The Abbey Pub [Howard, Rain, Quinn, Bridget, Zephyr]

[Rain McKellar] The wind can howl, and its fingers can snag the trailing ends of scarfs, needle through the loose woven spots on jackets and prick against skin until the hairs on your arms stand up at attention, but it cannot find its way through the walls or the windowpanes of the Abbey Pub tonight. There's lamplight, warm and amber, that puddles on the edges of tables, drops off to cast loose shadows on the polished wood floors. There's a close kinship to the place, this coven of musicians who brave the cold and winter, forsake the holiday happenings, to gather here in a neighborhood pub on a Tuesday night at the far edge of the year. They push out the cold, they push back the winds, and tonight there is shelter and community.

There's a small stage at the far end of the pub, little more than risers painted black and a lonely mic. There's a stool to one side and an upright to the the other, and whoever's mounted that platform has to haul the mic from one side to the other, depending on their preferences. There's no monitor, nothing to feedback to the artist what they're pushing out to the room -- this place is not that big. No reflection of your own voice coming off the far wall of windows, just an upbeat behind. No timeslip like that.

Rain remembers what it's like to play far larger venues, but the brown-eyed girl lingers near the end of the bar, worries her fingers along the strap for her guitar and does not touch the hall-full glass of water beside her. It's tepid, not cold. It's water, not beer. Her hair is bound up, but loosely. It lets the shape of her check bones and the point of her chin stand out more clearly. There's a feminine drape to the blouse she wears, but she wears it with blue jeans. She gives off no nervousness while she waits on the man before her to finish his turn at the open mic, then she'll mount the stairs and settle herself onto that stool, adjust the height of the microphone stand. It will all be so familiar, so practiced, and the smile she wears for the late-year crowd will be far warmer than the one she brings home to her cousins.

"Evening," she says, and her voice is slow and warm and honeyed. It's a little quiet, even with the microphone's help. That's a trick most performers know, though. It draws down the room, makes them just strain to listen. It gives her a moment of ember and warmth. "M'name's Rain, and I'd like to sing a little something for you all that I wrote a long, long time ago in Georgia..."

And this is how it begins. No nerves. No worries. Just Rain and the music and the sea of faces she does not know and likely won't get to. Just kinship, and warmth, and a break from the Winter's cold.

[Patrick Llewelyn] The Galliard of the Caldera pack is alone, tonight.

He's seated at a table pushed toward the back left hand side of the Abbey facing the stage and there's a half finished glass of beer set before him on a coaster imprinted with the black and green name of the bar hosting tonight's festivities. He's ditched the wife-beater and slacks in favor of a smart black collared shirt and jeans, his leather jacket slung over the back of his chair and a pair of gloves and scarf stuffed in various pockets.

Resting across from him in a battered case is a guitar; and opened before him, a pencil tapping its tip against a blank page is a small note book; the opposing page covered in words, and notation on key changes. Nobody really gets that close to Patrick Llewellyn to read it, however. Except the waitress who served him the beer, and even she couldn't quite put her finger on why a good looking guy should make her uneasy, even with eyes the color of a summer sky.

He's been listening to those who are listed before him to perform and his attention had been captured for the moment by a familiar face taking a seat before the mic with a guitar, her timidity less apparent currently even as her soft voice sought out the ears of the patrons. Some turned in Rain's direction, others merely glanced before resuming their conversations. She would have to grab them with the music; with her voice.

It was always the way, in these sorts of places.

She did have the attention of the young man sitting alone; raising his beer to his lips.

[Rain McKellar] [Charisma (Captivating) + Performance: Open Mic Night]

[Rain McKellar] Rain isn't a Galliard, but she is arguably a keeper of songs and of tales. There's a kinship in the gifts they've been given, though the young woman on stage would argue they'd been handed out toward very different ends. She handles her guitar like it's something so familiar, so resonantly hers that she doesn't have to think about the liminal space between her fingertips and the strings, or the hushed way they brush against each other at first, coaxing small winding chord progressions forward as she talks a little more, until the music overtakes her words and her eyes focus on a point about midway through the room.

This caged bird is not timid when her voice falls into song. She doesn't hesitate to put herself out there, in a room full of strangers. It's easier, in so many ways, in a room full of strangers. Whatever shyness she has around the fullbloods she knows has faded, melted away in the lowlight of the pub. She's just a girl, with her guitar, and if anyone's listening, anyone at all, they can hear her as clear as daylight. She has no accent when she sings, but Rain knows how to underscore her words with feeling and to balance them against the voice of her instrument. The music flows through her.

There is no such thing as a perfect performance. No transcendental moment that surpasses all others. There's a connection, a fleeting, captivating something, a certain je ne sais quois that leaves everyone thinking they've witnessed something special -- that's the best she can hope for on an open mic night, or a dedicated gig, or an impromptu session.

She sings about being far away from someone she loves, and about loneliness, and about strength. Perseverance. And when she's done, she thanks them for listening, and wishes them a happy holidays. And the moment, whatever it was, transcendental or urbane, fades as she slips off the stool and pushes the mic away from her a little bit. As she hops off the riser in the direction of her guitar case and her half-full glass of water.

[Patrick Llewelyn] [Charisma + Performance (Guitar), if Patrick does really badly he's retiring from being a Galliard.]

[Patrick Llewelyn] [...WHAT THE FUCK.]

[Howard Ivers] [NICE CATCH BLANCO NINO]

[Patrick Llewelyn] [I'm re-rolling, I don't even care. How embarrassment.]

