John Barrister

[Kemp Oates] "I know about the dogs, Nessa."

Snickered as he shook his head, waving her in first.

"After you. Ain't gonna leave ya standing out here."

[Loki] He stepped out of the cab, his gaze swinging off towards the dogs that were about to go ballistic with the double-dose of rage when it hits the house. He is silent, casting a look back to the pair as they argue over who pays and who stays or goes. He wasn’t about to go in and face the dogs on his own. It’s likely Nessa wasn’t going to have any if one of them attacked him.

“Nessa, luve, may want tae go lock yer dogs up. One o’ them bites me I ain’t responsible for what I do tae it.”

[Kemp Oates] "Yeah, been a long time since he had a date."

Snickering. He tried to behave around these two dogs out of respect for Nessa's home. Frankly, most dogs he enjoyed intimidating.

[Nessa] "Wha!!" Short break for mild hysterics at Kemp's jibe. When she can speak again, her breathing is a bit rapid and a giggle still threatens to break through the impassive face she isn't Quiiite making fit on her face.
Finally she responds to Lachlan-- "ahh.. is very good idea, da." She complies with alacrity, moves quickly if rather stiffly to chain up both dogs as she does when Skadi comes.
All HELL breaks loose when Skadi comes. Chains were a wise and recent purchase.
A small porch, nothing too fancy but she has pots of multicolored pansies and pretty tulips across both sides, the only hint to the softer interior.
Of course she's painted the walls chocolate, mostly. What else? The furniture is mostly leather, with end tables of exceptional quality, far more pricey than her supposedly meager wage as a data base clerk could offer. She's scattered the whole place with living plants of many sorts, easy-care but a touch of something alive. The art on the walls was never out of a cheap store, unique and high dollar too. Little touches like that, a love of an understated luxury and rich colors and places for shadows in the room.

[Loki] “Remind tae mug Nessa tha next time I get desperate for some cash.” He mutters under his breath, shooting a glance over to Kemp at the mention of the dog needed a date. He steps up and shoulders his arm into the other Rotagar’s side in a bit of rough play before heading up to the porch and entering after Nessa does.

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, I wouldn't mug her if I were you. She might tie ya down and have her way with ya then give ya over to the dogs for some fun."

He pushed back with his shoulder against Lachlans. Snorting a chuckle as they nearly tumbled through the door with the roughhousing.

"So tell me about whatcha got planned and whatcha need me for."

[Nessa] The thought of tying Loki down, now that stops her dead in her tracks, as her head whips over to stare at the ragabashes in surprise. From her direction is a faint choking sound, and then a stream of vitriolic-sounding Russian as she disappears into her kitchen, calls out behind her, "Tell me what you like to drink, I have most things. And food, though ahh is Russian food." Kemp has seemed somewhat suspicious of strange foods in the past, so she waits with interest for his reaction now.

On one wall are a few photos. Many of a stunningly beautiful woman in various poses. A supermodel, and she looks vaguely like Nessa, were Nessa to obtain a sudden case of Extreme Gorgeousness, and also change more than any makeup could account for. One photo of a man who also resembles her more, is most definately Shadowlord. Kemp would recognize her as the long-missing Milo, her brother.

[Loki] He gives Kemp another shove, putting more of his strength and weight into it before tumbling through the door. A chuckle ebbs in his throat, giving the main room a quick look over to find a place to sit.

“Vientos come up wi’ a plan o’ attack. Well, least wise a distraction.” He finally sits down on the edge of the couch, arms braced across his lap, clasping his hands together as he looks up at Kemp.

“Bai Chou wants tae burn a specific number o’ buildings in Chinatown tae create a diversion so that we c’n distract tha geomids and spiders in tha umbra and in tha city, while a group goes and takes down tha heart o’ tha beast in Chinatown.”

He ignores Nessa’s request for food, pulling his hands up to the sleeve of his shirt covering his left arm. He pushes it back to show a gauze bandage wrapped around the muscle of the forearm, begins to unwind it to extend it out and show Kemp a rather vicious looking burn scar on the inner side of his arm. “Fire elemental talen, bound intae the skin; we’re usin’ it tae destroy tha buildings but they ‘ave tae be manually set off by a person. Which for now is me, Danny, Bai, Sandman and Reyna,” he says, and then begins to cover it back up. “Skadi offered ye and her help wi’ this.”

