promise.

Genevieve Breitenbach

Wed 11:21PM CST
Dust can penetrate. It can seep down into the bones, fertile as the darkest pitch of good soil. It has penetrated her like it penetrates the Amazon.

It refuses to admit defeat.
Though you cut the trees down.
Though you chop
Them
Down.

He sleeps, shall we say. And she enters, shall we say. Enters with a glass of cognoc, fragrant and amber-rich. To shift beneath his nose, as she leans over his prone figure. The glass... could be a dagger.
And she cuts to the quick.

"Wake up, Aurich. Our time is short."

Like she knows.
Like she has always known.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Wed 11:33PM CST
Sleep?
(No.)

Would you sleep in the last 48 hours of your life as you know it?
(Didn't think so.)

Merely resting his eyes. They are shut, yes. And his breathing is regular, yes. But the moment she leans over his eyes open, and he looks at her. She speaks; he tilts his head slightly, wryly; there's a wistful touch to his mouth.

"I am pleased to see you have returned," he says quietly.

Then he sits up, swinging his legs off the bed, alert and ready, taking the glass from her. A very small sip, and he sets it aside again.

Would you spend the last 48 hours of your life as you know it too drunk to feel anything?
(He wouldn't, either.)


Genevieve Breitenbach

Wed 11:37PM CST
"Did you doubt I would?"
Moving as he shifts to sit up, agile motions that speak of knowledge beyond what is, perhaps, fitting for she meant merely to be another matron of this incestuous Dynasty.
Are they cousins?

He sets the glass aside, and she settles one hand (stiched up and bruised, one fingerail gone black)on his cheek.

"Would you believe me if I told you I knew?"
Knew his time was up.
Knew it was over.
Knew to return.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Wed 11:39PM CST
He casts her a mild glance, amused. His large hand folds around hers and draws her palm to his mouth, where he kisses it.

"I would believe anything you say," he replies, so mild a tone for such heavy words. Then he stands, drawing her with him. The other hand flicks on a lamp, then takes her by the jaw. He turns her face this way and that, his narrowed eyes, green flecks in umber, studying the marks, the bruises, the scrapes and cuts.

"And where have you been, wife?"


Genevieve Breitenbach

Wed 11:42PM CST
Her face turned. A pretty, delicate doll to be manipulated. To be played with and cajoled.
No.
Her eyes, the depths of oceans, the scope of dusk where the sun does not reach; they narrow in turn and she jerks her face away.

"Fighting for you, as you would not fight for yourself."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Wed 11:48PM CST
His reply is almost flippant: "Why fight a futile war?"

One might ask the same of every Garou.

Then, gentler with an effort, "Do not resent my fate, Genevieve. You knew of it from the start. You knew."

He doesn't even ask if she has been successful.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Wed 11:53PM CST
She could argue.
ANd she has.
She has played over and over the arguments she would give.

Her good arm (the other in a sling, covered in plaster) reached out, one now-calloused thumb pressing down the flesh of his lower lip, then smoothly releasing perhaps all just to see the give and shift of living flesh.

She knows better...
...than to argue.
This.

"I have heard whispers of a final battle." Feral, she slides her head downward as the wealth of her tall, svelte form sighs downward in a crouch. Lupine, she strokes her nose up under the stubble of the sensitivity just below his jaw. "Tell me, husband, what is it to be?"


Aurich von Doenhoff

Wed 11:57PM CST
Having taken a seat at one of the two comfortable armchairs by the windows, his eyes fall half-closed in a certain animal enjoyment as she comes close to him, touches him, nuzzles. His large hands graze her hips and rest, warm, on her thighs.

He is unswervingly faithful. She knows this. And it has been a very long time.

His low rumble of a voice, halfway between murmur and growl, halfway between drowsiness and amusement and arousal and distance: "For me? Or for you?"


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 12:06AM CST
There is a place.
Just above the larynx.
Just below where under-chin becomes neck.
That place, is where she presses the end of her long, narrow, strong nose.
As a reflex, it opens the mouth... and with the fluidity of quicksilver, her own broader, fuller lips move to cover his. Deep. Full.

(drink me in.
I will keep you alive)

Broken off--
Her forehead to his. Her breath warm on him, moist and vital.
Eyes...
....open.

"For you."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 12:13AM CST
"...mmph," when she kisses him.

And after, a laugh. "A small matter. Hardly consequential set next to the raising of the caern. There has been a thorn in the side of Chicago for too long; a thorn named Pyrell. On Friday we go to remove it. That is all. And after--"

His eyes halfshut, the umber and green seen through a thick weaving of black lashes. They slip shut entirely when he breaks off and seeks another kiss from her lips. Every one is one closer to the last, and so why should he not enjoy her, his woman, whilst he can?

Where he is going, there are no women. There is no love, no war, no pain, no life. It's an eternity of nothingness, a vast grey plain of wandering in which he will never grow old, never grow weak, never grow, never go anywhere.

It's immortality, in a way. A very different way from the immortality Garou imagine; the immortality of fame.

"...after, I mean to leave. I would not be claimed by my fate. I would claim it, when the time comes. But, lady; lately I've thought long and often of the one last option I have before me. One more fork in the road. What if I were to end my own life? Charge suicidal into battle. Win and die. Strip Gaia of me before she can strip me of everything."

A silence.

"Would that be cowardice, I wonder?"


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 12:26AM CST
Things are rarely taken from Genevieve. Things are given. As she gives him this kiss... and the next. And the last.
When it should come.

The thickness of his hair is a ripple of satin through the coarseness of the roughnened flesh of her fingers. The taste of him is a memory in the making. A memory fate dictates she shall forget.
And it is the forgetting...
...which has haunted her dreams. Ghost murmers behind shimmering shadows, where our ancestors dwell and mere mortals dare not go.

"What is cowardice?"
Again her nose at his neck. Curving upwards, to make a cresent of her face against his, to mark the completion of the moon in the touching of their flesh.
"All will forget you. Your name will not echo in the majesty of the eternity of those before you. But can a mark be truly erradicated? Will not Gaia remember? In the depths of her conciousness, you will be that which She bore. Bore to be obliterated from the feeble capabilities of our memory. But bathe her in the blood of Her enemies and to her you shall be Recalled. Gaia does not forsake you, Husband. Gaia claims you as her own. It would be cowardice to deny her the stretch marks of her final birthing rend."

Her good hand.
TO glide over his face.
Calloused-touch.. over his eyes.
"Now... let my last battle be yours. Allow me also to make my mark beside you."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 12:33AM CST
He exhales: it's what he's known, and exactly what he's needed to hear.

Then his eyes snap open, the umber stormy, the green flashing. Pupils constrict with anger and he grabs her by the wrists, pulling her hands off his face in a fast, angry gesture. The predator's terror soaks the air of the room suddenly; above, on the roof, a nesting family of pigeons is awakened from their sleep and mills, nightblind and confused, where they cannot be seen.

"No." There is no murmur here; it is pure growl. "You will stay here. You will live."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 12:44AM CST
"Is Fate your own to claim, mate?"
With the agility that bespeaks her skill with the long-daggers, she twists her wrists to snap around his own. Jarring her fractured arm something fierce. Something which turns her pale. With her eyes bright as artic flame.

"All knew your fate and yet to you I was mated. How many times have you settled between my thighs, Aurich? How many times and it never took seed. Why my barren union with you if not the fertility of joint final sacrifice?"

Even in anger, even in fervrent vehemenece are her words tailored, is her poise delectable.
"Husband... Mate... You above all know the power of fate. Of predestination. I've wrestled with this beast. I have lived with it time and again. I have prayed until rendered hoarse for some way to keep you alive; be it whole or in offspring or in memory alone. I have acted and still every road has lead here. To your side. I cannot keep you alive, so what more have I to give but my own blood to secure your place beside the Goddess?"

A slow, hauntingly steady intake of her beathe and then the dropped octave of her murmer, to settle as does the mist before the rise of eternity.

"I will not stand by and forget you."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 12:51AM CST
"Don't," the word snapped out long before she finishes -- his hands gripping her wrists mercilessly, refusing to let go -- and much later, "push me, Genevieve.

"Don't push me."

He's sitting bolt upright as though the comfortable armchair had suddenly grown redhot. Tension sings through every bunched muscle, his thighs hard beneath hers, his chest close enough to hers for her to sense, subdermally, the furious pounding of his heart. She takes her slow breath; he sinks back, glowering turning to brooding.

She speaks again and his eyes drop from hers, not out of submission but out of contemplation. He spreads his blunt-fingered, swordsman's hands (killer's claws) on her sleek barren abdomen.

"A Garou does not allow his mate to die if he is worth his Name. A Silver Fang does not do that. It is impossible, Genevieve. I will not leave this earth a disgrace to my family and House, tribe and Nation. Fate is not mine to claim, but you are." His hands tightens suddenly. His fingers raze over her skin and then grasp a handful of her blouse, twisting tight, yanking her forcefully closer. "You are."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 01:04AM CST
Held. Pushed. Pulled.
The sharp intake of her breath and the fluid give and adjustment of her crouched form the only indicator that his worlds, his actions, serve to penetrate.
For her gaze is kept steady.
Her good hand - albiet stitched - to slide over that which twists in her blouse forcing the arch of her spine. The cool gold of her wedding ring. Plain. To rest where his should be.

"Deny me this and I will die. As your mate I will perish. You know our ways. My family is already setting out it sights for a lesser Garou of lesser family who might deign to take a Kinwoman who is possibly barren. Or I shall be a widow who's mate is unrecalled, to oversee the frivolity of her society. Could I maipulate?" What remains of her nail dig into his flesh. The tenderness of under-wrist, where his pulse thrives. "Could I manuever and play may way to better position? Nothing more than a mover of Pawns? Would you condem me to either fate? I have always followd you -- do not force me to watch you go where I cannot follow." Snarled low, eyes narrowed and the flex of her jaw even as her chin rises up, her shoulders straigten.
Untouchable.
Touched.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 01:20AM CST

He slaps her.
Correction: he backhands her, as brutally as he had in the airport many months ago. Only this time, the gesture is reined and sharp, short, and he does not relinquish his hold on her other arm. Thus, she cannot fall.

