Ninetieth Degree [Howard, Bridget, Nameless]

[Drew Roscoe] Frigid weather and a full moon, that pretty much summed up what the city was doing tonight. The sky was perfectly clear, not a cloud in sight, every last one having dumped snow until they disappeared above the city, leaving well over two feet of snow on the ground where it was left undisturbed, mountains of it against curbs and the sides of parking lots taller than most sedan vehicles. Then came the temperatures that were well below freezing, preserving the remains of the blizzard so nothing melted away.

The city was relatively quiet, for people slept on Sunday nights to return to work in the morning. The air smelled crisp like winter and ice, and Drew had missed that terribly. Out in the Northwest it was soggy and gloomy, there was no snow on the ground, it felt wrong that the weather was so mild, that there was no ice, that it rained and was gray all the damn time. She was happy to be home, even if all of her belongings were waiting to be moved into a home while the credit was run and the paperwork went through, even if she would go to bed in a motel room tonight.

She'd come to the park because it was a short bus ride from where she was staying for the moment, because she wanted to see the ice on the tree branches and the frozen over ponds. She wasn't intending to ice skate as she'd done last winter, not this late at night. She was out to taste the air and see the city, to familiarize herself with it once more. She had many memories of Grant Park, so it only made sense to come back.

She was dressed intelligently for the weather, in a big red winter coat with brown faux fur lining the hood, even though the hood was down she wore instead a multi-colored hat on her head with flaps over her ears and strings that trailed beyond that to rest on her shoulders, and a pom at the top. She wore long johns under her jeans, and the cuffs of them were tucked into brown winter boots. Gloves were on her hands, a scarf was wrapped up around her neck, and her hands were stuck into her pockets to aid in keeping them warm.

She hadn't forgotten what Chicago was like, though. She kept her gun holstered at the back of her pants, under her winter jacket, which did a good deal to help conceal it from public view. Anything could happen at any time, and it wasn't her plan to go out with a fizzle into the quiet of the night, with only the moon to wish her farewell.

[-playtest-] Well, there's this at least: Drew has more company than the moon. Course, this being Chicago, and this being the rather notorious Grant Park, where all sorts of shit has gone bump in the night, it's anybody's guess whether this is good or bad.

Nonetheless, there he is. Company in the form of a bundled-up creature, age and ethnicity more or less indeterminate under that thick blue-and-silver ski jacket, lower half of face lost in the zipped-up collar, a wool cap pulled down over the tips of his ears. His hands are in his pockets. Drew knows this city well enough to be cautious. He could have anything hidden inside that big jacket of his. Those deep pockets. Guns, knives, garrotte wires, extra appendages. Who knows? He's spotted her, though, and comes at her, his gait the long rolling stride of some sort of athlete, jock.

"Hey!" He pulls a hand out of his pocket. No extra appendages, no gun: just a gloved hand. "Which way to the nearest El station?"

[Drew Roscoe] Sure, there'd be the occasional person that you'd walk past, but really with the temperatures this low and the park having the reputation that it does once the sun goes down she really didn't anticipate much contact. Perhaps someone slinking around with their shoulders hunched, dressed in forgettable dark clothing, waiting for someone to mug. She'd just flash her gun or invite the danger as something of a 'welcome home' skirmish, but she wouldn't worry. She's been confronted by much more than muggers in her time.

Enthusiastic long-legged strides and bright blue jackets, though, she didn't expect. The 'hey!' interrupted the quiet of the park, not eerie silence but with a hum of traffic and sirens and electricity in the background of the city. Drew responded with reasonable caution and surprise, looking quickly to the man jogging toward her and tensing up when his hand came out of his pocket, hand jumping out of her own and moving to her back. Before she can whip out her hand cannon, though, she sees it's only a hand (or so it seemed, anyways, for all she knew there were puckered poison tumors under the glove), and her hands come back into her own pockets.

She stopped walking to face the guy, and looked at him with an expression of invitation-- go on, say what you need. He asks where the nearest El station is, and she lifts her eyebrows some, surprised by how mundane the question is perhaps. Her mouth curves into a smile that's half-relief and half-humor, and she points diagonal of his shoulder, out toward the busy street that framed the length of the park. "I haven't used it in a while, but if I'm right it's gonna be right across the road near the north end of the block."

