smartbar.

Danicka Vedernikov

The name of the club is smartbar, and it's as good as any.

The sun is down, the night is cold, and the town is lit up in every color though from the sky it only looks orange and gold. The crowd has swelled as the hours have ticked by, though it is still not at maximum capacity. The music is loud and the bass just THUMPS through the floor and up one's bones. There are low white couches and swaths of cool-colored lights painting everything.

--

She is still waking up just before dawn every morning, or -- these days, the sunrise coming so late in the morning -- quite a bit before dawn. She still needs to wake early, slipping from bed, ever-quiet by habit even when he isn't there, and she cleans. She prepares breakfast. She takes care of their new home, still unpacking and organizing and discarding the paper wrapping around all those glass and crystal and stoneware gifts.

It is a Saturday night, and he did not come home. At least there was a phone call. She asked if it was all right if she went out tonight and he seemed unnerved and dismayed by how tentatively she asked. She's so delicate. She's so... strangely fragile. Of course she has his permission to go out, he said. After all, she should make friends. She should know her way around the city. He knows some would disagree with his handling of his mate, but she is his mate. His.

And he is high enough in rank that he doesn't have to care what they think. About how he could have gotten better.

--

As it is, she is a little tired here tonight, and she is making many friends. She has made many friends, at least, wandering through the club, which is rather a poor way to spend an evening; it isn't really meant to be a solitary activity, and everyone has their groups already. She is getting hit on. Frequently. Not many of the men seem swayed enough by the flash of the eye-popping diamond on her left hand. Well into the night, she is not dancing anymore but sitting on a couch with her drink, hoping this one is the one that makes her start having some fun.

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

They call themselves the Unbroken Circle. They are a pack eight strong, all of them young and beautiful and fierce-eyed and charismatic.

They arrived together, because that's how they roll. Not the entire pack, no, but even half the pack is a sight to behold. Three or four of them climbed out of their ostensible Alpha's flashy, expensive car. Another one joined a little later, hopping out of a cab, drawn by the proximity of his packmates; showing up to be greeted by shouts, by clasped hands, clapped backs. They took up an entire corner of the club all by themselves, sprawling on one of the precious few couches in here, dominating it with their presence, their fierce beauty, the loud laughter ricocheting through their proximity, the banter flying between the lanky black boy and the solid-shouldered blond boy that bookend them.

They are very young and they are savagely alive and they are ever so sure of themselves and their decisions and their intelligence and savvy and ability to change the course of the war. They think they know everything and they think they'll live forever and they think they own the world. They don't even recognize their own arrogance, and tonight,

tonight they owned this club.

--

Owned. Past tense. Because now the hour has grown late; those here to see and be seen have drifted off in gaggles or pairs or by themselves. The dance floor has thinned out a little. Most of the groups have disintegrated. The bass has deepened, the DJ's spinning something hard and driving and hypnotic now, and out in that bass pocket resonating between those massive tower-speakers and beneath those hot-flaring lights, dancers are moving in rhythm, one song to the next, bare shoulders and stomping feet, slaves to the beat.

One of the Circle still remains. One of its two Full Moons; the darker of the pair. Quieter than his brothers and sisters. More implacable. He didn't smile much, and he didn't drink much through the night. His eyes were alert and watchful, guarded, until the very last of his pack was safely home.

Now it's just him. Now he's off duty. And he is coming back from the bar, and there is an electric-blue drink in his hand: the first hard alcohol of the night. It is nearly three in the morning when he comes

to where the blonde woman with the diamond ring is sitting

and lowers himself to the couch beside her without a word. Without a glance. The space around him is electric: a crackling aura encased in stillness. He relaxes, all heavy muscles and long bones, and a moment or two goes by before he turns to her.

"I'm Lukas," the Czech pronunciation, there, "and we share Thunder's blood, you and I."

Danicka Vedernikov

The blonde woman with the diamond ring is younger than she looks. She could be in her mid-twenties. She could be in her early thirties. There are subtle lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, hints of wrinkles that may one day dominate her face. Living can be hard on those who do not slip their flesh and exhalt in their rage, those who live near that shapechanging and fury all the same. It can take a lot out of you. Energy. Time. Youth. Innocence.

Earlier she noticed the pack. Not their nature, but their brashness, their charisma, the way she wanted to be anywhere but over there. None of them had faces to her, just shapes in the darkness, occasionally drenched in colored lights. She noticed, and she moved away, but she did not leave. She did not ask herself questions she did not want to know the answers to.

Now she is sitting, leaning back, and her drink is clear as glass but not carbonated, not sharing a slice of lime. She is dressed in a loose blue top that wraps around her throat and drapes from there, and the sides are dangerously low and the fabric is dangerously soft and even when it flows it sometimes tries to cling. It must be thin. She must not be wearing much, if anything, underneath it. Her leggings are black, with thin stripes of silver down each side. Her heels bring her up to just about 5'9". Her hair is long and loose, her nails manicured but bearing only a clear gloss. Her diamond sparkles as she lifts her glass to her mouth and

pauses, mid-sip, when something approaches.

