Currently the moon is in the waning No Moon phase (12% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 69 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the west at 7 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.04 and steady, and the relative humidity is 52 percent. The dewpoint is 51 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 20:35 Pacific Time on Wed Jul 18 2001.
Walker Safe House(#2832RAJL)
This small tenement building, is a work that any interior decorator would be proud of. The building is somehow filled with light, and space. Despite the fact that the room is far from large. Mirrored surfaces and lush, green pot plants are much in evidence - jarring only slightly with the video cameras that perch unobtrusively in various locations. A small sign on the wall lists the number of apartments upstairs as eight. There are no names next to the apartment numbers. Downstairs leads to a very thick door, with no visible method of being opened - except a keypad next to it.
The lobby branches off into what appears to be a small recreation room; for use only by residents and their guests. Much like the rest of the building, mirrors are prominent. There is a pool table set up in one half of the room, while the remainder is dominated by a large home theater system, with an incredibly expensive-looking couch in front of it. The couch nearly screams out, 'Don't spill anything'. For those who might, there are also two matching side-chairs, and a bean-bag on the floor - far too close to the television to be good for anyone's eyes.
Sophia nods. "Simply is." She keeps nodding. "Or maybe, will be."
Daisy adds, "Or was."
Coming down the stairs is the wonderfully troublesome female ragabash cub. She is twenty times calmer than when she went up, and smiling to boot. "Hello Rhya," she greets the tribe's elder.
Daisy greets the raggy cub with a friendly, "Hello, Amanda."
Sophia looks up at Daisy. The idea that the image of the park could be a distant memory disappoints her, and it's visible on her face until the very moment her fellow cub walks into the room. "Hi, Dizzy." The change is instant, as if Dizzy's presence alone is the only comfort she needs.
Looking between the other two occupants of the room, Dizzy asks, "More training?"
Daisy waffles a hand in the air in a "sort of" gesture she's probably picked up from someone recently. "Umbra."
Sophia looks toward the door, wondering why John isn't back yet. "We've been talking about how the difference between real and not real is not.... real." She shrugs, unable to voice her thoughts just now.
Dizzy doesn't get it, of course. She's no theurge. "Huh? What, did Daisy just see The Matrix?"
"Saw long time ago," Daisy confirms. "Long long time ago." She moves to get to her feet. "Need to sleep. Much walking today. See you tomorrow!"
Sophia waves to the elder theurge and smiles. "Thank you for everything you taught me today, Daisy-rhya."
Dizzy gives a small wave to the lupus-born elder, "Goodnight, Rhya."
After Daisy has left, Dizzy turns to her roommate, "Did you learn a lot today?"
Sophia shrugs. "Daisy has a funny way. She teaches me questions. But yes... Hops taught me a lot. More than he realizes. I'm done finding out about the tribe, I think... now I have to find out about reality. What simply is, and what is, yet without being."
Again, mystified by the theurge-speak, Dizzy decides to change the subject, "Has John returned yet? I'm worried about my car."
John steps through the door, on cue, jingling the keys. "Traffic sucked, and I did shopping." he grunts by way of explanation.
Sophia grins at John. "Did some shopping ourselves, earlier, John. Hops and Jeremy have been teaching us about shopping online, since we can't go to the mall very easily now. I ordered a swank new outfit. And we got real furniture, too!"
Dizzy comes up for her keys like a little kid to candy, "Was it okay? A ticket or anything? Please tell me it's okay."
John hitches a shoulder and dangles the keys above Dizzy, like teasing a dog - though his expression is unchangably neutral. "Only a half dozen flyers. It's fine. There's a white scratch of paint on the front left. Figured I'd leave it to you to deal with."
"A scratch?" Dizzy temporarily forgets about her keys and stares at John to make sure he's joking, "You're not serious, are you?"
John lowers an eyebrow, looking at her... very seriously. "Go check for yourself. It's only small."
Dizzy holds out her hand under the keys, "Oh geeze. Keys please?"
John dumps them in the girl's hand, and shrugs. Looking over at Sophia, he murmurs, "Daisy was here. Learn much?"
Once the keys are in her hands, _zoom_! Dizzy takes off to inspect the damage to her poor little car.