[Howard Ivers] It is far too cold for creatures composed mostly of water to be out walking around. Unfortunately, the weather doesn't much care about the wants or desires of the people who are stupid enough to have taken up residence in parts of the world where 'lake effect snow' is part of the daily vocabulary, so rather than sitting around bitching and moaning for the entirety of winter's blustery existence, people either choose to stay inside, or they choose to enter into a state of hibernative inebriation for the duration.

Caldera's Alpha finds the latter tactic to be sufficient.

Questioning him on how he came to be walking through the park with a tall, thin kinswoman with breeding dripping off of her like dew drops from a glassy glen at dawn would result in bullshit. Howard likes to ask questions but he has an infuriating tendency to make light of whoever has the gall to return the favor. As they mosey through the park tonight, he dressed in his usual color-blind assortment of clothing--tonight it's boots, black jeans, an absolutely hideous multicolored sweater with polar bears and trees and shit on it. Aviators are clipped to said hideous sweater. It's not bright enough that he needs them, and Bridget can see his eyes.

He's significantly less wound-up when he's stoned.

"So," he asks, apropos of nothing, "what's up with you and that Simon prick?"

They aren't the only ones out tonight, but he's focused enough on the question that he doesn't look away from Bridget.

[-playtest-] The lost guy -- newcomer to town, christmas tourist, something -- stops a non-threatening distance away, a good five or six feet. Near enough that Drew can see his eyes, dark but brilliant, alert. Local successfully flagged down, his gloved hand lowers to snap open his collar, exposing nose, mouth, chin: a face, more or less symmetrical, nothing bizarre or otherworldly. There's something about him, nonetheless. An intensity, the eyes that don't waver even through the periodical huffs of steam on every exhale.

"Thanks. New in town." And since she pointed over his shoulder, "You headed that way too?"

[Drew Roscoe] Her smile was an incredibly personable thing, welcoming and genuine. She was probably class president in high school, she probably worked with the public and legitimately did well at her job, rather than glaring sullenly at every customer to walk through the front door like the mass of retail workers did. She made warm the frigid air with a smile, and she was easy to trust right off the bat.

Charisma was a powerful thing.
It made you believe she couldn't possibly be keeping a gun under her coat.

"I guessed." In response to his explanation about being a new kid in town. He asked if she was heading his way, and she glanced up at the moon in the sky, as though she could judge time off it like people do the sun, then huffed out a breath that hung in a semi-opaque cloud in front of her face. "I suppose I should be, this time of night and all." Her head nodded forward, shoulder rolled to indicate they should walk as well, and began forward up the path, leading him back in the direction that he came from rather than cutting through the trees and the snow. Her boots could handle it, but she was smart enough to know better. She'd walk with the man along the path, but not out where passer-bys wouldn't be able to see her.

"I'm going to guess.... University of Chicago? Freshman year?"

[Bridget] The bitter windy city is nothing like Canadian mountain country, where the only way to stay warm in a drafty cabin is to light a fire and bundle up next to the nearest giant fuzzy chainsaw who happens to be family. The Canadian Fianna in-tow with Howard is used to this weather, and she almost never complains to begin with, but honestly she likes this sort of weather. Less people out and about, less noise from technology-- only the howling winter witches and the muffled echoes of solitariness.

The year is nearing its darkest night, but there are plenty of things to be thankful for, plenty of light. Tiny artificial ones play at warding against the nightmares, but they also serve as reminders of brighter, warmer times. Gaia's promise of spring. So there are things to be celebrating, indeed.

The Fianna kin walks alongside her newly-found friend with the same Army surplus coat as always, a Calgary Flames hoodie underneath, jeans, and two layers of socks jammed into old combat boots. It's hardly glamorous, but at least she's warm. Her blood speaks louder than her attire ever could, and the only distraction is Howard's sweater, which is pretty damn loud. They're both bleary-eyed from imbibing of the same substance.

"Je ne sais pas ce que vous parlez," she says with a mischievous giggle.
(I don't know what you're talking about)

"Why?"

[Howard Ivers] Howard could not walk a straight line if he were being paid to do so. He's trying; not because he's overly interested in trying to impress Bridget by feigning sobriety but because he's too tall and possesses too little body fat to survive a crash landing in this weather. Those benches, man, they're fucking tricky, and the goddamn ground is just trying to trip him. It's a treacherous walk.