[Howard Ivers] [You don't have to impress me you know.]

[Patrick Llewelyn] There's cheerful, even buoyant applause for the little Gaian Kinswoman when she's finished.

As with any truly captivating or stirring performance, there's a second of silence as the final chord sounds, or the last note sung is held and falls away before reaction occurs. That's what happens as Rain finishes and she must take it as the sign of a well enacted performance that it is -- even Patrick, as still and stoic as he appears sitting in the soft lamp light toward the back of the Abbey sets his hands together and claps.

In the dark, she can't really see if he's smiling or not.
He gets up, though, while Rain gets her items together and descends the stage.

When the Galliard steps up there; pick in hand, guitar strap thrown over his shoulder and settles onto a stool, for a moment everything goes horribly wrong. He drops his pick, must bend over to collect it and instead knocks his head on the microphone. It sends out a loud static replay of the impact and there are some titters from the audience; someone calls out something muffled and indistinct from some corner.

To his honor, the Garou does not go red, or lose control of the Rage that briefly flares at the stuff ups. He merely sorts himself out, and leans in to say in a voice that is surprisingly soothing, that actually engages and draws the attention of the audience now that he is composed, readied. "Next time I'll lay off the beer," Prayers to Broken Stone murmurs with a slanting smile, and there is laughter anew -- this time it is appreciative of his candor. The ability to laugh at one's errors is important in any solid entertainer, even in a creature of war, a talesinger.

Especially so.

When Patrick Llewelyn plays, he plays with a soul that is soften absent in his day to day demeanor. His talent is clear, and his familiarity with the instrument in his arms allows him the speed and dexterity with which he elicits the sounds and pitches required to keep pace with the music he weaves. He sings of despair, of a world gone wrong and the end of all things but he does it in such a way as the despair is not all encompassing.

He leaves the room with hope, and the bridge of the song instructs them to remember it when the world grows dark.

[Rain McKellar] They've all had those moments: when the fabric of their art begins to unravel before it has even begun spinning out from their fingertips. It's the feedback that catches Rain's attention, draws her dark eyes back from the bar, halts the progress of her water glass to her lips.

Of course she recognizes him from the Brotherhood, and of course it's better that she's seen him now and not before. Rain whets her lip a little, leans back against the bar, and leaves one hand wrapped loosely around the neck of the guitar to her side. She sips at her water and can't help but smile when he explains away the rough start like a seasoned performer.

If Patrick glances her way, Rain will be watching him more intently than any other performer that night. With her own nerves behind her, this is one of the few times he might meet her eyes for a moment and hope to hold them. From across that sea of people, she won't flinch or glance away immediately.

His is not the sort of song that people cheer for, it's a little too dark for wolf whistles or the like, and yet Rain claps loudly and beams approval and support his way. She waits to see if he's planning on playing another, and if not then she'll turn away, to tuck her own guitar back into its case, to exchange polite greetings with them people around her. And tonight, because she's feeling a little braver than most nights (and she does not yet know that Howard is somewhere nearby), Rain makes her way slowly toward his table. After a pair of performances like theirs, though, they likely have to exchange polite comments with more than a few patrons. It take time to get to his side of the room, and when she does, all Rain really has to offer is:

"Hey."

[Howard Ivers] Smoking weed with Howard sounds like something that Patrick would make some sort of attempt to warn the Kinfolk of Chicago away from when he first meets them. That should be part of his introduction of his Alpha: Howard Ivers, Cliath Theurge, refuses to learn how to heal, never listen to anything he says and for the love of all that is holy do not let him give you drugs.

Quinn got part of the memo. She knows enough that most of what comes out of the Theurge's mouth is bullshit, that he does not believe what he says and doesn't expect anyone else to either, that he says things because he thinks they're hilarious and imagines other people will find some sort of confused amusement from having to experience it, as well, yet when Howard knocked on her door this evening and rather than asking her how she was doing held up a baggie of weed and waggled his eyebrows, she complied.

Whether it was gladly or grudgingly, he didn't ask. He just got stoned and then announced with no small amount of triumph that it was open mic night at the Abbey Pub let's go embarrass Patrick.

So, they're here. Howard moves slower, talks less, when he's stoned; he does not burst into the pub like a boxer entering the ring but rather holds the door open for Quinn. It's dark out, but they're in a city; the sky is a rosy pink from the light pollution, is light enough to see clearly, so he's wearing sunglasses when they walk in. He has on nearly the same outfit as last night, black Converse and red corduroys and a band t-shirt, but this one advertises Journey.

His hair, as always, is a curly mess.

The Theurge waits until Quinn is next to him before he takes off his sunglasses. He stands blinking for a moment, but before his vision clears he hears the end of a song sung by a familiar voice.

"Och, he fills my heart with such pride!" he announces in a thick, purposeless Scottish accent, then elbows Quinn--without any noticeable force--and asks, in his normal, difficult-to-place dialect, "Want a drink?"

[Patrick Llewelyn] Patrick didn't exactly tell Howard where he was going to play, but then, trying to keep anything from Howard was pretty well useless, if you asked Patrick. The guy could talk to spirits, you know? So, perhaps not without a touch of unease, he had informed his Alpha he was headed to the open mic night at the Abbey Pub.

Howard had crowed that he'd be there, cheering him on.
Patrick had requested he keep the heckling to a minimum.

Thus, off he'd gone. Now, hopping off the stage and having a hand thrust at him to shake, the broad-shoulder Welsh-man gradually makes his way back to his table where his guitar case and almost-done beer awaited him. He can feel, distantly, the tug of awareness that spoke of his pack-mate's nearness but he does not make any bid to discover his whereabouts just now. Rather, he sets his guitar back in its case and snaps down the locks on it; settling it beside his seat when a quiet voice behind him says hey.

