Charlotte
The tenants at Cold Crescent are used to
the strange, intense young people who come and go from the tech company
that occupies the upper floors. Start-up, you know, or defense
contractor or whatever - that's what strangers might think, when they
think about the tops floors. If they think about them.
You get used to anything. You get used to everything.
During
office hours the Garou try to stay away from the public spaces. Avoid
rush hour in the elevator bays, keep to the industrial stairwells
threaded through the structure that business people avoid when traveling
between floors.
Upstairs, 5:30ish, sun still bright in the sky,
one of the express elevators opens up and spills two of those too-bright
youths onto one of the limited-access floors.
They are: bruised
and a bit blooded, and also: fine. They're wolves. Their bodies can
heal from anything short of death, and even then they can return.
Gaia's fucking immune system.
"I'm starving," Charlotte to
Erich, of the tinypack, as they emerge from the elevator. "I wanna
order sushi pizza. We can get you a meatzza."
She doesn't know what that is.
She might have just made that up.
They haven't Talked About Things in a while, which is probably good. Sometimes that doesn't go so well.
Erich
"What's a sushi pizza?"
Erich is scraped and bruised and victorious. Erich is carrying some sort of groddy trophy
over his shoulder in a watertight sack, aka a bodybag, only this one is
all festive and blue or red or something so people don't necessarily
think bodybag when they see it. He dumps it on the floor: SQUISH-clatter-bonk-bonk. Dusts his hands off, blows out a breath.
"They
don't make meatzzas. I tried once to order a pizza without the dough
but they were like, it'll just melt and fall through the grill if we try
to put it in the oven. But we can buy pepperoni and sausage and ham
and bacon and mush it all together with a bit of mozzarella and a bit of
pizza sauce and a lot of italian seasoning and it basically tastes the
same."
Goldie Lennox
"-- and I guess I'm just
kinda let down," Goldie was in the middle of explaining when the
elevator doors next to the ones that spilled out a Shadow Lord and
Silver Fang (well isn't that a funny duo) opened up as well. "I mean,
how stereotypical that the rural place is full of fun-suckers. Do you
think it's because they leave sticks laying around the challenge
circle? So, like, when someone falls down it goes right up their assholes?"
The
'right' was complete with a rather violent gesture, where Goldie used
her hands to creatively represent a visual of what a stick going up a
rectum must look like. She'd stepped out of the elevator mid animated
chatter, hands leading the way through the air ahead.
She and
Matthew were together on this visit, and they brought evidence of the
thunder and rain from the world outside with them. Goldie was wearing a
yellow raincoat that still held drops on its water resistant fabric,
unzipped and hood pushed down. Under that was a white-and-black striped
T-shirt, which went well with a pair of very tight black jeans and her
favorite black boots. An equally black scarf knit in a loop was wrapped
about her neck, and moisture clung to it in places as well.
And speaking of moisture, a 'squelch-squish' sound pulled her attention to the duo up ahead.
It was a dramatic gesture when she pointed at the waterproof red-and-blue bag of festivity and nasty. "What is that?"
Charlotte
"What
if you took like chicken skin and cooked it 'til it was crispy like
dough and then put the toppings on it?" Charlotte asks. She is:
somewhat tallish (5'7ish?) willowy thing who has the sort of physicality
of a supermodel, at least from a distance. This spare and lean and
nearly child-like frame. Call her: waifish. "I bet that would be
pretty good. And I don't know what sushi pizza is. I just want to try
it."
She is a fan of mixing: cereals, sodas, and virtually
anything else that strikes her shifting fancy until it resembles
nothing-like-food. She is also: pure bred as fuck.
Shining. Lovely. Mad.
Do not call her: squeamish. They are somewhere and Erich is dumping the brightly colored tye-dyed
bodybag on the linoleum floor of an open space in the center of one of
the floors that serves as you know, meeting room and monster-gutting
facility and the creature is stilling down on her haunches, reaching up
for the zipper.
"It was a person. Then his heart got
eaten up by worms and he grew a second face on his back and an arm like a
'gator's head and a stupid donkey tail."
Like evolution, the Wyrm is not always practical in its investments.