"Is this what you have come to, Genevieve? The inability -- the unwillingness -- to serve your life as Gaia has intended? Fear of the road that lies beneath your feet, when all your life you have walked it? If, after my passing you will be mated to a Garou of lesser breeding when once your were mine, mine, then so be it. If you are to live out your life as a mover of pawns, then so be it. If you are to live out your life destitute, in rags, serving Gaia in a way only She can fathom, then so be it.

"You would not allow me the easy exit of death in combat. And you were right. So why should I allow the same of you? No. Never. Put it from your mind."

A hissing long inhale. It is not an invitation for her to speak. If she should try, he would only strike her again, and again if necessary.

"You will lie with me tonight, wife." The first storm of his rage has subsided to something quieter, a little more dangerous. "Long have you been gone, and long have I missed you. You will lie with me tonight, woman; tomorrow, and the night after that, before I go to whatever fate Gaia has preordained for me. And on one of these three nights, you will conceive.

"You wish to preserve some memory of me on this earth? Then that is how you will do it. With your flesh. With the fruit of your womb."

Finally, he lets her go.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 01:40AM CST
Backhanded.
With the metallic tang of her own blood within her mouth. To seep along the plumpness of her lips and paint them the red of vitality. Her eyes closed to steady the galaxies awakened behind her eyelids.

Tension.
Static between them, this bare distance to forge a lightening strike and melt them whole.
These moments tend to liquify.

Exhale.
Her eyes closing.
...tranquility is so fragile, so fleeting a thing...
As if he's said...
...what she needed to hear.

Then motion.
Surging upwards.
Surging against him. Her body clamped close; pressed sure to deny him to hook with which to push her away or strike her loose. Her grasp in his hair a white hot heat that becomes ice and the unrelenting momentum of glaciers.

"You never took me, Aurich. I gave myself." Somehow, even so close, she keeps herself distant. "Tell me I made my mark on you. Then mark me as you have not. Make me remember, husband. With your eyes on mine. You are not yet gone. You are not yet dead. You are not yet forgotten and this," Her abdomen - her covered womb - pressed tight up against his pelvis. Heat for heat and danger for danger. "This is your eternity. And mine. Now."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 02:03AM CST
Firmly, he takes her face between his hands. Her body pressed close and his unyielding, he faces her from inches away.

"You have made your mark." Every word is a growl. Tonight there is little human about him; they are wolf and mate, garou and kin. It all comes down to memory--

--but this is not a memory yet.

That much is apparent in his irresistible strength. When he stands he takes her with him, his hands supporting beneath her thighs, his spine backarched for balance and pride both. He eats the breath from her mouth and grips and rips at her clothes. Then he drops her backwards on the bed. When his shirtcuffs do not come apart fast enough he uses his teeth. When he is naked he covers her, scooping her up against him with one hand beneath the incurve of her back.

And again, "You have made your mark."

It all comes down to memory.
Hers -- and his.

"I will not forget you."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Thu 02:44AM CST
She does not speak to respond to his words. His promises. His assurance. His demand. Language becomes the universe of the flesh, marking out a bright constallation with the joints and junctures of their forms in the darkness around them.
His darkness encroaching.
To swallow him whole.

Together they shall make of her womb - her femeninity - her divine chalice - a Milky Way and within this vista, they shall create worlds. Worlds within worlds, the cells to bond and divide and within each infentismal building block shall be the essesnce with which a new world shall be created.

Tonight conception is an act of will.
It is the force of unified purpose.
She is made unto him a glove of mind and body, to fit snug and sound. To keep warm and, perhaps, to conceal the nakedness of his unstopable fragility.

He will be forgotton.
But can they make his line go on?

After the Goddess stretched form her limbs of mind and essense; after the rush of initial creation; after the scorching, primal heat of their venture into the Divinity that is conception...
...there is the silence of retrospect.
The echoeing stillness of naught but thumping hearts that is the life-blood Sun to this solar system that throbs, throbs, throbs deep down to their very marrow.

And with her face...
...turned towards him in the shadows.
...she finally speaks once more.

"You're making me live. I'll set a price." Her fingers extended to trace out the scars she knows by heart. Her lips to drink in the last beads of the persperation that bear his mark. "In this life, I will forget you. But you will not forget me. And when I have left this life behind... find me. And we will build memories new. Find me."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 02:56AM CST
His breathing has yet to slow.
His heart still pounds so loud it drowns all else out.
Almost.

When he lifts his head from her skin his sweatdamp hair hangs into his eyes. Every minute motion of his consummately powerful body is echoed through his skin onto hers. When he looks at her, even in the dark, the green flecks in his eyes gleam and glitter, glow. His are the eyes of a wolf. His is the hunger and faith of a wolf, unswerving, without the uncertainties of human love and fidelity, where a vow is so easily broken.

His vows are not voiced, save for these few ones. He breathes quietly as she touches him with her hands, and then with her mouth, as an animal does. His arms fold around her. Lock. His strength is unbudgeable, unbelievable. There's an irony in this, that the so potently physical should be doomed to become a fading spirit. His throat feels tight. Cool-eyed lady, her skin is nevertheless warm.

"I will find you." He speaks softly; intensely. His life is without finish, an asymptotic line petering out without finish, approaching infinity. His honor passes the boundaries of lives and times. "I promise you this."

for memory's sake.

Jocelyn Valois

Thu 04:08AM CST
"Remind me," Jocelyn had asked, once they vacated the cab, turning to watch the yellow car speed away. The cab twins itself in her pupils; two ghosts, leaving and leaving and -- gone. Then she turns back to study her relative (packmate; more important then blood; we all know how important blood is...) carefully. "Who are we visiting?" Floats behind like a shadow.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:11AM CST
At 3:40 Aurich was as groomed as he intended to get. The sort of man that looked good with a rugged unshaven jaw, he could wear just about anything and be known for what he is. Tonight it was - important word, was - a light grey t-shirt, long-sleeved; charcoal grey slacks and coat.

By 3:50 the coat was gone, and so was the shirt. He was on the balcony dancing swiftfooted around a hanging punching bag, bright red; shifting stance from right-foot-forward to left, and back, he dances the dance of broken cheekbones and black eyes with the toy, his bare knuckles pounding on it in regular sequence. He had a fight in less than 48 hours and, being Ahroun, he was not about to waste time lounging about.

At 4:03 the bell rights and Aurich stops, a little out of breath, a lot sweaty. He glances quickly at his watch. Then he pulls his shirt back on, throws his coat over a stool at the wet bar in the corner, and shuts the sliding door to the balcony behind him.

"Early," he notes with raised eyebrows at Jaan. They could not have taken a limousine. Limos are never early. They took a cab. Pressing a button on the intercom, the small viewscreen 50-someodd stories below blinks to life, giving a monochrome image of Brand's heavyboned, lowland-Germanic face. "Cousins. Be welcome." Click, the door below unlatches and the videocom goes blank.


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:14AM CST
*Jaan looks up as the bell rings and gently sits down his wine glass. Standing he straightens his clothes. Placing his book on the end table he looks to the Alpha, speaking in german as he does* ~G~ Shall I rouse the others or are we going for the less "Freak um out" route of just we two tonight?"


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:17AM CST
"Just you and I, brother. And the ladies." Flashing a quick toothy grin, Brand grabs the collar of his shirt and draws the fabric up for a quick sniff while he heads to the door to open it. They have a few moments while the Valoises rode the elevator up. "Do I smell as bad as I think?"


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 04:18AM CST
"Cousins..." A fleeting smile graces her lips as flesh rounds around and repeats the words, eyes gray and blue and shadowed briefly landing on the other woman's face. "Fun? Perhaps not. Much formality, much tediousness. And I dare say..." The crescent lifts to bare white. "... most upstanding. Like ourselves." The humour fades quickly as the door is buzzed open - and she shifts through it with easy grace -- careful not to let the surface brush the white suit she wears.

"But most importantly, they know why we're here. Uncle.. arranged this."


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:18AM CST
Worse. He moves to an end table and pulls out a can of AXE body spray and tosses it to him* The Baroness went to the planeteriam tonight.... she was quite proud of herself.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:21AM CST
Aurich grabs the can of AXE out of the air and takes a sniff. "Whuf..." and it's tossed back untouched. "I thought I saw her flouncing out in blue jeans. What was that, her idea of camouflage? Was she escorted?"


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:25AM CST
*He catches it and laughs* The girls love this stuff. * He puts it away* Yes, bluejeans. She was being "Daring" and trying to "Blend."
I think she meanderd out alone actually. I just know there was a cap with a metor on a spring on it outside my door*


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 04:26AM CST
"Family is all very well," Jocelyn begins - then Aurich's features appear on the monitor. The door buzzes open. Jocelyn is laden with a tote-bag-esque purse, which she adjusts on her shoulder; glances once more up at the sky, or just up at the building itself, measuring its stature against the heavens. "But," she follows Josephine in - quickens her pace, to catch up. "Uncle," and the word is as bare as bones in the air, fleshless and boneless, "needs to start sending out more detailed memos. What do we know about these cousins?"

They're in the elevator now and it's making its painstaking ascent upward. They can't even feel it underneath their feet. Jocelyn looks up, again, the way people do in elevators - as if that'd make it go quicker, or they could see how close they were to the top.

Then her eyes fall back onto Josephina; her lips skim back from her teeth - just a hint of white in the smile. "And I like formalities." Back to looking at the ceiling. "They're always the same."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:28AM CST
"Your girls, perhaps," Aurich replies, superiority in every line of his body and in the raising of his dark eyebrow. "My woman likes me stinking." And he grins, flexing his elbows backwards in a stretching, limbering motion as he waits near the door. This, the easy jesting of two men - Garou - that were both blood brothers and brothers in arms, and thus closer than both.