Sophia tilts her head back and forth. "I solved one puzzle and got another one. Really, though, I owe the credit to Hops. I told Daisy he was the one who taught me... but I feel like I should have done it on my own."
John tilts his head a little. "Taught you what? And learnt what? I'm missing a few pieces of information, here."
Sophia's eyes try to roll back in her head to find the words, and her tongue sticks out slightly to escape her brain's struggle. "He taught me that cockroaches have an ex-o-skeleton and ag-gregate by smell. Basically, how they're different from rats."
John smiles slightly at Sophia. "But do you understand what that /means/ in terms of the metaphor, and practicality? How an exoskeleton is different from an endoskeleton, and so forth? You could learn much more than basic facts, by learning the use and relevance of facts."
Sophia frowns, like maybe she didn't solve the puzzle after all. "We were talking about the spirits, the tribes. It wasn't a biology thing, it was about how Cockroach is sneakier than Rat, mostly. Do I need all that science stuff, too?"
John actually laughs, and shakes his head a little. "Course not. Tell me what you learnt, Sophia. I'm interested."
Dizzy wanders back in, slowly, hands in her pockets. When she reaches the couch, she flops into it, hands staying in the pockets, with an exaggerated sigh. There was a scratch. A huge one! A gigantic thing that's as obvious as a pimple on a teenager's face.
Sophia purses her lips and pushes them off to the side, so they won't get in the way while she talks. "Well, for starters, Cockroach /is/ a lot sneakier than Rat. Like the spirit that found Hops for us, he can sit on someone's head, and they won't know he's there. And see, cockroaches talk in smells, where rats talk in noises, so no one but a cockroach knows what another cockroach is saying." She pauses to see if she's making sense so far.
John moves to stand in the doorway between the lobby and rec room, watching the lounging cubs. "You lot have it far too easy." he mutters, quietly, then nods to Sophia. "A cockroach can be sneakier, yes. Now relate this to Tribes, for me? You see our motley crew as being capable of sneakiness greater than the Gnawers, and all their no-moons?"
Easy? Did you see that humongous scratch? Dizzy looks over to John like he's crazy, but doesn't say a word.
Sophia pushes her head forward, an odd little gesture of affirmation. "Absolutely. When a Bone Gnawer is in your house, you know about it pretty quick. A Glass Walker, we do things differently, see. People might not notice us. We live in houses, out of people's way, so they don't have to step over us when they're walking down the street. It's not just a money thing, either. We talk like everybody else. We act like everybody else." She looks at him apologetically, having not wanted to raise class issues.
John presses the class issues, watching the Elder cub interestedly. "So. We're generally wealthier, and have higher standards that bring us closer to the 'normals' of human society, then? Would that be fair? Expand. Walkers care more about how they present themselves? Or is it just something we do naturally? I'm interested."
The ragabash sits up in the couch, grumbling something that includs her car, her dad, and a headache. Her roommate is talking about important stuff she'll probably will need to know later, so she's at least going to try and pay attention in between complaining.
Sophia's heart starts beating faster; she's nervous and uncomfortable. "I... it's not that it's bad not to have much money. That's not what I mean. It's just... what is. Sometimes things are, and that's just all. The only explanation I can think of is that people who are alike stay close to each other, even people who aren't Garou. And their little ones are a lot like they are, and it keeps happening till the groups are very different."
John's eyes hold a hint of some sort of sadistic amusement at the cubs' discomfort. Mostly at Dizzy's, though. The Ahroun gives Sophia a mostly warm smile. "That's enough. You're right. Fianna, Wendigo, Silver Fangs, and a few others... they put a lot more stock by bloodlines and family than either Walkers or Gnawers. And classically, while our tribes may have some great heroes to tell tales of, we do not have the legendary figures of myth and fable. It's what comes of Walking amongst the cities of Glass. Walkers may be a little more coherent in bloodlines than the Gnawers, but if it is, it's something of the Italian or Sicilian lines. Stretching back from Rome, chiefly. Here in the city, it's common interest. And cliques. And that's where we fit. With each other. I wasn't born a Walker. I had no kinfetch. I could've been either Gnawer or Walker when I was found. Fate chose Walker."
Listening to this info with interest, Dizzy relaxes a bit, but only a bit. She finds some strange amusment in the fact that John may, in fact, actually be a Bone Gnawer. She also finds comfort in the fact that she knows she's got a bunch of italian blood flowing in her veins.
