"Hey! KL! Quit the Steve McQueen impression and come let me in!"

Greek House: Common Area(#2409RAJh$)
This is the central hub of the house. From here, you can still see the entrance foyer, as well as the stairway that heads to the second story. Towards the back of the common area is a set of glass doors that lead out to a courtyard. To the east, an arched doorway leads to what apparently serves as a library, office, and workroom, and to the west, an arched doorway leads to what appears to be a kitchen and dining area..
There are several chairs here, simple, elegant, yet functional in their design and intent. The room has a comfortable feel to it, but is a bit ascetic in design. The walls are off-white, the molding dark cherry wood and decorated with acanthus-leaf ornamentation at the corners. A pair of antique spears are hung crossed against each other on one wall, and a wall-relief depicting a scene of Grecian warriors hangs on the other. Above the mantle of the fireplace is a small statue of Artemis, on either side of that, dark metal candlesticks with ivory pillar candles. The entire room is a study in the contrast of light and dark.

This afternoon finds KL slumped on a seat, in the main room of the Fury house, facing a wall. On her left hand is a worn, battered, brown leather baseball glove. In her right is an equally worn rubber ball. Bounce, thump, catch. She throws the ball at the floor, making it rebound off the wall back to her waiting mitt. Rinse, repeat. Over and over. The sound of bounce-thump-catch is clearly audible through the front door.

Some people knock on the door when they want entry to a house. Others, it seems, possibly attracted to the window by the odd rhythmic noise from inside tap on it and shout through the open pane at the top. "Hey! KL! Quit the Steve McQueen impression and come let me in!" Kevin would appear to be one of the latter.

KL starts out of her reverie, and misses the catch, causing the ball to take her full on the face. Good job it's not travelling very fast. She bounds to her feet and opens the door. "Heya trouble," she says, managing a fairly warm smile. "What brings you out here?"

"Two reasons," Kevin says. "Well, three... One is it's always good to see you. The second is, it's less than a week now to the biggest fight of my life..." He looks rather pensive at the prospect, and doesn't go on to elaborate on the third reason.

"It is?" KL says, stepping back from the door to allow the Glasswalker entry. "Biggest fight? The Tire Fire?" She studies her fingers carefully. "And I only count two reasons. And although I'm fucking crap at Math, I don't think that equals three."

Kevin nods. "And as you doubtless know, for my many and manifold sins, I get to draw the fire. 'Fire' here being literal. But hell, I'm a garou, if I get turned to burnt toast, Gaia will gather my soul in and have me reborn someday." He shrugs, as though this knowledge doesn't go far towards consoling him. "Oh, the third reason. I saw Jacinta yesterday."

"Oh?" The Fury replies, throwing herself back onto her seat facing the wrong way. She gestures at a chair. "What did she want with a wyrmcomer?" She pauses. "I'll be there. The tire fire."

Kevin evidently draws much more consolation from that fact than he did his theological statement a moment ago. "No kidding? Oh, awesome. I'll look forward to it more if you're there. Jacinta-rhya asked me for something," he goes on, "something I no longer possess, because I judged myself no longer worthy to care for it, and gave it you."

KL looks confused. "You did?" She furrows her brow and wrinkles her nose up thoughtfully. "Hmm. Not sure I remember. What was it?"

"I used to wear it round my neck," Kevin prompts the ahroun. "The fetish which I gave you before I made my... abortive attempt to quit the Sept."

"Oh yeah. That." KL says, offhandedly. "What did I do with it?" She bites her bottom lip. "If you were me, where would you have put it?"

Kevin seems rather taken aback at KL's nonchalant forgetfulness. "You don't carry it round, KL?"

"Well, I was. I think I took a shower." She ponders. "That was a week ago. Hmm." She rubs her chin and screws up her eyes. "Maybe it's with my towel?"

"That thing never used to leave my body!" Kevin recalls, still clearly shocked. "You know... it shows you the Wyrm... the Wyrm that can come from any direction at any time? Sheesh." He shrugs. "Well, I guess if you value it so little, you won't mind letting Jacinta snag it."

KL's composure wavers, and she disappears in a fit of giggles. "You used to be so much easier to wind up, you know. Now all I can get is a "sheesh"." She says, between mirthful chortles. She reaches into a pocket and pulls it out. "What does she need it for?"

Kevin looks into space as he tries to recall. "She didn't say exactly, I don't think," he replies, "except I think it was something to do with the Guardians? And yeah, KL. Life's too short to get in a tizzy. My life especially."

The Fury sobers up, very quickly. "Getting in a tizzy is what I do best," she says, pointedly. "But Kevin. Don't give up. Surviving insurmountable odds. Pulling victories out from where defeat seems inevitable. It's what we do. We're the heroes, remember."

