Currently the moon is in the waxing No Moon phase (2% full).
Currently in Saint Claire, it is mostly cloudy. The temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 8 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.99 and steady, and the relative humidity is 77 percent. The dewpoint is 53 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius.)
It is currently 23:29 Pacific Time on Fri Jul 20 2001.
Sophia's Apartment(#4128RAJ$)
Small, bare, and uninviting, this little apartment is clearly not the dwelling of a homebody, nor of a person accustomed to entertaining. The sitting area has only bright white plastic lawn furniture that looks as if it might have been manufactured by Tupperware. Makeshift shelves of cinderblocks and 1"X8" boards bow with the weight of scores of books. Titles like "Rescuing the Bible From Middle America" or "Zarathustra: Modernism in Antiquity" can be seen here, along with dozens of dime-store paperbacks. The small writing table is completely taken up by a computer, powered up and humming softly.
The kitchen looks as if it might never have been cooked in. A small microwave on the counter is still blinking "12:00", no one having bothered to set the clock. Beside it is an electric can opener. The only evidence of use is a single glass in the stainless steel sink and a few fast-food bags in the trashcan. The sole decoration on the refrigerator is a postcard bearing a photograph of a monstrous, grimy power plant with "Come to Hanford!" printed on the bottom in fluorescent green.
Through a door opposite the kitchen, the tiny bedroom looks slightly more lived-in. On top of a black particle-board dresser sit a hairbrush, a few hair-ties, and several plastic hairclips, along with a small pile of cheap costume jewelry. A frame designed to hold several of snapshots is hung squarely on the wall. One bed is made, a bright yellow bedspread bravely trying to cheer up the room. Another is made half-heartedly, the bedspread just carelessly tossed over the top, as if to humor someone.
As the two girls come romping upstairs to finish up the night, they notice there's a small boquet of flowers resting at the doorway, tied to the knob and dangling. Even a small card attached.
Sophia looks over at Dizzy, a wary expression on her face. She leans down to pick up the basket, smelling them and inspecting the card.
Dizzy grins, watching her roommate, "Well, what does it say? I _know_ those arn't for me."
"Aw, now isn't that sweet? It reads, Even though I was gone for two days, it felt like forever. He's such a cutey. I wonder if he got one of the boys to set them here." Sophia says, unlocking the door to the apartment.
Dizzy smiles, "That _is_ sweet. You're so lucky." She pauses, thinking about something, "He was gone for two days? Where'd he go?" she asks.
Sophia shrugs. "Back home to Portland, I think. He mentioned family." She pushes open the door with her hip, holding it open for Dizzy to pass. A stupid grin covers her face like a blanket and rests there, content.
Dizzy frowns and walks into the appartment, "Family or _family_?" She takes off her jacket and drops it on the floor where a coatrack will probably be placed in the future. Damn that online ordering is so slow.
Sophia sets the flowers down on the bar that separates the kitchen from the sitting area. "Both. His family is apparently, like, almost all Garou." She leans up against the wall and picks up the phone, punching in a few digits, waiting, and punching in a few more. "Checking my voicemail, to see if maybe he's left a message. Still don't really know when he'll be back." she explains to Dizzy.
The ragabash is quite surprised by this, "Really? All Garou? That's gotta be tough on the poor kid." She shakes her head as she takes a seat in one of the lawn chairs and proceeds to slouch down to a comfortable position.
Sophia makes a guttural noise of confusion. "He says... wait, I gotta here this again." She presses a button on the phone to make the message repeat. "Yeah, he says... he brought stuff for everyone? What the heck does that mean?" She sets the phone down in the cradle and rubs her face, still leaning against the wall. "Yeah, I think it was. I think they were cruel to him. But he doesn't admit it. He's been clued since he was just a little kid. I think that's why he's so timid."
Dizzy explains her take on the message, "I guess he bought souveniers from Portland."