Prayers to Broken Stone twists, and his brows rise a little at the sight of Rain.

"Hey," he echoes back at her, and then points. "Nice playing up there," a hand ventures to touch his brow absently, drawing his fingers away he glances at them as if he imagines the impact could have possibly drawn blood. "I think you did better than my clown act."

[Quinn] When Quinn answered her door and was greeted with a baggie full of green, her brows lifted, her chin tipped, and she gladly partook of the offering. In hindsight it was probably not the best idea ever to get high and then go out into the world on a frigid Tuesday evening, but when did that sort of thinking stop the kinswoman before? Embarrass Patrick in public? Why what a fabulous idea.

So she's here as the Theurge's arm candy, standing tall in the heeled boots she's so far been seen the most in since she came to Chicago. Inclining her head graciously to Howard as she steps into the establishment, Quinn removes a blue and white knit cap and unfastens a hip-length leather jacket. Aside from the boots, she's obviously wearing whatever she happened to have been wearing to slum around The Brotherhood - old jeans and an oversized black Aerosmith tee.

She stands there a moment, blinking around the room, taking in the sights, as it were. "Not bad," is her inexpert opinion of Patrick's singing. It's not accurate, not by a long shot, but she's distracted from further praise by a light elbow to her ribs and the suggestion of a drink.

"Yes. Yes I do. Guinness, please, my good sir."

Then she's looking out around the room, trying to see where the Galliard got himself off to. She smiles when she sees that where he got himself off to was with the pretty girl from the other night. Quinn makes her way toward them, and when she reaches the table simply tosses her jacket onto the back of the chair she tosses herself into. "Hey HEY hey, I say." Grinning up at Rain, she suddenly goes serious. "Sorry I took off right when you sat down, hon. Had to call a man about a horse." The smile returns, Cheshire-like this time.

[Rain McKellar] She has no idea that the Tribe has descended, en masse, on the Abbey tonight. She might have guessed at it, having seen Patrick on the stage, but Rain likes to be optimistic. Maybe there's not too many of them around tonight.

She rolls her eyes a bit at his self-deprecation. "Now, don't ev'n start with that," she tells him, as if she'll hear none of it tonight. "You did better than fine yourself, and y'know it." Her smile, tonight, can bridge the gap between what she expects to find and what she hopes to happen. Rain rests her guitar case against the ground, wraps one arm around it idly, but doesn't lean it against the table just yet. Probably for the better, as Quinn literally tosses herself into the conversation not even a moment later.

"Evening, Miss Quinn," she says, still grinning, still wearing the elation of a good set (for once) on the sheen of her skin and in the cast of her eyes tonight. "And I don't mind. It was gettin' late anyway. Good to see ya again."

[Bridget] Out of the bone-chilling, rattling void, an invisible cat drags a wayward kinfolk to the congregation. The beast has no regard for its prey or how she's trying to smoke away her sickly feeling from the night before.

Bridget looks paler than usual. Unruly brown waves are braided and left hanging over one shoulder. The army surplus coat looks two sizes too large. A huge tartan print flannel shirt lies beneath that, which is long enough to comfortably wear as sleepwear without flashing anyone. However, it's left unbuttoned and reveals a simple white tee tucked into thick denim jeans.

The last of the kin to arrive looks completely dumbstruck as she spots the rest. Sure, she knew they'd be here, but the fact that there are suddenly so many Fianna (and "friends") where there were none for so long (that she could find) is absolutely disturbing. She's almost wondering if she smoked something awful (or awesome) and dreamed the whole thing up.

The kin stands in the door with a lit, half-smoked cigarette between her lips for a good thirty seconds before a glaring bystander finally tells her to put out the cigarette. Imagine driving along at night with nothing happening for hours, then suddenly seeing an animal stare at you from the side of the road. That is exactly the dumbfounded gape Bridget has until she excuses herself and extinguishes the cherry ember by pinching it off just outside the door. Bridget tucks the cigarette behind an ear and joins her cousins in the pub.

"Slainte," she smiles warmly and orders a Harp.

[Patrick Llewelyn] Patrick is a little startled at the sudden influx of faces around him.

He'd known to expect Howard, Rain had been a surprise but it was always good to know there were other musicians around the scene; then Quinn appeared, tossing herself into Patrick's dis-guarded chair followed closely by his Alpha and judging from the sudden flare of breeding swooping in with the door opening once more -- another of the Celtic tribe had just arrived.

For just a minute Patrick stands there, one hand still resting on the top of his case, the other at his side; blinking. Then: "Hey, Quinn. Howard drag you along?" Then, scruffing a hand over his scalp, the blond cast a measuring look at those around him, including the brunette Gaian. "I'm gonna get a beer, dry throat. Anyone want anything?"

A beat, Rain was beginning her goodbyes, apparently. "Come by the Brotherhood sometime, we can jam," he offers in parting, if she's still decided to extricate herself from the growing number of his brothers and sisters. Patrick doesn't smile, or do anything as cliched as wink at her; but he doesn't sound miserable at the idea so, hey, plus.

[Quinn] "Pff." It's more sound than word, and drawn out at the idea she was brought anywhere against her will. Crossing her legs at the knee, Quinn folds her hands over her legs. It's rare to find one of Stag's walking around without ink, and Quinn is no exception. In the absence of a long-sleeved shirt, a trail of birds makes its way from the inside of her wrist in a waving pattern around her forearm. Just beneath the hem of her right sleeve, the edges of scars can be seen to those who look closely enough.