Kevin gives a half-smile. "Someone's gonna die this weekend. I just know it. Could be either of us, or Basil... or someone else. But no way are we coming out of this one unscathed. Oh, sure I think we'll kick its ass too, which I guess is all that counts... but I don't want to die, or lose friends."

"If someone dies, they die," KL says, with a little grimace. "But we gotta do what we gotta do. And... don't ever think that it's your time. Go kicking and screaming and die hard. Like..." She looks very sad, staring at the floor. "You know."

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light?" Kevin quotes, his inflection rising to turn the line of poetry into a query.

"Yeah, that sums it up quite nicely. Or possibly 'beat the crap out of anything that moves until it or we don't anymore." KL looks puzzled. "That didn't come out quite right. You get the point, though."

Kevin smacks one fist into his other palm gently. "Sure I get it," he says. "And they'll get our points. And my totem's. Wait till you see what Patches has up his raccoony sleeve. You'll puke, KL, it's so awesome."

KL looks interested. "I'll puke? I've not done that for ages. Not since the... well, there was lots of drink and the world went a bit spinny." She grins. "I just hit the thing I'm pointed at, but it would be nice to know the plan."

"Figure of speech," assures Kevin. "So... you gonna pony up to Jacinta, or do you want to give her the third degree first about what she wants the Wyrm's Tooth for?"

"Well, I assume it's a good reason," KL says. "I'll take it out to her. Any idea where I'm likely to find her? And any idea how urgent it is?"

"Guardian," Kevin says laconically, "hence bawn. And since this is Jacinta-rhya, it's as important as she decides it is at whatever moment you ask her. I don't think she's in a good temper at present. Some new guy from the Bone Gnawers stood up to her majesty."

KL nods. "I'll get it out to her as soon as I can. Unless you want to take it back?" She looks intently at the Glasswalker ragabash, leaning forward on her chair, eyebrows raised.

Kevin smiles slyly. "You know," he says in a sort of dreamy voice, the sort that hints that its user is working on a mental level of 'what if'. "If you were to give it me back now. And I were then to go back to Jacinta and tell her that you were no longer in possession of it. It would drive her completely nuts. And I wouldn't have had to tell a word of a lie." He sighs. "But that would be naughty of me, and more unforgivably, detrimental to the Sept."

The Fury continues to study Kevin, before nodding slowly. "Yes. And I'd get in a world of shit." She smiles. "So, yeah. One of us will have to beard the dragon in her lair. Or something. Shall I?"

"We could go together and lend each other moral support," Kevin suggests. "Give us time to catch up with each other s'more. Y'know I can't tell you how good it is," he adds, "to hear you sounding the way you ought again."

KL screws her mouth up. "Some days are better than others," she admits. "I'm still... upset." She looks sad, again. "I just wish... she didn't tell it all, Kevin. She was more interested in whether I'd done it deliberately." This last word is almost spat. "Not what I did when I found out. I deserved to be punished, because I screwed up. But I thought... I thought I had some more credit than that. And I thought I deserved to have the whole story told, rather than just the bad bit."

Kevin looks at KL with a long slow look. "Tell me," he invites her. "You know me. I'm not one to condemn you lightly. I know you too well."

"Alesia wanted to go to the caern. She was...troubled...and I thought it would calm her down. I assumed that someone else had her checked out, when she was at the farm. Thought it would be normal procedure. I should have checked, and I should have asked," she shrugs. "But I didn't. Anyway, remember that I had a row with Gunnar, and I fought him? And lost. And I crawled back her, and Laura was here, and she patched me up. And she'd checked out Alesia while I'd been gone, and told me. And I turned and ran for the door, still bleeding everywhere, and I sprinted and sprinted for the caern, howling for a Guardian. And Circle Keeper came and I told him everything." This all came in a rush. "I tried to make it right as soon as I could. Didn't hide it or anything. And I got smashed into next week. And nobody stood up and said "we screwed up too"". She looks thoroughly miserable at this. "I really did screw up, Kevin. I've never denied it. Told the whole truth the whole time."

Kevin winces at the mention of the fight with Gunnar. "That was my fault," he murmurs sotto voce as KL continues the story. When the ahroun finishes, he looks a mix of contrite and sympathetic. "I guess it's like nodding off at the wheel. Almost always you wake up again and you're fine. One time in a thousand you run into something. One time in a million, you drive onto a railway in the path of an oncoming train and wreck it and kill dozens of people..."

KL nods. "And I was lucky it was the middle option. I bumped something, rather than killed everything." She shrugs. "But it falls down, because I wasn't the only driver, if you know what I mean."

"Have you spoken to the other drivers since?" Kevin enquires.

"No," KL says. "I haven't seen them. Or looked for them." She shrugs. "Some of it is no longer relevant. One of the drivers has lost her licence, or something." She looks a bit confused. "I think I'm losing the thread of this."

