It is currently 10:53 Pacific Time on Fri Aug 26 2005. Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (49% full). It's a cloudy day in St. Claire, the temperature hovering around the low sixties. Pleasant weather, assuming one isn't a sun-worshipper. The basement door opens to reveal Natalie, dressed in work clothes and with a smudge of something dark across one cheek; her rumpled hair and general air of weariness suggest that she's been up for hours already. Quietly closing the door behind her, she glances toward the front room before ducking into the bathroom, leaving the door open and turning on the sink's faucets. The Elder's not the only one who's been up for hours, though lately Grey's been doing his jogging on his own. Judging by wet hair, he's only recently out of the shower himself, though the clothes don't look much different from what he wore yesterday, and he hasn't shaved, either. He clomps down the stairs from the second floor, looking vaguely preoccupied. Natalie finishes her ablutions and emerges from the bathroom, absently wiping her now-clean cheek on one shoulder. A poke of her head into the deserted computer room earns a considering, "Huh," before she heads into the living room. She almost misses spotting Grey entirely, but for a double-take. "Hey. Morning. Tabitha upstairs?" Nat stands a few inches over average height for a woman, about five foot eight. Everything about her is square: her face, her jaw, her shoulders, her torso. There is a modest curve to relieve her figure, a hint at a waist but little beyond that. Her hair's a medium brown, perhaps a hand length long and purposefully tousled. Blue-green eyes are widely set underneath a pair of thickly stroked eyebrows; the square shape of her face and jaw emphasizes the large proportions of her nose and lips. She wouldn't catch any eyes except for that little niggling feeling of 'predator' in the way she looks at people, and the suggestion of prior and pending violence in the small scars pocked across her face and hands. Her accent is flat Midwestern unobtrusive, her age roughly twenty. Her tee-shirt is pale leaf green with a splat of blue-steel 'lead' centered on her belly and the faded words 'OILE I LEA' above. It's worn tucked into faded boot-cut carpenter jeans, which in turn lead the eye to a pair of otherwise nondescript white athletic shoes. Over one shoulder or nearby is a battered leather bomber jacket. Grey's brow furrows in puzzlement for a moment. "The new girl?" He glances behind him, back up the stairs, then shrugs. "I didn't notice." Natalie grunts and heads over to lean against the arm of the sofa. "Too bad. I was thinking of taking her out, or something. But not enough to actually go look myself. For the first time in, what, three weeks? Something like that - I've got a few hours actually to /myself/. I'm too shocked to know what the hell to do." Grey lingers in the doorway into the living room, thumbs hooking into his front pockets. "I know the feeling," the Philodox says dourly. She snorts wry agreement. "Yeah. Tell me about it. I'm thinking... I don't know. Did I tell you I'd talked to Signe about leaving Havoc?" Grey cocks his head slightly, favoring his good eye as he peers at her. "I know you were thinking about it, but not that you'd talked to her." He shifts his weight, then enters the living room properly. "Isn't she due soon, by the way?" Natalie says "I talked to her after the Elder's Moot," as she crosses over to claim a chair, leaving the sofa for Grey's sole use. "She asked me to stick around until after she popped and was back on her feet. I told her of course I would. --And," she adds, lacing her fingers together behind her head. "She has. Triplets, if you can believe that." Grey's eyebrows lift. "Triplets? Christ." He crossed to the sofa and sinks down at one end, stretching his legs with a faint grimace. "Practically a litter." "Two girls and a boy," the Galliard agrees with another wry twist to her lips. "The first two are doing well, she says, but the third one, the littlest girl, she's not doing so good. Sounds like she's in the ICU at whatever hospital. I got Signe's message a few days ago, but I can never reach her on her cell. --Anyway," she adds with a flip of one hand, "That's not here or there. She needs a favor, but... eh. It'll be a tribal thing. So that's put my plans to leave Havoc on hold, at least until it gets straightened out." Grey's mouth thins. "Signe's done quite a lot for the city and the Sept," he says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "And I still owe her." The sound of the house door opening and closing firmly can be heard at this point, and a few seconds later the door to the Walkers' area opens up and admits Kevin of that tribe. He looks a little surprised, though not unpleasantly so, to see Thomas and Natalie. Kevin Lockwood, in the three months since his arrival in St Clair, has changed a little from the neat, nerdy teen he came here as. His hair is still so dark a brown it's nearly black, but it's grown out from its close crop into quite a bush, giving him a slightly wild air. Below it his long face, large