Flick flick. Pale pale eyes, curious and (shockingly! Erich!) rather oddly forthright as she unzips the prize. "Who are you?"
Erich
"I don't know." Erich looks dubious. "I mean that could
be amazing, but it could also be really fucking gross. Let's try it
sometime. Is sushi pizza really a thing, or did you just make that up
too?"
They are interrupted. Or rather, they are discovered.
Ding! goes the other elevator bell, and Erich turns, face all animated
and mid-conversation, expression all expectant. Out comes... two people
he hasn't met before. One of them wants to know what's in the bag.
"Honor
and glory for me, blondie," he says, right as Charlotte is being a tad
bit more specific about the contents. Not that he isn't blond, himself,
because he is. Not quite as white-blond as Charlotte though, or even
so golden-blond as he was when he was like, eighteen, sixteen, six years
old. Darker with the oncoming winter, now.
Also, echoing his tinypack-sister: "Who're you guys?"
Matthew Murphy
"Do I think that?"
Look
at his face. He's so perturbed by Goldie's vulgarity that he doesn't
even want to dignify it with a response. He does it anyway though. Just
in case anyone heard the silence after the question and thought the
silence implied agreement. He does not agree with her. Not even a
little.
He's saved from further exploration of the topic by the No
Moon's dramatics. As he steps out of the elevator it's obvious he
recognizes neither Charlotte who he has never met before nor Erich who
he met in darkness under less than ideal circumstances. If he were to
ever breed his children would be Kinfolk if they would not be fated to
Change. His bearing and his blood tells of the strength of his lineage.
He's wearing work boots and jeans and a rain-slicked jacket but there's
no mistaking him for anything other than Fianna.
Hearing the question echoed has Matt slowly looking sidelong at Goldie like to ask her if she's going to answer them or not.
Charlotte
"It's
real." Charlotte assures Erich, of the sushi-pizza. She does this:
solemnly. She has a face that is suited for such solemnities, you must
know. These huge pale blue eyes and this aristocratic skin and a
certain frame and bearing even with her strange and still somehow
adolescent gawkiness that is,
you know,
kingly. "They have
it in Montreal. It's really, really good. You'd like it if you could
get rice. Or I figure you could just buy a pizza and put sushi on it.
Maybe you could just make a crust out of hamburger though. Then top
it. We should try to make a meattzza when we go back home."
Goldie Lennox
"Us?"
Well,
Goldie did have a pentiant for the dramatic. Perhaps the due date that
her mother was given landed under a Gibbous moon-- she was born a
little early, after all. Either way, Goldie proudly jammed a thumb to
her chest and jutted her chin out when she proclaimed:
"We're Fianna."
As
though that should say it all. She glanced briefly to Matthew, then
jammed that same thumb through the air in his direction. There had been
a pause there where she'd considered putting one hand on his back and
smacking the other hand into the bartender Kinsman's chest instead, but
some modicum of either respect or restraint had her deciding to gesture
his way instead. Either way, the beacon of Old Hearthfires and
Headresses of Antlers was pointed to as an indicator. "Couldn't you
tell?"
From there, she jammed her hands into her coat pockets and
wandered further toward the tye-dye bag of Glory and Honor. With a bit
of a sniff, she turned her head to Erich and asked in perfectly innocent
curiosity: "What was so honorable about the Chimera kill?"
Erich
It's
that solemnity that wins Erich over, time and again. It's that
solemnity, and that pale-eyed, wide-eyed wisdom of hers that makes Erich
suddenly grin and reach over and hug her against his beefy side. The
indignity of a brief noogie is administered, and then Erich just relaxes
into that random loose-armed side-hug.
"I don't like raw fish.
Maybe we can put some grilled fish on top of hamburger. Like sushi
surf 'n turf, I bet that'd be good."
The new people announce themselves. Fianna: he snorts, letting go of Charlotte and turning to face them.
"Damn right I could tell. I could tell from the beer fumes
wafting over this way. I meant like, names. I'm Erich. This's
Charlotte. And the Chimera kill," is that what it's called? Erich
isn't sure. Maybe Charlotte knows, but Erich: Erich's just going to
play along and pretend he knows what that is for now, "is honorable
'cause we were out killing it while you two were pickling yourselves.