The metaphor drops to the floor and expires. Kevin looks down as though watching its death throes. "Well," he consoles KL in a Job's comfortorish way, "you didn't come off the rails as badly as I did."

KL nods. "Kevin. Do you think what they did to you was right? I mean, really?"

For a moment, despite the thinness of Luna, a savagery comes into Kevin's eyes that might scare the boldest ahroun. And in another second it's gone again. "Strictly between ourselves," he murmurs, complete control showing once more, "I feel a little hard done by."

The Fury Ahroun blinks. "It just doesn't make sense to me. It's like...they couldn't punish some people, because they ran away, so they beat up the people who did stay still. And... it doesn't feel like justice to me. Any of it. It feels like a bloody overreaction. I mean, I'm not a philodox, I'm an ahroun. I see things in black and white. I hit things until they start making squishy noises. But it's like they didn't put you back on the rails, they blew up the bridges ahead of you. I always thought the first bit of the litany was..." She pauses. "Do you actually want me to bang on about this?"

Kevin waves a hand very graciously. "It's good to know someone isn't howling for my blood."

KL looks very pensive. "Can I tell you something?" She whispers. "You have to promise not to tell anyone else. Ever. Or I'll...well, do something painful."

Kevin's eyes narrow at that. "I don't have a good track record of keeping secrets, as you should recall given what we've just been discussing. But I'll do my best, for sure."

The Fury takes a deep breath. "I'm in love with Emma. Have been forever. It doesn't matter, cos she's not... that way inclined. And I wouldn't know what to do if she was. But I am. She doesn't know, I think. And I haven't done anything wrong." Her voice is very very quiet indeed, and she studies the floor intently.

Kevin's eyes close slowly and for a long half minute he seems completely motionless, rapt. "KL," he says eventually, "thank you for trusting me. You're a mad fool to do it, but thank you for it." His eyes snap open and with the motion comes an abrupt change of mood. "Yeah... Emma's a babe, ain't she?" he smiles.

"I've always trusted you, Kevin," KL says. "And yes, she is. But... she's more than that. She's one of my two best friends ever. And I'm not going to screw that up, because it's worth more than... other things." She shrugs. "I'd hate to lose the other one, you know."

One of Kevin's eyebrows lowers a tiny fraction as he examines the subtext in that statement of KL's. "Emma's been a good friend to me too," he confirms. "Sometimes she's a bitch, but isn't every garou when Luna tugs their strings? With her in charge this weekend, we must have as good a chance of offing that fire bane as any."

"Yeah. And I'll be at her side." KL says, with a grin. "No mercy." She throws a mock punch at mid-air. "It'll be glorious."

"And I'll be running round ahead of you," Kevin says, his mind's eye plainly visualising the scene. "Drawing fire, fast-footing it all over, so fast the bastards can't touch me... and you guys wipe them up from behind."

"And you'll survive. Because you won't let Emma down by dying on her big day." KL says with a grin. "And then we'll celebrate our victory." She leans back, and puts her arms behind her head.

"While we're talking wishlists," Kevin reminds KL, "let's have Basil in there fighting by you and Emma, kicking so much ass nobody can claim he's unworthy, and coming out without a scratch. Or a battlescar mebbe."

"Can I still find him irritating?" KL asks, still grinning. "But yes. He should be there too. We may be the number one criminals in this sept, but by Gaia are we going to kick some fucking ass."

"He gets on my last nerve sometimes," Kevin admits freely, "so sure you can. My whole pack is nothing but charachs and metis, but we'll damn well show them, charachs and metis can fight as well as any garou. Better."

KL says nothing, but raises an eyebrow and smiles, eyes suddenly bright.

Kevin cocks his head on one side in an equally silent query.

"Better?" The Fury Ahroun enquires sweetly.

Kevin gives a sly smile. "We're more used to having to be sneaky. Not just plowing in like a steamroller with teeth."

KL takes a very deep breath. "This is revenge for the fang thing, isn't it?" she says, obviously controlling her temper with an effort. "Fucking ragabash."

Kevin drops the jocular tone. "Hell, KL," he is quick to assure her, "I didn't mean you. No offence? Pax?"

"Pax," KL agrees. "Now, when should we get the fang to Jacinta?" She relaxes back into her seat, with a sigh.

"Sooner the better," Kevin decides. "Don't want to give her an excuse to come down on us breathing righteous Wendigo fire. Go look on the bawn tomorrow? I could do with chilling out for a bit."

KL nods. "Cool. I'll go out for a run tomorrow. These things sometimes take quite a long time, I've found." She shrugs. "I could use the exercise for sure."

"I'll run with you," Kevin offers. "And we'll face the bold bad Wendigo together? Should be practice for Saturday if nothing else," he adds wryly.

"For sure," KL says. "Well, hopefully not too good practice. It is only the bawn we're running on."