Sophia walks into the kitchen, returning with two cold poptarts. She holds one out to Dizzy and says, "Yeah... I guess so. Anyway, he's back in town now. Said he couldn't find us here." The bite she takes out of the poptart she's kept for herself is so hasty that crumbs topple to the floor, a few sticking to the sides of her mouth.
Dizzy gratefully accepts the declious and popular uncooked pastry, "He must have tried to come over while we were at the Caern with Alicia." She looks over towards her jacket, then to the appartment's phone, "Give him a call?" she offers, starting to devour the pop-tart, carefully trying to catch the crumbs in her hand.
Sophia takes another large bite, not bothering herself about the crumbs. Swallowing, she says "Mmm... Dunno. He said he was going to sleep. Maybe I'll just leave him voicemail instead." She makes no move to do this, however, settling down in another lawn chair.
Dizzy nods thoughtfully, still attempting to keep the floor and her clothes crumb free. "Well, if he wasn't living with Roger, I'd suggest you go..." She pauses and shakes her head, "Nevermind. I lost my mind for a second. The only way you'd get to see him tonight is if he came over."
Sophia rests her chin in her hands, staring at the floor. "Actually, who gives a shit about manners. I'm not a Cliath yet, right?" She stands up and moves back to the phone, dialing from memory. As it rings, she tilts her head to the side, suddenly remembering a conversation from earlier. With wide eyes, she asks, "What's a strap-on?"
The phone picks up on the other end. There's a soft "...nnggh.." THUD. ".. Ow.."
Dizzy sinks low, low into her chair. "Nothing," comes a rather grumpy response.
Sophia's already wide eyes widen further as they try to leap from her head, terrified. Someone has picked up, but she has no idea who. "I-I-I.... have the wrong n-number." Click. She sets the phone down and runs to the other side of the room as if afraid it might bite her for her insolence.
The phone starts to ring after a few moments.
Dizzy looks up, curious at the noise. She has to scan the room for a second to spot her roommate, "What in god's name are you doing Sophie?"
Sophia walks back to the phone reluctantly. "I think I woke up Roger!" she whispers, though the phone is still ringing. She picks it up, listening in silence.
Dizzy covers her mouth with her hand, grinning. "Oops," she whispers back.
"H'lo.." Comes a groggy voice on the other end. "Did'ja call?" Its Jeremy, just dead tired at that. "Soph?"
Sophia speaks very quietly into the receiver. "Sorry... yeah, it was me. I didn't mean to wake you up... H-how was your trip?"
"...MMmm.. it was ok.." The voice is soft, and there's the sound of shifting in the background. "Mom n' Dad says ta' tell you Hi." THUD. "... Ow.. "
Dizzy finishes munching on her pop-tart and gets up, walking over to the trash can to deposit the crumbs she carries in her hand. She leans up against the wall near the can, listening to her roommate's side of the conversation.
Sophia blinks rapidly. There's a hint of something in her voice (Is it... fear? Suspicion?) as she says, "You told them about me? Whyyyy?" She stares scornfully at the wall as if blaming it for the complexity of her life.
"Cuz'... I wanted to brag about you." Jeremy softly says into the phone as a muffled sound is heard. ".. where is the light at... ahhh.. much better." At least now he will stop walking into the walls.
Sophia's roommate chuckles a bit at her distress.
At least he's not trying to introduce her to them yet. She continues to glare at the wall, however. "Wellll, Ok. You can do that, I guess. Just don't go thinking funny things, about...stuff. And the flowers were sweet, I love them, but they won't help you either."
"Hmmph... stop being so modest." Another long yawn. "I'm going back to bed, I'll come over tomorrow for breakfast."
Dizzy giggles and whispers to her roommate, "Ask him about strap-ons."
Sophia nods at her roommate. Good idea. "It's not modesty. I'm too young for that stuff, and flowers won't get you any farther. By the way. What's a strap-on? No one will tell me."