OH, BURNNN." And he holds up a hand for Charlotte to high-five.
Matthew Murphy
Matt just shakes his head and turns around to find the stairs.
Charlotte
Charlotte
has unzippered the Chimera-kill and within the bag is a twisted man
with a scraggly gray beard whose face has gone strange and slack and
sick, tongue too-white, thick and lolling. The suggestion of the
twisted arm a slick and sickly green and she is looking down at him with
what is both a mildly detached interest and a kind of mournful
intensity. The prize was long-since cleansed still.
There is a humid stink to it and Matt turns around and Charlotte assumes that that is: why.
"Sorry."
THIS IS KIND OF MUMBLED and she reached to zip-it-back-up, real quick
and then she's standing and Erich pulls her in for a side-hug and don't
they look like brother and sister.
Sometimes she high-fives him
absent-mindedly or intently or not the proper way at all. Tonight she
glances at Erich's hand, then Matt's back. "That wasn't very nice
Erich, I think you hurt his feelings."
Erich
Annnd
he's left hanging! Deflated, Erich lets his hand flop back to his
side. "Well, his friend started it," he protests -- just like the
mature, grown-up, Fosternized Big Boy that he is. "She was all being psh!
about our kill. Anyway, it's just friendly rivalry. Keeps things
interesting. Don't worry, Blondie, I'm not gonna keep ragging on you
now that your backup's upped and left you. Wouldn't be sportsmanlike."
Goldie Lennox
The
comradery between the tall skinny moon-eyed Silver Fang and the
beefy-flanked Shadow Lord was evident. Packmates, Goldie had to guess,
but that was something just to be scrawled on a post-it note and tacked
on the corkboard of This New Community for analysis later. More than
that she was curious to see this gator-armed donkey-tailed person.
The
grizzled-gray beard and lolling tongue upper body rolled out of the
bag, and Goldie straightened up and stepped back, even went so far as to
wrinkle her nose and make a kind of 'Hoo-ee' sound at the sight.
But
there was Erich, then, insisting that he could smell the beer on them
and didn't need their tribe because of it. Called his kill honorable
because he was killing it instead of killing shots like they were
supposedly doing. There is, momentarily, a snap in the air. It isn't
like when the earth cracks and magma heat boils up from underneath, not
like when an Ahroun feels a push of Rage, but it is still there and
sharp and hot and electric. The second time such a response was
provoked from the little Fianna by the Fenrir-turned-Lord.
"Woooowwww,"
she drawled out. Matt had turned to leave, and Goldie reached out to
nab onto his coat sleeve-- near the cuff, like maybe she wanted his hand
but missed. "Matthew Murphy, are you just going to walk and let this guy talk about us like that?"
The
answer was probably going to be a yes, and maybe that would be
communicated in a glance, or maybe not, but she looked back to Erich and
scoffed a dramatic little scoff and put her free hand on her hip.
"Did
you hear a 'pish'? I didn't hear a 'pish'. I heard a lot of fish, but
no 'pish'. I mean, I was asking what made it Honorable and not just
Glorious, but some lines got crossed and suddenly we were reduced to this."
The hand that was on her hip gestured before them, as though she was
indicating some sort of scene that had unfurled and made a mess of the
place.
Charlotte
Charlotte goes all-alert at that
snap of electricity, the spark of rage that does-not-precisely ignite
beneath Goldie's skin but still: brights, turns over, draws her taut
through the spine.
There is, a new wariness about her in that
moment that feels more animal than human. The tension in her spine and
shoulders. The way she stands so as to keep both Goldie and Erich in
view.
Quieter now. A slow-flush of color pinking her aristrocratic cheeks.
She's right at Erich's side, still.
A bit of blood on her hands, but never-you-mind.
Matthew Murphy
He
doesn't jerk his cuff out of her grip. That would be rude. When he does
turn back around he's trying not to roll his eyes and he's got his
tongue pushed into the back of an incisor like that's keeping him from
saying something he's going to regret later.
