It is currently 00:40 Pacific Time on Sat Jan 28 2006.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 42 degrees
     Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the 
     south at 20 mph, with gusts up to 28 mph. The barometric pressure reading 
     is 29.64 and falling, and the relative humidity is 83 percent. The 
     dewpoint is 37 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waning New Moon phase (9% full).

Apartment and Studio(#2790RFJ)

A short entry hall opens into a large, bright livingroom lit by tall windows
     and two sets of French doors, all on the far side from the entrance. An 
     archway on the right side of the hallway leads into an alcove kitchen and 
     an open dining area. At the left side of the living room, a hallway opens 
     onto the bathroom, closet, and bedroom. 

Rina's apartment constantly smells of paint, and the windows and glass doors
     are perpetually left open to air out the fumes of her work. The 
     furnishings are eclectic and mismatched, and the wall space of the living 
     room is dominated by shelving and, in some places, paintings. The shelves 
     tend to be hand-constructed, mostly in metal and rivets, odd bits of 
     hardware exposed, one set of polished brushed-metal shelves suspended from 
     thin steel cables. The paintings are disturbing multimedia landscapes, 
     depicting science-fiction cities and cyberpunk vistas of light and metal. 
     In the center of the livingroom, a sofa with a wildly-curved back, 
     upholstered in spring-green velvet, sits with a unique coffee table and 
     two artsy-looking steel chairs that are half sculpture. The coffee table 
     is another work of modern art, a collage piece made of mixed metals, 
     recycled circuit board pieces in shades of blue and green riveted together 
     and set under a layer of clear Lexan, half an inch of empty space in 
     between. The shape is curvy, to match the sofa's long S-contoured back. 
     Against one wall, under one of the wide landscape paintings, a TV sits on 
     top of a birchwood cabinet, perhaps four and a half feet wide by three 
     feet deep, with five shallow drawers. Some might recognize it as a flat 
     file for art storage. A big cushy-looking area rug in shades of natural, 
     brown and green covers the floor in front of the TV. 

A quarter of the room, one of the far corners with plenty of sun, clearly acts
     as a workspace; her easel is set up there, and the hardwood flooring is 
     protected by a sheet of vinyl taped over it, splattered with countless 
     colors of paint. In the opposite corner, away from the light, shorter 
     bookshelves of pale wood split off a small office area, with a small 
     modern desk and an elegant black mesh chair. The desk almost always holds 
     a slim notebook computer and a phone, and little else.


Rina pages: Either way. If you want to say he brought dinner and stuff, we
     could do that, or we could just do late visit thing?
You paged the room with 'How 'bout he brought over dinner, apologized that he
     had to run some errands but would be back, and now is, albeit late?'.
Rina pages: Cool.


Returning after several hours, Grey knocks again at her door. It's late, and he
     knows it... but he did promise to return once he'd finished his 'errands'.

The lights are out, only a few candles burning here and there; as he's coming
     to the landing, he can hear her voice, low and tense, from within the 
     apartment. When the knock comes, she abruptly stops talking.

Grey hesitates, frowning outside the door, and then knocks again. "Rina? It's
     me."

The door opens, revealing her, wan and thin in John's ragged castoff sweats.
     "Hey..." She searches his face. "Sorry, takes so damn long to limp to the 
     door..."

Grey's brow is still furrowed, though he smooths it out as he enters. "No
     problem." His hair is wet from the rain, all inky-black bedraggled locks 
     around his scruffy, scarred face. "Everything all right?"

There are hints of tears in her eyes, lines of strain in her face. "Yeah.
     Everything's fine," she lies, smoothly. But she does turn away quick 
     enough. "You wanna latte or somethin'?"

Grey watches her, intent and worried, as he shrugs out of his coat and hangs it
     up. "As long as it's not a bother." He follows after her like an attentive 
     dog, fingers raking back through his wet hair. "Who were you talking to?"

"Nobody," she says, fumbling with the coffee and setting up the machine.
     "How've you been?"

Grey leans against the counter nearby, arms folded across his chest. He shrugs
     faintly. "Trying to sort out this mess about Jeremy." His mouth twists 
     into a grimace. "Trying to keep up with the bastards so that the next time 
     they decide to have a meeting, I'm /there/."

Her movements don't have the smoothness of habit, working one-handed. "Good.
     I've been worried... have they changed it yet?"

Grey rubs a hand over his face. "They haven't actually made a decision,
     according to Sabina. Dakota and Trent have been informed. Jeremy's 
     dropping under the radar and Trent's gone off to guard him. The babies are 
     with Jeremy. Dakota, naturally, is beside herself." He shakes his head, 
     scowling.

"So they /didn't/ decide to kill him," she says quietly, flipping the switch.

"They were heading that way." Grey scowls. "Sabina kept making noises about
     dangerous kinfolk, and how dare I value him over a 'proven Gaian Garou' 
     like Abraxas. Nevermind that Jeremy's never actually /harmed/ any Garou, 
     apparently we shouldn't wait until he does, but slaughter him on the off 
     chance that he /might/." He shakes his head, mutters something in Serbian.

"I'll show them dangerous," Rina mutters. "Tell her to come talk to /me/, if
     she wants to see fuckin' dangerous..." She pauses, frowning. "Maybe 
     /after/ my arm gets better," she adds.

"I'd recommend a sniper rifle in any case," says Grey, deadpan. "One with a
     good scope." He rubs at his eyes. "Shadow Lord, though, what can you 
     expect?"

Still turned to the counter, Rina frowns. "Have you met the Metis Walker?
     Shelley, I think her name is?"