"Honey I don't get dragged, least of all by goofy-looking white boys. And I'm good, I think. But more importantly," she turns her attention to Rain. Leaning forward to rest her elbow on the table's edge, her chin fits into her palm. "You said something before about playing, right?" The girl she'd seen talking to Howard for a bit last night joins them, and is greeted with a, "Haaaaay."

[Howard Ivers] Howard starts to walk to the bar when Quinn takes off towards the table where his brother and the nameless, tribeless kinswoman from last night are already station. He opens his mouth to speak, holds up the finger attached to the hand holding his sunglasses, then thinks better of whatever it is he was about to say.

"I'll just bring it to you then!" he calls. Before he can turn around and make his way through this flat, gray room, the purity of another's blood tugs at senses he would much rather ignore. He stands stock still a moment, then abruptly turns and makes his way to the bar. It's a Tuesday night, and it's still early, yet he walks with some difficulty, trying to reach the bar without slamming into something.

Once there he finds himself in the unfortunate position of not possessing a pair of breasts with which to entice the bartender. He chews on his lower lip as he looks around, hooks his sunglasses to the neckline of his shirt and waits. There is no point looking around, so he glances to the person standing directly next to him.

Which results in the realization that he's being stared at.

The Theurge widens his eyes, briefly, the sum total of his muscles and the light in his eyes saying Yikes, before he turns away again. He fishes his wallet out of his pocket and leans onto the bartop, gazing wistfully in the general direction of the bartender. This is how Patrick finds him when he arrives at the bar: pining for a beer.

[Rain McKellar] "Careful, I might take you up on that," she warns the Galliard. The threat has no teeth.

Quinn asks after her playing and Rain gives the worn case against her side a little thump with one hand. It's almost affectionate, like nudging a brother in the ribs with her elbow. "Yes'm, once in awhile I can carry a tune."

She's grinning and humble in the same moment, so it has to be a bit of an understatement. Rain follows Patrick's retreat with her gaze for a moment, and it's an openly thoughtful thing, before her attention is back to Quinn.

"Tonight's one of the better nights, at least by my standards. You here to cheer Mr. Patrick on?" she asks. Everyone is still Miss this and Mister that. Rain hasn't dropped honorifics for any of them just yet. But it doesn't distance her from them when she speaks; it's just politeness bleeding through, like her accent.

[Bridget] Some manner of call draws Bridget's attention, which ilicits a warm grin as she makes her way over towards Quinn with her pint of Harp. Her eyes note Howard, Patrick, little Rain, and then return to Quinn.

"What's up?" she asks curiously. There is no bag swinging at her side tonight, but a certain weight in her coat pocket that indicates a few items being stashed there.

[Quinn] [percept + empathy: WHAT'CHU LOOKIN' AT HIM LIKE THAT FOR, RAIN? HUH?]

[Howard Ivers] [What do you think we're playing, Mage? Get that shit out my window.]

[Quinn] Even with her buzz wearing off, Quinn is adept at reading people. And right now, with her attention focused on the young Gaian, she could tell every thought - or at least every emotion - that crosses the younger woman's mind. So she knows that there's more to her talent than her mild self-deprecation would suggest. That thought makes the Fianna woman's blue eyes glitter in the low light of the bar. It's not a menacing look, hardly even calculating, but there are ideas there.

"I think so? I was lead to believe we'd be embarrassing him, actually, but I get the feeling Howard doesn't need any help there." Leaning to the side, she looks over toward the bar, looking for the Theurge and her beer and wondering what's taking him so long. Her attention is caught by Bridget, like a spectator at a tennis match, her head shifting quickly to regard the girl thoughtfully.

It looks like putting words to "what's up" is a herculean feat for Quinn. Her eyes narrow, her nose scrunches, and she looks upward. "Nothing much so far, hon. If you're stayin'," she turns and half-rises to snag a chair from a nearby table, which she offers with a deep bow before sitting again, "you should sit. Sit sit sit, both of you."

[Patrick Llewelyn] Howard is pining after a beer.

Patrick stops beside him, sets his empty glass on the bar-top and waits for the bartender to head this way. Given that he's just come off the stage, he gets a few appreciative glances or calls about rockin it -- though given that most of the calls come from people drunker than he is, he wonders just how flattered he's meant to be.

Howard is also stoned, or something like it.
"You're not going to puke, are you?"

It's what his pack-mate says off the bat, and shifts the empty glass before Howard just in case, gesturing at it as a sort of vomit bulls-eye. Then, when the bartender finally approaches, he throws down his order and includes his curly haired friend in the bargain. "You missed my opening comedy act. I actually think it was worse than the time I tripped over the amp cord and face-planted off the stage."

[Rain McKellar] "Open mic night," Rain replies to Bridget, with a little glance over her shoulder at the stage where an unreasonably nervous young woman is trying to make her way through a folk song. Some acts were better than others. There's a touch of symapthy in Rain's expression for the performer, because she's been there too.

Quinn tells them all to sit and Rain just shrugs a bit. "I've got to get going before too long," she tells the other kinswoman. "My rustbucket of a car broke down last night -- Miss Doctor Slaughter was nice enough to give me a lift to the Brotherhood, but I've got to get it fixed. If it hasn't been towed by now."

She reaches up to rub at the back of her neck and pulls a little face.