Goldie doesn't need
him to defend her. She can do a fine enough job on her own. So she
steers him back to her side and Matt stands there looking back and forth
between the two of them. Wary not the same way that Charlotte is wary
but wary in the way that meatbags are wary.
Erich
There's
a tension suddenly that Erich doesn't quite understand. He gives
Charlotte a quizzical look. He gives Matthew a quizzical look. He
looks down at the carcass, which stinks, and then he drops to a crouch
to zip the bag back up.
"Okay, so... not sure why everyone's all
edgy suddenly, but I'm gonna go dump the body somewhere where the
Guardians have check it over and then get rid of it." And thus
speaking, he heaves the load back onto his capable shoulders.
A
tilt of his head Matthew-ward before he goes -- "Does he ever talk? And
what's your name? I mean, you called him Matthew, but I'm gonna start
assuming your name actually is Blondie unless I hear otherwise."
Goldie Lennox
The
bright-electric burn of Rage didn't manifest in a sharpening of teeth
or flex of muscles. Goldie's body language didn't even look that
violent, really, but there was an undeniable prickly quality to her
voice now. She was a bright little falling star of a human, petite and
lean with a mass of sandy-blond hair that was piled up into a knot on
top of her hair, bound tight and kind of frizzy in the weather. She
shouldn't be facing off against an Ahroun, but who called this a face
off? The way that Matt stood reluctantly stationed at her side and how
Charlotte took up a quiet space at Erich's made it seem that way.
And Erich? Well, he just seemed confused.
Goldie
blinked at him a few times, and answered his questions in a casual
off-hand sort of way that didn't quite match the situation that they
were standing in. "Oh, Blondie isn't too far off, really. It's
Goldie."
She blinked and looked at Charlotte for a second. Goldie
opened her mouth like she was going to say something-- she had somewhat
bucked front teeth, that was noticeable in that moment. They worked
with her face, didn't detract from the wide-eyed fae-like sort of pretty
that she carried about her. Goldie looked like she belonged in the
woods with flowers in her hair. Instead she wore mass-produced clothes
and had pink lipstick on her lips.
Whatever it was she was going
to ask Charlotte, she instead decided to direct at Erich. Sounding like
she was breaking script to clarify something, she tipped her head
forward and blinked at him instead.
"Do you really not understand how greeting us with alcoholism jokes was a shitty thing to do?"
Charlotte
Okay.
Okay.
See,
just like that Charlotte's wariness melts - not away, but sinks somehow
back beneath her skin, wraps itself around the base of her spine, goes
back to whereever it lives when she has forgotten to be self-conscious.
Which is: rarely.
The
unguarded immediacy of that initial encounter is long-since gone and in
its wake she is: you know. Strange and awkward, the fringe of her hair
dyed pink, her blood shining and singing and whispering promises in a
way that she never, ever does.
"We asked who you were," a little
one-armed shrug, Charlotte's voice is quite nearly a whisper. "And you
didn't say. It might not've been a nice joke but what you did wasn't nice, either.
"Do
you want to start again?" Charlotte gives Erich a Look. It is: mildly
sidelong. She seems again really rather solemn. "We could do formal
introductions."
Matthew Murphy
Once that initial
not-wanting to turn back around has passed Matt brings himself to look
at the two Garou standing down the hallway and neither of them can see
fear or timidity in him. A lack of patience maybe but that's different
than fear.
Kinfolk are supposed to be patient. They are supposed
to stand in the face of Rage and not quail. He has his hands in the
pockets of his overcoat and he's watching Erich as he speaks. Still
watching Erich as Goldie asks a question that sounds odd for its
sincerity. He glances over at her like he isn't sure he's hearing her
right.
And then the waif-girl offers up something like a truce.
Maybe this is when it starts to become apparent that he's silent because
he doesn't want to answer for the Garou girl at his side.
Erich
Instantly
bewildered-indignant: "What! Since when was it not okay to reference
the well-known drinking habits of the Fianna? Since when did the Fianna
get all hypersensitive instead of giving as good as -- "
and this is when Charlotte comes in: quiet, level, and dare we say it: wise. Erich, also wisely
showing some restraint for once, closes his mouth. He is given a look.
