a quick glance up and down the street. “I didn’t
drive. I’ve been drinking.”
“I’ll hail a cab.” All this, quickly, decisive.
Goldie Lennox
The
way Otto's frown doubled down on itself delighted the Ragabash in some
way, because her face split into a grin once again when that happened--
even as he was cursing and scolding her for making light of the
situation. Goldie had held the jacket open just long enough for the
blood stain to process before pulling it closed again.
Nearer,
near enough to reach out at least, Otto would smell the blood on her--
even human noses could pick that out when there was enough of it in the
air. Nearer to the alley as he was, he would also pick up a smell
similar to oil, or some other mechanical lubricant, wafting out from
it. Not an uncommon smell in the city, but particularly strong in that
one whiff anyways. At least, from what he could tell after another look
over with eyes keyed in for red, she wasn't slick with enemy gore or
wounded anyplace else.
"Yeah you have," she added with a wag of
eyebrows when he commented that he'd been drinking. Certainly she
smelled it on him, but.. "But I'm a Fianna, who am I to judge, 'eh?"
The hand at her arm wasn't shrugged away, but she was protective of the
spot she had covered up. Given that she was keeping pressure down, one
could imagine that it felt pretty awful; it was no wonder if she didn't
want the Fang Kinsman accidentally brushing or bumping.
"That's really what I was hoping for," and given the sag of relief in her tone of voice, that was the honest truth. Just a cab to get home.
As
a distracted note, Goldie did cast a glance over her shoulder and smirk
a bit. "The 'something wicked' I was gonna show you was the other
guy. Some spider gone stray from its Web."
Otto Larsson
“It’s
not funny.” He continues to scold her, not showing an ounce of mirth of
his own. Her grin would have to do for them both because he wasn’t
sharing it.
That smell, beyond the blood, had him look towards the
alley and sniff once, twice, like someone that had just walked into a
room with a bad smell, or stepped in dog shit, and has him turn away
from the darkness that lies within. “Well isn’t that just great.” His
tone is wry, brittle, too. “That you think I might be inclined to find
it as enjoyable as you seemed to have.”
Stepping away from her,
he’s looking up and down the street, going so far as to step off the
curb and onto the asphalt of the road. Back and forth, his head turns,
as if he’s watching a tennis match or hoping that some cab would
materialise out of nowhere.
So Garou aren’t human, don’t heal like
those either, and it’s not like she’s going to die right at this
moment. He’s never heard of a Garou that has bled to death – hacked to
death is a different story. But, kinsmen as genetically coded as they
are, or at least this one is, has somehow forgotten this in light of the
fact that a young woman is hurt in his presence and is asking for his
help.
His hand shoots out and he steps further into the traffic.
Lets out a whistle that isn’t going to keep Goldie concealed from the
general public if that’s her intention, and otherwise makes some frantic
motions so he gets the eye of the driver of a cab he just saw slip
around the corner and onto the street. No matter that it’s on the
opposite side of the road.
Goldie Lennox
The sharp whistle to hail a cab would
draw attention from at least half the block up, so if Goldie was
actively trying to hide from anyone or anything in particular that
wouldn't keep up for long. That was okay, though. After another brief
glance up and down the sidewalk, Goldie straightened her back up a
little (made a faint hissing noise of discomfort when she did) and
ambled her way out of the alleyway to stand on the curb behind where
Otto had stepped out into the street.
After he'd finished
gesturing at the cab to catch it's attention and charades his way
through a message of 'please turn around I want to be your customer',
Goldie shifted her weight so she was standing more comfortably, again
with the slight lean forward.
"Of course it's not funny." She
wasn't smiling anymore when he glanced back, and was watching the cab
instead of looking at the Kinsman while she addressed him. "And of
course it's not enjoyable. Enjoyable is a really good spliff on a nice
cool night out on your back porch. Or a consequenceless one-nighter.
"But
if we-- and I'm counting you Kinsmen in on the 'we' here-- if we don't
look for the humor then this shit would drive us to tearing ourselves
and the world apart."
Otto Larsson
“I can
understand that, Miss Goldie, particularly where you stand.” And he
appreciates that this is how she has to view the world in order to life
through what she has to. It’s this sympathy that stops his scowling and
scolding of her earlier antics and any further that may arise. She is
entitled to a bit of laughter instead of tears and he understands that
copying mechanism even if this was not how he coped.