[Kemp Oates] He shook his head to Nessa before thinking twice about it.

"Yeah, on second thought, starving."

Looking back to Lachlan as he listened.

"He does realize it won't take long before the sirens are going and the fire department and police turn up on this side? We'll have to strike and move fast or step over."

[Loki] “I ‘ave considered that. Jus’ hadn’t come up wi’ a plan for a secondary diversion. I’m still a bit unsure where exactly this heart is within tha Prenumbra o’ Chinatown. I figures he may know.”

He shrugs his shoulders, looking around again, his gaze sliding in the direction of the kitchen. “So, who’s tha lady on tha wall, Nessa?”

[Nessa] Of course she is listening in as she prepares a snack for them, like it or not. Simple, really. A large platter of enough food to feed twice the garou, she prepares, as the sounds of chopping ensue and the scent of sausages, of cold roasted meat begins to fill the rooms of her home.
A jar being opened with a sucking pop. A plastic bag of some sort rustling as she adds bread. Something sharp and sour and a bit garlicky, like some odd pickle adds to the scents in her home.
What she brings takes very little time to prepare:
"My cousin, Valeriya Maevsky. She lives here in town, kin to my tribe. The man is my brother, Milo Maevsky, fostern Theurge of our tribe. He is missing."
Never accepted his death, not really. Not after two years.
A pile of black Russian bread with a small dish of rich, fresh butter next to it. Two bowls of pickled vegetables-- garlicy pickled cuckes and one of pickled onions. A large stack of sliced cold rare veal, and one of thick, spicy- looking sausages piled like logs on the other side of the plate. Another bowl of a vegetable salad. A tall glass of milk for Kemp, and one each of Kvas for herself and Loki. S
Loki will have to accept, of course. So rude not to, so rude to turn her hospitality back into her face. She beams maliciously just thinking of the expression he will make.

[Kemp Oates] "Er well, went in downtown, section A one according to the Weaver. Saw this bright glow off in the distance. I figure, either that was it, or there is one in each sector, or with distance there? Could be somewhere else, not sure how far, but ya can see it sure as you can see me now."

Nodding his thanks to Nessa. He'd need to slip her some more cash to help pay for things. Sitting down to eat, talking between bites.

"Now, diversion on this side, to divert the legals away from the fires that are a diversion in themselves? Heh."

[Nessa] Nessa breaks in now, not shy or diffident like she might have been, months ago. She picks up her glass of Kvas, smiles in her most helpful manner. "I can provide distraction, if you wish. Make police tied up around town, in places at least. Spike alarm systems, da? They will have to respond. Also could set off fire alarms, draw firetrucks."
Anything to help the garou AND have an absolute blast.

[Kemp Oates] He quirked a brow to Lachlan.

"There ya go, that's a thought. She can help, I'm sure she knows others, you know others, that can."

[Loki] The alcohol he seems to have no problem accepting, taking the glass in hand after Agnessa hands it to him. He eyes it warily, bringing it up to his nose to smell it first. Both eyebrows shooting up at her when she comes in with the food, he listens to what she says, pondering this.

“How c’n ye get away wi’ doing that?” shaking his head as the drink is just held in his hands, left untouched. “It’s not necessarily a secondary diversion to distracts the first one. I figure if anyone knows how tae disappear setting tha fires should be left in hands capable o’ those sneaking tha fuck ‘round, but they need tae be set simultaneously. I c’n do that wi’ me pack since we c’n coordinate o’er tha totem phone. It’s tha other thing I’m concerned wi’, going after tha heart o’ tha problem.”

[Nessa] "Not a problem. Will not BE a fire. Is simple. Will be timed countdown into alarm systems. Is truly not difficult to manage. All go off soon together. Police will know after several that are deliberate, but will be on wrong side of town. Or I could really set fires, but I am not arsonist. Is... will not be professional job.
You should try Kvas, Loki, unless scares you too much. Is good, is very mild drink, we Russians drink often. Ahh... like Coke, here. I made it." The hopeful, helpful smile she offers the Ragabash is quite sweet, appropriately innocent. She drinks from her own glass, deeply, and smiles again. No harm done.

[Kemp Oates] "I can ask Skadi to join in. Ya know she loves a good fight if it comes to that."