"If it weren't Winter, I wouldn't mind the El so. But it's no fun in the cold. You'll be around, though, right? At the Brotherhood maybe?" She glances over at the bar and then back, assuming Quinn is somehow entangled with the band of brothers over there.

[Howard Ivers] [WARNING: Wildly offensive language ahead!]

The look Patrick is theatrically offended, as though the very notion is so absurd that his brother can't even muster up the energy to pretend to be irritated.

"Bray," he says, in a flat approximation of an American accent that he promptly drops in favor of his own, "when's the last time I puked, huh? Only cunts puke when they've been smoking. Do I look like a cunt?"

That's how they greet each other the first time their paths cross since this morning. When Patrick slides the glass toward him, Howard fumbles to pick it up, then uses it as a megaphone to amplify nonsense noises before plunking it back down. Eyebrows rise in interest as Patrick starts his story, then lets out one of those short-lived, crowing laughs of his when he mentions the previous mishap.

"That was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life. I almost thought F--"

He cuts himself off, abruptly, then coughs. His mouth keeps running a moment later, as though his engine had stalled. Whatever name he was about to say, he keeps. Typical.

"What'd you end up owing the dude, like... two weeks of floor mopping? Blowies? I can't fuckin' remember, you're the fuckin' storyteller."

[Quinn] Both young women decline the offered chair, which Quinn kicks off to the side with a shrug. Sitting up again, she leans back, crossing her legs but hooking her thumbs into her pockets. It's an almost open, almost closed position that makes it easier for her hair to spill back over her shoulders as she looks up.

"Oh, you should talk to Patrick," she says helpfully, thinking of the note she'd seen tacked to the board in the Brotherhood only just this morning. "He's a mechanic. Might be good to at least let him look it over, yeah?"

[Rain McKellar] "Thanks," Rain says, but it's unlikely that she'll ask the Galliard for help with her car. Repairs cost money. Rain's a little light on cash these days, and she's too proud for handouts, but Quinn doesn't know how literal the Gaian is when she jokes that she sings for her supper most days. "I'll mention it, you know, if I can get it back in the first place."

She slid her hand down the side of the guitar case til it caught on the handle, and shifted the weight of the thing without thinking.

"Ya'll have a good night, Miss Quinn," she says, still smiling and a little warmer than she was the night before. The greeting was meant to encompass the absent True, to whom Rain waved before she broke away from the table and headed for the door. Maybe the happiness of a good night on stage would follow her all the way back to the packhouse in Cabrini.

[Patrick Llewelyn] His pack-mate is watching the bartender fill up two, maybe even three glasses full of foaming amber liquid when Howard starts off in one of his horrendous accent imitations and winds up asking if he looks like a cunt. The broader, stronger side of Caldera just swings his head to the side, wildly raising his eyebrows in the approximation of false astonishment. "You really want me to answer that publicly?"

Since they've seen one another, Prayers to Broken Stone has changed his clothing, and now looks like a presentable (or at least passingly so) twenty-three year old. He's wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled back, and his least crumpled and torn pair of jeans. His feet are encased in actual footwear, which is a change in and of itself; and his blond hair, short and spiked up looks as though its seen some product.

Or at the very least, some water before he hit the stage so it stood in a artfully tousled array of peaks.

He still had the fingers of a mechanic though, and the rough palms of a musician, the digits hardened with callouses. Patrick is balancing the beers by the time Howard starts in on recounting the rest of that memorable night and the Galliard actually smirks when he's told he's the fuckin' storyteller. "No shit, now take your beer and shut up. Your public awaits you at the table."

[Zephyr] No one stops the teenager at the door. Not that they'd ask for her ID, but the hostess doesn't even do more than glance her way before deciding that she doesn't need to do more than give a small nod to her to acknowledge that yes, she saw her. She walks with purpose, in no hurry but unhesitating on her path from doorway to pub floor.

Maybe she's going to sit with her family, or meeting someone here. It's hard to tell her age: she's a slight figure, bordering on diminutive but with a solidity and substance to her that may not even be entirely physical in nature. Her hair is silver and her coat is a black wool poncho hanging off her shoulders almost to her knees; if one doesn't look twice they could mistake her for a tiny 80-year-old woman.

There are at least two individuals in the Abbey who will notice her before anyone else -- after the hostesss, of course. It's not her strangely adult, self-possessed bearing. It's the breeding. It matches the color of her hair.

She goes directly to an open table, nevermind that she ignored the hostess, and seats herself. Her feet, clad in white Mary Janes with a chunky heel, do not quite touch the ground. She sits without a menu for some time, folding her hands on her lap and waiting for someone to come serve her.

Which matches her breeding.

[Quinn] Quinn smiles at Rain and lifts her hand in farewell. Almost belatedly, she sits up a little straighter and calls out, "I'm in four!" Sounds like utter nonsense, but maybe it'll have some significance to the kinfolk.

After that, Quinn finds herself sitting all alone while the Garou mill about the bar gathering beverages. Left to her own devices, the light in her eyes fades as she watches another performer take the stage. Though her head is pointed in that direction, her gaze goes far away, and she doesn't seem to see the person anymore.

Rising, she pulls a wallet from her bag. Drawing out a few bills, she makes her way to the bar and to Howard. "I'm heading back," she says, shoving the money into his pocket. Looking at his face, her expression is apologetic. "For the beer. I'll see you guys around."

Stepping away, she swings her coat around her before sliding her arms into the sleeves. Using her hip to open the door, she crams the blue and white knit cap over her dark hair and disappears into the night.

[sorry, guys, i just realized what time it is! thanks for the play!]

