something to blow bubbles.

Erich Reinhardt

It's about 7:30pm. An hour or so after sundown; the last of the dusk fading from the west. Browntown's few streetlights are lit, a paltry defense against the dark. At the outskirts of town -- tiny as that town already is -- the headlights of a thirteen-year-old Mustang light the way down one of those long, lonely country roads that etch the landscape here.

This is a hard land. It wasn't blessed with the dark, rich fertility of the midwestern plains. It's too far to enjoy the bounty of the Atlantic. It's not cleared, it's not open. It's a land of sandy soil, a ground full of jagged stones that need to be pulled out before the earth can be tilled; twisted southern pines scrabbling a gnarled life out. Anyone trying to farm here -- and there are plenty, it seems, most of them kin to the Fenrir -- have a life of hard work ahead of them.

By night, these country roads feel hemmed in on all sides. The woods are opaque and tangled and black. Feels like wolves should live in those woods. Black monsters out of legend. Feels like maybe Little Red's in there somewhere, trundling toward grandma's house. Feels like any moment now you might come around a turn and see some woman in white who died a hundred years ago, still looking for a lift to her dance in town.

Those are just legends, though. Real monsters don't lurk in the dark. Real monsters -- like this one in the black Mustang -- sometimes don't behave so very differently from regular folks. Erich drives on the right side of the road. He has his headlights on, and sometimes he goes to high beams. He obeys traffic laws, more or less, even if he's going a little faster than the 35mph regulation.

He looks for the address one of the bartenders in town gave him. He suspects he only got it because the barman assumed he was one of her tribe. One of her Family, the way she put it. He suspects if she found out how he came by that address, and the lie-by-omission he told to get it, she'd put on that disapproving face of hers and think those disapproving racist (tribe-ist?) thoughts of hers. He's not sure if he's amused or annoyed by the idea.

Tires crunch off asphalt, onto gravel. Headlights sweep Drew's front windows. The Mustang pulls up in her drive; its engine shuts off, ticking quietly under the hood. Still warm by day, but the nights are getting cooler. Erich grabs a hoodie out of the backseat; a little lidded plastic cup out of his cup holder. Both hands occupied, he bounds up the steps to Drew's porch and knocks with a couple kicks.

The porch light coming on makes him squint. She can see him through the catseye, if she's the cautious type: squinting at her, looking a little disgruntled by the wait. "Just me," he says, muffled through the door. "No rapists, murderers or monsters out here."

Drew Roscoe

The drive out to Drew's house, just on the outskirt's of town, wasn't a terrible one. The road to her house was a straight shot from town, no one would get lost winding down gravel roads that wrapped up into hills, like if you were hunting for a farm surrounded by hundreds of acres of fields and pastures, or if you were seeking a summer cabin on some old family's land. In fact, Drew's house wasn't even too far off the road. She had a good sized front yard, but it was small enough that it wouldn't be unreasonable for her to put a picket fence around it (not that she would ever need to). He would end up parking behind a big Dodge Ram truck, with a custom paint job of black cherry paint that sparkled just a little when the light hit it just so.

Drew's house was a one-story, not big enough to be a rambler but not small enough to be considered a cottage either. Her porch light was on, as was the lamp at the top of a tall post better suited for holding electrical lines, tucked away at the back of her short driveway, shining a dull yellow light across her property and casting harsh shadows on her front yard where the house blocked the light's path. The front window to the right of the door was lit up, but the blinds were drawn. She was certainly home.

The knock at the door was not met by a glance out a peephole (because there was none), but rather was answered within several seconds of the first knucklefall on the wooden door panel. Drew was dressed in an oversized green sweatshirt that dropped past her hip and slouched on her shoulder, a pair of black leggings, and slippers. Her hair was twisted in a knot under her left ear, and she had pulled the door open with one hand, but kept the other hand and associated arm tucked behind her back. Her gaze was suspicious and curious both at first, but immediately relaxed when she recognized Erich's face.

"Well, I believe you're not a rapist at least," she answered with a small grin and stepped back, pulling the door open with her and turning her shoulders to indicate an invitation for him to come inside out of the chill of the autumn night. "How'd ya find me?"