Nodding slowly as he ate. He stuck mostly to the bread and meat she had. Veggies weren't high on the food chain, it was what the food he ate, ate before he ate them.

"See if she ain't no where around, then there's no danger to her. We that can slip away will take the risk. Though, ya know we could set the fires, your pack could communicate on your totem. Me? I ain't got that luxury, so will have to do what I can. But after the fires are set, we can jump over and help on that side."

[Loki] “Why ‘aven’t ye joined up wi’ another pack yet, Kemp?”

He looks down at the drink once more, and then slides his eyes over to Agnessa, wrinkling up his nose. “I’ll drink it in a moment, luve. I want tae keep me wits ‘boot me fer now.” He leans over to stretch his arm out and set the glass down on a coffee table, pulling back. He reclines back into the couch seat, lifting a hand to scratch blunt nails under his jaw.

“There’s got tae be a way tae let ye benefit from a totem phone, would be nice…”

[Nessa] She does make herself a small sandwich from some of the veggies and buttered bread, adds a bit of the pickles to the thing, grins. "I do not mind risk, Kemp. I have risk often. Baaku allowed me to assist on jobs too. Is what I do, sneaky break in stuff."
Well. Maybe she is exaggerating a weeee little bit there. But close enough. "You could also simply brown out Chicago, and police would be so damned busy, cell phones overloaded. Delay to get message for help to police. Will buy you more time, I think. But would be ahh chaotic."

[Nessa] (they are at nessa's house sorry! Unless he can get there some way! borrow sugar or the phone? *g*)
to John Barrister

[John Barrister] (*laughs* it's cool, i'm mainly here to meet skadi)
to Nessa

[Nessa] (Cool. *drooolz over john*)
to John Barrister

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, well maybe a Walker could brown it out or a Theurge with connections to the right spirits."

Considering Nessa's words while putting of his response to Loki for a moment. When his green eyes met Loki's dead on, he spoke straight and true.

"Well now, there's a few reasons. One, I never thought I wouldn't be with Decker, ever. Not until I died that is. So, jumping in with someone else, just ain't occured to me yet. Add to that, ain't no one crazy enough to ask me. Heh."

Chuckling as he lifted the glass to take a drink of milk. White mustache showing until he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth.

"And, I just ain't in no hurry to fuck with the hole inside me."

[Kemp Oates] We are at Nessa's but with other folk coming in, we can come outside. I don't like excluding folk from a scene when in an open room. Find it a mite rude. Heh.
to John Barrister, Loki, Nessa, Skadi

[Nessa] (Yeah, can do that!)
to John Barrister, Kemp Oates, Loki, Skadi

[Loki] “I would ‘ave asked if’n I known ye join, but if I c’n come up wi’ a temporary way fer that night tae coordinate ye wi’ Twister I’ll do it.” He brings his hands together, rubbing them slowly, his mind swirling with thoughts and complications. “We’re ‘boot tae lose Luis in Vientos, he’s goin’ off tae do his own thing. There’s tha little Uktena Reyna. She’s lookin’ for pack to make or join as well.”

[John Barrister] Lake View has a small downtown of its own. It's nothing like the high-soaring edifices of downtown Chicago proper -- none of the polished swank, none of the quiet financial power, none of the shopping malls and public squares and transit stations and masses. Lake View's downtown is something altogether different: a street of lowrise buildings that housed expensive apartments on the top two or three floors, and small boutiques and shops on the bottom. Gourmet grocery stores, rug galleries, cafes, artsy bars, stationary shops, tailors -- the eclectic and expensive assortment you might find at any of a thousand upper-middle community centers across the nation.

It's late, and most of the small shops are closed. The cafes and the bars are still open, as are the independent music and bookstores. John Barrister is strolling down the street, meandering past window displays and darkened storefronts. His hands are clasped behind his back, and because it's a sunday night and there are few pedestrians still out, he's chanced to bring Bruin along with him, the leash looped around his right wrist. The big droopy-jowled hound snuffles along the ground behind him, leaving smears of saliva here and there.

[Kemp Oates] Rising with his dish and glass to head for the kitchen to rinse them.