[Howard Ivers] "It was blowies!" he says, executing the gestural equivalent of an end zone dance as Patrick dodges answering the question and tries to usher him back to the table in peace. Once he settles down, the precarious placement of the third pint of beer comes to him, and he focuses long enough to take it off Patrick's hands. There are no thanks, no cheers, no nothing in repayment for Patrick paying for beers that he was supposed to be procuring. Maybe it doesn't need to be said.

As they start back to the table, Howard squints and reaches out his free hand to gingerly pat at the hardened spikes of hair left in the wake of his packmate's use of product. There's no comment about spackling or whatever witticisms might have otherwise come into his head, though, because about that moment is when the door opens and something tiny, something mystical, catches his attention.

It's not a kinswoman, this time, but one of Unicorn's. To see the way Howard looks across the bar, he's trying to see through a dense fog rather than marveling over whatever it is has caught his attention. The fact that the girl's hair is silver is utterly lost on him; for all he can tell she's a light blond, or wearing a wig. Silver looks the same regardless of whether one can see color or not.

His attention is snared by the press of a hand into his pocket, pushing money inside. Howard looks over at Quinn, puts a hand on her elbow, makes a comment that isn't terribly intelligible due to it being mumbled. Then she's gone, and Howard is jabbing his packmate in the side before gesturing across the room with a jerk of his chin.

"I can't see shit," he says, freely now that there's no one around to hear; loudly, by virtue of the fact that someone else has taken the stage and is publicly slaughtering a Joni Mitchell song. "That a girl or a dude?"

[Zephyr] [*halps* ONE OF FALCON'S.]

[Howard Ivers] [OKAY ONE OF FALCON'S FUCK]

[Patrick Llewelyn] Howard reaches out to touch Patrick's hair, which elicits his brother half-heartedly moving to one side and lifting his elbow to rid his hand from the reaches of his hair. "Even in public you can't stop touching me," he protests without much in the way of inflection so it does get the odd look from a passing waitress.

Patrick likely doesn't even notice.

Mostly because Quinn walks up and sticks a note in the Theurge's pocket, apologetically announcing she's heading out. Patrick nods at the departing Kinswoman and tracks her with his eyes for a second, opening his mouth to ask what exactly was going on with the pair of them before he's again side-tracked by -- Christ, do I sound like that when I do Joni Michell? -- and the wave of breeding that just wandered into the pub the shape of a slight little figure who perches herself at a table and sits; apparently waiting on service.

Howard can't see shit, is it a girl or a guy.

Patrick considers a few things, then, setting the two beers he's been left with down on the table he extends a non-dickish-answer: "It's a girl. Silver Fang. It's as if they dip them in breeding before they send them out into the world."

[Zephyr] Typically -- and this is true of all the Silver Fangs currently occupying Chicago proper and the Caern of Maelstrom in particular -- they also dip them in solid fucking gold, if not platinum. Porsches. Penthouses.

That poncho-cape number of hers is actually a wool skirt. The white skirt floating underneath it, covering her legs, may actually have originated as a skirt but could also have been curtains.

A waitress does end up coming to ask her if she's been helped, but just as Patrick and Howard's conversation is too distant for the girl to hear, they can't overhear what she orders. The waitress goes away, and the girl turns her head, pinning Patrick with her eyes. She ignores Howard at first, except that now it's quite clear he and Patrick are together.

Lifting a pale hand, she crooks a finger at them. It is not a beckoning, and that comes across somehow in her bearing, her body language. It's an invitation. Perhaps a request.

[Howard Ivers] "A what?"

He isn't high enough that he's forgotten how to speak English. There are times when he reaches a level of chemical inebriation where he chooses not to speak English, simply because it's entertaining to him to watch other people scramble trying to figure whether he's started speaking tongues or whether he's actually trying to communicate with another human being, but he has never actually stopped knowing how to form comprehensible words from sounds. That he is not so high that everything he hears, everything he sees, makes him burst into laughter is a good sign.

That he's trying to touch Patrick even in public, even in this nice pub in this nice neighborhood with those nice kinswomen milling about, ought to be little more than a reassurance that the world continues to make sense.

"I thought they were like... I've never seen one before, man, I thought they were stories people told poor bastards like us to try an' keep us in line. 'Don't think about tryin' to lead the Nation, the Silver Fangs will get you!' That sort of thing? Yeah? No?"

She's beckoning them.

"Ah Christ," he says, before taking a long quaff from his beer. He doesn't move.

[Patrick Llewelyn] The unknown Silver Fang pins the Fianna looking over at her with her gaze; it is returned by two pairs of eyes, Patrick's, though she cannot see so from such a gap between them to her, are of a very bright blue, they made you think about Summer skies, and beaches and warm things. Even when they were suggesting anything but a welcoming response, they were still ridiculously bright.

Prayers to Broken Stone doesn't verbally react as Howard does, but his eyes are thoughtful upon Zephyr for long enough that it borders on a challenge just to keep it up; then, they cut away so he can pick up his guitar case and put the strap over his shoulder, shifting it around so it's housed on his back. He bands his jacket through the strap and collects up the pair of sweating beverages on the table.

If he believed in fate more, he'd think there was something to that, he'd bought an extra beer, they met a new face who invited them over to her. "Coming?" Patrick asks it, but he fully expects that his Alpha will come along for this particular ride, high as he is. When he reaches where the slender, fair-haired girl sits he stops, a beer in each hand; Howard at his heels.

"Hey," seemed efficient.