When the cab
pulls up, he opens the back door and extends out his other arm, as if he
would gather her up and package her in the vehicle, but allows her to
walk on her own accord and get in as slow or as fast as she would like.
Then, once she’s seated, he either climbs in the same side if there’s
room or shuts the door and walks around to get in the other door. He
doesn’t mind and does not expect her to be shuffling around on back
seats while injured.
Once he’s in and the door is shut, he looks to Goldie. “Where are we heading?” Because the driver needs a destination.
Goldie Lennox
Goldie
was a Ragabash and a Fianna first-- that was her place, her role in
life. But she was also a young woman, bursting with the sort of pride
and insistence that she was fine that came when little wolf-birds
first flew from their nest-Septs and struck out to make a name for
themselves. Or, in Goldie's case, the sort of jutting-lipped stubborn
pride that came when you were kicked out of that nest-Sept and told to
start making a name not just for herself, but to fix another person's
name as well.
Too proud too cry, too much a Ragabash too. So
instead she laughed and grinned and jested. The tears would probably
come only in small hours hidden away in her bedroom where no one would
see them. Otto understood that, so he relented in the stern scolding
that she'd been receiving previously. So he told her as much-- he
understood her stance, and returned his focus to the cab that had
flipped a U-turn in the street and was rolling up to the curb to let
them in.
Otto was careful with ushering Goldie into the back of
the cab, available to help her but not going so far as to actually put
her in the back seat himself. She sat down with a knitting of brows and
a pained expression, but did not move like a creaking old woman to do
so at least-- the cab driver wouldn't need to be too suspicious about
her this way, the Rage already put people on edge in a
low-humming-in-your-skull manner anyways. Hell, she even scootched her
way across the bench to let Otto get in from the curb rather than
needing to walk around into the traffic lanes once again.
Where are we heading?
Oh, shit, yeah that's right, they were going back to her house weren't
they? Goldie settled into the seat behind the driver, out of easy view
of his rear-view mirror unless he chose to twist it about to focus on
her instead.
"Highland," she told the driver.
But he wanted
an address, something to plug in to his GPS system, so she muttered and
pulled her phone free from her pocket (fizzle-frazzle of frustrated Rage,
just for a moment there, because she still had yet to memorize the new
address). After a few quick swipes of the thumb she provided a street
address to the man.
When they pulled away from the curb, Goldie
let her head fall back to rest and closed her eyes. She realized
keeping her hand under her jacket looked suspicious, so she tried to
balance and make it less weird by tucking her left hand under there as
well. Symmetry, right?
"Thanks," she told Otto without opening her eyes or lifting her head. "And sorry."
Otto Larsson
Through
all of this, the Silver Fang Kinsman sat tall in the back seat and
dipped his fingers into the space between his scarf and neck, gently
tugging opens the folds to let some air in. The cab was much warmer than
outside and his suede coat was plenty warm enough as it was.
“Neither
are necessary,” he assures her, glancing across the dim, small confines
of the back seat and offers her closed-eyed profile a small smile.
He
settles back for the drive, alert to the outside world as much as he
was to those encased in the moving metal cart with him. It wasn’t
Goldie’s Rage that he felt beating against the back of his brain but the
few drinks he had across the course of the evening, providing him with
warmth that occasionally grabbed at his temples, making them pound. It
took the edge off anxiety, too.
Along the way, he fishes out his
phone and turns on the screen. It’s not a bright light of shocking
white, his screensaver, but a photograph snapshot that disappears
shortly after he unlocks the screen and dives into his inbox. He fires
off a text with a quick tap of a nimble but large knuckle thumb.
Goldie Lennox
"I
suppose," Goldie agreed, or at least agreed to mull the fact over. She
opened her eyes and turned her head to look out the window as they
drove along. "I mean, at least you were finished drinking before I
talked you into taking me home."
At this point the cabbie's eyes
flick up into the mirror, between Otto and Goldie both. Clearly
observing the age difference, given the judgment that seeped into his
eyes and brow. He made a small 'hmph' noise, reached forward to turn
his radio up just a little more, and put his attention back forward.