"Heh, ya don't have to point others out to me Lacky. I'm fine as I am. Ain't in no rush and done met that Reyna. Seemed ok, but ain't looking. Can't explain it. Being apart ain't comforting, and the void ain't good, it sucks actually. But, ya know, somethings can't be baidaied over to make it better. It's like having a Mercedes, then stuck with your own two feet all of a sudden to get around with. Then someone offers ya a bus token. While a token is cool, it don't take the place of that Mercedes, ya know? On the other hand, I got someone else walking the pavement with me. Course, most times she's busy hitting me like some twisted sister."

[John Barrister] (belatedly: it's no biggie!)
to Kemp Oates, Loki, Nessa, Skadi

[Nessa] She knows about holes inside. Nessa's gaze moves to Kemp's face, flits away before she can embarrass him with the soul-deep empathy she feels. Suddenly she isn't hungry anymore, doesn't pick up the sandwich again, not just yet anyways.
At least he has Skadi.
The kin stands, walks over to stare out the front window, her arms wrapped around her narrow, leather-covered waist.

[Loki] He stands up, “Foine then, offer’s out there. I’d say ask Skadi, but I don’t see her gettin’ along so well wi’ a mixed pack o’ tribes.”

Loki looks away from Kemp to glance at Agnessa for a moment, his mouth quirks into an odd little smile, but it vanishes as soon as she turns around to look their way. “I should be goin’ ‘ave shite tae plan. I’ll keep ye in touch. I ‘ave tae go speak tae Decker and let him know what’s goin’ on.”

[Kemp Oates] He turned with a crooked smile to Lachlan.

"Well I appreciate ya offering me your packmate that's leaving and this female."

Chuckling with a shake of his head.

"Anyway, feel like stretching my legs myself and I'm sure Nessa could use the breathing room. Thanks for dinner Nessa."

[Skadi] It's a cool night, and cloudy, and late enough that the full moon has risen to dead center of the night sky. It is invisible, up there, underneath the clouds that blanket the sky: she can feel it anyway, riding through the vault of the night. East Ukranian Village: a neighborhood within a neighborhood, the old ethnic markers have given way to a commercial district, a half-dozen blocks with concrete stamped like flagstones and streetlights like gaslamps. A handful of shops here have a spidering foreign script, one the woman. Opening out from the central district, capillary streets with single family homes with cramped yards and narrow profiles are fitted in amongst the larger, wider boulevards with high-end condominiums and the like.

On a sidestreet of a small park a few blocks from Nessa's house, someone parks an old Ford truck with a battered, mismatched camper top and Louisiana license plates just about to expire. Not that the driver knows this, or notices: the license plates, the minutiae of human life, the fact that in precisely thirty days, the truck will be fair game for every state trooper from here to Idaho and back. She parallels the truck, in fact - with a skill not born of expertise, precisley, so much as long familiarity. She climbs out, slams the driver's door closed, and frowns up and down the street - not unknown, so much as unfamiliar. No cops: just a man walking his dog, a couple pausing on the corner beneath a streetlight, turning toward each other, embracing.

After another frowning survey of the dark street, she pockets her keys and circles to the back of the truck. The whole thing shakes as she pulls down the tailgate, clambers inside, roots among the crap back there, and eventually emerges with a brown leather satchel.

[Loki] Loki laughs, “I actually meant there’s a spot open in Vientos fer ye, not offerin’ Luis up tae ye. I don’t think he’s ready yet and ye’d jus’ loikely kill him if’n ye try tae pack wi’ him. Trust me, he’s hard tae handle. Got a lot o’ emotional issues dealin’ wi’ being a Garou.”

He tips his head in a nod to Agnessa, he begins to exit, passing by Kemp and stretches a hand out to ruffle up the taller Fenrir’s hair. Still so much younger than Lachlan was.

[Nessa] She turns, misses whatever look Loki was shooting her. He doesn't seem to have done what he said he was going to do, the odd drink still undrunk. Hmm. He gets a nod as he heads towards the door.
Instead, she says, "You are always welcome, Kemp." Her legs bring her several stiff steps closer, so that she can take the tray back into the kitchen. "wait a moment, I will prepare this for you to take to Skadi. She is eternally hungry I think. Only a moment..."
A very quick moment. She simply dumps the meats together in a sealable container, bags the bread and adds the jar of mustard, puts the whole thing into a backpack with a few bottles of kvas. Or at least, she is working on doing so as fast as she can.

