Lola Hawkes
The weekend has been a damp one, and
that's made Lola stay around the house rather than go out on patrols.
It was a cold damp, the kind that sank into your bones and whispered
promises of bronchitis and pneumonia into your lungs. Though Lola had
never been sick from damp before and doubted that this would be the time
to start, she still heeded Hector's request and stayed around the
house.
Saturday had been a good day, one of spending time together
and recharging. Hector had produced a pair of bright hex nuts and
declared them rings. They dusted off a flamenco guitar album that Lola
recommended because her dad would listen to it often and she liked the
sounds and sat about near the furnace with baby books because God damnit if we're not doing anything else today we're naming this poor child.
Sunday
came and Hector left that morning through a dense blanket of fog that
draped the land. The day was still damp and cold, so Lola opted to stay
around the house again. Sure, she went out into the shed to practice
with her knife and hand-to-hand. She would be spending more time
practicing with the bow and arrow, but there wasn't enough room in the
shed for that. She'd wait until the weather dried some more. She was
decent enough that she managed to kill a small buck the previous week
and drag it back home to drain and clean and butcher. There was now a
good amount of roughly but effectively cut meat in the deep freeze in
the shed.
It was now about mid-day and Lola was standing in the
living area, fists on her hips, looking at the twin walls of pictures
that carried faces of generations within them. It was tradition to
maintain the wall-- something her mother took particular pleasure in,
and something she figured Maria would be more responsible for than
herself. She was contemplating the fact that there were no pictures of
her and Hector up there when her otherwise quiet day was interrupted.
Sweet Caroline
Everyone
at Forgotten Questions knows by now that the only living daughter of
Knows the Whispering Ones and Javier Tirado still lives in the Homestead
at the edge of the Bawn. That she'd just as soon put buckshot in your
shin as invite you in for tea. That if she hasn't gotten more violent
since her pregnancy became public knowledge she at least hasn't gotten
any less violent.
She's also recognized for her battle prowess and
her bravery in combat. Probably because her mate made the mistake of
telling a story about her at the moot when he was supposed to be acting
as Talesinger. For belonging to the Uktena Hector has made it difficult
for Lola to maintain much in the way of privacy.
Nobody said loving a Galliard was easy. Neither is being Kinfolk. Or part of the Nation.
Anyway:
a knock. That's how these things always start. A knock on the door and a
cloaked figure stood on the porch in the midst of the frozen rain. A
tall slender freckle-faced Ragabash. Her skin tells of mixed-race
parents and her eyes are bright and mischievous.
It isn't a
laughing matter that's brought her to the Hawkes family's door this
afternoon but she always looks as if she's about to laugh. She can't
help it.
Lola Hawkes
The knock on the door came as
a surprise, but did not cause Lola to startle or worry immediately.
Her property was far displaced from the rest of society. She didn't get
salespeople coming to her door, and she wasn't an easy target for
crime. The only people who really knew she was out here were the Sept
and the DWR, but most of them were Kinfolk anyways.
This close to
the Bawn, it was unlikely that a Wyrm agent would brave to step out here
either. So, really, aside from a ruffling of feathers at the concept
of somebody coming to her territory unsummoned, Lola wasn't storming the
door with negativity. She didn't bother to peek to see who it was,
either-- simply pulled the door open inside and looked to see who stood
on her porch through the screen door.
"Sweet Caroline," Lola
announced, immediately recognizing the face for how long she's known it
and how unique it is. She's known the Ragabash long enough to know to
say the whole name to avoid a tail-circling conversation about its
relevancy or authenticity to her persona. Sweet Caroline used to pal
with Maria a little, but was better friends with Ivan (age difference
and all).
Lola didn't push the door to invite the woman in, not
just yet at least. She stood in a pair of slippers, dressed in leggings
and a figure-fitting T-shirt with gray and white horizontal stripes.
Over that, left open, was a comfortable gray cardigan. The world knew
of her pregnancy by now, and she was big enough that it was a hinderance
to actively try to cover up any longer anyways, so Lola was no longer
shy to detracting attention from her stomach. She stood with one hand
on a hip and the other hand braced in the doorway. Her hair was in a
ponytail gone a bit loose for lack of care.
"What can I do for ya?"
She'd see how long this conversation would take before inviting the wet Ragabash into her home.