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:30AM CST
*Jaan laughs and nods* Well stinking in literal since makes sence as she's agreed to mate with you. *He checks his breath and munches a quick Tic Tack* Dani is getting used to being my Mate instead of just my kin... I think she's happier.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:33AM CST
"You have taken her as mate?" The smile fades somewhat. They are beyond the formalities of what is condoned and what is censured. "You must not follow me into the Umbra, then. One widow is enough for this pack. Ah -- they approach."

Down the hall, ding, the elevator arrives.


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 04:34AM CST
"Well, the names do change occasionally - but.. essentially..." The silk fabric slides over her form, tailored perfectly over every inch by the deft hands of some designer. Big name? Of course. Chanel. Much like the fragrance which trails behind her. ".. I'm sure you could guess it." The bag in her hand, tiny seed-pearls scattered over it surface, is lightly clutched in her hand - the thought of ringing uncle, or at least someone close to him, for a last minute briefing an eventually dismissed thought. "We are meeting... now what was his name? Some.. german sounding contraption. Aur... Aurich. Actually.." She laughs. "I like the way that sounds. Strong. Aurich von Doenhoff." The voice has a lilt, light and easily amused - though its not long before that guise is fading.

In the elevator, her stance suddenly shifts - one Jocelyn would know (and love?) from the boardroom, the court, the tight business personality served best amongst - most everyone. Straight shoulders, yet not tense - just merely, confident - and its long-legged strides which eat the hallway to the door. And the clip of stiletto heels.

Prada.
(To go with the bag.)


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:34AM CST
*He nods and listens. That's yet to be seen. His place is at Brands left. As allways.
Should his mate be widowd... well that might just be too bad.
He looks to the door as the ding chimes* She's very fond of the Barroness. Trust that she'll be looked after.


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 04:39AM CST
Jocelyn's ice-green eyes thaw slightly when she smiles. [...this time without teeth.] "It's a male name, Josie. Of course you like it." The name - of course it's recognized. How many times did she need to run over the different lineages and why they were distinct and so on and so forth while they'd become more and necessary to her [... more necessary then air...] for survival? Almost as many times as the tribal galliards did.

But when you're walking up to someones doorstep it isn't polite to say - Aurich von Doenhoff? Brand? The doomed one? More doomed then most of us, that is. The really doomed.

So she keeps her peace. And she still follows Josephina -- partly because she has no idea what door they're going to.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 04:44AM CST
Behold, the Fangs done their regalia.

No, not the fur-trimmed mantles in deep scarlet; not the purple emperor's robes. Not the crown and not the scepter, not the sword and not the wand.

Simply this, their presence. Outside Josephina's demeanor shifts to the taut, honed sharpness of her business face. Inside, Aurich's easy lean against the door is no more. He draws himself upright, shoulders back, head high, and if you had a yardstick you could stretch it down perpendicular along the line of his back, from skull to tailbone.

There is no tension in this posture. Like any good swordsman or fighter, his muscles are relaxed but ready, his joints loose. Unshaven, in a longsleeved t-shirt damp with sweat, command still drapes him as heavily as any mantle, and so much more potently.

As the clip of heels approaches the door he sweeps it open, free hand folded at the small of his back as he bows slightly, and graciously, to them. Large of bone, large of frame, large of presence: Aurich Eberstark, Freiherr von Doenhoff, of House Gleaming Eye. His dark eyes (a gleam of green in all the umber-amber) glint between them. If he has no idea who is whom, which is which, there is no panic in the calm movement of his gaze. Stepping back, to invites them enter with a gesture.

"Mesdemoiselles de Valois - my packmate Jaan Rafe, of Estonia, and I your humble host, Aurich Eberstark, of Doenhoff. Please, come in."

The door shuts softly behind them and does not lock. That would be impolite, like a gaoler allowing his new prisoners entrance.


Jaan Rafe

Thu 04:53AM CST
*Jaan offered a smile as he sees the ladies. A bow of his head to go with the warm smile. Jaan is in the slacks and casmere V neck Ralf Lauren shirt. HIs broad shoulders filling it out nicly. Unlike his pack brother, he smells pleasent and is well groomed. As he speaks the Estonian accent is present but cultured* Good evening.


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 04:54AM CST
"Well, come now..." The expression is returned, and improved - she enjoys to smile - where so often her cousin does, will, not. For balance. "That isn't the case at all. It still does need a certain.. something. Much like a good accessory. And of course, it helps when styled by renowned designers." Blue bloods. "For example. The other cousin. Jaan. Now.. that name..." Her hand motions lightly in the air, then falls to her side at the movement of the door.

The smile slips from glossed flesh - last lingering remnant - and schooled into distant, almost haughty, cordiality. Such an easy change. Yet it does not quite bleed into those eyes, storm-flecked pools incapable of complete neutrality.

In there, there is life. And warmth.

De Valois.. She doesn't correct him - though, her full name is preferred over that of her cousin's. A certain pride, well-earned, through years of careful breeding. It should really be acknowledged.

"Good evening, Monsieur Eberstark. Monsieur Rafe. I trust we did not keep you waiting long." She does seem concerned - for that instant when her eyes hold briefly with him, lip-sealed smile tilts corners, before she is moving into the room. There is an accent in the voice, upper-class English - and not the tantalising tilt of French, as may have been expected.


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 05:02AM CST
Take a moment to notice the differences. Jocelyn is, of course, impeccably dressed; but it's a casual, tailored impeccability; so casual it's almost unnoticeable. But where Josephina is warm, Jocelyn is cool-eyed. Where Josephina is gorgeous, Jocelyn is nothing much to look at at all. The blood - the breeding - the legendary ancestors stretching back and back and back - that's all there. Understated. [ Hey, people think when they look at Silver Fangs. Watch them. They're something - great.]

Her gaze pulls away - the tail-end of an unseen warning? - from Josephina to the hosts. Her lips turn up; she nods. And her accent? Is pure french. The hard 'th' sounds like a 'z' - there's something throaty in the otherwise clear voice which has all to do with location-growing-up.

"Bon soir." Nod. "It was very pleasant of you to extend the invitation. If we - if I - " a bit of rue " - am not the brilliant conversationalist that I'd like to think I can be, I blame the time difference."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 05:06AM CST
"Waiting? Not at all. And madam -- " oh, Aurich still doesn't know which is which, but he's looking at Jocelyn now, " -- you underestimate yourself.

"Please." He indicates the living room with its tasteful arrangement of furniture, lighting, art. There are women living in this condominium. You can tell at a glance. It's in the arrangement of things, in the smell in the air, in the overall feel of the place, which does not have the forcible cleanliness of a maid's dire effort. "The flight must have been grueling. You've come a long way, and not a moment too soon. I trust you've heard of the situation at hand - may I offer you something to drink?"


Jaan Rafe

Thu 05:06AM CST
*Jaan nods to them gently and his voice rolls out rich and thick from where he stands*
I'm sûre nous vouloir pardonner vous tout petit se faufiler ups dames. Pouvions MOI trouver soit soit une de vous la boisson ou peut-être quelques-unes sorte de petit pain rond au lait?


["I'm sure we will forgive you any minor slip ups ladies. Could I get either one of you a drink or perhaps some sconnes?"]


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 05:19AM CST
A critical yet approving eye is cast over the interior of the room - and Aurich may get the strong suspicion that if it were not quite up to scratch - then the eventual invitation (pending?) would be not even considered. Well, outside of polite limits, that is. The white-garbed figure, slender and tall and blending into the simple modernity like a pale stature, reclines on one of the offered seats. A brow lifts sharply in Jocelyn's direction, before the refreshment is accepted. "I do not suppose you have champagne?" There is no expectation in her voice - and if she were to be honest to herself, there are two things possible. One, that she had already imbibed enough on the plane, and two, that she would be disappointed by anything Doenhoff had to offer - should the answer be an affirmative.

"And then, perhaps," An almost apologetic smile appears as she leaves little room for further pleasantries, "you could inform us as to why Phillipe Rouvier thought it important we speak to you as soon as we arrived."


Jaan Rafe

Thu 05:22AM CST
Je suis équitablement sûr thanksggiving nous avons flacon champagne et sparkeling vin. MOI piquet de grève en haut une sympathique Chateu Lature 37, une Merlot si vous would préférons?

*He looks to Brand to field the second part of the question. Being the Earl of Estonia's north eastern provence he'd put up with plenty of refined guests.

[I am fairly certain that we have botth champagne and sparkeling wine. I picked up a nice Chateu Lature 37, a Merlot if you would prefer?]


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 05:25AM CST
Jaan speaks her native tongue - this directs the slight smile [ -- don't pray for the thaw] towards him. She wets her lips with her tongue (it is temptation to respond en francaise as well; she doesn't). "For myself? A scone would be lovely, and some coffee, if you have it. The Merlot perhaps another time." And then - her cool gaze keeps all three of the actors in this scene before her. "And in case the Uncle did not send files with - what do you? - mug-shots, I," a hand on her chest, "am Jocelyn - or Pagan if you prefer that name - and this is my packmate," subtle claim of bond, "Josephina."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 05:32AM CST
Apparently, they hadn't been briefed. Aurich spears them both with a look, briefly, then turns away to walk into the living room he directed them toward. He sprawls into the overstuffed leather couch, glancing briefly at Jaan. "Give the ladies their choice, Jaan," he replies - in German. "I'm fine, thank you."

A grave nod to both as they are introduced, then. "Honored," and he makes a rudimentary stand as they seat themselves, if they seat themselves, reseating himself afterwards.

"The present situation, madams, is doubtlessly why your Uncle directed you to me. We are currently seeing this protectorate" he opens his hands to indicate the greater Chicago area, "in a state of flux. The forces of the Wyrm press us from every direction, but the tide may yet be turning. The locals have found a slumbering caern, and the way to perhaps awaken it. The date set for this undertaking is this Friday. A little over 36 hours away. So you see," a brief smile, politeness not dimming the potential for great kindness there - and great sternness as well - "it is imperative that things happen quickly at this stage."