He'd been doing this long enough to know which customers to chat with
and which ones not to. Sometimes it led to a better tip, but probably
not in this instance. Better if he just minded his own business
anyways, he felt that instinct somewhere in his belly (wolves not just
at your door, but past it now).
The motion of fishing a phone from
one's pocket caught Goldie's attention in the peripheral, and she
turned her head to glance toward the object in his hands instead. A
phone, and perhaps she caught a glimpse of the picture on the screen
before it went away? Either way, she at least had some shred of respect
for privacy because she looked up and out his window instead when he
took to typing and firing off a message.
"You don't have, like, a
missus and kids at home? I mean, not to pry, but it is pretty late, and
I had it figured that you lot all married and mated before you were
twenty."
'You lot', of course, means Silver Fangs.
Otto Larsson
He
doesn’t like this game, the way she words things in front of others,
and the cabbie’s little sound had him look up to the review mirror and
meet that flickering gaze with a very steady and serious gaze. The sort
that stops him from replying right away, because, kin he might be, but
those are Garou Kings and Queens in his blood and that look is a warning
and, wrapped within in, some challenge or dare.
The reply comes
when the cabbie has looked away and Otto’s gaze returns to his phone. “I
couldn’t leave you in the cold of the alley, could I? Not in your
state.” He will not be a pawn and he can play along with word games like
the best of them, when his hand is forced. Ragabash or not, he will not
have rumours circulating, not even amongst the lesser humans.
On
the screen, in that flash under the join-the-dots code, is a picture of
white-coated mountains and a deepening blue sky, the other details, much
smaller, could be trees or some landscape scenery. He’s already into
inbox by then, with coloured blocks and black text.
“I have,” he
says. “And we do.” But as open as that admission was it was as equally
closed. This was not a subject that he was going to discuss with her.
Not now.
Goldie Lennox
[Perception 3 + Empathy 0: Goldie you don't know diddly squat about feelings but maybe we can try?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN7 (7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Goldie Lennox
Goldie
wasn't paying particular mind to the stare Otto gave the cab driver in
the rear view mirror (and mind you, when that eye contact held for more
than two seconds the cabbie certainly did look away, he wasn't going to
meet Otto's challenge no sir he just wanted to do his job and make his
money and go home). She still smelled the alcohol coming from him int
he shared space of the back seat, but he seemed a man that held himself
together after a couple of drinks all the same. Were it not for the
smell Goldie wouldn't even have noticed that he'd been drinking at all.
She
wasn't great with empathizing with people. Goldie Lennox liked to
march to the beat of her own drum, and often times that would lead to
her plowing over and fucking up the rhythm to everyone else's drumlines
in the process. But she was perceptive, at least, and she wasn't an
idiot.
She didn't have experience with trying to relate to and
understand the emotions of others. The short answers and tone to Otto's
voice, both in the parry about her state of being and in talking about
his family, however, managed to ring a clear message for her this time
around. You could perhaps blame it on the exhaustion, the battle-weary
kind that followed burning yourself out while scratching/clawing/kicking
through a fight. Ordinarily the tone would have flown right over her
head and she probably would have kept right on going.
"Ahh," she
said, and sounded as though she was reacting to what she'd picked up on
rather than what he'd actually said. She looked forward through the
windshield and straightened herself up in the seat a little better, left
hand on the door frame to help her along the way.
Some quiet
passed, a dozen dragged-out ticks of a second hand, and Goldie added
quietly, no longer seeming nearly so intent on poking and prying and
distracting herself with the games that Ragabashes play: "Guess I'll
save hospitality for another time."
Otto Larsson
If
she expected protest, she will be disappointed, because he did not rise
to the bait of her original ‘Ah’ and settled into the silence. The
Kinsman, through this quiet, receives a text and gives another back and,
when no more were forthcoming, sets his phone back into his pocket with
the screen powered down.
“Probably best,” he agrees with her last
statement, giving only a cursory glance to note her watching out the
window, before looking forward again. He keeps both an eye on the cabbie
and the world outside, watching the change of neighourhoods and, with
it, atmospheres. There’s no way that he would remember which streets
they have taken or even which way his North, and even if he could see
the small directional instructions on the GPS, he’s not paying attention
to it.