At first he is just a flash of grey and blue, dark hair and height, but then there is something ice-cold crawling up her spine. She doesn't shiver, but she is not relaxed. She is not bored anymore, either. She feels her chest rise and fall with breath that is not elevated by dancing, feels her spine wanting to straighten out, but she tries to relax. She tries.

--

Danicka looks at him over the rim of that glass, and though they are roughly the same age she thinks he looks young and she thinks she should go home because it will be dawn soon. She took a nap this afternoon but even so he will wonder, if he is home at three or four or five and she is not in his bed, if he is home at six or seven or eight and she is not in his den. He will look for her.

She doesn't want that.

A flash of terror snaps through her when he sits, but it doesn't reach her eyes. She merely observes him, then looks away, never having made eye contact, quite content to just ignore him unless, until, he gets the picture, like many before him.

Lookasch, he says, and tells her what they are.

Danicka turns her head around again, slowly, her hair slipping over her bare shoulder, until she looks at him. Not his eyes. The corner of his mouth or his lower eyelashes or the apple of his cheek but not his eyes. Not directly. So close though that for a second it seems like she is. But eye contact is not something you can fake. Refusing it is not something you can cover over, either. Perhaps she means it as respect.

Her eyes are green. Even in this light he can tell their color, even when her pupils are so blown out that her irises are only a thin band around black.

"Dani ka," she says back, only as loud as necessary, as she offers him her hand. "It's a pleasure." Then, a beat of hesitation before she adds, with a tone that is almost wistful, almost hopeful: "Mluvíte esky?"

Danicka Vedernikov

[UGH FUCKING JOVE WHY YOU SO RACIST?]

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

His drink is in the wrong hand, so he transfers it. The motion is smooth. He is not drunk at all, not the slightest bit, and on the return his hand extends; his fingers take hers. The warmth of her hand surprises him. Somehow, he thought she would be cool to the touch. Cold. Just look at her: blonde, thin, her crossed legs, her eyes that never meet his.

Then she asks him a question. The corners of his mouth move, a tiny little betrayal of a smile. That was not planned. That was not scripted. It's gone a moment later.

"Ano," he tells her. There is something solemn about him, dark and serious. "Mám. My parents are Czech. I was born in Prague." A beat. He releases her hand. His drink shifts back; he tosses it back, does this smoothly enough that it must be practiced. The lights shift, catch his face. Broad brow, high cheekbones, proud nose. Such pale, crystalline eyes. Shadow Lord to the bone. He glances around, over her shoulder, back to her.

"Are you here by yourself?"

Danicka Vedernikov

[WHY ARE YOU SMILING ARE YOU GOING TO EAT ME]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Danicka Vedernikov

[3 suxx! screw you, 1s!]

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas is speaking to her because she is kin to his Tribe and he feels somewhat honor-bound to introduce himself and to keep watch over her. He is making an effort to be controlled, guarded and measured, and to think before he speaks, but this is so typical for him that it is nearly reflex at this point. Discovering that she is also Czech made him happy, though, in a very uncomplicated and instinctive way. It's just a moment of: yay, you are like me! Somewhere beneath that, a little harder to discern, is an interest in her that goes somewhat beyond just the fact that she is kin to his Tribe and, apparently, a fellow Czech.]

Danicka Vedernikov

Thin. She is, at that. She looks lean, but not with athleticism or muscle. There is something fragile to the way she looks, the way her hand feels just a bit distant even when they touch. Her eyes notice that smile but skate past it, seemingly ignoring it. She goes ahead and takes that stalled sip of her drink.

Unlike her current company, she did not spend all night abstaining from alcohol. So it is perhaps with that rash courage, that foolishness, that instead of blushing and ducking her eyes and apologizing to him for being unescorted and unprotected at this hour, she flicks her eyes to his and allows the faintest smirk to curve the corner of her mouth.

"Are you trying to proposition me?"

Danicka Vedernikov

[wait, wait: "You didn't just proposition me, did you?"

Danicka Vedernikov

[otay we stick with original! lol]

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

Something flickers through Lukas's eyes. Just for an instant. Then he turns away; displeased, perhaps. He raises that glass again and finds it empty; leans forward to set it quite decisively on the low table before them. Click.

"No, Danicka," he says, "I was trying to determine if I should offer to escort you safely home." A beat. "Should I?"

Danicka Vedernikov

She does not, can not, miss that flicker of displeasure. She miscalculated. Danicka is quite still: not frozen, not breathless, not rigid, but as motionless as the surface of a pool on a windless night. She watches him, the line of his profile and the angle of his shoulders, the expression of his hands, and determines that it is unlikely he is going to break her wrist or bruise her shoulder or even move towards her right now.

That doesn't mean it won't happen. They move so fast. She knows this.

Quietly, demurely now, she sips her drink, eyes downward. "I don't want to be an inconvenience," she says. "I can take the train."

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

"The train," he repeats on the back of an exhaled rush that may have been some breed of laughter.