Grey lifts an eyebrow. "White Rabbit? Yes, once, briefly. Why?"

"I need to get in touch with her. You run into this new Shadow Lord chick yet?
     Culls-the-Herd? Such an auspicious name."

Grey's eyes narrow. "/Another/ one?"

"Woman. Older. I've heard of her. She used to be at Steel Angel. Roots out
     traitors. So if they're gonna start witch-hunting, she'll prolly have a 
     field day." She gives a small shake of her head, leaning one-armed on the 
     counter. "She wanted to talk to Shelley about trading for some Talens."

Grey's frown deepens; so does that worried line between his eyebrows. "Trading
     /what/, though?"

Lifting a shoulder, Rina turns to limp toward the end of the counter. "Well. I
     use the word trade, because she wants Talens, and I doubt we're just gonna 
     /give/ them to her."

"One hopes," Grey mutters, watching her. He rubs at his beard, along the
     jawline. "Hmmn."

Rina opens a drawer, pulling out a prescription bottle and dumping out two
     small pills. "Fuckin' Adren, too," she mutters. "Raggie, I think." She 
     washes down the pills with a sip from a stale glass of water that sits by 
     the phone.

Grey goes quite still, hand still hovering somewhere near his chin. "Adren?"

"Yeah," Rina mutters angrily. "I had to be /nice/ to her." She scowls, turning
     to him with the glass still in her hand. "Not that she wasn't nice to me, 
     or anything. She was /chummy/, in fact." She tosses down another swallow 
     of water. "It was fuckin' /annoying/."

Grey grimaces. "That doesn't mean she wasn't plotting how and when to stick the
     knife in." He rubs his eyes. "Christ on a stick." Restless, he pushes off 
     the counter and paces across the room. "If I didn't know better, I'd think 
     this whole damn thing was a fucking plot."

"Nah." The espresso machine starts to hiss and splutter; Rina steps back over
     to the counter to watch it. "Mind you, if she was a /Philodox/, I'd be 
     with ya."

Grey grimaces. "Fucking Ragabash, she knows how to be subtle, mark me." Raking
     fingers through his hair, he looks at her, frowning. "Tell me I'm being 
     paranoid."

She looks over to him, mustering a smile that is just about genuine; it even
     reaches her eyes, warming the cognac behind the dark brown. "You're being 
     paranoid." The smile widens, showing a flash of teeth before she returns 
     her gaze to the flow of the espresso. "You're cute when you're paranoid."

Grey blinks at the back of her head, then expels air in an almost-laugh. "Hah."
     He folds his arms and lifts both eyebrows. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't 
     be careful as hell around her."

"I will be," Rina mutters. "Grab the milk outta the fridge?" She frowns,
     thinking. "Probably that's why she was so goddamn friendly. She caught me 
     at a bad time."

Grey unfolds his arms and goes to the fridge to fetch the milk. "They're good
     at that." His mood has lightened a little. "Did she say what she wanted 
     the talens for?"

"Attacking some Blight downriver..." She's watching the dark, concentrated
     liquid pour, but her eyes are somewhere else.

Grey comes up next to her, not quite touching as he sets the milk down on the
     counter. "Hrm." His brow furrows, thinking.

She turns the switch on the machine and reaches for the milk, pouring it into
     the two cups and setting one under the steamer, the nozzle dipping into 
     the cold milk. With the hand end of the cast, she nudges the dial to turn 
     the steam on--evidently something she's done before.

"Like a pro," he murmurs vaguely, one elbow on the counter in a hunched lean.
     His eye falls on the cast. "How long until they cut you out of that?"

"Too long," she mutters, her mouth twisting. "I been painting left-handed,
     though. It's supposed to, Idunno, bring out your subconscious or 
     something." The work on the easel, in fact, was remarkably color-rich and 
     abstract. "I just think it sucks," she adds, lifting one shoulder.

Grey shifts his weight, looking over toward the painting. He squints a little
     and cocks his head, favoring his good eye. "Hmm. It's... different."

Rina actually laughs, a sound that bubbles up from somewhere in her chest.
     "That's polite," she murmurs, knocking the steam to the off position and 
     pouring in half of the espresso. She takes up her own mug and starts 
     steaming the milk.

Grey turns his good eye back to her, his expression wry. "I never claimed to
     /understand/ art," he offers, straightening up and tucking a lock of wet 
     hair back behind his ear.

"Bah. Nobody understands art. You just like it, or it says something to you, or
     not." She watches as the level of the foam rises in her cup. "The rest of 
     it is utter bullshit."

"You're the expert," he says, smiling very faintly. "I'll take your word for
     it."

She expertly knocks the steam off again, and pours espresso into the foamed
     milk. "You want any sugar or vanilla or anything in yours?"

Grey shakes his head. "This'll be perfect, thank you." He accepts the mug and
     wraps his hands around it. With the usual dark cloud of gloom lifted, he's 
     almost his old self, albeit a quieter, muted version.

"Come sit, then..." She walks to the couch, and for a while they sit and
     talk--about Angela, about painting, about the city. Conversation comes 
     easily enough, lubricated on Rina's end by Vicodin; eventually, though, 
     she begins to drift. Not long afterward she is curled up on the futon, 
     with a wolf for company. The night passes in an unusual drug-induced 
     quiet, without the tossing and turning and dreaming one might expect.

At least not on her end -- /he/ has several bouts of paw-twitching and muted,
     closed-muzzle noises. But nothing severe. Overall, though, a better night 
     than usual.