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 05:34AM CST
The introduction receives a slight tilt of chin, before the greater subject of interest is voiced. "Chateau Latour? We were just in the Bordeaux region." The brow rises slightly in her packmate's direction at the demure, but she says nothing. And if reclining on the couch while others stand would seem awkward on another, with these beasts (yes. all.) it is their right. Their breeding, their pride, does not allow the absence of eye-level to serve discomfit upon their carefully tuned frames.

Particularly not on this one.

An arm drapes over the arm rest, one manicured finger lifting and then pressing soft into the fabric. A gesture of thought - as attention turns to Aurich. "Tell us of the wyrm threat. Philippe mentioned..." Her gaze shadows, briefly, before giving a slight shrug. "It is a corporate entity, is it not?" Which would explain, amongst other things, why their particular presence was chosen. "How much do you know of its manifestation?"


Jaan Rafe

Thu 05:38AM CST
*He inclines his head and turns walking over to the wet bar in the corner. Pulling out the coffee popt he pours a cup in fine Eastern Russian gold rimmed china, then places the cup on a saucer with a fresh scone delivered from Londons East end just this morning. They kept them for the Barroness. Oh how they doted on her. Then taped the Lature. Pouring a wine glass for the other.

Carrying them back across he offers the saucer to Jocelyn and nods* Pagan.
*Looking to Jose, he offers her the flute with he dark wine in it.
He's about to sit when the entercome comes on. Sleepily inquirieing something in a womans voice. In Estoinian. Jaan smiles* Si vous dames vouloir possiably pardon. I'm être appelé à le profit mon Tasser taxe. Le était une volonté à rencontrer vous tous les deux et MOI attendre avec impatience travailler à vous dans l'avénir.

*He bows deeply to them both and heads for the thick wooden door*

[If you ladies will possiably excuse me.. I'm being called to proform my Pack duty.
It was a pleasure to meet you both and I look forward to working with you in the future. ]


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 05:42AM CST
Jocelyn's mastered the art of sitting without wrinkling her clothing; she should teach it. She doesn't lounge. Her spine is ( ... steel or diamond-) straight, although somehow, somehow, the posture is natural. As natural as breathing. Aurich speaks.

Jocelyn gives Josephina a look - her eyes are seas frozen all the way to the bottom; they stay frozen; but fire reflecting on ice gives the illusion of fever, sometimes, and is intense.

And she takes the cup and saucer, and nods crisply when Jaan takes his leave.

"We were led to believe the straits were not quite so dire. You lead the attack? Where and when?"


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 05:48AM CST
"Goodnight, Jaan," he raises his voice briefly, turning to call over his shoulder and the overstuffed back of the chair.

Still sprawled: relaxed, alpha male. Master of his domain, which is all that they see about them, and all of downtown Chicago as well if they believed his claim. And why should they not? He was Silver Fang, after all. He had a birthright to title and land, no matter what the Walkers and Fianna wanted to claim.

He allows them a moment to enjoy their refreshments. Then, folding in, leaning forward, business continues. "At least part of it - the influential, powerful part - appears to use the conglomerate corporation Pyrell and all its subsidiaries as both front and operating arm. However, they seem capable of calling in large amounts of grunt soldiers rather quickly. The local Garou have been quite capable of stemming off the tide and taking care of the grunts when they rear their heads - as they doubtlessly will on Friday. However, to exterminate the root of the problem could prove more difficult, even for my pack. We are, after all, soldiers at heart." He smiles self-deprecatingly.

Then the raptor-sharp eyes, dark as a hawk's, fasten on Jocelyn. "Oh, quite dire, mademoiselle. And no," this is spoken easily, for the acceptance of a more qualified lord's rule is every bit as important as the willingness to rule on the road to kingship, "we do not lead this attack. We are rearguard.

"The final location of the Caern has not yet been disclosed. We wait for an omen that will be revealed on Friday, Falcon willing. We strike out from the abandoned subway terminal at Washington and 18th - I can show you on the map, if you like. We follow the fetish held by the Quick, a pack of lowborn scouts and mystics and warriors. When the Caern is found, the Theurges will do their job and we will make our stand."


Arabella Eberstark von Doenhof

Thu 05:52AM CST
Arund this hour in Switzerland she would be rising for lessons before her true schoolday began. However, in America, she's still running a similar schedule, if only because she'd be returned to that Academy come fall if she didn't happen to complete her few months of this year while away. There was good reason she'd gone to the Planetarium afterall.

This morning, she was yet again rising. Slipping from her bed, like Sleeping Beauty rising after one hundred years, her feet slid into fluffy slippers, a long pale pink robe buttoned over her soft cotton night gown, the chesynut hair braided neatly. Sleep had pulled a few sft curls from it to frame her face by now. Thus she exitted her room, giving Jaan a half awake smile as he passed her in the hall. He just grinned. She assumed Danica. Of course once she reached the oaken door and opened it, she'd know otherwise.

The heavy oaken door opened just shortly after Jaan disappeared to reveal the still somewhat sleepy eyed young kinfolk. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to Aurich, but refined into delicate female degrees instead, she gave every impression of a young lady. Green eyed gaze was soft as she kept walking a few more steps... and stopped. And blinked. She glanced at the clock, then Aurich and guests. Jaan hadn't told her they had guests. The blush immediate.

"Good morning Aurich... I did not realize we were entertaining... at this hour." Given credit she doesn't bolt back to her room to primp, but maintains some grace.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 05:58AM CST
And credit to Arabella's brother as well: he does not strain for all things to be exactly as the laws of etiquette dictates. Instead, he bends the laws of etiquette to his decree. Apparently unflustered by the girl's nightgowned appearance, he merely lifts a large hand her way and introduces her with a cool, flawless aplomb.

"Josephina, Jocelyn -- my sister and kin to my blood, Arabella Eberstark von Doenhoff. Arabella, these are our cousins, packmates Josephina de Valois-Montreuil and Jocelyn Valois. They have come a long way and have just now arrived."

Unspoken but lingering in the air: the cast of business over it all. Garou business. Not unlike Family business, for the mob, really.


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 06:00AM CST
Garou blood dictated the knowledge of combat - it was integral to who they were, and even these two women, one as completely removed from anything suggesting physical violence in a glance, from the pristine presentation of her sculpted, moulded, primped and prettied form, to the loose-limbed dancer (not warrior)'s grace and the unblemished skin. The modern damsels in distress. At a glance, a stranger's glance, the discussion of war should sit ill on their cosetted shoulders. Perhaps, at a glance, Jocelyn at least would be appraised as the sterner of the two. Still. Soft.

Yet avid, thoughtful attention dawns in the sleek blonde's face, an expression not unlike discussions for a hostile corporate takeover amongst the Board of Directors of her father's company. A shark-like intensity which sifts Aurich's news through a sieve. "We will need to know these details, but also more on the Corporation. What you know of those involved." Those at the top - her own informants could gather the necessary about the company itself, the public operations, even some of the internal, as well as the profiles of those at the top. But what she needed now, was garou-only. The presence of the kin does not stem the tide. Perhaps caution could be advised in any other domain.

But this was his. And his presence vouched for it.


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 06:02AM CST
And then she slides that glance to the kin - that she had not broken her own press for information at the girl's presence could be, perhaps, also lacking in etiquette. Or merely, judgment of priority. But just as quickly as those words are released - the expression relaxes enough for a smile and charmed response. "Delighted."


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 06:03AM CST
"A pleasure, madamoiselle," Jocelyn murmurs (. correct. and. proper .) to Arabella. It is her only input at the moment.


Arabella Eberstark von Doenhof

Thu 06:08AM CST
Ahe glances from Aurich (dear brother) to Josephina to Jocelyn and she smiled, casting sunlight across her features in her light hearted way. She seemed to recover the bits of lost composure in the press of business Then she spots the scones. Jaan knew her tastes too well. Giving a rather girlish giggle, [She's at home and some lack of etiquette can be excused...] she proceeded to place a scone on a gold rimmed saucer... glanced with a twinling green gaze and a second joined it. They were her favorites afterall... straight from London.

"Shall I leave you to it then?"

Some things her brother preferred her not to know and she had practice yet to do before her piano lesson that afternoon.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 06:11AM CST
"We have little intelligence on this matter as of yet. We keep to tactics and warfare. However," a surprisingly deft turn of his fingers spins one of the intricate lace doilies around on the coffee table. He reaches automatically for a pen at his breast pocket, only he does not have one, and so, with a small abashed smile, borrows one from the other Fangs. Continuing then, he scribbles out a name on the doily.

Which is old. Expensive. Intricate. Exquisite. Part of a set of eight. And now, ruined.

"This man might be able to assist you. He's a Glass Walker who seems to specialize in this sort of thing." The tone is clear: they're the help, dear, use them. That's what they're for. "You might find his attitude a little lacking in the respect department, but his information could prove useful nonetheless.

"The Fenrir pack on the Riverfront also has some intelligence on the corporation. However, they're a rowdy bunch whose information is most likely to be of the martial bent, and so of little use to you."

The pen caps with a click. He glances at Arabella; fondness passes there, slight, but clearly felt for all gathered. "No, liebchen, have your breakfast."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 06:14AM CST
The name: James F.W. Vaughn.


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 06:20AM CST
Not another glance is spared the kin, the frail fabric taken between nimble fingers and the name checked with a glance. It may be old. Expensive (which she can appreciate), but the design is wasted on her modern-washed taste. "Very well. And how do you prefer to be contacted?" The doily is folded, and placed in the small bag in her lap, to be replaced by a sleekly lined cell phone. "And perhaps deatils for Monsieur Rafe, also? In case you are.. indisposed." A pause, before she adds. "And we shall need to meet the rest of your pack, I believe." Not really a question, but then, not an assertion, either.


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 06:23AM CST
Jocelyn's still silent - although she gives Josephina another look, lifting (barely) one eyebrow - and part of the reason for her silence is the coffee (black as a devil's belly) and the scone (how lovely, and they're not even in - ).