Sweet Caroline
Though
the Ragabash looks pretty cold she is also just about humming with
anticipation and excitement and oh my god look at her little baby bump
she's getting so big it's like a goddamned hand magnet but everybody's
already heard about Hector beating the shit out of Milton because of how
that intel-gathering mission went last October she isn't going to be
the one to test and see if that shit-beating extends to people touching
Lola's stomach.
Besides. The screen door's in the way. Lola isn't
stepping out yet. Sweet Caroline beams at her anyway and wrestles one
arm out of its knapsack strap. Whatever she's carrying with her has to
be sodden by now.
"Hey, Miss Hawkes," she says. "I'm real sorry to
bother you, but this isn't something I can take to the Sept, you know?
Everybody's even more stick-up-the-ass about utilization of resources and oh we can't spare the bodies than usual but this is important. You got a minute?"
Lola Hawkes
For
the fact that Lola suffered a severe lack of social skills, she seemed
to be genuine enough a personality that she managed to forge alliances
despite it. Typically, it had to be with people who were patient enough
to forgive her tempers, or charmed enough by them not to care. Sweet
Caroline had always regarded Lola with a distant air of fascination.
She'd made a point of being careful with Lola's ego time and time again,
particularly when she'd been hanging around with Ivan on a more
electric and intimate basis and the Ragabash and Kinfolk were seeing
more of each other. Lola appreciated that the woman made a point to be
nice, so she regarded the freckle-faced New Moon to be simply 'my older
sister's nice friend'.
When asked if she had a minute, Lola did
not hesitate to push open the storm door and step back to allow Sweet
Caroline inside. She'd gesture to the hooks on the wall for coats to be
hung on, and retreat into the kitchen. Body language invited the
Ragabash to sit where she liked, but if she wanted a conversation that
would probably be at the kitchen counter.
While Lola busied
herself with putting hot water on the stove (because the cold and the
wet combined were far worse than any dry cold, Lola knew on a basic
survivor level), she asked:
"Well alright. You've got my
attention." The way her eyes had lighted when Sweet Caroline explained
herself were evidence enough-- she did have the Kinfolk's attention. "What's going on?"
Sweet Caroline
The door opens and Sweet Caroline about melts with the stoic act of kindness.
"Oh my god, thank you so much. It's freezing out here."
Once
inside the Ragabash doesn't peel out of her boots but she does drop her
knapsack to the floor and start undoing the buttons on her overcoat.
She knocks back the hood. There was a time when the young woman would
keep her kinky orange-red hair tied underneath a handkerchief but she
doesn't make the effort unless she knows she has to interact with people
who are primed to form a first impression about her. Lola already knows
who she is. Her hair springs out from underneath the hood and she does
nothing to try and contain it.
"You're probably going to laugh,
but I'm still worried. It's my grandparents. You know they live in the
area." A beat as she turns around. "Sort of. They're pretty far out in
the sticks. I asked my buddy Redbone, you know Redbone, since he was
coming back from Wyoming anyway if he wouldn't mind dropping in on my
grandparents, I hadn't heard from them in a while--"
She drops into a crouch and starts to rifle through her knapsack.
"He came back with this... shoot, where is it..."
Lola Hawkes
"Don't
mention it," is Lola's similarly stoic dismissal of the thanks. Lola
was a territorial creature. Around the Sept it was common knowledge
that you risked being shot if you crept up on her property the wrong
way. She protected the Bawn and her lands with a fire in her breast and
her weapon as well. But along with being territorial, this made her
proud of her land and her home within it. That made it a point for Lola
to offer hospitality. She might not have snacks and meals at the
ready, but she would offer hot drink to cold travelers who came
through. She carried the heavy duty thermos of grog when patroling for a
reason.
While the Ragabash crouched and told her story and
searched for something to show, Lola was getting down two mugs and a
pair of green mint tea packets. Up until the point that it was made
evident there was tangible evidence to share with this story Lola hadn't
paid the Ragabash much mind on a visual level. She knew the woman
would respect her property, so she busied herself readying things for
easy tea pouring.
When the rifling about began, though, Lola's
interest was snagged and she looked back over to the mop of vibrantly
red hair and the bag it hovered over. Her hands went into the pockets
of her cardigan, for comfort's sake, and she wandered closer to see.
