Thunder Wolf [Erich]

Drew Roscoe
The day had been overcast, with the occasional drizzle picking up here or there.  Even with this, though, the temperatures managed to hover in the low seventies.  Sunshine would peek through the thin gray clouds here and there, but never for very long.  If you asked most, it was a nice break from the unforgiving heat the summer had brought and dragged through the month of September.

Drew, agreeing with most people, was unafraid of a little drizzle and found the reduced temperatures downright refreshing.  She had gone out to grab a bite to eat at the bar in town for lunch, and since Browntown was so small she felt no need to rev up the engine of her big old truck.  She'd walked instead.

So, to set the scene, Drew was just stepping out the front door of the bar, adjusting a ballcap that she was wearing on her head in case the rain started up again.  The cap was navy blue with a bright orange Chicago Bears 'C' on the front of it (victory the night before, yeah!).  Other than that she was dressed unimpressively, if not downright modestly.  A heather gray T-shirt fit her snugly enough, but comfortably with plenty of room to stretch and move about, and simple dark-washed jeans were ended with a pair of plain white sneakers.  Ears were pieced once with plain gold studs (no decoration, no frills today), her fingers had no rings and neck bore no chain to carry a pendant or locket upon.  Her face was without but the scantest of make-up.
Drew was looping her long, thick brown hair into a ponytail and dragging it through the gap in the back of her hat and looking up the street, contemplating what she should do with the rest of the afternoon.

For all intents and purposes, she was just an average small town girl on the street of a small town that looked like Americana and seclusion.  The only difference between her and the average person was the most important thing about her (upon first meeting her at least)-- the thing that had her standing out from the crowd-- was the blood that ran in her veins.  It was not the roar of ancestors so legendary their tales were turned ballads for battle and lullabies for babes.  Rather, it was the flavor of iron and copper vague on your tongue and the cold North Wind whistling at your windows.  It was quiet, muted, subdued, but it was certainly Fenrir Blood.

Erich ReinhardtNothing particularly remarkable about the '99 Mustang parked on the streets of Browntown.  Might've been a reasonably enviable ride once, but thirteen years have gone by since it rolled off the production lines.  It hasn't been babied in that time.  It's been run hard, run fast, run far.  Paint's faded on the roof and the hood.  Tires are going bald.  Engine sounds a little choppy.  It's the sort of car you'd expect to find out in the sticks, where folks don't really have the time, money or inclination to keep their machines running Hollywood smooth.  It's the sort of car you'd expect to find in a place like Browntown
.
Except Browntown's a small enough place that everyone knows no one's seen this car before.  It's new in town.  It showed up last night, just shy of midnight.  Molly Mae says it parked outside the bar and the engine shut off and the lights went dark and no one ever came out.  I think he slept in there, that was the gossip whispered over the counter at the post office this morning.  Could you imagine?  No, Sally said, slapping the stamps on the package and dumping it in the bin.  No, she could not imagine.

Now it's over twelve hours later.  And anyone trying to peek into the Mustang's disappointed, because there's a sunshade up over the windshield and the back windows are tinted.  Front windows are cracked an inch, but it's too dark inside to see anything other than a mess.  Soda cans both full and empty on the floor.  A bag on the passenger's seat.  A toothbrush on the dashboard.  The detritus of fuck knows how many weeks' worth of cross-country life scattered everywhere.  It seems a little like a fossil.  A time capsule of drifter life washed ashore on the banks of this nondescript small town.

And then, just like that, the capsule opens.  Driver's side door swings wide -- and not slowly and politely either, but in a single forceful shove that damn near knocks Drew sideways.

There's no apology for that.  Clambering out of the Mustang, accompanied by the wave of pent-up heat inside the sunbaked car, the driver dumps a Walmart bag full of trash in the general vicinity of the sidewalk trash barrel.  He's squinting in the bright daylight.  He's unshaven.  He's shirtless.  He looks like he just woke up.