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, thanks for the offer, but shit, two of us together in a pack? World ain't ready for that shit."

Smacking Lachlan in the back of his head with the messing up of his hair.

"Watch the hair man. I work all day on this do. Now gonna have to get my hair did again."

[Loki] “Ah fuck ye, all ye bloody do is sleep wrong and yer hair fuckin’ stays loike that. Don’t give me that shite, Yank. Who ye goin’ tae impress anyhow?”

His head swings forward with the slap, reaching out to sucker punch Kemp in the arm and then immediately dances off for the front door, chuckling. “Sweet Christ, tha bloody Sept couldn’t handle tha two o’ us in a pack together.” He’s chuckling as he opens the front door and steps out onto the porch, his eyes falling on Skadi.

[John Barrister] The man walking his dog is, of course, not just any man but John Barrister, kin to the northerwolves. His build and face speaks of that heritage, if distantly. It's marked in the breadth of his shoulders, in the depth of his eye-orbits under a jaggedly cut brow. He is stopped in front of an engraver's shop at present, relaxed, his weight on one foot, his profile lit in reflection by the bright lights in the display case inside. Trophies, graduation gifts, medallions for obscure sporting events and memorial typewriters -- he hadn't even realized there was such a thing -- gleam in the window, each meticulously engraved with some made-up name and A.G. RISSEN ENGRAVERS.

Barrister is a large man, just this side of burly, with a large man's slow, methodical way of walking. Nevertheless, despite the redneck dog and the look of a man who worked and fought with his hands, he wears reasonably pricy, well-fitted clothing: a coat of soft black leather that fell past the hip; worn dark jeans; a thin sweater in a hunter green so dark it was only green in juxtaposition to his coat. The easy way he wears it all says he belongs in a neighborhood like this where the average income was somewhere in the vicinity of $80k a year and people drove hybrid SUVs with dvd players in the backseat.

The leash grows taut against Barrister's hand. The hound has picked up Skadi's scent and strains forward at the end of it, alert, tail dropping to hover between his hocks. For the time being, Barrister does not notice, and only shifts over a step or two with a grunt.

[Kemp Oates] "The girls man. Gotta impress the girls. Ask Nessa, she thinks my hair makes me sexy."

Snickering as he stood in the doorway with a look back towards Nessa.

"Ya know, just put it in the fridge and she'll turn up and raid it. Or she might just turn up."

Added at the end as he stepped out on the porch with a look to Skadi.

"Ya know that punch ya always give me? Give mine to Lacky there."

[Nessa] She is following after, carrying the hastily laden sack--the woman is FAST when she needs to be. Maybe the desire to feed Skadi isn't a need per se, but it's close enough. "No, she might be hungry sooner. Here, this is for Her, Kemp. I hope she enjoys. And of course Kemp has very nice hair, Loki. Is nice and long."
Just a little dig. Since the other ragabash had Cut his hair. She stares without shame. Nessa waits, still waits, for Loki to come back and finish the damned glass of Kvas. Still, so far, he might not have kept his word to her once, is surely no reason for him to start now. Her eyes bore holes into his shoulders, his eyes, whatever is in front of her.
Loki of course is fortunate that Skadi's prickly aura finally starts getting to Nessa; her dogs are wild barking mad, straining against their chains, wanting to get to any combination of Skadi or the dog in the distance. Nessa might have done something truly terrible to the garou, cut him to shreds with vicious words, and then pour the sour waiting beverage allll over his wounds, for instance.

[Kemp Oates] His jaw tightened with the barking of the dogs as he fought the urge to growl and bare his teeth to show the dogs a glimpse of a predator well above what they had become through domestication. Looking instead between Nessa and Loki.

"Er thanks."

Accepting the container with another look between the pair.

"I'm thinking this is a good time to leave the two of ya to whatever is brewing here cause I don't even want to see it and have my hair turn white or something."

Bounding down the stairs with a low growl at the dogs as he passed them.