While Otto is sympathetic he does not extend it with a
heartfelt warmth or gush. This was not the only time there has been
friction between them and he doubts it would be the last. She reminds
him of many young Garou and they, in turn, remind him of the wide chasm
that divides the true and the lesser born. Alcohol does not soften him
but it does strip a layer of his warmth to bare the cold core of his
heritage. Until then, maybe it was easy to forget that he was a Silver
Fang.
Goldie Lennox
Outside of the cab the
scenery changed in ways both subtle and dramatic, depending on the turns
they made. Federal was the kind of stretch of road that housed homely
buildings that were weathered, with fading paint and sun-bleached
business signs. The rooftops were low, did not stretch toward the sky
or frequently reach taller than two stories up. It looked like the kind
of place where you didn't want to walk alone to your car after hours,
for risk of robbery and not to mention what else.
They drove
Federal southbound for a while, passing through intersections that
neither of them were counting to know how many had gone by. Eventually
they would turn east on another road, and once they'd left the Boulevard
the scenery changed in a much more dramatic way.
Highland was a
distinct district in the city of Denver, one that existed near the Union
Station and had old streetcar lines to be found within as well. The
buildings here were older, more established and typically built from
brick. Tall older trees lined the blocks and existed in the yards of
homes, and that helped to mark the drastic visual shift between retail
corridor and (largely) residential neighborhood.
Once quiet fell
in the vehicle, a chilly kind of ambiance filled the gap instead. Otto
was good at keeping up a warm and friendly exterior during the daytime
hours when he was sober, but if you asked Goldie it was absolutely
impossible to forget that he was a Silver Fang. The constant barrage of
pure-blood that she found in the Garou community here left her feeling
all the more sensitive to the impact of good breeding in a person; like
when you wash your hands too many times and then hot water began to hurt
and your skin began to crack and bleed. Too much, too often, and it
would leave you a little raw.
The chill was new, though, and
Goldie was left to ponder what had the man so irate. She understood
that he was, but grasping a full understanding of why was another story
entirely. A glance cut down to her lap, and she tugged at the
short-hemmed skirt she was wearing to smooth it more appropriately over
the very tops of her thighs.
Unless Otto broke into the quiet
himself, Goldie would remain uncharacteristically silent and
introspective until the cab pulled up to a curb in front of a little
1920's bungalow home without much curb appeal or particular character--
something simple and affordable and easily overlooked. Goldie herself
had been resting her head against the window for the last bit of the
ride, and didn't lift it right away when the cab stopped.
"Rental
sweet rental," she said with a small bite of bitterness when twisting a
common turn of phrase into a more stark version of itself, with all the
warmth associated with 'home' banished when the word was replaced with
something associated as 'temporary' and 'not mine'.
Otto Larsson
The
cab cruises to a stop and Otto looks out, following Goldie’s glance to
the bungalow. That’s her home, a very temporary and not very welcoming
one, by the sounds of it, and he takes it all the details that one can
under the darkness of night before he reaches for the door handle.
“Leave
the meter running,” he tells the cabbie without so much of a glance in
the drivers direction. Then, pushing the door open, he gets out of the
car with his scarf loose about his neck, and reaches a decent sized
human hand back in through the doorway to help out the Garou. She does
not need it but then no woman really does when offered a hand in our out
of a car or through doorways, and they are perfectly capable of pulling
out their own chairs and carrying their own shopping bags.
Goldie Lennox
Certainly
Goldie was capable of getting up out of the car by herself, but her
blood-free hand accepted his offer all the same. Another night she may
have given the cabbie a toothy smile and flicked the backs of his ears,
but with knowledge that the closest thing to sanctuary that she could
claim was just a walkway away she just wasn't in the mood. Knowing that
you needed to shift to mend yourself, knowing that you couldn't go to a
hospital to have someone help you heal, and knowing that there was a
hole in your abdomen kind of took the playful right out of you.
There
was no fence around the front yard, but he could spy one for the back.
The lawn had some dead patches but it was mowed and watered at least.
There wasn't a garage, but a driveway hugged the side of the home and
parked in that driveway in the shadow of the house was some used beater
of a car. There were two pathways to the front door, one that led from
the driveway and another that was a straight line from the sidewalk.
There wasn't a full porch on the front of the house, but there was a
sizeable enough front stoop with a built-in awning (shingles and all)
and posts that someone had decorated with some wind chimes and drying
bundles of sage (of all things).