Not a soul in town recognizes him: young man.  Young wolf, for those who knew the look.  Somewhere way shy of his twenty-fifth birthday.  And let's talk Fenrir blood, because this guy has it in barrels: the blond hair, the blue eyes, something about the solid configuration of his muscles and bones, something about the wide sharp angle of his cheekbones.  He turns back around and crawls back into the car.  Looks like he's about to go back into hibernation, except -- no, he's reaching for a shirt.  He's getting back out, tugging it on, rolling the hem down to his hips.

"Am I in Browntown?"

One assumes he's talking to Drew; there's no one else near.  He's not looking at her though.  He's looking at the street, narrow-eyed, fumbling around the door storage compartments for his sunglasses.

Drew RoscoeDrew was relatively new to the town herself, enough that she didn't really notice that the Mustang was out of the ordinary.  She didn't work in the center of the town, so she didn't have reason to come down her terrifically often, not nearly enough to know all of the cars by sight.  She wasn't on gossiping terms with the middle-aged women of the town, either.  She had eaten lunch smiling politely and making the smallest of small talk with the bar tender, but spent most of the time engrossed in her smart phone, answering some work emails.  Working even while taking a break, that's how Drew did these days-- it was one of the downsides to working from home, you see.

So, no, she didn't know that the Mustang was out of the ordinary, not until she had made up her mind to go to the corner store and fetch a six-pack of beer to bring home, rocked her weight to start momentum, and was very suddenly interrupted by a car door swinging fast and hard at her.

Luckily, for any number of reasons Drew's reflexes had been sharpened over the years, and she was able to deftly step out of the way and look baffled (and only a tiny bit indignant at the lack of apology) when a scruffy, shirtless man unfolded himself from the car, carried a plastic shopping bag full of trash to the garbage bin on the streetside, and then return to his car to fetch a shirt.

Oh, Drew knew he was a Garou.  She knew that right out the gate.  She'd been around them long enough to know the look of them.  She recognized how an animal looked when it rolled under a Garou's skin, and she knew the way that Rage made her chest clench.  Still, she watched him skeptically, standing near the open car door.  She blinked once, then leaned herself slow and casual against the still-open car door.  One arm hooked over the top, her weight settled between one leg and the door of the old Mustang both, and eyebrows danced up on her forehead when she spoke up to answer his question.

"You better believe it.  Were you trying to be in Browntown, or are you just passing on through?"

Erich ReinhardtHe's a wolf.  He's an animal.  His eyes are clear and pale and they snap instantly to her arm, settled on his car door.

The search for sunglasses is abandoned.  He straightens, slow and deliberate; turning to face her.  Reaches out.  Takes the door firmly by the edge, pulls it out from under her.  Shuts it.  Message couldn't be clearer if he bared his teeth and pissed on the rims for good measure:
Mine.

"Little of both," he says.  Real forthcoming type, obviously.  He leans back against the side of the Mustang; his eyes come back to her at last, measuring, and there's something taut and deadly about him.  A simmering heat under a superficial glaze of sundrenched laziness.  "Lots of your tribe in town, is there?"'

Drew RoscoeIf he was expecting some sort of insult to splash across the girl's round face or any similar kind of reaction, then he was wrong.  If he wasn't, then, well, nothing really occurs to him at all.  When the car door is pulled out from under Drew's arm and shut, all she does is straighten up and jam her hands into the back pockets of her pants.  Her face doesn't change, she doesn't look embarrassed or apologetic for touching his car.

Rather, she just stands straight while he surveys her, and shrugs one shoulder but not the other when he asks if there's a lot of 'her tribe' in town.  Ordinarily she'd be winning him over with charming smiles and sunshine, but she's a little on edge with this guy.  Because he was possessive, straight-forward, unapologetic, and nearly took her out with a car door.  Plus, 'your tribe' meant he might be family in the broad sense, but he wasn't Family.  That was where her loyalties lay.