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 06:24AM CST
He shakes his head at her cell phone produced. "No need for that," he says, waving it off. "Stay. Be our guest, at least until you've procured a permanent residence. It's too late to hail a taxicab to an unknown hotel. We have guest beds in the study. You can meet the rest of the pack at your leisure during the day. A few of them are always about."


Arabella Eberstark von Doenhof

Thu 06:26AM CST
They talk and she sets her sauer down to pad in soft slippers for the kitchen. Why? Coffee and wine were not beverages she would start her day with. Once there a glass taken out and milk poured [You could drink the milk and eat the beef in this country] before she came back to the room. Not a word said more as they discussed there business. More of the things she'd only heard of from Tucker. Non judgmental or interrupting. Took her seat and ate quietly, a napkin folded over her lap and doily placed under her cold glass. Jaan was NOT going to be happy to see one was missing now.

"If you like, I would be ahppy to show you where things are, ladies."

Pleasant and smiling, since Genevieve wasn't around to play Lady of the House... fingers dusted on her napkin daintily. "And Aurich... when you have a free moment..."


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 06:30AM CST
This time it is Josephina exchanging the glance, one corner of her mouth lifting in secret amusement - even while the dark brow lifts, with a new question. It seems that such looks pass often between the two. And then, she doesn't wait for comment - accepting for them both. When she meets Aurich's eyes, it is a look which also encompasses the sister.

"Previous arrangements had already been organised for us. By the company," By way of explanation. "And our luggage has already been sent on. However, if you allow me a moment to make a cool, I can have them brought here." The smile deepens. "I think, however, that your hospitality would suit us well, given the circumstances. At least, until we have acquainted ourselves better with this city."


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 06:36AM CST
The philodox bites her lower-lip; the gesture has nothing to do with anything at all; then she licks it, and nods, setting her saucer and coffee down. "If all is arranged to be arranged - " a glance between Aurich (a remarkably congenial creature, for one so doomed) and Josephina. Her cool gaze switches to Arabella. "It would be a pleasure to accept the offer." Beat. "Especially if the offer includes a toilet."


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 06:39AM CST
"Oh, and - might I take a picture of the pair of you, for memory's sake?" By way of explanation, "I have a new digital camera I am anxious to try out."


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 06:43AM CST
"Ladies," he accepts their acceptance thusly: a slight bowing of the head, just enough for politeness, not enough for deference. "We are honored to host you in our home."

Then, to Jocelyn, he laughs as if she'd made a joke. And of course, does not deign to make a response. Instead, to Arabella, "Make good on your promise, liebchen, and show our guests where everything is when they have made the arrangements." But first, "Did you want a word with me?"

Then, attention swinging back, something brief and wistful and privately amused flickering through his eyes. The cast of them is momentarily not umber, not amber, but golden as an eagle's -- a trick of the light. The flecks of green gleam and flash. Aurich nods benignly.

"Yes, I don't see why not. Arabella." Relaxing back into the couch, he holds out his arm to enfold his youngest sister in a familiar embrace. For the camera, he does not bother to smile, though the stark lines of his face, rugged and unshaven and rough-edged, relax out of their customary sternness. A picture to remember him by, then, in a moment with his favorite sibling, in a sweatstained shirt, casual, even rumpled, and every inch the Silver Fang heir-apparent.


Arabella Eberstark von Doenhof

Thu 06:48AM CST
"I wanted to give you something... but when we'r not otherwise occupied." The personal level of her gift was small and yet touched her enough she didn't want strangers eyes on her when she gave it to her dearest brother. Sliding from her seat, napkin lad beside her saucer and moving to fold into his embrace. She fit there from long years of such occurences at various times... nightmares and memorable moments, casual time and confidences. Even in her nightclothes and robe she looked the part of his younger sister, child of long lines of blood and history. The smile she herself gave was bright and light, warm and touch adoring. The reason she followed her brother thousands of miles to an ultimately untimely end lay in just that smile.


Jocelyn Valois

Thu 06:50AM CST
Jocelyn nods, without a smile. People, always smiling. It's unnatural. She opens her bag, takes out her digital camera - a sleek little black-and-silver thing, state-of-the-art. It doesn't take her too long to work it, either. She captures the siblings in the .. rectangular-thingy you see people out of... (to be replaced with actual word later) and -

click

- moment frozen. "Merci beaucoup."


Josephina de Valois-Montreuil

Thu 06:54AM CST
Clear eyes, knowing, look on as the short act takes place - the moment taken to rise from the seatee and smooth one hand lightly over thigh-warmed silk. The picture they present provoke the beginning of a smile which remains (perhaps for Jocelyn's lack) once the moment is complete.

"Lovely. Such beautiful features," Her eyes glide to Arabella, almost matronly in that expression, before returning to Jocelyn. "Shall we retire?" The mobile is held loosely in her hand - thumb running over keypad lightly.


Aurich von Doenhoff

Thu 06:58AM CST
Click. Aurich stirs, but only a little when the camera beeps. They don't whirr anymore. That's a pity.

"Later then," he agrees to Arabella. Then, as the Valoises prepare to retire, Aurich gets to his feet with them, giving Arabella a light hey-kid-you're-up-style nudge. "Goodnight, mesdemoiselles."


Arabella Eberstark von Doenhof

Thu 07:01AM CST
Picture taken, one of who knew how many dozens. She herself had a small album filled with phots of numerous things including Aurich. Rising from her seat and nodded to her brother, the serius glint in vivid eyes and then the smile wa back, the carefree well bred daughter.

"If you'll make whatever arrangements need be made, ladies, I'll show you all the necessaries. I'm sure you're both tired after your long trip."

Thats a form of assumption and one of too many rote phrases she'd gotten from her tutoring. She didn't know if they were from Boston or Britain or beyond but she had her guesses.

sparring.

Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:09AM CST
Late night upon late night.
She has swept into the Condo apartment and made succinct, quick changes to such matters as is expected to be seen to by one such as she. Not that she lifts a finger to actual see to the changes; no she oversees. She supervises. Her tastes are immaculate. A lover of simple grace and elegant lines in everything from the dining room table, to the fresh bought linens...
...to the old world swords hung over Brand's family Crest.

The decadent. The martial. All intertwinced into one and for all that her tastes are high and expensive, they also prove to be functional. Practical. Frivolities have little place--

--such duties overseen (she never asked if it needed doing. She expects it of herself and expects him to expect her to do it. Everyone else can go hang)she's turned herself to those which own her attentions far more completely. And those ambitions draw her outside of the Condo quite often. Tonight is just one of those nights, finding her once more in the Museum, though this time on the third floor in the borrowed office she had no trouble wheedling.

...she is not a woman easily denied.

Now there she sits, the flat screen of her computer casting it's blue glow over her strong, nordic features; makng all the more distinctive that lioness nose of hers and the broad sweeps of her cheekbones. She's on the phone speaking rapidly in fluid, fluent French; tounge slipping over lazy vowels as her eyes scan the screen a cup of coffee to her right that has long since ceased to steam.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:19AM CST
The rules of the conventional world do not apply to her.
And they certainly don't apply to him.

So while it is a dire breach of etiquette in some circles, it is not in others to do as he does: click. The line goes dead in her ear. Why? Because he has, in fact, cut it.

Literally.
With a sword.
His.

His father's, as well, and on and back through the generations. A thing not of human design: enormous, angular, the blade a large handsbreadth across and wedge-shaped at the hilt, fully an inch across the top. A single-edged blade runs the full length without tapering, angling sharply up at the end. The back of the blade is sharpened to half its length, then left untouched to the hilt, which is dull, unornate, unornamented.

A blade fit for a warrior-king. One that takes enormous strength to wield easily (as he does), and this is evident in the flex and roll of his biceps as he lifts it from the floor where he had - and so precisely that it hadn't caused a sound - severed the line.

The blade rests on his shoulder now, main edge up. He holds himself fiercely tall and erect. Head bowed, but neck straight; spine straight, shoulders back. Fully and well-dressed from waist down. Completely stripped from waist up, except for the formal black straps of his suspenders.

"Leave that for later," he invites; commands. "Spar with me."

How many dare answer such a call?
How many dare not?


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:37AM CST
A dead line in mid-sentence.
Her lips press together in almost lazy fashion; for such is her annoyance: A passing, heated thing like a simmering mirage. Though it is left behind as soon as you draw near, the asphault or sand you touch sill still scald your fingertips.

Setting the now useless phone down, she reclines back in the smooth leather of her desk seat, just-barely supporting her head with a bent thumb along the underside of her tapered, cleft chin, middle finger relaxed and resting just atop wide, generous lips and index finger laid out alongside the side of her face... her eyes sweep over the half-undressed visage of her mate; sword in hand---

---and annoyance melts away. Not in some lovey-dovey sense of cheery smiles and doeful gazes. No, it melts with that same lazy heat, enriched with whatever drive so charges up her being just below that collected, calm, controlled surface. So pressed lips merely becomes lips crooked into a bemused smile.

"Whatever would you do if I said no, husband?" She asks, one eyebrow rising up languidly, high up in exquisite lines and her middle finger rubs sleekly over her own lips...

...still awaiting a response as she stands up and begins calmly slipping off her silken dressing robe.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:41AM CST
He raises his head, slowly and steadily, turning it in the same motion.

Something about it is ...hawkish.

He is smiling. He is unshaven. He is half savage, half naked, half murderous, half feral. The green flecks in his eyes seem to burn brighter in the dimness, a room lit only by computer and desk lamp. They seem to gleam and glow, almost, to cast back light as light is cast upon it.

Sharply military, he swivels to face her. Fingers are relaxed around the leather-bound grip of the sword, the pommel as dull as the hilt as dull as the crossbar, and all these as dull as the blade is gleaming bright. Lightning scatters off the edge.

"Cut you down."
Surely he jests.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 02:50AM CST
"Ah."

