Risa and Winter

[hazlogs]

It is currently 19:50 Pacific Time on Mon Feb 1 2016.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 30.19 and steady, and the relative humidity is 89 percent. The dewpoint is 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius.) For more detail, see: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=98501

Currently the moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (43% full).

Edgewood House: Garage(#1947RAJh)

This old and spacious building was once a fairly large carriage barn, but has been converted first as garage, and then into something else entirely. It once had massive two-story front doors, but they've been permanently closed, and a smaller door built into them. (It seems to have been reinforced at some point recently.) The walls, too, appear to have been reinforced in some way, making them stronger and somewhat soundproof. The size of about two large rooms, the first floor is undivided. It's got wooden plank flooring, and has exercise equipment dotting its expanse, with free weights in one area on the door's side of the building, a punching bag in a corner, and other equipment scattered about. There's a rough ladder up to the second floor loft, which is carpeted, but has unfinished walls, a few dangling light bulbs, and is apparently serving as a somewhat informal bunk area. The lighting is, understandably, somewhat inadequate. The floor mostly consists of mattresses, innumerable throw pillows and bed pillows, warm bedding, and the occasional glimpse of carpet. There are a few shoes resting against the wall near the ladder; clearly, people are expected to take their footwear off once they get up here. One can peer down from the ladder-opening, or from the edge of the loft. (There's about three feet of space between the edge of the loft floor and the barn walls.) A wooden door on the upper part of the garage leads into the second floor landing of the house. There is no exit to the house from the first floor of the barn.

Rummaging about the garage is Brom who is currently sharpening an axe in his hands. Settled in a chair with a stereo next to him, he blasts some old 80's Metallica from the Ride the Lightning album. The large viking is shirtless with a pair of snug jeans on that look to be covered in mud. At times, he plucks a beer off the shelf next to him and takes a long pull.

There's worse prisons but Risa has still done due diligence in checking escape routes. Having rotating shifts of Jamethon and Alicia and other poor souls keeping an eye on her has made escape impossible. Nevermind the giant making a godawful amount of noise below. Finally she makes her presence known from where she was skulking silently in the corner of the upstairs, her head appearing hanging down from the loft with a very cross expression on her face. "Holyfuck, dude, all of that sounds the same. It is grown man screaming incoherently and no one is even trying to kill them. Could we /please/ listen to something else?"

Salem pulls open the door and enters, idly scruffing at short black hair. He doesn't look surprised at seeing the source of the music and nods absently to Brom -- most of his attention's on Risa; he sizes the stranger up with a critical eye.

Marissa is a very lean woman, the sort who looks like she's either quite athletic or barely fed. Or maybe it's a mix of both. She's certainly sparing of any extra flesh on her body which leaves a surprisingly fine bone structure underneath. There may be some good blood in there but it's lost under the too-lean structure and the sharpness of her angles. Little about her appears soft in the way a viper doesn't appear gentle. Her skin is a sunned Caucasian and her hair is chin length, cut ragged at the ends. It's an overall light silver gray color, unusual considering she's a young adult at best, but given it fades to black at the ends would suggest dye as opposed to natural. Her eyes are a light brown that borders on amber. Clothing is modern styling, though generic and simple versus the expensive stylish that's there for looks versus function.

"Sure, we could listen to you scream in pain instead as I snap every bone in your fucking body, one by one." Brom says without so much as looking up to her as he continues to sharpen his axe. His lips curl back into a bit of a sneer, then reaches to tap the volume up higher by one bar. At the sight of Salem opening the door, he actually taps the volume down four. "Hey." He grunts out to him.

"Your gorilla ass couldn't even climb this ladder." Snorts Risa back at the Fenrir before she turns her eyes onto Salem. One thin brow raises on her angular face as she takes her own moment to size him up in turn. "Hmf." She seems to come to some conclusion before she murmurs. "...sure, he turns the music down for you."

Salem's stance gives off way more confidence than someone his age has any right to have; the obvious pure breeding certainly helps. He glances between the two, finishing up on Risa. Evenly, he says, "I'm guessing that you're the Ronin people have been talking about."

Glancing down at the axe in his hand, Brom gives a slow look back upwards to where Risa is, then starts to mull over the idea of throwing it at her. After a moment, he says with a snort. "Yeah, that's her. She's a real joy to be around."

Risa seems to notice exactly the train of Brom's thoughts and the grin she gives is so sickly sweet it about drips corn syrup. There's another look towards Salem from where her head hands down over the edge of the ledge, chiming with false enthusiasm, "Ding ding! Give the boy a cookie!" A hand is offered down though it's nowhere near reaching height. "Name's Risa. Pretty sure it hasn't been a pleasure to anyone."