[Skadi] Maybe it was wash day. Maybe she owns more than two t-shirts. Maybe she - rooting through the debris in the truck's covered bed looking for a shoe, or a picture, or a whetstone, or a beer - found something new to wear, wedged beneath the half-deflated inflateable mattress, or stuffed into the frame of the back window to keep it from rattling in its track as she drives. Her t-shirt does not proclaim her Princess (too bloodstained, that one, for this neighborhood): it proclaims her to be a Skynnyrd fan. Saturated ( - or so she likes to imagine) in a familiar scent, the oversized black tee tents over her torso, and hits her not at the waist or hip, but at the top of the thigh.

Nothing about her belongs here. Her clothes are cheap and worm - and not as a matter of design. And the truck: that truck is an antique, and not a well-preserved one. The camper top does not match the wide body, which presents a bulky profile no SUV could match. She slams the tailgate shut and circles the old truck, frowning narrowly at the dog straining its leash. The frown deepens, minutely - a worrying sort of attention that doesn't belong on her features - when the Nessa's dogs catch her scent, too, and begin baying, loudly, rattling their fucking chains.

Her shoulders tense, and Skadi swears once, low beneath her breath, already questioning the wisdom of showing up here, on a night light this, with her moon a hot point in the sky. A moment's passing thought, a mental shrug. No matter; still keeping an eye on the hound down the block as she circles the truck, glancing up at the Rotagar hits the field of her peripheral vision - out of the house, down the walk. Skadi offers him a faint smirk of greeting, which registers as a nonspecific curling of her mouth from this distance, and flicks a glance down the block, toward the man and his hound. This time, her attention flares on the man, rather than the dog.

This time, the distant tickle of familiarity registers as something more immediate: good blood, good bones. Good breeding. "Got a good hold on that leash?" Hard to imagine how or whether her voice can carry over the Nessa's baying madhounds. Maybe in the spaces between their loud barking, maybe when they have flung themselves too many times to the end of their leads, and gone briefly breathless for it.

[Nessa] The kin is Mad.
She steps outside before she can be trapped inside with the other sometimes too-friendly ragabash, stands there with crossed arms and an irritated tapping of her foot. "Loki isn't staying. He does not care for my hospitality. Privet, Skadi! Kemp, give food to Skadi! She is surely hungry!"
Fair guess, considering the ahroun's recent state.
Nessa walks off the porch and a little around the house to speak to the dogs, order them down and silent, but with the incentive to attack given, they arent' particularly listening to her today.

[Loki] He was about to depart from the porch when Nessa comes out to glare holes into his back. He looks over at her briefly but doesn’t say a word, just shakes his head, muttering something about women and that time of the month and heads off.

[John Barrister] Barrister's hands are still clasped at leisure behind his back, the right over the left wrist, with the leash over the right wrist and also gripped in the left hand as it grows taut once more. The dog strains toward Skadi, anxious but curious as well, and this time earns a muffled exclamation of a rebuke as he tugs Barrister briefly off balance. The big man takes one half-stumbling step sideways, plants his feet, and resumes his perusal of engraved silverware for some decadent neurotic's home.

Got a good hold? -- this skims off his attention at first. Then it sinks in. He raises his head, "Hm?"ing low in his barrel chest; then he catches sight of the girl (because early-20-somethings were girls at his age) and disarms her with a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes.

"I do." He gives the leash a gentle jerk, bringing Bruin closer to himself as he turns away from the engraver's window. His profile had been thick through the chest; face-on, he's even wider through the shoulders, his jaw heavily shaded in an eighteen-hour beard. "Why? Are you smuggling rump roasts home?"

[Nessa] (Must either steal that same silverware for nessa OR send it to Monty! Hahah!)
to John Barrister

[Kemp Oates] "I don't even want to know the details. La la la la la!"

Chuckling with a look from Nessa to Loki as he took off. For himself? He was heading for the sidewalk and Skadi. Looking past her as he shoved the container of food at her.

"Who's that with the dog?"

Jerking his chin towards the guy around his height but definately broader than he was. Pausing with a cocking of his head as he literally lifted his face more to scent the air as if he could smell John from where they were. Snickering with the rump roast question just because he couldn't let such an opening pass him by.

"Rump..heh, rump alright."

Smart enough to dance out of easy reach as he said it.