It's uncanny how decadently unconcerned she makes the sound. Pausing in the slow removal of the flimsy slip of robing; to look to him with that same expression of caressing amusements.

Then she looks back to the computer, shutting it down as she shrugs one shoulder - sending one arm of the robe slipping free to expose bare arm beneath, smooth, alabaster complextion set off by the barest sprinkling of pale freckles. The monitor glow cuts out. She shrugs the other shoulder and that arm too slips free, the robe puddling to the floor, fabric more liquid than anything else. Reaching over she turns off the desk lamp. Click.

In the dark with a beast.
He with better night vision.
He with the wicked fucking sword in his hand.

Now she moves around the desk towards the door he stands before, clad only in the simple negligee, allowing her body free motion.

"And would you afford me any mercy? A clean cut - swift and painless? Or would you cleave in at quarter?"

Leaning in towards him, the barest of pauses as she moves to pass him by. You can just hear the upcurl of her lips... taste the cool brightness of her gaze. Feel the warmth of her form; her words - moist heating inviting as it is distant.

...and finally moving past to where her own, prized, blades are kept.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 02:57AM CST
"Mercy?" his tongue moulds the word as though tasting it. And, finding it good to the palate, amusing, "None for you.

"You would be insulted."

swshhCLACK. It's the sound of the sword swung brutally down, the pommel colliding with his watch, the blade's motion stopped dead without a quiver, the hilt flush against his corded, tensed forearm. Held at ready now, directly before him, both hands wrapped tight around the grip, another hands' breadth between them; elbows not locked; pommel at hip level; tip angled ever so slightly up.

In the darkness, the faintest blue glow of the night through the windows and their drapes. The faintest gleam of the swords' edge.

"Come, lover. Let us dance."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 03:15AM CST
Tigers Teeth, her blades are called. Wickedly tapered, curving blades of Indian design designed for an artful, intricately balanced, lithe two handed approach even more forgotten in this age than is regular swordmastery.

She is not a creature to heft weights and exude great physical force; her strength lies in her resilience and her speed. Her dexrious manipulations of her own form - a self awareness that slips into the boundryland of being so aware of ones body as to become completely oblivious to it...

...her hands grasp the pommels of her deadly blads, unsheating them from their mounts in one practiced, sensual motion and something inside of her quivers with ready anticipation at such weaponry in her hand.. and the knowledge of the ways in which their forms will soon be moving.

The right hand blade is grasped, likewise loose-elbowed, for the stab while the left is positioned witht he blade flowing flush along her arm, it's cruel point curved in towards her elbow: the slashing arm. Without hesitation she could switch position of either hand...

...transformations. This is no fencing art to stand rigid and primly poised. She slips to a half crouch, and that feral edge that always dwells just below the surface now rises and bubbles overs. There in her smile - there in her gaze that beckons him in, hypnotic. She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth and lifts her chin...
...as dangerously close to a taunt as few would dare with Brand.

"Come on then. No mercy."


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 03:29AM CST
As with all things, there is much of wolf in this.

Slowly, startlingly soft on his feet, he moves. They move. Forward. Circling. Eyeing one another, warily, not as lovers do but as fighters do, reading the lines of body and form, reading the weaknesses like a book.

She is better at bladed weapons than he. You can see this in her self-assurance, the very way she moves, smooth as an adder.

But he is stronger. Much, much stronger.

In an instant they spring together: his force to her finesse. Sparks give light to darkness. The blows rain in from all directions, parried and deflected. He hammers at her, backing her up step by step, pounds at her defenses like a winter blizzard. He's amazingly fast for all his strength; not the fastest who ever lived, no, but fast all the same. And the blows are not clumsy hacks. He seeks weaknesses, aims well - but not quite well enough.

Every blow turned aside. This is a good thing. Any one of them could have killed her.

Fall back. Breathing a little harder now. A savage grin breaks over his face like a wave over a rock. He flexes his hands on the grip, snaps the tip up -- and they come together again like wolves fighting, sudden, no mercy, no holds barred, her on the attack this time, her two short, curving blades to his one massive brute of a sword. Metal scrapes off metal. Blows that leave her arms feeling numb, but not slowed - her blades dart, they fly; nimble, they slash; stiff as wasp-stings, they thrust and weave and seek and find and

CUT.
--twice. in tandem. one-two. no mercy.

Come apart. A ragged line across his right knuckles, stinging, that hand useless until (unless) he heals. A line of red stark across his pale and ridged abdomen. Had he not flinched back at the last instant, his guts could be on the floor. He releases the hilt, holds it one-handed now, left. Bleeding right hand touches the long slash across his skin. He looks at the blood, lifts his fingertips to his nostrils, inhales, scents, licks, wipes it across his chest like primitive war paint and drops his sword with a clattering clang.

Bare-handed, bloodied, he beckons her forward. Ferocious grin. No words.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 03:42AM CST
Satisfaction.
It isn't sexual: she's no sadist. But there is satisfaction nonetheless in drawing first blood and it shows on her features; fierce huntress for one moment broken out beyond the bonds and bindings of her kind, her class, her breed, her gender.
Liberated.

Numb and soon-to-be-sore despite that she keeps herself in fine shape: there's no avoiding such damage in a spare with a man (beast) such as Aurich. And it may well be the damage is about to get far worse--
--has she crossed some line?

She does not cower. Does not shy back - but she is visibly wary, the martial mindest having ensared her for he moment. Like the lioness, like the she-wolf she paws to the side.. back.. forward. Light motions, blades - crimson kissed with his blood - still hel, though now lowered. Giving him that much though she does not drop them... yet.

--forward she goes neither smiling nore frowning - beyond that as well. Blonde hair disheveled about her ethereal face, colour flushed and vibrant with the health of battle - oxymoron though it is. Head slightly cast to one side -- in she goes. No gloating smugness, but neither is their quivering submission or apology. The briefest of complete glances was given to be sure he did move quick enough and, seeing no grave danger - especialy not for a Garou - she is feeling no concern for his well being...

...so forward, with the feral caution of a prime and ready predator who knows that, nonetheless, she is not the top of the food chain.
But oooooooo... sometimes she can feel deliciously close.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:00AM CST
And this, his element.

Brawler. Does the image conjure images of hulking inelegance? No, no. Not this. Large as he is, muscular and strong as he is, there's nothing but grace and power here. It's the same fluidity as a tiger's pounce: the same awesome sight of hundreds of pounds of muscle and sheer strength moving (flowing) in perfect synchrony.

She will not get any blows in now.

He does not dodge. He deflects. Not the blades but her arms, reaching right past the gleaming maze of knifework to knock aside a forearm, a wrist, his own hands open and relaxed, his battlecalm like a heightened state of existence. Even before his totem, he was a formidable hand-to-hand foe. With Raptor behind him, those who could match him are few unto nothingness.

She comes at him.
She comes at him.

He wards her off, draws her in, bends her blows to the side as though a shield existed around him - bides his time. Red spreading over his right hand. Red spreading down his flexing abdomen to drench the waistband of his expensive slacks. And then the rift opens. That instant in every fight where it's win or lose, right there, right then -- his hands snapping out, the fingers stiffened, striking the backs of her hands.

Tendons jump. It's not a pressure point; it's the forceful hijacking of her body's machinery. Her hands open and the blades fall. He snatches them out of the air, reverses the reverse grip -- points forward now, blades down -- and thrusts sharply, brutally forward.

Impales her?
Oh, no.

Back into their sheathes on her thighs, clicking home, the handles forward and parallel to the ground for easy access. Entirely too close to her, heated and huge, smelling of sweat and the raw musk of adrenaline, he is still as a storm's eye for a second.

Blade's point balance. Could so easily tip any which way.

Then he laughs -- hard and unfettered -- and then steps back, sweeping a curiously elegant bow to her. "Well met, Lady Breitenbach." A single drop of sweat rolls down his nose and hangs at the tip a second, drops. He turns, padding toward the nearest bathroom for a towel. "Still every bit as good as I remembered with those blades of yours."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 04:14AM CST
Hypnotic: That's the danger of it. There is undeniably a mesmerizing quality if one wathces to closely the movements of such people. She with her blades and he with the absolute prowess with which he handles his own form. Fiercely beautiful. Stunning. Inspiring of awe, which is to say Awesome as it was truly intended.

The sheen of her own sweat is a glow along her flesh. It is a triangle between the flimsy fabric just barely overing her breasts and also at a spot at the small of her spine. Left standing there with a blink when his precise blow stuns her muscles - a wince a beat later.. a pressing of her lips (as much a loathing of losing as he next Fang) and then a relaxing as she waits.. waits those crucial moments where the balance might stray and this entertainment go wrong.
Horribly wrong.

Stillness.
Absolute.

And then broken... he laughs and her own lips curve up in a glistening smile as she raises her hands, flexing them.. rubbing her arms, returning feeling to them.

"And you, Doenhoff, still every bit as good at winning."

She plucks the negligee from her damp flesh and, for her part, makes for the balcony where the chill wind will be more than welcome at this moment.


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:27AM CST
"One for one," he calls over his slicked shoulder as he pads into the bathroom. A light clicks on, dusts his skin, gleams off his sweat. His footsteps are soft, and yet heavy - the weight is felt rather than heard. "I call it a draw."

The door shuts. Water runs briefly. He emerges with a towel 'round his neck, the ends dangling assymmetric against his chest. His face and hairline is wet, and so are his knuckles, his stomach, the blood spreading diffuse into adjacent water.

A quick jaunt into the kitchen has him returning with bottled water, one for her and one for him. "What were you looking up on the computer?" he asks, stepping out onto the balcony behind her.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Fri 04:40AM CST
The resonant sound of her low-keyed chuckle is blown back on the wind.
"Don't humour me." Is her response to the naming of a draw, before she leans back at the railing... and then goes furter. Boosting herself up and swining long legs up and over. One dangling down, the other foot planted atop the rail, knee slightly drawn up. Eyes closing in the wind while her nostrils flare mildly...