The kid gives a tight, crooked smile. "Jack Salem, called Scar. Glass Walker Philodox." Ignore the fact that he looks like a baby Shadow Lord. He turns to Brom. "Why's she being kept here, exactly?"

"No fucking clue, I'm just about to head out and get some firewood. I didn't even know she was up there until she started bitching about my music." Brom says with a loud grunt. He twirls the double bladed axe about in his hands to test the weight.

Risa rolls up her eyes (or down, considering her position) and looks at Brom. "You were there, brickhouse. Your big bad boss told his cronies to stuff me in here until he decides what suicide mission I'm good for. Because rude. At least the Gnawer wanted to pay me and gave me snacks."

Salem rubs his mouth like he's got a bad taste in it and then shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. He throws out a guess, still deliberately keeping his tone light. "Justin or Slug?"

Ghost isn't too far behind Salem, but her entrance is significantly different. Her body language lacks that smooth confidence and certainly any hint of pure breeding. Rather, she's a more prickly variation on her demeanor last night; tense, wary, and narrow eyed. Her gaze sweeps the lower floor before she looks up toward the loft.

Risa scrunches up her nose. "Got me. I didn't memorize names. Some guy with crazy fingers." She says as both hands poke down from the loft with a wiggle of her fingers. She turns her eyes towards Ghost as she makes her entrance and she points one of her fingers at the Metis. "She was there. She can tell you."

Winter rolls in from the house, kicking the door closed behind him. He's got a plastic bag that is clearly from a chinese take out place. The handles of the bag were tied in a knot at one point, but have been cut and the contents have been taken out and put back in. His arriving proclimation is a jovial one, "I bring heaven in noodle, meat and sauce form! Freshly microwaved."

Salem raises an eyebrow at Winter, then looks questioningly up at Ghost.

"Him," Ghost confirms, as she twins the comment with a significant glance toward Winter. Her attention returns almost immediately to Risa however.

This barely teenaged kid's first and most noticable feature is his pale, attractive and close to flawless face. He appears blessed with natural good looks and clear skin that do not require much effort to maintain. His eyes are a brilliant mixture of a rich blue and bright green, though they are often downcast and hidden in the shadow of his grey wool cap's brim. From the back of that cap his short-cut hair is dyed in streaks of dark blues and reds.

The kid's neutral expression, prone to a slight scowl that he constantly wears, might look rather unattractive and off-putting on another face; but on this one it just offers an out-of-place regal aire. Standing at around five feet and a half with a bit of a strong but sinewy build, he has some stature for his age but is not imposing. The kid's throat has some long thin scars across it, like he was in some kind of bad accident years before.

He currently also wears old faded blue jeans and a black short-sleeved sweater with thick red stripes from the neck down the tops of the arms. Some brown and dirty white vans, seeming large for the kid's size yet still fitting him well, kick around on his feet. A slightly over-sized dingy brown winter coat is worn over the ensemble. His hands are encased in thick black leather gloves.

Those hands... something is strange about them. It's difficult to be sure with the gloves, but the fingers just seem too long if you look at them for a moment.

Risa twists her head to get a better look at Winter and with her pale amber eyes the gesture is almost owlish, save there's every indication she is drooling as her nostrils flare. "Speak of the devil. So what /is/ your name anyway? Figure you're not a jackass so Crazy Fingers might not due. Unless you're into that. I just met you."

Winter gives a general nod to the gathered on his way in and in particular pauses in looking at Ghost with a curious expression. He shrugs that off and as he is getting close with the food in hand, Risa... speaks. He pauses in his approach, takes a moment to think as he looks away, "I've been called worse," he supposes aloud then looks back to who he knew as Blackblood. He sets the food on whatever serves as a table and adds, "Winter. Gnaweriest Gnawer that ever Gnawed." The rest is rushed through like he's ticking off the checkmarks on stuff he's said a million times, "Ragabash, Fostern, from the Green, now here, and still in search of the best pack ever that clearly has a Winter-shaped hole they need to fill."

Winter adds quickly as an after thought, "Oh. And yeah, they call me Forgives-The-Greatest-Sin when they're being formal. Whoever they are."

Salem rubs his nose. "I knew a Garou named Crazy Fingers once... briefly," he remarks, idly.

Ghost's eyes remain narrowed. "That deal is bullshit," she says to Risa. "Nothing they can offer you is worth messing around with people in that tower. You should go."