[Skadi] "How tha fuck didja figger me out?" Her reply carries a curl of humor, thought it isn't precisely good humor, with the moon in the sky. Call it dark, or at least predatory. Kemp lets himself out through the gate; Skadi's eyes flick to him as he emerges, she shifts position, to include both the Rotagar and the strange kin in her direct line of sight, "I mean, an' down ta tha cut'a meat." Kemp chuckles over rump roasts; Skadi's mouth-curl twists into a smirk, and she kicks him sideways, in the ankle, with the toe of her pink cowboy boot. "I don't know who he is, s'why I'm askin' him. If ya want formal innerductions yer gon' hafta find yerself a fuckin' butler."

He holds out the container of food: there's some irony, now, in that - and Skadi lifts her chin, glancing briefly beyond his shoulder, toward the house, then, "Tha fuck's that fer?"

[John Barrister] Barrister's smile fades a little at Skadi's sarcasm, Kemp's snickering, the way a man's might if he suspected himself of being on the butt end of some teenaged joke. Damn kids, he thinks to himself, and turns back to the window display after a perfunctory sort of chuckle. After all, they were just strangers on the street, and -- though Garou may lose sight of this occasionally -- in general, one did not strike up long intimate conversations with strangers.

[Kemp Oates] "Fuck! That's my ankle. What is it with you and always hitting or now, kicking."

Frowning with a look towards the house as he shoved the container at her.

"It's because it's her way of feeling like she's doing something other than grieving, so take it and say thank you and all that shit your momma would expect from ya in a polite situation, which means, don't hit her or kick her."

As he glanced back towards the man with the dog, he had to once more fight the urge to taunt a dog.

[Nessa] What Nessa is doing is turning the garden hose on her pets for a few precious seconds; they FINALLY shut the hell up and run to hide in their doghouses, dripping from where she catches them with the wet blast. Her cursing is audible and very much in Russian as she shuts off the flow, sets the curly hose back in its place on the wall.
She's a little wet too.
The kin walks back out towards Skadi and Kemp, to stay hi at least, braces herself for the sensation of razors on chalkboards on nerve endings. Her shoes squish.

[Skadi] "Hey," her voice drops. It's softer; it's quieter. There's something beneath it, far from gentle. Call it steel - or rage. Agnessa's dogs have ceased their wild baying and the wind has shifted again. She can smell the lake on the air. Kemp shoves the container of food at her, and with considerably more sober glance at his face, she accepts whatever Nessa packed for her, wordlessly turning her attention back to man and dog. "mister. I ain't his butler, but we both still got reason ta know ya. An' on a night like this, I ain't got much in tha way'a patience. I'm called Skadi." It was, after all, straight out of myth. Their myth, before she earned it, somehow. Before it was attached to her.

[John Barrister] Skadi's voice becomes quieter and, paradoxically, clearer to him. Something has shed out of it. Some human facade of humor, dark as it may have been; some human facade, period.

John raises his head. The smile is wholly gone now, replaced by a thoughtful frown. He shifts to face her and her young friend, his hands coming out from behind his back. He lets the leash-loop fall farther up his arm with a lift of his hand, then wraps that hand around the leash, tugging Bruin instinctively into heel.

"That's an interesting name," he says, his tone quite neutral and even. Despite his imposing size, Barrister has no rage to speak of; nothing to clash and spark against the combined weight of the two Garou. "Creative parents, or traditional?"

[Kemp Oates] Damn, from what he could make out from here, that dude looked ancient. At least, well shit, old enough to be his father and maybe Skadi's too. He'd gone quiet, his head cocking as his gaze swept back and forth from dog to master and back in a constant dance. Long shaggy hair whispering across his collar.

[John Barrister] meet me in the ooc!
to Tiona Mulony

[Skadi] "It ain't tha name my folks give me. S'tha name I earned when I come up." Her eyes lash; Bruin is brought closer to heel, and her attention grazes the movement, then falls to the dog at hand. "My daddy, he had him a couple-three good coon hounds. Kept 'em locked up when tha relatives come over, got rid'a them when I was near about twelve. Yannow how that is, I bet. See how we got reason ta know ya."

[Tiona Mulony] Okay!
to John Barrister

[Nessa] Her phone rings inside, a faint sound which makes her head turn. Instead of approaching to speaking distance with Skadi and this Barrister, she turns around to head squishily back inside her house.
(sleepy, gnight all and thanks for scene!)