nose, heavy eyebrows and brown eyes, of course, remain. His prominent chin and Adam's apple are definitely starting to sprout beard hairs - still not many, but they're there right enough, and he'll likely have to start shaving soon. Below his neck his body remains slim and fit, though possibly a little less athletic in appearance than it was three months ago. He's grown another inch or more of late and is now a good five foot nine - and as that extra inch went on his legs, he looks even more gangling now due to the relative length of his lower limbs to his body. That's growth spurts for you. Clothing-wise, he remains clad in the blue sweatshirt, grey running pants, and worn trainers. Carrying: Fang of the Wyrm Nat huhs and leans back in her chair. Spotting Kevin over Grey's head she nods at him, then returns her attention to Grey. "So maybe it'd end up being a Sept matter. Hate to drag it that far, though. -You- know how pricey NICU gets. Doctors want to keep her there for at least a month. And Gaia doesn't provide health insurance." "--Morning, Kevin." Grey glances up, just long enough to fix the young Ragabash with a neutral but not especially friendly look, then turns back to Natalie. "I find it hard to believe that /something/ can't be done to ensure that all three infants survive." Kevin walks across the room. "Morning, Natalie, morning, Thomas. Everything okay? Not seen much of you, lately." "Something /is/ being done," she answers. "Neonatal intensive care. But like I said, being one of Gaia's warriors doesn't come with health insurance." A shrug. "We'll figure something out. But I wanted to ask you if you'd talked any more with Kaz about hooking up with her. If you haven't..." she lets it hang expectantly as she looks back to Kevin. "I've been running my ass off for the last few weeks. /Damn/, but I wish Jeren hadn't left." Grey shakes his head. "I haven't seen Kaz in weeks. Certainly not since we last talked." Kevin slows to a halt before he reaches the stairs. "I've not seen Kaz either," he confirms, "and I miss Jeren too. The place just isn't the same without her stamping round and glowering, is it?" "I don't miss the glowering," the Galliard replies, glancing once toward Grey, "I miss the /Beta/. --Well, back to Kaz. I was thinking if you're just hanging around here - you and Scratch, plus Elanora - it might be a good idea to start... huh. Not quite scouting territory, but I had an itch of an idea of getting people to keep an eye on the area around this place. Not a formal pack, maybe, but just getting an idea of who's where when." "--Which reminds me," she adds, looking back to the Ragabash, "I wanna sit down with you sometime and just chat. I've been too busy to breathe lately, but it might, /maybe/ be lessening in the near future." Grey's expression goes very bland at the word 'beta', and he sits back on the sofa, propping one sneakered foot on the opposite knee. "Makes sense. Though I've not /just/ been 'hanging around here'." "My time is your time," Kevin responds to Natalie, courteously enough. "Got a load of stuff I ought to bring you up to speed on, by the same token. As well as comparing notes on some things. Like, Tabitha, for instance." Natalie waves Grey's protest off with an airy flick of fingers. "Good," she answers Kevin. "I've been too busy to do anything with Tabitha besides catch her in the hallways every so often. Have either of you seen much of Trent? I'm thinking of making him her teacher, except if he's too flaky... Nothing personal, Kev, but I want someone with a bit more experience than you to be her primary teacher." Grey's mouth twitches at Natalie's gesture, muscles tightening in his jaw. Kevin shrugs. "Trent is one of those gaudy, flashy types. Extrovert," he opines. "Doesn't mean he's not a good garou, or would make a bad teacher for Tabitha, just means he's a very different person from me. I haven't seen all that much of him... you'd do better asking Jeremy, I think." Natalie says "Just what Jeremy needs, another best pal Garou." She nods, though. "All right. In a few more days when I don't have to worry about pulling his head off I might just do that. Until then... who's taken Tabitha in hand?" The other two get expectant looks, though it lingers longer on Kevin. "Anyone?" Grey shrugs. "I hardly knew she existed until she was brought into the house." And he looks at Kevin as well, coolly. "It was me who took her to the moot so she could introduce herself and avow she wanted to join up with us," Kevin says. "Good job I did, nobody else from the tribe was there. Apart from that... just the basics, I guess. She knows litany, tribes, auspices, all that jazz. But tribe-specific stuff... no." Natalie too turns decidedly cool at Kevin's comment about the moot, but all she says is, "Then you'd better get started, hadn't you? At least until I can find the time or someone /with/ time to teach her." Grey doesn't seem too pleased by Kevin's remark, either, and the temperature that the young Ragabash was getting from the scarred halfmoon wasn't all that warm to begin with. "And be sure not to let that thing in your head get in the