".. Strap on? Isn't that.. um..." Jeremy's voice stammers out. "Those are um... those.. things that woman.. put around their waist, with a fake plastic penis dangling in the front, so that lesbian's can pretend to have sex the correct way as some kind of twisted arrousal..." There's a pause. "Did you want me to pick one up for you?"
Dizzy's sudden wide-eyed, open-mouthed grin quickly turns into all out laughter. She grabs her sides, which start to hurt from the laughing. She slides down the wall, sitting on the floor, continuing to laugh.
The phone falls to the floor, and Sophia goes running into the bedroom, shutting the door before screaming into a pillow.
"... Um... He-- Hello..? Sophia..?"
"... Are you ok? Um... anyone there?"
Still suffering for her joke, Dizzy tries to grab the phone, "Jeremy?" She asks.
"... Eeh... Um... Amanda? Is.. um... whats going on?"
Hearing his voice, Dizzy laughs even louder. After a couple of seconds, she tries to calm herself enough to speak, "I.. think you scared her off, dear. She just ran into the bedroom and shut the door. _What_ did you say to her?"
Sophia curls up in a ball on the bed, repeating "Eeuw. Eeuw. Eeuw." to herself. It's her new mantra, it would seem.
"She... um she...asked... nothing, it was nothing.. I'm going to bed now." *click*
Dizzy makes a couple of attempts to put the phone back from her sitting position on the floor. She thinks about the situation and starts laughing all over again, leaning over to lay on the floor. Must stop laughing, sides hurting too much.
Sophia comes out of the bedroom, her entire face crimson. "You could have /told/ me! Now he thinks I /want/ one!"
Dizzy stops laughing long enough to look up at her roommate. When she sees her roommate's face and processes what she just said she just starts laughing again, clutching her sides, tears starting to form in her eyes. This is too much!
Sophia flips her wild hair back along with her embarrassment. She straightens her posture, walking haughtily into the kitchen. After pouring herself a glass of milk and taking a sip, she remembers her reason for asking and has to spit the milk back into the glass. "Why does Corey want you to have one?" she asks, looking over at Dizzy.
_That_ stops the laughing right quick. Dizzy rolls over to look up at Sophie and asks her, all serious now, "Do you think that I'm pretty?"
Sophia is expressionless for several seconds. "There is no answer to that question. If I tell you no, you will hate me and yourself. If I tell you yes, you will think I'm lying. One thing I know for sure is that you don't have to have a p-p-p-penis to be beautiful. That doesn't even make sense."
Dizzy blinks, not expecting that. "I don't want a penis!" she exclaims. "It's just..." She turns, looking in the other direction, "It's just that none of the boys seem to find me attractive. And Corey!" She growls a bit, "He had the nerve to suggest I was some sort of butch lesbian!"
Sophia goes to sit on the floor in front of Dizzy. "The boys, they /shouldn't/ find you attractive. They're your brothers, and that's just nasty. If you want to date, you have to date kin, not Garou. And I think there must be beautiful lesbians, otherwise, they wouldn't like each other. Unless, just maybe, people like each other for something besides how they look."
Dizzy sits up, not looking very pleased and sounding a bit grumpy. "I wouldn't want to date either of them anyway. They're like, what? Seventeen? Sixteen? Little boys still."
Sophia nods. "If that's true, if you don't have a thing for any of them, why do you want them to think you're pretty? Why is it important?" She wraps her legs around each other and tucks them beneath her thighs, resting her arms on her knees. "You should be worrying instead about whether the kin boys like you. Or thinking about more important things, like learning to sneak."
Dizzy scoffs at the mention of other kin boys, but oohs and sits up quickly, "That reminds me. Remember how I was talking about putting whipped creme in John's shoes?"
Sophia nods her head, glad to have found an exit from the tricky conversation. "I do. You didn't really do it, did you? You /look/ alive still."
Dizzy shakes her head, "His room was locked, I couldn't get in. I was pretty dissapointed, but I decided today that someone else could benefit from it. If having your shoes full of whipped cream is a good thing, that is."