He stays close to the kinswoman in case they're after her, too.

"Was that--"

Walking towards them are a miniscule young woman bundled up for the cold and a man who draws the Theurge's attention without too much effort. The Fiann, for his part, only draws attention because of his appearance, because of a magnetism to his personality; he has unapologetically curly hair, big green eyes and a sense of fashion that would have him arrested in certain jurisdictions. Without breeding, without much Rage compared to his heavier, meaner comrades, he could pass for human. He's loud, even if he's not ranting about something, and his dialect, while faint, is not American. It sounds as though it could somehow be related to the UK in some fashion, but it's too distilled to nail down.

"Ah, Christ, you're doin' that not-speakin'-English thing again." He's bitching, but it's lugubrious, without real fire in his belly. Like most of what comes out of his mouth, it's not remotely serious. "You think that's funny? Huh? What if I just started ramblin' on in fuckin'... I don't know. I don't even know what that was. Quit fuckin' with me, man..."

[-playtest-] Quick onesided quirk of a smile at that. "I look eighteen to you?" To be fair, she can't see much of him at all, what with the hat and the coat; what she can see is obscured by darkness and the wan, pale light of the streetlamps. For all she knows he's bald as an egg under the wool hat. "Guess I'll take it as a compliment.

"But no." He zips his collar back up to his chin, far enough that he can duck his mouth behind the barrier when the wind gusts. "I'm actually here as part of a more, uh ... selective organization. Suspect you know what I'm talking about, actually."

He turns his face away, coughing once into the wind: a huff of white. Then back with a quick sniff. "Smell like you do, anyway," he adds.

[Drew Roscoe] The scuff of flat-soled boots on the pavement, crunching quietly on the salt that was required to be there to protect the city from lawsuits slowed but didn't stop completely when the man coughed and suggested that she smelled like she knew what he was talking about. It only took her half of a second to understand what he was getting at, if that, and she stared at the side of his face with a new intent to study. If he was Family she'd need to know him, she wanted to. Family was what she came back for, and it was exactly what she needed right now.

Solitude was the killer of remorseful souls, after all.

One eyebrow quirked higher than the other, and a faint smirk tugged one side of her mouth a little higher than the other. No longer keeping in mind the presence of the gun at her waist, doubting that she'd need it now, she relaxed a little more, though it wasn't a visible shift. Her breathing changed to a more natural, relaxed pace and her shoulders rounded a bit.

"Well hell, in that case..." And she'd pause to stick out one hand swathed in a snug black glove, the fuzzy kind that you could get at the local convenience store in a three pack for five bucks. "I'm Drew Roscoe." Her eyes flick over to the couple walking along the same path, growing closer, and she chose to leave the other key words in that introduction for later. "I've been around for a while-- out of town for a couple of months so faces might have changed? But I hope not all of them, not that quickly. I could probably point you to whoever you need to see, if you're the brand-spanking kind of new."

[Bridget] Another teetering laugh escapes the young woman. She's built similar to the curly-haired Theurge. She's not trying to walk a straight line at all and sort of rambles around like she couldn't care if she fell because it would be hysterical. Bridget's laugh is warm and contagious.

With one arm wrapped around the Theurge's, she manages not to fall on her ass. She does stop and pat his arm with her other hand.

"Okay, okay. Pardon," the last is said with foreign accent, and sparks the kinfolk's snickering. "Sorry. I'll cut it out."

The free hand ruffles the Fiann's mane of curls before she continues walking. She settles down and watches the glistening lights in amazement. She looks as if the distantly screaming wind is trying to speak to her. In other words, Bridget looks worlds away for a moment.

"It's all so fake. You know? It's supposed to drive away the dark and all, but like... it's all so ridiculous because there's no reason to be afraid of it."

Bridget pauses with her brilliantly stoned philosophical moment for a second to take a few steps.

"I know it's supposed to be instinct, but it's stupid."

[Howard Ivers] The taller man wrinkles his nose as Bridget's hand finds his hair, but he doesn't jerk away or vocally protest the treatment. If anything he leans into it, like a dog that isn't pet nearly often enough, and when Bridget is through assaulting him he gives a sharp shake of his head and looks around. He doesn't focus on the lights; if anything, he tries to avoid staring at them.