"Clearly they stuck 'em where they shouldn't have been." Says the ceiling-Ronin towards Salem. "But hey! If Garou didn't, freaks like me wouldn't exist! If any of ya'll get to finding my dad, do let him know I'd like to eat his heart with a spoon." She says so very sweetly before the expression drops to one of anger. "Of course it's bullshit! They always are! My life's currency sold to the highest bidder, expect this one was a take it or we collect deal. But by all means, if you can convince 'em to let me go and get me past the stooges then I'm all ears."

Winter is rumaging through the food and placing the foil containers with crimped-on lids out on the table along with paper plates and way too many chopsticks for the amount of food present which would feed probably 4 hungry people or be a snack for 6. As he performs this chore, Winter absently offers, "Well, you can leave. Just means you gotta like. Really leave. Thane is a Shadow Lord. I don't think he's one to let his decisions be open to interpretation. That said, I'll help you out. Cause it is bullshit and also, I've been itching to get my hands dirty and I haven't been dead yet this year. I'm off to a slow start. Really though?" here he looks up from his task at the others in a general sense, "No one should get to decide someone's worth from just being a metis or a ronin... or whatever else. Ya dig?"

Salem squints, nose wrinkling up like he's developing a headache. "What /was/ the deal, exactly? Scout out the Queen's Tower or we'll kill you?"

Ghost's eyebrows raise slowly, incredulously at Winter as he looks in her very general direction.

Risa stares a bit blandly at Winter. "Clearly you got a different copy of the rulebook." She gives one last look around, muttering. "...good, the wrecking ball is gone." She withdraws from the ledge and comes down the ladder in short order, dropping down the past few steps. "I guess?" She says back to Salem. "S'what it sounded like, whatever-the-hell that place is. So I figure, I got three options." She begins ticking off fingers. "Run like my tail's on fire and wait for the hit on me, do the job and probably die, or join a tribe cuz then he can't enforce shit like that. None of 'em sound appealing to me."

Winter pops open the various containers revealing all different kinds of noodle dishes, each and every one. He uses the chopsticks to pop some rather greasily delicious looking chicken lo mein onto a plate and then immediately sets in. After Risa speaks he swallows again and shrugs, "The way he said it, and I've learned from Philodoxen-a-plenty that the way it was said is key... Thane just wanted a distraction while one of his kinfolk did something at the tower? I imagine a couple of raggies can manage that and not get et."

Salem shakes his head, mutters something in Serbian.

"Run," Ghost says flatly. "No one's likely to chase you outside of the state, and if you go now, before many people can get familiar with you, it'll make it a little harder to track you."

Risa keeps eyeballing the numerous cartons with clear hunger and she even runs her tongue across her lips, but the combined words seem to serve enough distraction. "Yeah. Well, I don't know jack shit about this tower and what's there. So running still sounds good. Not like I got any Honor I need to worry about." Something then dawns on her and she slants Salem a most suspicious look. "...you're a halfmoon. You gonna narc?"

Winter looks at Salem, then Ghost, as he shovels a nice heaping mountain of noodles into his mouth. One might notice that the way he uses chopsticks is even more odd than just the fingers themselves, it's like watching a spider manipulate couple of levers. The long-fingered metis swallows again and his tone is bit exasperated as he regards Risa, "I'm telling you. It isn't like that. If you leave, you can leave. Just can't come back. Pretty much ever." Then to Salem and Ghost, "I clearly don't know too much about what is going on at the tower. I'd like to, though. Can I get the long-story short /here/ or... who do I talk to? Or is the long story actually a pretty long story?"

Salem's eyebrows go up. "All I've heard is idle talk," he says in answer to Risa. "Certainly nothing to report on. So, no." He glances at Winter, grimaces. "It's a long, complicated story. The cougar-mage knows a lot of it. Dakota, the Theurge, too. And my tribemate here knows some." He glances up at Ghost, then back at Winter. "If that all doesn't help, I'll tell you what I know, but not tonight. I only stopped by for a moment." He starts for the door.

Ghost takes a step to the side to allow Salem a more direct passage to the door. She looks a bit torn, as if she might be debating following him, but for the moment she remains in place. "Black Spiral Dancers," she says. "Uh, some other things, like fomori that can turn invisible. Maybe a mage?"

"Sounds like a cakewalk." Drawls Risa with a roll of her eyes to the words of Ghost. "Spirals and fomori and mages, /oooh myy/. Yeah. Fuck that noise. I've accepted some idiot jobs for little pay but That sounds like some straight bullshit unless I don't gotta get anywhere near them. A bomb. Would that count? I'll try not to torch the kinfolk. Then no one's chasing me and I don't have to wander the relative shitstorm wastelands out there. Because it blows. Bad. There's a reason I've even hung around this close this long."