A single blink is the only reaction Sophia is willing to hazard for now. She sits unmoving, waiting for more data.
Dizzy stands up, "Hops I already got back at today." She starts to smile, recalling the incident. "And so, the whipped cream shoes are going to belong to Corey."
Sophia slowly begins to grin, every second pushing the corners of her mouth farther from the center. "How are you going to get in there?"
Dizzy makes a motion as if she's turning a doorknob, "Use the door, of course."
Sophia rolls her eyes. "How are you going to get past the lock, I mean."
Dizzy thinks about this for a second, and asks. "Do you know the combination for their room?"
Sophia shakes her head. "No. We could ask the spirits to give it to us, if we were allowed into the Umbra."
Dizzy blinks, "Can we get to the Umbra from here?"
Sophia nods flippantly. "Sure. Why do you think there's a mirror at the end of the hall? It's not so you can check if your pants make your butt look big." A wild, crazed look appears on Sophia's face suddenly. You can almost see the lightbulb over her head.
Dizzy grins, hoping that Sophia's got the same idea she does. "So..." she leads.
Sophia looks at the door carefully. "I wonder if there's even locks on the doors in the Umbra. And if it's hard to walk through them."
Dizzy nods, letting her roommate plan the break in. Suddenly, an idea occurs to her, "Can we bring the whipped cream through the Umbra?"
Sophia licks her lips, thinking hard. "Yes. If it were bound to one of us. And then we could reach through, do the thing, and then reach back into the Umbra. Trouble is, first, there's no moon right now. And also, the Umbra is very, very dangerous. We'd need permission, even if we aren't technically leaving the house. And I don't know how to talk to spirits."
Dizzy thinks about this, "Okay, we can't pass through the door because we can't bring the whipped cream with us. We can't ask the spirits to open the door because we cannot talk to spirtis. Do we have any other options?"
Sophia's brow furrows as she thinks. "Well, we could take the whipped cream, if it were bound, like I said. There might be a Ragabash elder who would do that for us. I could put it in my backpack, and bind that, too. It would be the best way, but it would take some time to set up. Other than that, I'm not sure. You could talk Hops into letting you in, maybe. Or sneak a key from one of them. Do you know how to pickpocket?"
Dizzy shakes her head, "No, I don't. You know, all of this sounds like it's going to need a lot of setup."
Sophia nods. "Yes, it will. We'd better make it a bit more exciting than just whipped cream, don't you think?"
Dizzy frowns, "This is just supposed to be a quick little operation. Keep it small and keep the element of surprise. Like with the lipstick and the coke. Not a lot of planning, just an idea and a catalyst."
Sophia thinks for a bit. "Ok. So technically, what we need is a sneak to help us, right? Someone to help us get the door open? I know just such a person. A Bone Gnawer Ragabash Cliath, Bernie. She can open beer bottles by looking at them funny. Maybe she could look funny at the door, right? Or if not, maybe she could help us get through the Umbra."
Dizzy nods, "Bernie, the girl we met picking up trash the one night in the park." She ponders this a second. "We still can't get out of the house though, and she doesn't look like someone who'd carry around a phone. How will we get ahold of her?"
Sophia shrugs. "I'll call her tomorrow. It's not like she /lives/ at the park. She has a house and everything."
Dizzy ohs, she didn't know any Bone Gnawers actually had houses. Imagine that. "Okay, that sounds like a plan then." She grins, "This'll be good, and I'll try to think of more stuff than just the whipped cream in the shoes."
Sophia pops her neck. "That's good, because she'll be more likely to help if it's something really funny. What about... would you know where to get... a strap-on?"
Looking at her roommate with a wide-eyed grin, Dizzy says, "Yeah, yeah. That's a _great_ idea."
Sophia rubs the back of her neck. "What... do we do with it? Will they fit on someone's head?"