"Man, seriously, bein' afraid of the dark is stupid."

They don't exactly have a cloud of smoke hanging over their heads, but between the way they look and the fact that the kinswoman's blood practically croons an old Celtic war song as they walk down the path towards the Fenrir, there can't be much doubt that she, at least, is one of Stag's. Both of them, it's safe to say, are stoned.

"Like, what, you can't get just as fucked up durin' the day? People get plenty fucked up durin' the day."

[-playtest-] Drew talks more than he does, this newcomer, this stranger with his half-masked face. That's fine. She seems the sort: charismatic, too young to be the widow she is. He doesn't really seem the reticient sort either, though. The flick of his eyes her way is quick, a twinkle in the dark irises. "Appreciate it," he says, winking, "but I think I'm just gonna lie low a little while, see if I decide to stay or not."

He pulls his hand back out of his pocket, then, holding it out to her. "[INSERT NAME HERE]." Firm grip, the shape of his hand hard beneath his glove. When he withdraws, that hand goes back into his pocket. From the way he hunches against the wind, he's from some warmer clime.

A nod at the figures up ahead, then, "They look familiar to you?"

[Bridget] Brown eyes watch the Theurge as he shakes off the ruffling of his proverbial feathers. There's a wavering smile until he speaks again.

"Nooo." Bridget protests, then laughs again. She bends over and slaps her knee.

"That's not what I mean. I mean like... everything people do-- the society is stupid. There's no dark anywhere."

She gestures at the city. "Like if they keep everything lit up, no one will die. Wife won't leave, truck won't be wrecked, dog will come home."

Dark waves fall around her while she's trying to better communicate her point with body language. In her genious philosophical rant, Bridget hasn't even noticed Drew and the generic Garou (if that is what he is at all).

[Drew Roscoe] Her hand wraps with his for a moment, glove against glove, and both grips were firm-- his because he was masculine, hers because of the people she stood beside. His hand withdrew, hers did as well, and almost in sync they put their hands back into their pockets and turned to look at the people meandering up the path toward them, laughing and musing like a pair of inebriates are ought to do.

He asks if they look familiar, and she looks at them with more focus and concentration than before. The guy looked like he reminded her of someone, but he wasn't the same person. The girl she'd just plumb never seen before at all. So she shakes her head to the man she'd just encountered by a chance to discover he was family, deciding whether he'd want to stay or not, unsure if he would even let people know he was there because he was so resolutely on the fence.

"Nope," she said simply. "New faces. But then, it is a city of a million or so." Her shoulders shrugged casually, and she tucked her shoulders up to push the scarf up closer to her jawline. "If you want an honest opinion on staying... We need all the bodies we can get, and you'll never be bored.... But the place, it can eat up your soul pretty quick if you don't keep your chin above the ninetieth degree, you know?"

[Howard Ivers] "I don't knowww," he muses, actually thinking about it, as much as he thinks about anything, really, particularly when he's stoned.

Now, the pair of bodies walking past don't tell him much about their relationship or themselves because there isn't much posture or language to be read from how they walk: it's fucking cold, and they're buried beneath layers of clothing, and they're hunched against the night to conserve body heat. They shake hands. That's all he has.

Drew is a pretty girl: she exudes Niceness the way the curly-haired beanpole exudes Cocky. However, her blood also exudes At Least Three People Will Kick Your Skinny Ass For Even Talking To Her, even if faintly. Apparently not a damned thing about the newcomer catches Howard's attention; play tests are invisible to stoners.

"I always thought humans kept shit lit up because they can't see in the fuckin' dark. You know? Less car crashes and shit."

[-playtest-] "Hm. Well. Girl's got that smell about her too."

Another moment the stranger's dark eyes look toward the skinny guy and his skinny girlfriend. Or girl friend. They're narrowed a little, wind and thought both: it gives him a keen look, wolfish. Can practically see him scenting the air. Then Drew's giving out advice of the world-weary brand, which makes humor flick across his face like a flame.

"Heh." It's more a huff than a sound, a vague approximation of humor and a sideways glance. "That why you left town? Let your chin drop, got your soul ate?" A tip of his head toward the other couple, then. "You wanna go say hi, or are you in a hurry to get home?"