Sophia nods her head. "It was hard for me to find the differences, because at first, I only saw how we were the same. But with Jonathan's help, I was able to see that there /are/ some real differences, and that it's Ok to um... to express that. But the best thing about Cockroach... do you want to hear what it is?" She pauses, but not long enough for anyone to answer. "The best thing is something that's true of Rat also. People are terrible to them, stomping on them and poisoning them and setting traps, but they keep coming back. When one falls, another one is right behind. The Wyrm tries to crush these tribes, and the other tribes call us Urrah, but it doesn't matter, because what we are makes us stronger."
John smiles, nodding slightly. "And the Wyrm may well have an easier time of it, with us. We have to hide ourselves better, against humans. We have to live within more rules than those who run through the woods. It renders some of the old ones ineffective, but their meanings can be reinterpreted with just as valid a message." He shakes his head a little. "We work our own way. We work the way we've been called. None of us are very italian, and you don't see me running with the Get. My carrying of guns offended one here, even. No. We aren't products of our breeding. We're products of our environment."
Dizzy continues listening, but goes back to laying on the couch, her legs dangling off so she doesn't dirty it with her shoes. She places a hand on her forehead. Headache is still there.
Sophia looks at the ceiling, hesitating. It almost looks like she's checking to see if the house agrees with John. "I guess that's true. Me, I'm not Italian. My family is from Germany, Austria. Those places. But that doesn't make me a Get of Fenris, even though the only one I know is really nice - tough, too - and I want to be like her someday." She glances over at Dizzy with concern. "What's wrong?"
"Headache acting up again," comes the groan from the raggie on the couch. "How fast does that online ordering thing work?"
John lowers an eyebrow, and raises the other. A nice get, she wants to be like? Brief panic. Stifled. "And who's this Get, too?" he adds to Dizzy's question, ignoring the girl's complaints.
Sophia shrugs. "Doing it is really, really fast. Faster than driving to the store. But then you have to wait. You can pay extra and get it faster, which is what I did for my clothes." She glances over at John and looks at him for a few moments before saying, "Signe-rhya. The Fostern? I thought you knew her. Anyway, you'll like her. She's the best. Almost as cool as Sepdet-rhya, even."
Dizzy blinks, rolling her head to look at her roommate, "What exactly did Hops order?"
Kaz, who's evidently been off starting a serious relationship with the kitchen, wanders back toward the rec room, munching on a carrot stick.
John scowls lightly. "What's Signe been doing around my cubs?" he rumbles. "I know her." He leaves out the 'liking' reply, though, and just folds his arms. "Cool, eh? Hmm." Definitely holding reservations on /that/ book.
Sophia latches on to the fact that John has reservations about Signe, but can't figure out why. "She has the most beautiful laugh I think I've ever hear. You can tell it comes right from her soul. People who don't laugh much? They're like that. Well, like you, Boss. Maybe that's why I like her so much. She reminds me of you."
Kaz pauses, eyebrow raised, but says absolutely nothing.
Thump-thumpthump-thumpthump, comes a mid-level knocking on the door. Well. Not quite knocking; something's a little odd with it. It's a bit duller, if that makes sense, and... very low. Not in tone, in placement. Not knocking level. Thump-thump, comes another round, completing the utterly familiar rhythm.
John looks intensely irritated by the knocking and the compliment, and doesn't hide it. "Just... ah, forget it. Don't think you can change my opinions by buttering me up with compliments or affection." he grumbles weakly, and moves to the door to open it on instinct. Low knocking? Hmm. Unless we're under attack by mutant wyrmy midgets with machineguns... The Ahroun should be pretty safe.
Kaz's other eyebrow raises. "That's probably..." She trails off, and finishes her carrot.
Groaning and muttering to herself, Dizzy stands up and heads for the stairs, "I'm going to bed everyone. Good night."
Sophia doesn't bother prodding John for information - it can wait. Instead, she devides her attention between leaning toward the mouth of the rec room to catch a peek at the new arrival and blowing a goodnight kiss to her roommate with an impish wink. "I'll be up late, probably, so you know. I'll stay down here so I don't wake you."
Dizzy misses who it is at the door as she ascends the stairs.