He heaves a sigh, but then he tosses that burden higher up on the
slope of his shoulder and faces the duo again.
"Okay. I guess we
can start again. I'm Erich, called Storm's Teeth, also called Son of
Rage, and it's actually a longer name than that 'cause a Silver Fang
Philodox gave it to me. I'm a Shadow Lord." His eyes are momentarily
ferocious: just daring them to say something about that. About the
Shadow Lord thing, about the Silver Fang naming thing, all that. "I'm
an Ahroun, and a Fostern."
Goldie Lennox
Charlotte
was a soft-spoken thing. Goldie may very well one day come to the
conclusion that she spoke so quietly because her ears were busy hearing
the spirits half the time anyways. Looking at her, the slight frame and
how all of the color was wrung from her through so many years of
selective breeding, she may also wonder if all of those voices actually
were spirits and not made up.
Just like how one day Goldie may
wonder what Erich was doing with the Shadow Lords, of all tribes. She
might chalk that up to a misplaced 'fuck you' to mom and dad. She might
actually ask one day, who knew?
Both of them Goldie looked at as
though they were the daily sudoku puzzle in her paper. Like she was
trying to figure them out but still needed to do some foot work before
she could have all the boxes filled in. Erich was defensive, as though
it was standard practice to give Fianna guff about pickling their
livers, and Charlotte was trying to make peace. Matt? He was letting
her do the talking-- the poor fucker.
"Hmmph," she said at first,
and crossed her arms over her chest thoughtfully. "Right. Well. I've
just got the one name-- Little Uproar. Fianna Ragabash Cliath. I was
just trying to show my friend here how nice this place is. You see, we
had kind of a negative experience going to try and shake hands out at
Roxborough, but...." She unfolded her arms in a 'what do you do?' kind
of a gesture, then sighed and looked back up to Matt.
"Sushi did sound pretty good. There's an all-you-can-eat place that I saw like six blocks over?"
Matthew Murphy
The Ahroun's eyes go vicious for a moment and Matt doesn't mean to pull a face but he does. Like oh sure that's fair.
He
goes on to frown when Goldie says they had a negative experience out at
Roxborough. Lips purse like he's going to ask her what she's talking
about but he schools his expression a second later because she's talking
about sushi.
"You don't wanna wait for the rest of the formal
introductions?" he asks. Tilts his eyes towards Charlotte. He can
recognize Garou but not their heritage. He has no idea what he's getting
himself into. "She only gave us her first name."
Would you look at that. He does have a voice.
"I'm
Matt," he says like to ante up. His voice is deep even if it sounds
disused like he spends most of his days listening instead of talking.
"Murphy. My old man was Nolan Murphy, he was an Athro Theurge died in
North Carolina about twelve years back. Nice to meet you."
Charlotte
"Nice to meet you too, Matt.
"I'm
Eulalia Charlotte Horatia Evadne Jefferson-Gray, daughter of Guillaume
Cédric Félix Ementier Gray, called the Spine of the Moon, called
Starfall, called Silvertongue, called the Undying, son of [.... there's
more here. there's so much more, but eventually she gets back
around to:] called Black Sheep. Cliath Theurge. We're packmates. Our
other packmate's up in Evergreen right now. At our house.
"This isn't," a blink in Goldie's direction, then back toward Matt as she's considering what to say next. "This isn't really a nice place. The Sept's here to guard the pit in the basement. It's not like Forgotten Questions. There the earth - "
Charlotte trails off, reverent and a bit strange and embarrassed and lots of things.
"You
shouldn't eat all you can eat sushi. They just get cheap fish and dye
it pink. Try Sushi Sushi. It's not all you can eat but they don't make
you spend too much for a roll and they're really good. We gotta go
take care of this dead guy. Bye."
And, turning back to Erich, the
ghostly flash of her ghostly smile. "I want all of his fingerbones.
Just the first joints. And the teeth are really good for lots of
things. Especially from the alligator-arm. I wonder how long the roots
are - "
Trailing off as they, you know, wander away with their corpse.