[Zephyr] From where she sits -- and as small as she is -- the girl has to tip her head quite a bit back to see Patrick and Howard. Perhaps that as much as anything is why she gestures to the chairs at her table and says: "Would you like to sit?"

Her voice is light. Cultured. The tip of her tongue taps out certain consonants against the roof of her mouth, her lips, her teeth. She does not slur.

[Howard Ivers] Both males who approach the table where the Silver Fang sits are tall. The blue-eyed one is only slighter shorter than the green-eyed one, but the Fiann who doesn't have the song of his people in his veins has the impression of added height because his hair, curly and dark, stands away from his scalp. Howard walks with a loose-limbed gait, his sneakers thudding against the treated wood floor of the pub, and has a look of cautious interest on his face as they come abreast of where the girl sits.

He's dressed as though he belongs in the South Side rather than a neighborhood that is predominantly upper-middle-class. His Converses are antiquated, black and stained, while his pants are red cordoroys that, in fitting him, accentuate the fact that he's rail thin. He wears a t-shirt for a band that hasn't been popular since the 1980s, a black leather jacket that is battered and probably secondhand, and a pair of black aviator sunglasses are clipped to the neckline of his shirt. He looks young, barely old enough to drink, yet he has a glass of Guinness in his left hand. The right hand goes into his pocket, and he looks to Patrick when the Galliard speaks. It's not shyness that has him holding his tongue; even from across the room, he was clearly the one doing the majority of the talking from the moment they started speaking to each other.

"Would you--" he starts to ask Patrick, and then turns back to the stranger. Although he is hanging out with a young man whose breeding is Stag's, when the hipster-looking kid opens his mouth a brogue doesn't come out. It isn't an American accent, either; his is hard to place. It's faint, but it rounds out his vowels. "I'd like to sit."

So he does.

[Patrick Llewelyn] "Alright," Patrick says slowly, cautious being the operative word to describe the way the Galliard answers Zephyr. It's not so much that he believes she's about to launch herself across the table, bearing tooth and claw but rather than in his experiences with other tribes -- though this marks his first real encounter with a child of Falcon -- it was better to be on alert than to --

simply sit down as Howard does.

His pack-mate is then left standing still, the odd man out despite his agreement to do so. He has more items to disperse with, too. He sets the beers down, unhooks his jacket, sets the guitar case down by the chair he then hooks with a foot and draws out so he can sink down; framing himself with an arm on either side of the chair.

Patrick has no idea if this girl is old enough in human years to drink, so he takes an offering approach. "That beer is an extra," he says this like it had come included with a phone purchase. "If you want something in front of you."

Then, he studies her some more.
"I'm Patrick, that's Howard."

[Zephyr] Howard has never seen a bogeyman Silver Fang before. Stories told to naughty Fianna, he said, but Zephyr doesn't know that. She smiles faintly when Howard sits at one of the three unoccupied chairs at her table. He seems quite amicable, dropping his long limbs into the chair with a vague air of curiosity. Or something.

Patrick is more standoffish, and not doing a whit to hide it. Bogeyman to him, too. Daughter of Falcon, ruler of Garoukind, tiny, tiny little girl with a plastic bow-shaped barrette in her strange-colored hair. Her eyes are a sort of watery, colorless green. There's an amorphous quality to her, despite her breeding. She is still smiling that small smile when Patrick, too, chooses to sit. In good time.

Smile or no smile, there's a sense of a tightly pulled bowstring to her, quivering in the air at her edges.

"Good evening, Patrick. Howard," she says, nodding to them each in turn. "Thank you, but I believe there would be trouble. I am too young by common standards to imbibe in libations." She says this last with a slight quirk to her lips, the best she can do in terms of poking fun at her own careful, clipped, ever-so-proper speech. Still, if it weren't for that quirk, they'd be hard pressed to tell she recognizes the anachronism of such a phrase.

The waitress comes by with a glass of sparkling cider and sets it in front of Zephyr, who does not look away from Patrick or Howard, as though to do so would be risky -- or rude. The waitress glances at the males, briefly interrupting to ask if they'd like anything. One way or another, she's gone again soon.

"I was given this," she says, without further preamble, as she reaches into some hidden pocket under that cape of hers and removes a small folded slip of paper. Opening it on the table, she smooths out its creases with an almost vengeful motion of her thumb and slides it over to some spot between the two of them. There is an address scrawled on the page. It is, in a manner of speaking, their home address. There is also a name a few lines beneath it: K. Bellamonte, T.M., H.C. in a different handwriting. After the slip of paper is in place, 'Zephyr' pulls back her hands, folding them neatly before her.

"I was wondering if perhaps either of you could take me there and, if necessary, introduce me to the hostess of the establishment. I have been told she is one of Stag's nieces."

[Howard Ivers] Never in their time together has Patrick known his packmate to be the voice of reason. If something is blatantly moronic, if it has a high likelihood of causing undue bodily harm or death or has adverse consequences that Howard can neither ignore nor bring himself to care about dealing with at a later time, that is when he will speak up and try and convince another person not to do whatever it is that he or she is doing. As a matter of fact, the more illegal or deviant the behavior, the more likely Howard is to encourage another person to go ahead and do it, as though he wants to see how far he can push his influence.

Now is not one of those times where he feels an imbalance between his safety and the whims of others, and he doesn't correct Patrick as he sets a glass of beer in front of a woman who is of a questionable age. He doesn't even cast him a look warning him away from the intelligence of such a decision. Granted, he comes from a country where there isn't much drinking age to speak of. What country that might be doesn't readily leap out at whoever happens to have the pleasure of listening to him speak. His accent has been mistaken for Australian before. It's not Australian.