Inhale...
(to feel alive)
...exhale.

He comes out, moving behind her and she rests and elbow on that upturned knee her dangling leg swinging. A glance over her shoulder; a gaze in his direction - then back again, out over the sites with a faint shrug.

"Just some photos from a curator."


Aurich Eberstark von Doenhoff

Fri 04:51AM CST
He comes right up to her. Right up to her. Inches away, he hands her one bottle and opens the other without ever looking away. Lights of the city glimmer off his eyes; catch in the luminous green amidst the dark.

"I don't ever humor you, love."

And her faint shrug earns her one in return; what does he care for her everyday work? Not so faint - deeper, slower, more felt. Muscles of shoulders and back contracting and relaxing. Rearranging and sliding. He's a work of art sometimes. One hand reaches over her body to plant down on the other side. Other hand sets bottle down beside her. He leans close, eyes shuttered behind lashes and then lids; inhale her scent.

A kiss, not on the mouth but on the throat, over the pulse of her carotid. Then he draws back, and away.

"Turn out the light when you come to bed."

so easily left behind.

Brand

Mon 01:51AM CST
Brand has a habit of staying up late. At 1:30am when most the city and its 9-to-5er's are deeply asleep, his night is barely beginning to wind down.

The sprawling two-level penthouse condo is quiet. Most the pack's bedroom doors are shut; they're either out, or sleeping. In the common areas - the living room, the den, the library/study, the kitchen, the balcony - the rheostats are turned down low. Lights burn faintly amber. The stereo system is on, but most the speakers are on mute; only in the living room can the strains of some late-night lounge music or other be heard.

The door to the large downstairs balcony is open, the sheer inner curtain billowing silently. It's not quite warm enough for this, really, but coming from ice and snow as this pack did, a little cold never bothered them. The Ahroun lounges on the maplewood deck chair in the corner of the balcony, facing the clear glass railing. Out here music's reduced to the faintest suggestion of bassline, melody floating atop. Through it the city's lights are spilled glittering out to the edge of the dark lake in the distance. Skyscrapers are light-speckled shadows topped by flashing red. Far away, a trail of steady-burning lights marks jetliners coming in for landings at Chicago O'Hare.

Four or five or seven at a time, the line never ends. The world spins on and the humans travel and work and move and exist, all the while unaware of the wolf-kings in their midst.

The breeze coming in over the lake is frigid cold. No matter; the weave of his clothes protects him from it. In wool-spun slacks and a sturdy cotton-weave shirt, the edges softened after a day's wear, he manages quite well. No tie; coat on the empty chair opposite him; formal, lowkey, black-with-silver-clip suspenders shrugged off his shoulders and lying looped against his flanks. Somehow the effect is more casual, more relaxed, more undone than if he'd not worn them at all. A glass of rum and coke held loose in his big hand, heavy on the rum and light on the coke completes the picture he paints: nobility at ease; alpha wolf in his own domain.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Mon 02:26AM CST
Her bedroom door has been shut since early this evening.

Knock upon it and no answer will be given. She is out.

...and coming home again.
Nearing 2am and the front door is quietly opened; quietly shut behind her. A distinctive, but light sound, the tattoo of her heels along hardwood floors polished just yesterday by the daily maid. No louder than the billowing rustle of the sheer inner curtains of said balcony is the fine-fabric shiftings as she goes about the process of unbuttoning and drawing off the black woolen evening coat. The air around her scented of high-priced, imported tobacco; of premier vintage red wines; of nightblooming jasmine; of chilled, cool winds and that faint musky scent that echo in museum corridors.

Scents as subtley provocative as the seductive glint of one ankle as it glides past the flowing slit of her gowns form-draping skirt. Soft sounds as whisperingly touching as the string of black pearls upon a platinum chain that runs not around her neck, but rather down, down, down the line of her spine, displayed in well-toned elegence by the cut of the gown that rises up high at the neck and cuts away at the back and draws the eye there... then lower.. then outwards... then upwards... then within.

Moving further within the condo, she goes about quietly not from any demure attempt to hide the lateness of her arrival, but merely from the cadence of her stately presence that feels no need to draw forth attention with volume and ruckus.

One satin kissed arm rises up in grecian lines to draw out the pins that have kept up her hair all evening; hair acheing to return to it's rather unruly natural state thanks to the humidity rampant in the damp air that so tastes of snow-still-to-come on the tongue. And there.. there as she comes to a stand at the open balcony door -- there where the whiteness of the curtains tease coyly sheer about the sable jet of her liquid-fabric gown and golden-grain of her hair -- there where the soft ambient light from the room casts the distinctive, singular lines of her face in shadowed relief...
...there she is a woman made and grown in manner rarely seen these days.

"Will you miss it, do you think?"

Such is how she chooses to lend the harmonies of her voice into the stronger melody of citylife beyond and around, enveloping. Harmonies it is, for her voice is a surprising undertone - not the higher pitched, clear-as-a-bell tone one might expect from her visage... but something more alto-rich, resonant with a smokey tinge of balmy huskiness. A not of passing, mild interest...
...a wraithly distant key of thoughts (fears?) she cannot shake.


Brand

Mon 02:44AM CST
He doesn't start when she appears. Likely he's sensed her coming from a long way off, either by merit of her heels or, softer, the scent and smell of her; the presence she leaves behind in the room, slowly dissipating long after she has left it.

Relaxed on the maplewood slats, the Ahroun doesn't move when she appears to haunt his doorway. Close up the details are visible. There's a faint, healing scratch running alongside the line of his jaw. He is cleanshaven today, but missed a spot in the cleft of his chin. The collar of his shirt isn't merely undone - it's also turned up haphazardly, testament that he'd stripped off a tie earlier. Bunched it and put it in his pocket, perhaps, or tossed it atop his bed.

Her question turns his head where her appearance did not. Interior lights glow on half his face, strong swarthy features dusted with distant amber. The other half is cast in shadow, the lights of the city too far away to do aught but catch on his glass, and gleam in his green-flecked eyes.

He laughs a little after a moment. "What a question," he muses, his voice a low thrum undershot with a beast's growl. He casts his gaze out to the city again as a fisherman casts his net. Miss what? - he could ask that, feign ignorance, but it's not his way. There is a pause, contemplative. "Yes, I suppose so." He inhales deeply, his chest expanding against the crisp white of his shirt. Exhale, and, "But they say everything lost can be found in the depths of the Umbra. So perhaps there's nothing to miss."

He speaks so easily of his fate now. In his hand the glass moves, rocks gently. Liquor comes close to spilling but does not, always saved by a hairsbreadth or two. Eventually he sips.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Mon 03:09AM CST
With his gaze drawn ahead, towards the distant city, he cannot see the bit of polite smile that graces generous lips; bemusement with a hint of potential sauceiness. Even though he cannot see it, he can more than likely envision it in his minds eye for it is just the sort of expression she often dones... socialy acceptable mystery; for the smile doesn't quite touch her eyes. Not correctly at least... that smile could signify anything from passing interest to winsome understanding - the look in her eyes; however, is far more shrewed. The indigo depths shimmer with hard gained acceptance...
...on her own terms.

"Perhaps, so." Words spoken as easily and cool-passioned as his own. As if she too can speak of the subject without issue -- except that she so rarely ever used to speak of it. But her arrival here in Chicago seems to mark some sort of.. change. As gossamer vieled as most everything else about her - shimmering surfaced and swirling, pitch depths; the difference is nothing that can be easily pinpointed... and it may well be lost on him entirely.

Such things rarely matter in his position. In hers.

Moving forward, she deposites hair pins atop a side-table and draws up behind and a bit to his side... draws up and then graciously curves her spine, lowering and turning her head to graze (surprisingly?) warm lips just above where that scratch is already healing - not actually kissing the scratch in the manner of a dotting mother or sympathetic little wife -- but far more akin to a feral mate taking note of the wounds of her own. Brief and passing but sensuously lingering in feeling, the touch of her lips barely gone just as one fingertip smooths along that small missed batch of stuble at the cleft of his chin. She breathes what could be a sigh and then turns her head to look out over the cit from his eye level and--

--draws back upright.

"Shall I top off your rum and coke before I retire, Doenhoff?"

So formal. So smooth.
And yet so undeniably present.


Brand

Mon 03:21AM CST
So present. His mate. His matched half, the answer to the wildness crouching tooth-bared inside his breast. Silver Fang civility makes his response to her kiss and touch necessarily slight, even careless - he tilts his head ever so slightly to give her access to his jawline, and his eyes don't waver from the city. Her fingertips on his chin: he dips his head briefly, smoothly, even gracefully. His lips parting, his teeth scraping the side of her finger; his hands don't move at all. Her fingertip caught between his teeth briefly. Beast in repose, powerful and muscular and primal, the strength of his desire pulses strong for a moment, an almost-palpable pressure in the atmosphere, then ebbs back. He releases her finger from between dull human teeth.

[ Look through my eyes. ]

The city laid out: the sparkle of manmade stars. The tapestry of a world laid at his feet, there for the taking, there for the claiming, there and promised and delivered, and taken away again.

Whatever his calm, whatever his acceptance, that which is territorial in him cannot help baring its teeth. She draws upright and he moves like a whip. It's hard to imagine how fast he could be; one moment motionless, a sphinx. The next, his hand is wrist of her hand that had briefly braced against the armrest. The sword-callouses on his palm scrape her skin. He looks at his rum and coke as if he'd never seen it before, and then deliberately drains it.

The tumbler set down with a soft click, glass to tile floor.

"No." Alcohol-rough. Growl-rough. "I have had enough." He pulls her [...roughly.] down on his lap and then takes a moment, takes his time, takes his hand and pushes it through her hair, loosening the last traces of her coiffure. He looks at her, really looks at her, for what seems like the first time tonight. In his dark eyes, the umber and the green, a white-hot flame twists and turns.

"And the soiree tonight?" He pretends interest in her affairs; he doesn't need to pretend interest in her. "How was it."