way of teaching her how to be a member of the tribe." Kevin's turn it is to bristle, now, at Grey's comments. "Damn it," he protests, "what makes you think Hjalmar's any more likely to mess up Tabitha's training than your being a renounced Shadow Lord was for Cy? It's bad enough getting Emma bitching me out over... over all that." He stumbles over those last words somewhat, then recovers. "Don't worry about Tabitha. She's smart, learns hellish fast. I'll get on her case till you tell me I'm off it." "Thomas," Natalie snaps, "Kevin. Drop it, both of you." She gives each of them a single glare. "Thomas. What do you think of... hell. If this thing with Kaz falls through - and it's looking like it will - who else are you thinking of packing with? Under? We might well end up with another all Walker pack." Grey shoves to his feet, teeth bared, but whatever retort he might have made is prevented by Natalie's voice. His gaze hard on Kevin, he sits back down again and abruptly turns to her. "With whom? I get the feeling from Scratch that he's not interested in packing. At least not yet." Kevin looks at Thomas Grey out of the corner of his eye cautiously. "Scratch never struck me as the packable type, either," he agrees. "I'd be happy to be proved wrong..." A snort from the Galliard. "First time he was here, I thought about asking him to join Havoc, but he's not what you call reliable. If he -were- to join a pack - my pack - I'd want plenty of other people to cover for him. But Elanora seems all right, what little I've seen of her. Trent, like I said, seems OK too, but he seems a bit... flaky." "Trying a little too damn hard to be 'cool', more like," Grey grumbles, his mood distinctly soured. He tugs absently on a stray bit of thread at the end of one unbuttoned shirt cuff. "No need for the pack to be /entirely/ in-tribe, either. Some variety would be useful. As long as they can stand being focussed in the city. Rather than commuting occasionally and thinking that's good enough." "Trying too hard at /something/," Kevin agrees. "But he's a Glass Walker all right -- got tech in his blood. Which could be useful, seeing as how many of us --" he hesitates a moment -- "are a bit below par in that department." "Survival and tending the city has nothing to do with playing Halo until your brains rot," Nat drawls, shoving her weight down into the chair so she can stretch out her legs. Grey's sitting rather stiffly on the couch, while the youngest member of the trio forms the third point of a trio midway between them. "And frankly, I'm sick of Jeremy's attitude that suggests that being a techie is the end-all be-all of the tribe." "Is he actually technical, or just likes his toys?" asks Grey. "Jeremy, at least, is an accomplished hacker." "I don't know for sure," says Kevin cautiously, "but I think he knows his hackin' stuff too. It'd be useful to have a hacker we could call on safely at full moons. As opposed to Jeremy who just thinks we can..." "I haven't seen enough of him," Nat says - yet again. "He hasn't presented chiminage yet. It's like fricking Anthony. Neither has Elanora, for that matter. Makes me wonder if they're actually planning on sticking around." Oh speak of the Devil. The heavy door to the other side of the house opens and closes quite audibly, followed by the unmistakeable sound of someone whistling--someone whistling rather off-key, at that. Elanora comes into sight momentarily as she rounds into the living room, in the process of swapping sunglasses for actual prescription lenses. Grey makes a neutral 'mmn' type of noise and leaves off fiddling with the stray thread in his shirtcuff. "We'll see, I suppose," he says, and then looks up, noticing Elanora. Kevin chews his lip briefly. "If they /do/," he points out in his ever-helpful fashion, "we're going to need to instal bunk beds in every room, not just the cubs' dorm. -- Hey, Eleanor!" he chirps out as the pale garou enters. Natalie snorts at Kevin's quip, but cuts off her reply to nod to the Theurge. "There you are. We were just talking about you." Isn't that a cheery thought? "--I've got plans for that, Kev. The attic is still unfinished - hell, unstarted - from what I originally planned. I was going to use some cash Jeren left me, but Signe might need it more. We'll see. For all we're supposed to be a tribe of techies and rich bastards, all we ever seem to get here is techies." "And bastards?" Elanora offers helpfully. "'Ey. Talking about me?" She pauses, patting first her front, then the pockets of her jeans. "Oh, right. Here--" She digs out a rather cheap, but nevertheless clearly functioning cell phone. "Got myself a number, finally." Grey grunts. "No rich bastards. Just poor ones." He pushes to his feet. "If there isn't anything else for the moment," he says to Natalie, "I have a few errands to run." "Think about what I said," Nat directs, aiming a finger at the Philodox. "Who, where, and what totem. I'm not going to make any decisions, but I want your input." Her attention slides then onto Elanora. "Oh yeah? Good. Give." Up she rolls onto one hip to free her own for the ritual of 'exchanging phone numbers'.