"Yeah, along with others.  I'd guess there might be a bit more of us than others, but from what I understand there's one or two that have as strong a stake on this land.  And an older one than us, no less."

There's a pause, then she jerks her chin up just a little in an acknowledging kind of nod.  "I'm Drew Roscoe.  Mind if I get your name?"

Erich ReinhardtShe's right on that count.  It wasn't subtle; he wasn't trying to hide his tribal affiliations.  Probably could if he wanted to.  She knows he's Garou; he knows she can all but smell his wildness, like any prey to a predator.  That's how he thinks of her: prey.  But that's a digression.

Point is: no one would look at him and think he was anything but Fenrir.  And if he had chosen Fenris, if he had gone down the path every other wolf in his family has gone down since time immemorial, the purity of his blood would shine like a beacon.  It doesn't anymore.  He chose another path; shadows and storms.  It cost him.  He pays the price.  He doesn't, for what it's worth, lie about it.

She knows he's not Family.  He rolls his head on his shoulders when she asks for his name; there's something about this that seems tense.

"Erich."

That's where he seems about to leave it.  Then a faint flicker of a grimace, or maybe a wince.  He completes it: "Reinhardt."

Maybe she's heard that name before.  The Fenrir don't count bloodlines the way the Fangs do; they don't count family as heavy as the Fianna.  But even so some names have weight, and Reinhardt is one of them.  There's an Athro Godi somewhere with that name.  There was an Elder Modi not too long ago, bearing that name.

And then there's Erich.  Who is not a Modi, not a Get; something else entirely.

"Storm's Teeth.  That's a Shadow Lord name, in case you're wondering.  Your tribesmen aren't big fans of mine."  His smile looks more like a grimace, all teeth.  "Probably get their panties all in a twist if they saw you talking to me.  So," he straightens up, "why don't you point me to the nearest wolf of Thunder, and run on along home."

Drew RoscoeThe name he gives is about as Germanic sounding as anything else she's ever heard.  She cannot sense Pure Breeding, but she has been around the block enough times to start to recognize the 'look' that tends to be associated with particular tribes-- especially her own.  Blond hair, blue eyes, broad cheekbones and shoulders.  And on top of that?  The guy's name is Erich.  She's known more Erics and Eriks than she could remember easily, and they were all Fenrir.

This guy, however, certianly is not.  It's in the way he leans against the car, the almost snide air that she picks up from him.  He advises her his Deed Name along with his Tribe (Shadow Lord, of fucking course) and advises that she point him in the direction of the nearest Thunder Wolf and then be on her way.
To this, Drew snorts a little.  The sound is more amused than it is condescending, but it would be a lie to say that there isn't any sarcasm in the sound at all.

"I ain't running along anywhere today.  I'm casually meandering, or loitering, whichever I damn well please, I'll have you know, Erich Reinhardt.  And, ain't meaning to burst your bubble a second time, but I have yet to meet even a one Shadow Lord around here.  So I don't know if you need to run along, or if you can play nice with others instead, but your options are probably limited to one of those two."

Erich ReinhardtA faint huff of a laugh; not much humor to it.  "No.  You got it the wrong way around.  I play just fine with Fenrir.  Why not.  My whole family's Fenrir, back as long as anyone remembers.  The Fenrir, though.  They don't play well with me.

"Don't believe me, bring one of your tribe-brothers around.  He doesn't pick a fight, shoo you off or threaten me inside of ten minutes, I'll buy you a fuckin' beer."

Drew RoscoeThere's a moment where she's surveying him, unsure of if she's willing to trust him or not.  The lackadaisical and damn near dismissive air about him when he explains the situation must convince her, though, because she answers with a simple:

"Deal."  Followed by, "That's assuming you stick around here, though."

And as though her accepting the deal, hypothetical though it might have been intended to be initially, was the punctuation at the end of their encounter, Drew made her way up the street to the corner store, fully intent on getting herself that six pack now.