Erich
"Well," softening -- a little -- Erich shrugs Le Corpse a little higher again and looks about. "This place is
pretty nice," that, right as Charlotte is calling it not-nice. Erich
grumps at Charlotte for a moment, then presses on doggedly: "You been up
to the roof yet, Uproar? Great view. Go before it gets cold.
"Anyway. Yeah. We gotta go dump a bod." He swings away. Gets a couple steps; turns back.
"Heh.
Is your name seriously Goldie? Man, what are the chances. Blondie,
Goldie, Goldilocks." And on that note -- with a click of his tongue
against his teeth which evidently constitutes some form of goodbye --
Erich turns away for the last time and goes tromping off to dispose of
the body.
Goldie Lennox
There's
a spiel that goes on god knows how long-- probably a solid two minutes
or perhaps longer, while Charlotte recites her lineage as way of proper
introduction. She gives advice that they shouldn't go All You Can Eat,
and Erich gives advice that she should visit the roof and finds her name
humorously perfect-- this has happened plenty of times in her life, one
can imagine.
Then the two are on their way.
Goldie,
uncharacteristically quite for that last bit there, blinked at the pair
of retreating backs, then looked up to Matt and said, flatly: "That
is why I wasn't waiting around for her to introduce herself." This, of
course, a conversational tone for the two of them, not shouted over her
shoulder intended to be overheard. She turned about herself, the
opposite direction, back to the elevator doors.
"Them Silver
Fangs, man, it's like they're confused on what an introduction is. I
think they got it drilled into their skulls through all of their
boarding schools that it's the only right way to say their name. Like
when you say an adopted word and someone corrects you for not saying it
with the original language's accent." She shook her head and asked:
"You're not mad at dyed-fish sushi, are you? I'll pay-- I think it was like $15 per person...."
Matthew Murphy
He waits until the hall is empty before he turns to Goldie and huffs out a laugh.
"Jesus Christ," he says. "'Fianna'? That's how you introduce yourself to wolves you've never met before?"
Goldie Lennox
Oh poor Matt, to be shackled with such a girl. She smirked and shrugged one shoulder.
"I was getting to it!"
Matthew Murphy
"There's no 'getting to it,' that should be the first thing out've your mouth, Lennox. I'm breeding stock and I know better."
If he sounds pissed off that's because he is. Poor Matt indeed.
Goldie Lennox
"Oh
come onnnn." Goldie was recognizing the tone that Matt carried to
him. He was pissed off, scolding her for not kicking off with a name
first thing. She rolled her eyes and sounded bothered by his being
bothered by her-- she kept trying to explain to the people of Denver
that she wasn't a teenager, but she was doing herself no favors with
that defense.
One hand hung out in her jacket pocket while she thumbed at the elevator button to call it back.
"It
wasn't that formal of a setting. I mean, yeah, we're here at the Sept,
but that doesn't mean everyone you walk on you tap-heel and salute at."
She
paused, then pressed her lips together, the lower one stuck out further
so it looked more like a pout. She was looking forward at the elevator
gauge when she added, in a lower tone that wasn't quite as fun sounding
as the rest: "Don't call yourself that, it's fuckin' crass."
Matthew Murphy
If
he were about ten years younger Matt might have taken some perverse
delight out of riling up a Gaian guardian over the relative uselessness
of his kind compared to hers. Goldie is too young to remember the
arguments he used to have with his older brother Ennis. Ennis didn't
have long on this earth period let alone as a member of the Nation but
he died Fostern at an age when maybe of them are still figuring out who
they are as Cliaths.
And Ennis never used to think Matt's flippant
comments were funny either. Ennis was born under a waning crescent
moon. His moods were darker than their father's. He was the one who
originally told Matt that he ought to consider a career in the legal
profession for how much he enjoyed arguing.
He is not a young man
anymore. He is still young by society's standards but by his age he
should be established in his career and engaged if not wed. He should
have had at least one kid by now.
All he has is the ability to draw deep-deep breaths and let them go again in a long-suffering sigh.
"I'm crass," he says. "That's... yeah. That's a good one."