[John Barrister] A shadow of a smile flits across Barrister's mouth. He looks down at Bruin wryly. "I've got a few 'relatives' Bruin isn't too fond of, too. Though he's more bloodhound than redbone." He gives the dog an affectionate rub on the head, which the dog, too tightly wound to enjoy it, shakes off with an impatient flop of his ears. Barrister looks back toward Skadi and Kemp, clearing his throat lightly. "I'm John. I live a couple of blocks from here, if you guys wanted to talk."

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, Bruin? Ain't never heard that name before."

Cocking his head with a look at the dog then back to Skadi.

"Works for me."

[Kemp Oates] (Fuckme, I have to work to keep my knowledge of coon dogs out of play cause Kemp wouldn't know a bluetick from a begal LOL! )
to John Barrister, Skadi

[Skadi] "This here's Kemp." She jerks a shoulder at the Rotagar, juggling the bag of food Nessa packed from her right hand to her left. She straightens, through the shoulders, turns to watch Agnessa disappear back inside her small home, steals a glance at the night sky - still cloudcast, now threatening rain, the scent of it thick in the air. "An' inside's better'n outside, fer talkin'. Looks like Nessa done went inside, too. Lead tha way, Bruin."

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, his name is John, the dog is Bruin."

Whispered to Skadi a little on the loud side.

"Nice ta meetcha and stuff."

Lifting his chin to John.

[John Barrister] John Barrister nods gravely to Kemp. "Hello, Kemp." Then, turning, he starts heading home. He doesn't wait for the Garou to catch up to him, and in fact seems to attempt to lead them by ten paces or so. For Bruin's sake, one imagines.

The path to Barrister's house takes them up the small downtown street, past the brighter parts and the noisier drinking establishments, up to where the cobblestone paving ends and the divider vanishes and the street becomes simply another small two-lane street. Then he makes a left on Hazelnut, and starts up a short hill. This street is quieter, shaded by oaks.

[Kemp Oates] He naturally gravitated towards the deeper shadows of the night as they followed the broad back in front of them. Picking up the pace now and then just to make things interesting from his perspective.

[Skadi] "An' you ain't never walked a fuckin' dog. S'tha dog that's gon' lead tha way, 'less ya start playin' games with it an' scarin' that poor fucker 'til its too scared ta fuckin' move. 'R it smells another dog it don't like, an' won't leave well enough alone." Skadi's reply is lower; she elbows Kemp without making contact, precisely: on a night like this, her temper is short, shorter, a constant and absolute presence. The moon; the streets; the silence: she follows behind the kinsman and his hounddog. Unlike Kemp, she doesn't pick up the pace. She drops back, farther, as the path takes them past a bar, where a few patrons have spilled onto the sidewalk to smoke cigarettes, or cigars, in the cool night air, and weaves through them.

In the lane opposite: a police car, lights off, driving slowly, just a local patrolman out maintaining the CPD's presence on the streets. Still two blocks away, the shape of the car is distinctive, and it sends a prickle of awareness through Skadi's spine. Two heartbeats pass in stillness, then Skadi breaks into a jog, catching up with the Rotagar who has trailed ahead of her, catching him by the elbow, tiptoeing to mutter something into his ear. Once, their connection was much deeper. "Tell 'em we'll come another day. I gotta git off tha street."

And, indeed - she ducks into the narrow walkway between a pair of businesses, and out of sight.

[Kemp Oates] He grunted, listening to give a curt nod to Skadi before she jogged off. A moment later he was wrapping his gift around himself, blending more with the night as he picked up the pace again to get closer to John and his dog.

"Somethin's come up. We'll have to catch ya another day, man. Don'tcha worry, if I don't run into ya on the street, I'll find ya. Ain't no problem with that."

[John Barrister] Considering John's back is to them the whole time, it's surprising that he doesn't start, doesn't jump out of his skin, when Kemp speaks from the shadows right beside him.

His gait is steady. He doesn't glance over -- there's barely anything to see anyway. "Yes," he replies, "I gathered." A flicker of eyes dark as his hair. Up close and personal, Barrister's easily fifteen years older than Kemp, his face weathered, his brow lined with worry or concentration, his mouth bracketed with laugh lines. "Goodnight."

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, yeah you too. See ya soon."

One moment he was there, the next he was bleeding off into the night. He had a back to watch and someone else to look in on.