There are words to describe Howard that are a bit closer to the truth than 'amicable.' 'Hyperactive' has been used. 'Gregarious'; 'obnoxious'; 'loud.' He sits still not because he's trying to impress this mythological creature but because he's trying to study her. That's an expression Patrick wouldn't recognize outright because he never sees Howard looking at anything with the intent to understand it. If he can't mock it, smoke it or eat it, he tends to get bored and walk away from it.

Spirits, though, keep his attention because most of the time they're asking something from him. Maybe she reminds him of a spirit.

Howard takes a long pull from his beer as the server wanders over to see if they need anything. He's a poor judge of how high he looks, but at the moment his eyes are not painfully red and bleary; the green of his irises is darkened by the ambience around them, but he doesn't look as though he's reached blackout levels of inebriation. If anything he's lost his buzz since he and Quinn started over here the better part of an hour ago.

She was given this. Howard is mid-swallow when she passes over the paper, and his eyebrows lift seconds before his eyes find the information. He squints, then reaches out to pick it up, hold it so both he and his brother can read it. His beer is set down so that he can scratch at his ear with a finger.

"Oh," he says, when she's finished her introduction, and turns to Patrick. They could have this conversation inaudibly, but he chooses not to. "Is this the part where we're supposed to make sure she's not--" His voice drops to a stage whisper. "--One Of Them?" His voice returns to its normal decibel level. "Y'know, before we go tellin' her where... stuff... is?"

[Patrick Llewelyn] When Zephyr speaks, the Galliard leans back in his chair, beer in hand and listens. There is little by way of forward expression to tell her what the Fianna in front of her is thinking about, or if, indeed, he's thinking at all. When she slides the paper across to them, his eyes drop to it for a moment and then flick back to her face.

Howard is stage-whispering to him about Them and Stuff and where it can be found, but Prayers to Broken Stone doesn't turn his face to regard his Alpha (they relate toward the other most curiously, for their apparent roles, there is less deferment and more some kind of shared governing of themselves and their pack) when he answers him, he remains quite as he is.

As unchangeable as, pardon the cliche, stone.

"No, I don't think she's that. She wouldn't have gone about things this way if she were." Then, Patrick reaches out with one hand and takes up the paper; his eyes scan the name, he looks across the table at Zephyr; he's not of American birth, Patrick, but he's been raised here. His features are all-American despite it, though the pale hair and eyes come from a Welsh ancestry.

"We're heading back there tonight, we can show you but this name," he sets the paper down, leaning forward in a smooth motion as he does and tapping where it reads Bellamonte. "She's not staying there, I'd remember." Translated as: I'd have smelled her.

[Zephyr] One of them. A fomor, perhaps. A Spiral. Something else entirely. It would fit: strange look to her, strange sense of rage and ethereality twined together in a tight braid yanked back from the scalp. Strange feel to her. Some wolves are like Patrick, there. White bread. Vanilla. Boy next door. And some are like this girl across from them, five feet and that's if she wears those heels of hers, gray haired and it's possible it's dyed but still... strange enough that she might choose to do that.

A dark eyebrow lifts when Patrick says he doesn't think that she's that. Wyrmridden, they mean. There's a flicker of that old Fang hauteur in that eyebrow-flick, but it's as passing as her name.

"I shall inquire about her elsewhere then, I suppose. Thank you again," she says, reaching over and taking the paper back. She folds it neatly, creasing the edges once more. Much more of that and it will disintegrate along those tight lines, into six new square of paper bearing fragments of their original message. It is tucked away once more, under her skirt-cape, and then she smiles. "My food will be arriving shortly, and while I would never dream of partaking of it in front of you both while you have nothing, I am quite famished. Would you mind terribly excusing me to my dinner?"

[Patrick Llewelyn] Patrick just nods, and gets up, a great deal faster than he'd sat down. He throws his jacket over a shoulder, harnesses his guitar case again and scoops up his beers; inclining forward a touch so he appears to the untrained (or sensitive) eye to be performing some kind of obnoxious half bow.

He may well be, he was one of those Fianna chaps, after all.

He doesn't appear to be malicious about it, though. He just scoots his chair back in and walks back toward whence he'd come. Concise; that was Patrick.

[Howard Ivers] "Patrick!" Howard whispers, hoarsely, as the other man gets up far too quickly. Looking back to the ephemereal female, he scratches the side of his nose and seems to think about smiling. He's outgoing, the more talkative of the two of them, but that isn't quite the same as being friendly; he isn't warm, or welcoming, or worried about his fellow man, or fellow wolf, or fellow monster. Whether or not she feels as though this is a home, that she can fit in here, Howard doesn't make the attempt to smooth the transition any. That near-miss of a smile, and he manages, "Oh, yeah, sure, we'll just be, y'know, over at the bar..."

He slides to his feet.

"Not... talking about you."

Slowly, he picks up his beer, as though he's trying to aim properly so he doesn't knock the mostly-full affair onto its side, and once he's got it he squints. For several seconds he stands silent, watching Patrick's retreating backside out of the corner of his eye, and then that's done his countenance suddenly brightens. He stands up straighter, cheerfully waves, and then spins and hurries after his packmate, nearly knocking over a chair as he goes.

And Stag wept.

[Howard Ivers] [I HAVE OCD I NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING HERE SO I KNOW I LOGGED OUT AND DIDN'T JUST FALL FUCK]

[the devil] (whaaaaat? *blink*)