Genevieve Breitenbach

Mon 04:01AM CST
She is not a woman who often acts without calculating risks and outcomes....
...which is to say that it is not surprise that causes her breath to catch in the alabaster sweep of her throat. A rich, soft sound - caunt up and whirled about in the next gust of chill wind that flaps the haphazardly updraw lines of his collar and carresses its teasing way up the exposed expanse of her back, up into the hair his claiming hand fully releases. Waves and curls and abandon are teased forth and an undeniable heat is kindled in her own gaze, entrapped and entrapping as he looks at her... fully and completely. As though for the first time... tonight.
Any passing observer would perhaps think her displeased, given that it appears to be a frown now on her wide mouth beneath the pronounced lines of her distincitve nose. But he would know - or should know... should feel and smell and see and hear that the serious expression is a strengthing of her self-controll as she reclines, reposed on his lap.. feline and drapped, legs curling up exposing close-work fishnet clad claves and thigh as the split of her dress slinks apart; her hands drifting to his arms to better support herself... she now set atop his lap like some basking creature of liquid ivory, jet, sapphire and gold--
--the energy needed to hold herself in check snapping through her like barely concealed electricity.

A knowing in her eyes:
One movement. One look. One touch.
It is in his power to break her.
But it is in hers to consume him.

Blink.

He is fiening interest in her activities and her large, cat-tilted eyes blink and she breathes a low chuckle, some of the sudden, intensity of their proximity ebbing away. Unabashed... not a hint of shyness in how she noew finds herself settled upon him. Again that sound of her faint amusement, the spreading of her lips in a deliciously lazy smile as her head turns, so her lips run along the calloused hand there. Without inhibition, the tip of her tongue traces a wet, heated line over the swell of his thumb pad before she bites there, slowly...

...then releases. Looks back to him, smiling once more, eyes flickering with the knowledge that the interest is all polite fiction. Make believe.
Whether she appreciates it or not is simply impossible to tell.

"Boring, for the most part. But it was a means to achieve an end and for that it's purpose was well met."

Eyes dare to settle on his again, searching there - an instant where her thoughts aren't at all on sex or boredom or anything of the sort but things far more taxing - then absolutely gone and her eyes drift to his healing cut which may well have been quite the gash - or more - earlier today.

"And your evening?"


Brand

Mon 04:35AM CST
He does not ask what end that might be.
What purpose she might have. What designs she drew herself, with her own life apart from his.

Briefly his dark gaze drops to her mouth; her mouth on his hand; her lips on his thumb. His own part on an inhale, slow and steady. Then she looks at him and he at her a beat after. They look at each other and the polite fiction is scorched away.

"Uneventful."

The brevity, even curtness, of his tone is enough to wither many a woman. But Silver Fangs are made of sterner stuff than that. It's only a signal: the time for talk is over. They could pretend to be civilized, man and wife, later. His big hands drop briefly to her thighs. Then one arm scoops beneath her and he stands, lifting her and her slinking dress, her stockinged legs, her loosened hair with him in one dizzyingly smooth motion.

Without a hitch he snags the emptied glass from the floor. Then he raises his face to her. Darkness close up, and darkness in his eyes. Barely enough light to see the details of her features by. Barely enough light to see if she smiles, or if she doesn't, or if she's ever afraid of the burn of his full moon rage, or if the intensity of it roused and roaring is enough to banish all emotion except the most primal and basic.

He kisses her. Claims her mouth hungrily. They sway; he sways gently on his feet from the intoxication of alcohol and her, holding her above the ground, against him, above him, easily. Then the french doors bumped open, and he moves inside, the roll of his gait balanced and counterbalanced through every muscle of his body pressed to hers.

The condo is furnished sparingly, but tastefully; sleek modern pieces juxtapose with a few ancestral works of art or war. Glass set down on the wet bar. She is not. Upstairs, the steps creaking. Their shadows long on the walls. His suspenders dangling lazily in the vicinity of his knees. The bedroom door squealing softly open, then shut. He sets her on the counterpane (his tie sprawled, a snake, behind her: he had taken it off here, after all.), and, steady but swift, undoes the rest of his clothing.


Genevieve Breitenbach

Mon 05:22AM CST
And so it transpires as such things have, do, and will.

In the bedroom; in this basic, primal act of so many things (release; union; selfishness; generosity; aggresssion; dominance; submission; battle; healing)they are perhaps more knowledgeable of one another than in any other arena of 'married life'. Surely neither lacks in interest, drive, or response for the other... in this act, perhaps, it is easiest to be mindlessly unified.

And so it goes--

He disposes of the remainder of his closing, steady of motion though quick and pressing. She, laid out before him, laid in waiting thought not passively so. There is no question to her roused response to him but there is a pleasure for her in awaiting his hungry advance - the frustration of urgency that likely leads to the rending of that find gown. ANd what does it matter?
Another gown can be aquired.

And so it goes--
Were familiarity has, as of yet, failed to breed apathy in this regard. Where round one leaves markings and tastes and smells of 'hard love' and round two contrasts in a slower re-aquaintence of form and shape and textures and preferences. Of skills laid aside in respect to a Totems wishes if not any actual regard to her own sensibilities; now once more used in manner perhaps all too surprising in one born to kill.

And so it goes--
--until satisfaction - at least momentary - is achieved and they are left lying there, in a tangle of sheets and bots of clothing remains. Bodies glistening of perspiration... lying apart from one another now, perhaps overheated now and seeking some space. Perhaps she always rolled away from him afterwards or he from her.. or maybe niehter knew which initiated the action. Perhaps neither cared...

...but this time - smelling of him and herself and both of them and one; smooth pale flesh glowing and vibrant in the healthy sheen of some of the best exercise around; breathing only now beginning to steady out even and full once more - this time she turns back to him. Draws back in close and lingers there... to catch her breath, or, it may be, to see if he'll allow it.


Brand

Mon 05:39AM CST
Her nearness he allows. Why not? If he wanted to shut her out, he could do that easily enough. A Fang's cold shoulder is the stuff of legend.

But, not tonight. Tonight he lies still, the rapid rise and fall of his chest slowing far sooner than hers. Eyes shut, he senses her nearness by the heat of her, and by the movement in the bedsprings. Eyes open, and he looks upon her, the darkness of the room seeming to fly sparking into his pupils.

Brand lifts a hand and touches her face, her mouth. He does not often smile at her, though she's seen him grin and laugh with his pack, his sister. He does not smile at her now, but instead watches her with a certain darkening intensity.

"And now that you've followed me here," he murmurs, as though this were the continuation of some other conversation, "what will you do, when I am gone?"


Genevieve Breitenbach

Mon 06:02AM CST
Though she's seen him grin and laugh with his pack, his sister...
...but he does not often smile at her.

The question is, does that - did it ever - bother her?
...if it ever did she never gave hint of it.

(I don't need that from you. From anyone.)
But now that she's followed him there...
(Actions speak far louder than words.)
...what then?

Her eyes remain closed, in quiet repose as her body relaxes wanting the languid stupour of post-coital bliss--
--which won't come this time around, it seems.

What will you do when, when I am gone?

"What answer would you like, Aurich?" Comes her own murmered response, at long last. For she takes her time about it. Shifting her long form against his, so much taller, so much more than she. Eyes opening at last, watching the first lights of dawn that turn the world a wraithly grey; make of the morning an avalon mist... her head resting on his shoulder, a hand at rest atop his chest... her words somber and low and, for once, there is not even a polite smile upon her lips.
"What is expected of me? My family shall no doubt wish to seek out a new mate for me, particuraly if I am still childless." Her eyes close once more but she continues, voice soft, yes, but steady still. "Or perhaps they will leave me be - for a time at least - to follow my own peruits. They were not so happy about my following you here -- they felt I should heed your orders. Both for the tradition of it and the advantage...." There her lips do twitch.. one naked shoulder, perhaps now sporting a bite mark or two, shrugs faintly. "Or perhaps you'd like to hear that I'll--" The words fade there... and, drawing a breath, she turns more onto her stomach, lifting her head to look up at him... her eyes searching his.
A frown...
...and, for once, a hint of what just might be uncertainty in that piercing gaze.

"Was I so mediocre - so average and forgetable - a mate to be so easily left behind?"

Searching.. for answers that will likely never come, then her eyes close and she lowers her head, resting her forehead at his collar.

"I'll find you or I'll keep your memory alive.. somehow."


Brand

Mon 06:26AM CST
In the uncertain grey light of the early morn his profile is kingly, strong and noble. He stares at the ceiling while she speaks, taking her time about it. Her body moves against his and against the sheets. His arm has found its place about her; his hand traces down the curve of her side, absently heavy, and up again. She fades off and he breaks in.

"I would like to hear the truth."

Her eyes search his - or they try. They try, but he does not allow it.

The eyes are the windows to the soul:
his are tumultuous, dark, brooding, heavy with thought. The color is variant. Almost black in this light. Deep and rich as mahogany in others. Resonant, amber-gold, in still others. And always, always flecked by green as vivid as grass, as crystal; a color not found in man but in wolf.

The eyes are windows to the challenge:
and perhaps that is why he looks away. Beneath his skin his rage burns steadily. Her will is strong enough to withstand it, but none can ignore it. And to stare him in the eye too long - it could invite disaster.

Or at least these are the reasons he would give if pressed.

She feels him breath in, the long slow expansion of that mighty chest. Only after she has set her brow to his collar does he answer, "Genevieve, you were not easily left behind."

Feel the unspoken volumes fill the space between words.
Feel the effort it took to say them at all.

His body is taller, stronger, more solid than hers. Yet it can fade across the barrier between worlds. Flesh to spirit. Spirit to memory. Memory to nothing, and nothing unto eternity. He takes her hand in his, against his breastbone beneath which beat his heart.

And a pause.
And a silence.
And a quiet laugh strewn with irony.

"No, love," and he kisses her knuckles softly, gallantly, "you won't."

A short while later he settles his stroking hand on the curve of her hip, draws the sheets up and closes his eyes.