Erich Reinhardt

In the unfiltered, unforgiving light of that porch lamp Erich's bloodlines show all the more clearly. It's there in his heavy brow; deep eye orbits. It's there in the angle of his jaw; the solid structure of his face, his shoulders. His smile is a faint thing, though, a little bit thin at her quip. "Well, you got me there," he says.

Her question goes unanswered for a moment. He holds the cup out to her. He has a way of moving that marks him as an Ahroun: synergized, synchronized, every motion coming from the shoulders, from the spine, from the balance in his feet. It's not coffee he has in that cup after all, or a soda, or anything of the sort. It's a fish.

A tiny, colorful betta fish. Long graceful fins and gills that flare aggressively when it catches sight of Drew.

"Something to blow bubbles atcha," he explains. "You didn't really strike me as the goldfish kind."

He steps in off her porch then, turning his shoulders just enough that he didn't shove past her. With his hand free, he pulls his hoodie on after all, zipping it to his diaphragm. He looks around. Her solitude is almost palpable in the front room. It feels like a home in here; not a family home, though.

"Barman gave me your address," he adds.

Drew Roscoe

Before he'd stepped into the house, Erich held out a plastic cup for her to take, which she looked at, puzzled for a moment, then let go of the door to reach out to take the offering. She looked down into the cup, appearing puzzled, and looked even more so when she saw the little fish inside, all graceful flowing fins and multiple colors-- rich reds and blues and violets. She stared at it for a second, moving so her back held the door open instead, and glanced up at the Shadow Lord with an expression of perplexion.

Something to blow bubbles atcha, he explained.
She answered the explanation with a smile, small, but warm like a hot cup of tea on a wet cold night, and despite how it only shaped her mouth a little it still managed to exist on her entire face. That was the thing to her, you see. She was about always ready with a smile, and they were about always genuine, rich, and melting. Like a goddamn puppy, so sweet you either want to hold it or kick it.

"Well thanks," she said, and sure enough the smile carried into the tone of her voice too. Once he'd stepped inside, she closed the door behind him, but didn't bother to lock it. Locks were silly out this deep in the sticks. Out here if something wanted in, it wouldn't be detered by a deadbolt.

Inside the door Erich will find himself in the left corner of a living room, with a big brown leather sectional up against the wall to his right, under the window the light was shining from, and a modestly sized flat screen TV mounted in the center of the wall to his left. The floors are hardwood, the room has a vaulted ceiling, and there's a big plush brown rug in the middle of the floor with pale cream leaf-and-vine designs swirling through it. The walls are decorated sparsely with modest art, but there are no family pictures or faces to be found within the frames displayed. The sectional has a big square coffee table in front of it, and to the right of the door is a small table, likely intended for an entrance hallway to kill space.

It's to that small table that Drew goes, moving around in front of Erich and setting the beta fish down on the top of the table first, then opening the drawer up. By this point Drew's let her other hand fall from behind her back, and he'll find that she's casually holding a big .45 revolver. If he's attentive he'll realize her finger is not on the trigger and the safety is still on. The gun goes away into the table drawer.

"Barman did, huh? Well, good to know he's giving that away so readily." The words feel sarcastic, but she doesn't actually seem particularly bothered that Erich knows where she lives. Instead, she moved right along. "I was about to start up dinner, pork chops. I can make an extra if you wanna stick around and fill your belly?"

Erich Reinhardt

"You'll probably wanna put him in a bigger bowl eventually." She doesn't lock the door, but he does -- the quick flick of his fingers more reflex than considered. The deadbolt thunks home, and then he takes a couple more steps in. "Picked the meanest one at the pet shop," because of course he did. "Seems like he'd want a lot of territory to prowl."

Her house is single-story; there are no stairs to peer up, though he isn't too polite to glance curiously at the hall that leads, presumably, to her bedroom and bathroom and closets and such. His eyes come back to her in time to see her putting a gun away. That onesided smile is back on his mouth, the same brand of humor as her sarcasm.

"Well now I know why you just pulled that door right open," he says. "And if it makes you feel better, I asked real nice. Think he's only giving that information up to polite fellows."

She says she's about to start dinner. Pork chops. An extra, she says; it seems to imply she was going to just one, just enough for herself. Which makes sense. Still strikes him as an oddly telling thing to say, though. A kinder man might look away from her now, embarrassed for her sake. He doesn't. He doesn't see anything embarrassing about solitude.

"Came to see if you wanted that beer," he says by way of explanation. "But if you wanna take a raincheck and feed me instead, I won't say no."