Then he stands. He stands, and he is suddenly looming several feet over her; would tower some seven inches over her even were she to stand in her heels. He has not told her his Auspice, but perhaps between the rage that mantles him and the strength that abides in him, she has some guess.

"I'll drive you home," he says. A raised eyebrow and a gesture of his hand door-ward: "Whenever you're ready."

Danicka Vedernikov

Oh, she has no illusions about his auspice. She has known something like that before, and things worse. Danicka does not look up at him immediately as he rises, this young Ahroun of her tribe who has decided for her that it is time to leave, that she will be leaving with him, that her night out is over. She has a strange, distant look in her eyes, before they lift up to, very briefly, meet his.

"I am not ready," she says quietly, and halfway through the words her eyes do skim away from his. "I am not sure Stepan would like a stranger taking me home."

She sips her vodka. For that is what it is. Of course.

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

A strange, unfamiliar sensation scintillates through Lukas. He couldn't trace the root of it if he tried. For some time he stands there, and she sits there, and he is looking at her and she is not looking at him and --

the world moves around them. The bass throbs, the lights flare, dancers go onto the floor and off.

Then Lukas sits again. He controls his body as he controls his voice, his emotion, his thought; the motion of his body is eloquent and efficient. For a second or two he toys with that empty glass. Then he leans back beside this woman, this kinswoman of his Tribe, who seems so distant and fragile. Her question flickers back to his mind. Are you trying to proposition me? He wonders if she would have agreed to leave if he'd said yes. Then he puts it aside.

"Stepan," he is repeating her again. His eyes skim to that prominent ring on her finger. "Your husband? Or your mate?"

Danicka Vedernikov

There are inches between them. It could be a foot or more; she feels like it is too close. Skin-crawlingly too close. She does not look at him now, but something in her unwinds a bit. There is a tiny flicker of triumph that she does not nurture: she is not ready to go and he is not making her go. But he is not leaving, either. And she is not telling him to.

Danicka cannot help but look at him, quickly, when he asks that question. "Or?" she asks.

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

Lukas's mouth twists a little -- "I'm trying to ask if the man who put that ring on your finger is Garou."

Danicka Vedernikov

She looks at her vodka, not seeing that twist of his mouth but hearing it in his voice.

"His name is Stone Crow," she says quietly. Her brow furrows together. "That's what he is most often called, at least. I think it's a shortened version of many names, though. He has a few."

She drinks.

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

There is a silence. Lukas isn't sure what to say to that. He has heard of Stone Crow, but he does not know the man. He knows his rank. He has some vague idea of what he has done. He has no stories to share, though, and no praise to offer. It occurs to him to ask her why she's out alone, clubbing. It occurs to him to ask why she'd asked him if he was propositioning her; what sort of tasteless joke that was meant to be. They seem like petty, vengeful questions, though.

At length: "I doubt Stone Crow-rhya would protest if a tribesman escorted his mate home. Particularly when her other option is the Red Line at this hour."

Danicka Vedernikov

Danicka is silent a moment. Then, and with an undercurrent of... something else entirely.

"He has not invited you to his home, or given you its location himself," she says quietly. "I do not mean to imply that you lack honor, only that I don't know you and it is not... acceptable for me to be so cavalier about my husband's territory."

She exhales slowly. Her hand is not shaking but it wants to. She sips again, and this time there is nothing left after she drinks.

"If you will tell me your name," and she must mean his other name, his name among their people, "I will tell him that you offered."

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[EMPAFEE :D]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 9) ( success x 1 )

Danicka Vedernikov

[Strength! And a certain protectiveness, presumably of her mate's territory as she says (or herself, if she doesn't want to get in trouble). Either way it's not just NO LEEV ME ALONE WEERDO]

Lukas Wyrmbreaker

He is looking at her again, his eyes keen on her face, gleaning what little he can from those eyes that will not meet his. Those lips that never speak loudly enough for him to hear without straining. Not here, anyway, in this chaotic void of noise and basslines.

"You can tell him Wyrmbreaker offered to see his mate safely home," he tells her. "Cliath Full-Moon of the Unbroken Circle, and of the Shadow Lords."

Another beat. Then, rather abruptly, the Ahroun stands again. He picks his emptied glass up, and he faces her, and there's a moment where he might say something more. His head tilts; he frowns a little.

"Goodnight, Danicka." This is what he settles on in the end. "Be careful on the train."

Danicka Vedernikov

How tidily he chooses those words. How clear he wants it made that he was offering to see her safely home. He keeps saying that. She could look him in the eye this time, try to understand that frown, that look, what else he might say, but

she does not want to ask questions that she doesn't want the answers to.

"Thank you, Lukas," she tells him. "Have a good night."

She watches him leave, when he does. She... watches him leave, and goes to down the rest of her vodka, but it's gone, and has been gone, and she curses that truth like so many other truths. She waits until some of the tension leaves her spine before she gets up to go get her coat from the check, hoping she's missed him, hoping he's gone far, far away

before she goes home. To that little place she is trying to turn into a home.