Dizzy shakes her head in disbelief, "You've got some really great ideas. But how would we do that without him waking up?"
Sophia bites her lip. "There's medical supplies in the basement. Maybe... we could give him a little bit of what John gave Alicia when she hurt her hands?"
Dizzy can't belive what she's hearing, "You're a genius, do you know that Sophie? Really, you should be the ragabash instead of me."
Sophia frowns. "Trouble is, I don't know what it was, where he found it, how much to give... plus it's sort of taking the joke a little too far, in a way. What if... you know how people alter photographs, to make them look like something is there that isn't?"
Dizzy creases her brow a bit, "What're you getting at?"
Sophia takes a sip of the milk she spit into earlier, having forgotten about it. "Well, I have a camera. We're surrounded by computer geeks. Why not get one of them to make a picture of Corey look like he was wearing a strap on?"
Dizzy dismisses that idea with a wave of her hand, "Nah, because it'd be much better if it was real."
Quite a lot of giggling has been coming from this room lately.
Jonathan slinks over towards the doorway and knocks on the door quietly, "Umm, Soph? Something up?" he asks quietly.
Sophia grins at her roommate and jumps up to answer the door. After opening it, she looks up and down the hallway to see that no one is behind him and waves him in quickly, a conspiratorial grin on her face.
Dizzy looks over at who was at the door. Ooooo. Hops can help. The same sort of conspiratorial grin graces her face.
Jonathan slips in the door, his brow furrowed already as he closes it behind him. Without pause he asks, "What are you up to, what do you need, and how much trouble am I going to be in for helping you?"
Sophia rubs her hands together. "We wanna sneak Corey. We need you to open the door for us, and help us think of a way to get something on his head without waking him up. And we won't get in trouble if you're with us."
Jonathan smirks evilly and shakes his head. "No, not shaving cream or toothpaste. Those come off, what you want is perminent marker. Will be weeks before he can wash it off." the cub smirks and looks back towards his room. "What are we going to write?" he asks, and is already contemplating a few extra events for this night.
Dizzy shakes her head, "Nonono. Not writing anything. I just need want to fill his shoes full of whipped cream.
Jonathan shakes his head, confused. "Why are we doing this? I mean, I'm not against just pulling a prank for the fun of it, but is there a reason?" the cub looks to Dizzy patiently.
Dizzy nods, "For now. But we'll keep that in mind if we need to punish him again. That was definately a good idea." She turns to Jonathan with a grin, "Why? Well, if you help us now, then we'll consider that next time a prank comes up, and you'll be less likely to be the target."
Jonathan shakes his head dissmissively. "No, you don't understand. I ment why are we pranking /him/?"
Sophia takes a seat in one of the lawn chairs, letting the two discuss the matter.
"He insulted me earlier during our trip to the caern," Dizzy says matter-of-factly, as if that's reason enough. Considering her track record, it probably is.
Jonathan glances at Dizzy, then Sophia, looking more then a little angry. "Well fine." he says quietly, and turns to leave the room.
Sophia frowns. "W-w-what's wrong, bro?"
Dizzy tilts her head a tad to the side, "Is there a problem?"
Jonathan grumbles slightly, shaking his head. "No, no problem at all. Just that he offended you on the way to the /caern/." and with that the cub storms out, heading to his own room.
Dizzy blinks and says to her roommate without looking to her, "And you said he wasn't strange. That's _pretty_ strange if you ask me."
Sophia shakes her head. "Originally it was supposed to be just me and him. Only then, he thought Alicia wasn't coming over, so he went upstairs. It's not strange, just... bratty."
Dizzy ohs, understanding. "Well, if he's not helping, I'm going to get some shut eye."
Sophia says "Ok. We'll work something out tomorrow, Ok?"
Dizzy nods, and gives Sophia a small grin, "We'll get Bernie and plan something big."
Sophia grins back. "It's a deal."
Smiling, Dizzy heads into the bathroom to get ready for bed.