Drew Roscoe

She chuckled a little bit and nodded, peering into the cup curiously at the little fish. "Of course. I've gotta get into town on Monday anyways, I've got a meeting. I'll swing by the pet store on the way back home." There's a pause, and she's rambling on for a moment, musing outloud and probably more for herself than anything else, but probably glad to have someone to talk to for a minute. "You've gone and solved my pet problem. I used to keep a dog, Basil, but he had a really hard time when you guys started coming around. So I figured I'd just go without. But a fish makes sense."

She concluded her rant about pets there, and glanced over at Erich when she caught a bit of humor in his voice. He's got a lopsided grin on his deceptively Nordic looking face and has commented on understanding now why she was so ready to open her door. She grinned a little and shrugged one shoulder instead of both. "Well, I suppose if you were nice about it," she said in response to his mentioning the barkeep.

From there he says he was going to invite her for beer. This she contemplates for a moment, then folds one arm over her stomach (flat under that chunky sweater, fit from a still-practiced athleticism) and lifts the other to wag a finger in the air lightly and thoughtfully. "Well, I've got some pumpkin ales in the fridge. We could do that along with dinner." There's a pause, and her finger wagging is now directed toward the now closed-and-locked door, courtesy of Erich deciding that doors should in fact be locked. "Or we could go out like was implied in the deal in the first place, and that way I get a ride in the Mustang you don't like me touchin'."

Erich Reinhardt

Erich's humor doesn't last very long. It seems a thin, wan thing. Might be the only thing about him that could be described in such terms. Standing in her doorway -- he never made it in past the first two or three steps, hasn't even taken his shoes off -- he nevertheless seems to fill half the room. Seethes in it, quietly, like a riptide under a calm ocean surface.

He's watching her as she grins, as she wags a finger, as she contemplates. Something about her mannerisms seems to puzzle him; leaves him frowning faintly at her. There's a warmth to her that goes down to the bone. No one can deny that. The girlishness seems to ride a little higher than that, though. It's not so consistent. It comes and it goes. Erich wouldn't go so far as to call it an act, but -- something about it feels just a little bit like a front to him. An interface. A way, and maybe the only way, she knows to interact with a world far bigger, meaner and more brutal than her. He doesn't play along, though; doesn't go right ahead and treat her like the cute little girl, the sweet little sister. Maybe he doesn't really know how.

"I got you the fish," he says abruptly, "'cause of what you said last time I saw you." A nod around: the living room, the walls devoid of family pictures. "Something about getting out of the house. No friends in town. Just the same walls and not even a fish to blow bubbles at you."

That hangs in the air; feels oddly like a confession. He's restless in the wake of it, twisting his head on his shoulders, popping his neck.

"I don't care if we stay or go. You decide."

Drew Roscoe

Erich suspects that Drew's mannerisms are-... well, not necessarily false or fake, but not one-hundred percent either. She is sweet and bubbly, warm and full of smiles. This, he's noticed, is a fairly good contrast to how she'd behaved when they'd met on the street and she was a bit defensive, perhaps even protective of her Tribe and its name. He theorizes that her smiles and sweetness are a defense, something that she does (maybe even without realizing it) to cope with a world made so much bigger than she would have ever dreamed five years ago.

He might be right.
But who knows?

He explains the reason he got her the fish with a surprising display of memory, recalling the words she'd used when she'd explained to him a couple of nights ago why she was hanging out alone at a bar. Not even a fish to blow bubbles. Her smile is a little more relaxed, thankful even, but the space of quiet between that comment and his pushing the decision-making onto her is a brief one. He tells her to decide, and so she does.

"Alright. Let's go out then. Just give me a minute." And with that said she disappears, not down a hallway but through a door on the right wall of the living room, just to the side of the sectional's edge, into the master bedroom. He's left alone with the beta-fish for perhaps three minutes, if even that, before she's back again, now with slouching ankle-tall boots in a mixed brown-gray tone with low heels. Her hair's been tied back a little more presentably, in a higher ponytail that left wavy half-curls falling to her shoulder blades, and mascara's been applied. That's about the sum of it-- the sweater and leggings stayed. She's got a brown jacket with her that she's pulling on as she returns to the living room, and her keys are in her hand.

"Let's be off, then," she says. And they are.