"...Were your grandparents not there?"
Sweet Caroline
"They weren't."
Sweet
Caroline finds what she was looking for and yanks it free with a
plastic-crinkling flourish. She crosses the distance between them. She
has to in order to hand Lola the plastic freezer bag responsible for
keeping a postmarked piece of correspondence dry. Envelopes are not
waterproof. Everyone knows that.
"Have you ever met my grandparents? I love 'em, but holy moly, they're--"
She's
about to describe people who belong to the same social stratosphere as
her host. She cuts herself off before she can say anything inflammatory
in the woman's house.
"--theeeey get cabin fever real easy. When
they were younger they were always going someplace and having some kind
of wild-ass adventure, you know, fighting Pentex and all that good
stuff, and that was totally great and all, but Ma was hoping they'd
settle down once they started having to take calcium supplements. Right
before she died she said to me, she was like, 'Now, Carrie, you keep an
eye on your grandparents, you know they don't want to settle down' and I
was like 'Okay Ma' and then, you know."
Sweet Caroline's mother
died of brain cancer not too long ago. The stories make it sound like
that's why she left New York where she was born. Her mother was from
Colorado. A few people knew who her mother was when she arrived not too
long ago but those people have dwindled even more with the ages. Her
grandparents are about the only Kin she has left.
"Anyway Redbone
said he found this on the kitchen table. You can read it. I was hoping
you could do me a solid and look into it. I'm sure they'll be back
pretty soon. It's probably not that big of a deal. It's just... argh, you know? Just stay home and be old!"
Lola Hawkes
The
wet freezer bag was caught with a snatching motion, snagged from the
air like a slow cobra strike. Lola was fast and capable, but not
impressively fast. Not like Hector was. Where Lola could take a hit
and break someone's fist on her jaw without blinking, Hector in turn
could land the first hit almost every time. They were impressive in
their own different ways.
Anyways. Lola nodded along with the
story, either not noticing or neverminding the tip-toe around
potentially touchy topics of conversation, and opened the bag to find
the envelope inside.
She had started walking back into the
kitchen, and abandoned the freezer bag on one corner of the counter.
The teapot-- a modest little copper bottomed thing that was dinged up
but reliable-- wasn't whistling just yet, but steam was beginning to
pour from the spout. It'd be ready to pour soon, and she was hovering
nearby in anticipation.
In the meantime, she didn't answer
anything that Sweet Caroline had said. Not verbally, anyways. She just
flicked her eyes over to the Ragabash, made a moment of eye contact to
confirm that yes, she was still paying attention and had heard what
she'd said, before she turned her eyes down to the paper within the
envelope.
Sweet Caroline
If the Ragabash continues rambling on
while Lola is reading the contents of the envelope she has learned by
now to tune out pointless conversation. She has already admitted to
knowing little about her grandparents' fate and asking for help in
showing up at the Homestead unannounced. But Sweet Caroline does not
ramble on while Lola reads. She just stands on the threshold between the
great room and the kitchen.
This is her first time inside the
cabin since Hornet's Nest passed. She and the Uktena trickster were not
exactly best friends forever but Maria never was shy about inviting the
townies over when they were having a bonfire. The more the merrier.
The
outside of the envelope was postmarked 19 January 2014 in Maybell,
Colorado, and addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Seamus Lane. The stationary on
the inside is adorned with flowers and written in spidery uncertain
handwriting.
Dearest Jim and Agnes,
I hope this
letter finds you well. I'm terribly sorry to have heard of Honora's
passing. Were not for the circumstances of her death I would never even
think of asking you two to come out of retirement, so to speak, but I
believe this matter is one that we can use your expertise in resolving.
The
nature of the problem is sensitive, as you can imagine, and I am
reluctant to disclose too many details through the human post. My phone
number has not changed, nor has my address.
May Gaia bless you and keep you.
Sincerely,
And
she will find deciphering the signature difficult. The return address
belongs to a P.D. Killough of Maybell, Colorado. So maybe it's a Peter,
or a Patty.
"Do you think you can help?" asks Sweet Caroline. Her expression is dubious and contrite and anxious at once.
Lola Hawkes
Whatever
the Fianna Ragabash might have been saying, Lola didn't hear it. She
wasn't the kind of person that was able to split her attention between
what she was reading and what she was hearing while retaining
information from and following the threads of thought of both mediums.