[Drew Roscoe] "Nah. There's another whole big story behind leaving town." Her hand waved dismissively, suggesting that the story wasn't one worth talking about. She was proud of herself, her expression and posture stayed casual and her voice didn't change one bit when she chased the explanation away.

He seemed to be scenting the air, looking at the two with the sort of directness that was better placed over the top of a muzzle than down the bridge of a human nose, and afterward he asked if she was in a rush. She answered with a loose, comfortable grin, as though she's known him for fifteen years rather than fifteen minutes and nodded her head some. "I'm in no rush to get back to the Motel 8. Let's make some friends."

And with that said she looked toward the couple again and lifted one hand from her pocket, raising it above her head and waving openly to the pair, almost as though she was flagging them down. Her smile was bright and warm enough to melt the snow surrounding her. "Hey!" She says it like she's greeting old friends.

[Bridget] "Don't need to keep the sky lit up dayglow orange," she mutters and stuffs her hands back in her pockets.

There's a beautiful young woman in the sidewalk talking to someone else who is bundled up like Santa's grab bag. There's something she spots in his expression that makes Bridget stop in her tracks, her humor lost.

She keeps her dark eyes square on him suspiciously, posturing closer to Howard. Instead of saying anything, she narrows her eyes and squeezes Howard's arm while moving her fingers back and forth across his bicep. Her combat boots crunch on ice when she stops. There's a feral posture in the way she gauges the male stranger. Simon's words about the open war drift across her thoughts.

"Mmm," she makes a noise in her throat without opening her mouth, a noise of mild alarm. Alertness, rather.

The other woman waves them down like she knows them, which doesn't dissuade Bridget's intense stare. Her entire posture and reaction is like something small children and animals make, something less domesticated, more feral. The stare could be construed by other kinfolk as a sort of challenge, but her posture is all wrong for that.

Bridget's feral nature is the biggest reason other kinfolk feel unsafe around her, but at least she seems to get along better with the Garou. The Canadian says nothing and waits for Howard to do something before she takes her eyes off the stranger.

[-playtest-] The fellow behind Drew -- behind now because he's not bounding ahead to say hi the way the pretty girl is -- is about a foot or so taller and proportionately broader. His ski jacket stands out most about him: a silver and blue affair that looks like it belongs on Tahoe's slopes more than midwinter chicago. His wool hat is pale grey, too, pulled down over his ears. He ambles over at his own pace, letting loose an enormous yawn that leaves a plume of white dissipating in the frigid air.

"Hey," he echoes, hands in his pockets, nodding a hello with his chin. "Thought we saw cousins over here. This's Drew. I'm [NAME]."

Maybe it's the we. Or maybe it's how he introduces Drew before himself, as though there was a natural, familial association. There's a sense of faint division: he aligns himself thoughtlessly with the fenrir kinfolk over the pair of fianna they're 'making friends' with.

[Howard Ivers] Here's the thing about marijuana: it alters the senses in such a fashion that paranoia is a very real danger. In the presence of the calm and the collected, a stoned individual can enjoy an entire evening without believing the police or the FBI or the bastards from Area 51 are after him. A bad trip, even just witnessed, can ruin an entire evening. Howard isn't so far gone that he believes everyone in the world to either be his best friend or out to get him, but what catches his attention first is Bridget stopping dead in her tracks.

"Huh?" is the noise that leaves his throat next, as the taller creature shuffles to a stop, she still attached to his arm.

She moves closer, waiting for him to do something, and she's touching his arm through the padding provided by his jacket and really the only reasonable thing to do seems to be to put his arm around her waist in case he needs to--what? Protect her from the Fenrir?

Whatever thought enters into his head makes him snicker as the two pairs' paths finally intersect.

Hey! Drew says.

"Hi!" Howard replies, as though her enthusiasm is contagious.

His eyes are not bloodshot; they're watery due to the chill, but he doesn't have the stereotypical stoned physical appearance. He looks a bit drowsy, but it could very well be that he's sedated by the weather. Focusing on the other male seems to be somewhat difficult; his heavy brow furrows, and he squints, his tongue pushed into the back of an incisor as though it needs an anchor.