Goldie stood on the sidewalk in
front of the house when Otto helped her out and frowned lightly at the
front windows-- not like she was angry with the place, but like she was
working through a puzzle. Truthfully, she was considering the best way
into the house and upstairs without encountering her Kinsman roommate in
the living room on her way through. Even hurt, she was pretty sure she
could stealth her way through the back door and into her room without
being noticed.
"Look, man." Oh no, she was about to level with
him. There wasn't humor to be found in her tone this time around, and
she wasn't calling him 'Your Eminence' or anything so fun. Just a
straight and simple 'man'. "I appreciate your help." A glance over her
shoulder to make sure the doors and windows to the cab were all closed,
so the man behind the wheel with the meter running wouldn't overhear.
They were, and she wasn't exactly shouting, so she continued.
"And
that you're such a gentleman. But if you, like, ever want to tell me
to fuck off, you really ought to. I like that better than going on
under the impression that folks are having fun when really they just
hate playing along."
Otto Larsson
Outside the cab,
he is not much interested in her house or the shadows, or the wind
chimes and sage hanging from the property. He might find those quaint at
another time but it’s late, he’s been drinking, she’s been hurt by some
wicked creature that she had wanted to show him, and now he’s late
home.
On top of that, she stops and levels with him. He looks at
her without a single give to his demeanor. There’s no narrowing of his
eyes or tic in his jaw, but there is a short silence that follows,
hanging in the air thick with potential.
“Miss Goldie,” he says
evenly, when he decides to speak. “I know that you have an important
role and that you’re injured and not having the greatest of nights, and
for those last two I should still my tongue, but let me remind you, that
although your role is great, not all revolves around you.”
Just
this. No turning from her, no fleeing from her potential wrath, but a
directness that comes from his line and their kind, offered in just a
calm tone that it doesn’t even hold the bite of that factual edge that
many like to use, pretending that they are not angry. He is no more
irritated than he was earlier, annoyed actually, but simply along the
same lines. But that warmth that had leaked along the back of his skull
and into his temples is now a pounding throb that won’t be denied.
“Why don’t you go inside and let your kinsmen tend you.” Her kinsmen of which he is not. His family were waiting for him.
Goldie Lennox
The
'Miss Goldie' pulled the Ragabash's eyes from the space of the
backyard, where she was watching for flickers of light that would
indicate a BIC lighting something up. If she was going around back
through the gate then she certainly didn't want the person she was
avoiding to be back there-- then she would be caught sneaking, and
nothing was quite so embarassing for someone who prided themselves on
their skill with stealthy feet. But that focus switched, being called
'Miss' anything was uncommon in her life (outside of the "MISS Lennox!"
that she would get in class back in high school, for probably just as
many reasons as one could imagine), and she looked up at Otto when he
imparted his advice.
Goldie's answer was to raise one eyebrow at
him. There was, again and ever-present in the breasts of Gaia's Wolves,
a flicker of that Rage, something electric and sharp that felt like a
jab in her chest and pulse in her muscles-- something that helped in
combat but outside of it really could just feel uncomfortable. It took
young Garou time to grow into their Rage, even those with the smallest
batteries of it.
But, as is equally almost always the case (and
the true blessing of carrying so little of Luna's burden), that moment
passed and Goldie forced a smile. The funny thing about forcing a smile
through Rage was how it wound up coming across looking just a little
bit like a baring of teeth instead. At least she was buck-toothed, so
the impact was lessened.
"Around me? Otto, my dear savior of the evening, I was asking about you."
She started walking backwards up the driveway, and at long last took
her hand away from the wound hidden under her jacket so she could spread
her arms out for effect. Her jacket opened to show the sizable bloom
of red on her pale shirt-- it wasn't a stretch to imagine the flash of
injury was intentional, just to put one last thumbtack on the teacher's
stool by running the risk of his getting back into the cab with a
question of 'what the fuck happened to her?' to greet him.
She
called back to him (not shouting, no, but distance did mean she couldn't
just speak at the volume you did when standing by someone's shoulder).
"I'm real good at fucking off. Watch me."
She
didn't touch the comment he made about her kinsman, didn't bark that
she didn't need him to tend to her and that she could tend to herself
now that she was somewhere safe, thank you very much. Instead, she
opted for a cooler closing statement and found her way through a gate
and into the backyard.
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