So she held the letter with her left hand while taking the now-whistling
kettle from the burner and pouring it over the teabags in both mugs.
The mugs themselves mismatched and borderline eccentric: one a vivid
orange and crafted from baked clay, the other black with turquoise
designs on the inside.
When she finished reading, the letter was
tucked back into the envelope, the envelope abandoned near the bag it
had been transported in. She offered the black-and-turquoise mug to the
woman, kept the orange to herself, and allowed time for the tea to
steep.
In the meantime, she considered the return address written on the envelope and had to think to remember where Maybell is.
"Isn't that out near White turf?"
Sweet Caroline
The
Ragabash accepts the mug with a murmur of gratitude but does not
immediately start to quaff it down. Steam still rises from the surface
of the steeping tea. It warms her cold-reddened hands while Lola thinks.
"What,
the ranch?" she asks. Like there are so many Whites floating around
that a Garou of Caroline's lineage ought to have to worry about. "I
thought they were in Fort Collins. My grandparents and them are
practically neighbors. Maybell... I don't know where that is."
When
someone gets around to checking a map they will see that Fort Collins
is about fifty miles north of Denver and Maybell is more than two
hundred miles west.
Lola Hawkes
To be fair, Lola
was the kind of person who stuck to her turf. She knew Roxborough like
the back of her hand, but her concept of the world on a geography
stand-point only went so far. She was a smart woman, but her attention
in school was selective at best, let's remember that. She thought she
was going to grow up to murder bad guys.
In a way, she still kind of did. She was happy with it.
So
Sweet Caroline explained that Lola was confused, and the
would-have-been Ahroun accepted the correction with a single-shouldered
shrug and a nod of acceptance and moved on from there. She plucked up
the tea bag's tag between her fingers, with nails cut short and clean,
and dunked the bag a couple of times to mix the contents up.
"Yeah, I'll check it out. I've got nothing else going on today, anyways."
Sweet Caroline
"Oh my gosh. Thank you so much."
Between
the effusiveness of her tone and the lifting of a weight from the young
woman's shoulders Lola can almost expect she's about to rush around the
island to throw her arms around her. But Sweet Caroline does not
violate her personal space like that. Friends with her sister or not she
doesn't know Lola all that well.
Lola can hear it in her tone
though. The rush of relief that comes into the Ragabash's voice is
nearly enough to have her staggering.
"They used to do things like
this all the time. Cinder-Song had to have heard some stories. She's
packed with Echoes of the Lost, isn't she? Yeah, stories, man.
Back before they had my mom and my aunt they were like, Fomori-killing
machines. You should see their gun room. Yeah. My granddad's got a room
that's pretty much just all guns. They're locked up and everything,
but..."
Sweet Caroline clears her throat and mimics Lola's dunk-dunk-dunking of the bag.
"If
this is the buddy of Granddad's who I think it is, the dude's got a few
screws loose. It could be nothing. Or he could've found something and
now they're off trying to deal with it themselves and somebody broke a
hip or something. I don't know. It's just a real far drive and we all
pretty much suck at talking to people, you know? Even Kinfolk. So. Yeah.
I really appreciate it, Miss Hawkes. I owe you a big ole favor."
Lola Hawkes
For
a second there, just a brief flash of time, Lola braced herself as
though she sincerely thought the Ragabash was going to come throw arms
around her. She didn't look like she would have fought her off, hands
didn't curl into fists or anything, but she did ground herself on the
floor just a little heavier and square her shoulders up some. When no
such approach happened the Kinswoman relaxed and left her tea alone,
settling for simply warming her fingers on the sides of her mug.
"Well,
when I'm an old bitch pulling stupid stunts like that, I'd probably
appreciate someone looking out for me too. Whether I said so or not."
Her
eyes flickered toward the clock that hung on the wall over the dining
room table. It was thirty minutes past the noon hour. She could get
there by early evening if she left promptly. She looked down at her
mug, then nodded her head to indicate that the Ragabash should take a
seat.
"I've gotta go change before I leave. You sit, though.
We'll stick around long enough to at least drink this fuckin' tea since I
made it and everything."
And, with that, Lola would retreat back into the hallway and to her bedroom to do as she had said.
No comments:
Post a Comment