Goldie Lennox
Long
suffering sighs are like cellos in the orchestra of Goldie Lennox's
overture. That sound was nothing new, just like groans of frustration
and the sound of rage-- not the big letter R stuff, but pure rage that
any being can experience-- rising from chests and throats through
clenched teeth and feet. So Matt's expulsion of air hardly moved Goldie
to new emotion or understanding.
She thumbed impatiently at the button again. This was the problem with skyscraper Septs.
"You're
downright offensive, that's how crass you are," she continued. The
sincerity that had been visible before was going back down under,
beneath the waves of Goldie's well-renowned ramblings. Her words
themselves were like a battle tactic of her moon-- to circle, to
confuse, to weave elaborate paths for people to become lost upon so she
could spring from behind.
"You burn the ears of younguns so badly
that your nieces and nephews won't stop crying and covering the sides of
their heads until after they've all filed their teeth and tasted their
first blood and iron. This is why I can't take you anywhere-- look at
how poorly that exchange went, and all because you couldn't just stop
being so offensive at our new neighbors."
She turned to glance
over her shoulder, up the hall that the mismatched duo had gone, then
huffed and pulled her raincoat hood up over her head in enough of a
snap-motion that some of the rainwater displaced itself from her coat to
the elevator panel before her.
Matthew Murphy
Moments
like this it's easy to see her Galliard mother's influence on her
though Goldie was so young when she died. Subtle poetry in the rambling.
They
haven't been out on this wayward adventure long enough for Matt to
expect anything out of Goldie other than bad behavior. Maybe she's
starting to get the idea that he doesn't expect much out of anyone
especially not if they were born true. He expects violence and
misunderstanding and posturing if he expects anything.
Aside from
the sidelong glance he cuts her Matt manages to maintain his poker face.
He was never good at maintaining a poker face. Hard to believe he
survived an entire year as an environmental lawyer when he can't lie
worth a damn.
"Yeah, I know." The elevator dings and the doors slide open. He lets her board first. "I gotta cut back on the dick jokes."
Goldie Lennox
Goldie's
mother was a foundation in her youth-- a Philodox, though, we
remember. The Galliard in her life was related to her by way of her
father. That was a distant aunt or cousin of some kind that had swung
by to help Marcus out in the months following the loss of his wife (and
so many others from the Sept as well). Goldie picked up her knack for
poetic rambling from goodness-knows-where. It could probably be blamed
on a couple of influences; she did come from a rather Fianna community
after all.
Matt, though? He was a terrible liar. Goldie peeked
at him past the edge of her hood and saw that flimsy poker face. A
little smirk hid behind the hood, and she boarded the elevator first as
his pause indicated she should.
"I dunno. I don't think it was
the dick jokes that did it that time. I mean, maybe if you didn't call
that Erich guy a 'Nordic lunkhead' and start drilling him about why he
defected the waters would've been less choppy."
As the elevator
doors would close them in, Goldie simultaneously opened her arms in a
gesture that's nothing but peaceful and signifying of letting the
situation go. Another 'what do you do', but slightly more saintly.
"Perhaps one of these days someone will be more accepting of us
foul-mouthed vagrants. Like Miss Mary-- she's a fuckin' peach, I like her."
Matthew Murphy
This
is how history gets rewritten. A Ragabash gets ahold of it and starts
stretching the thing until it only resembles the original tale in color.
The introduction of 'Nordic lunkhead' makes him laugh a short-lived
laugh.
Then that gesture. That borderline appeal for peace.
Miss
Mary. The voluptuous Ragabash with the little girl whose stuffed
alicorn or whatever the hell it's called has a tendency to go missing.
He knows the name even if he didn't stick around to see her come out of
her hiding place the other day.
"The fuck're you callin'
foul-mouthed?" he asks. He hits the button that will take them towards
the ground floor then blows out another sighing breath. Flicks his
eyebrows. Fuck it. "So we're a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.
Bring on the dyed fish."
That must mean he's down for the fifteen-dollars-a-pop sushi after all.
Or maybe he just wants to drink a bottle of sake by himself. He does have a reputation to uphold after all.
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