"Oh, hey, [NAME], hi, cool." His left arm is around Bridget; he releases her so he can step forward and offer his right. He wears dollar-store gloves with the fingertips manually snipped free; his grip leaves something to be desired, but it isn't limp. "Howard. This here's Bridget." Once his hand's back, a confused expression traipses across his face and he more wags his finger in the Garou's direction than directly points at him. "Youuuu're not gonna ask me where you're supposed to go, are you? Are you new? Stayin'? You good?" He gestures to Drew. "I've no clue who this woman is but I can already tell she'll be a way better welcomin' committee than I would. Am."

[Drew Roscoe] Howard and Bridget approached, Howard with his arm around the kin. [NAME] and Drew did not, they stood reasonably near, enough to suggest that they'd been walking together, but there's no physical contact. She's not near enough to the taller man that her elbow or shoulder brushed his arm when either of them moved. They weren't that familiar, not anywhere close. Yet, family was family, and she looked comfortable and trusting standing beside him none the less.

Howard greets enthusiastically, Bridget stares dead on at the man wrapped in a blue-and-silver jacket as though she expected his face to split into meaty quarter-pieces and spread apart like a grotesque blossom to reveal rows and rows of teeth within. Drew watched the other Kinfolk with an almost skeptical expression on her face, tinged only a little with concern.

"Howard, Bridget," she says, with a little more emphasis on the woman's name, as though she could snap her out of her trance with that. Her hands stayed in her pockets unless Howard went to shake her hand as well, in which case her grip was firmer than his without trying to overcompensate.

"I haven't seen either of you before... New to town?"

[Bridget] Leave it to Howard to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation. He trudges to a stop and puts his arm around her waist, likely for his own interest considering the noise he makes is the equivalent of saying "giggity".

However, it does comfort the Fianna kinfolk somewhat, so she takes a breath. When Drew emphasizes her name, she does come out of the trance and gives the other kinfolk a solid glance. A smile even.

"Town?" she gives a soft laugh. "A bit. I moved here in August. Nice to meet you, Drew."

[-playtest-] The man more or less beside and a little behind Drew has the tall, solid build of a college athlete. Small wonder Drew mistook him for a UC student -- someone who got into a better school than his high school grades predicted on the back of a football scholarship, maybe, though the flashing dark intelligence in his eyes suggests he might've actually made the most of that education. That is, if he had a college education at all. When he steps into the light it's obvious he's a bit past that stage of his life; the rage shedding lazily from him makes it equally obvious that college was most likely not how he spent the four years between age eighteen and twenty-two.

He looks at the skinny Fianna with some bemusement as words come tumbling out. Afterward there's a small silence; then he lifts a hand and scratches his jaw for a second.

"I already asked her," he says, a lazy jerk of his head toward Drew, smiling, "so you're off the hook. Don't know if I'm staying yet. Gonna have a look around and figure it out. What about you two?" A skate of his eyes between the pair of Fianna, both slender on a good day; wiry on a bad. August, Bridget puts in. "You come in together?"

[Drew Roscoe] Conversation starts out pleasant enough, Drew and Howard both, it seemed, managed to snap the tension that Bridget was pulling taut between herself and the new face in town. Bridget was amused that Drew called it a town, and mentioned that she moved in in August. Drew smiled and nodded, moved her hands about her scarf and hat to make sure her ears and throat were covered from the chill of the winter's night. "August was when I left, so that's probably why we never met."

Conversation pushes forward, in a meet-and-greet fashion that was almost almost like a choreographed dance. Certain questions were asked, jokes were made, personalities and boundaries were gauged and pushed both. Eventually farewells were given and the bodies departed to meet again another day.

For Drew the time to depart was nearer than the others, though. She felt around in her pants pockets and pulled out a receipt from a gas station, along with a courtesy pen that she'd picked up at the motel lobby desk. With some effort, and by smoothing the receipt against the thigh of her jeans, she scrawled a phone number, area code included, onto the back and straightened up, folding the paper over and holding it out to the man in blue-and-silver who, she could now see, wasn't near young enough to be a traditional college freshman, but wasn't old enough that her guess had been unjustified either.

"I've gotta be heading," that was to all three, this last was to the fresh Fenrir face. "Here's my number, I'll answer whenever for whatever. If you decide to stick around and need help with anything, I'll do what I can, alright?"

She smiled that full warm smile that won her jobs at interviews and massive tips when she used to waitress, and waved as she headed up the path, toward the street that framed, to find a bus stop and a way back to the motel.