[1/23/98]

Currently on this gusty and cold winter afternoon in the general St. Claire 
  area, it is 28 degrees Fahrenheit (-2.2 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming 
  from the east at 18.7 mph. The ground is snowy. Skies are cloudy with a 
  probable chance of precipitation.
Currently the moon is in the waning Crescent Moon phase (29% full).

[Salem]
        Tall and dark, he stands a few inches over six feet, a striking and 
  rather dangerous-looking man in his mid-twenties. Black hair, not quite 
  shoulder length, frames hawkish features and a high forehead, the dark eyes 
  deep-set. It's a face tailor-made for brooding and cynicism, and he excels 
  at both moods. He's handsome, albeit in a devilish, saturnine kind of way, 
  but rarely does he seem truly relaxed, and often a sharp and tense hatred 
  seems to rage just beneath the surface of his flesh, a murderous anger held 
  in check by a tight and uncertain control. A black goatee lines his lips and 
  jaw, and a thick scar runs down the left side of his face, just missing the 
  eye. In short, he has the look of the very devil about him, a Lucifer fallen 
  from grace, bitter about his fate and prone to dark moods and unprovoked 
  violence.
        The tails of his duster nearly sweep the ground when he walks, and the 
  sturdy black leather of the garment shows signs of wear; it's clearly seen 
  better months. Black BDU pants cover his legs. A gray-and-black flannel 
  shirt hangs open over a dark green t-shirt, and he wears black high-top 
  sneakers.  <<+details>>

Harbor Park Meadow(#194RJ)
A gentle dusting of newly planted grass covers the ground. In some areas, the 
  grass is thicker, lush and a deep summer green. The stench of the meadow is 
  gone with the bags and the tools, but the faintly unpleasant smell still 
  wafts up from the river banks. Through the rusted link fence the street is 
  visible, the hedges and vines trimmed back to open the Park to the community 
  outside.
The murky waters of the Columbia River flow swiftly along the east side of the 
  park. Bracketing the park to the west is First Street. The park extends to 
  the north.
Contents:
Merria
Obvious exits:
Bridge Street  North  First Street  River  

Merria is halfway up the fence, fingers looped through the wire, inspecting a 
  feather which seems to have caught itself in the mesh.

Salem stalks doggedly through the snow-covered meadow, collar up and hands 
  buried well into the pockets of the sweeping black leather duster. He 
  catches sight of Merria from afar and pauses, still some distance off.

Merria climbs up a few more steps to peer at the feather from another angle, 
  carefully not touching it. Her hands are bright red with the cold, and white 
  where they clutch the chain link, but she seems far to absorbed to notice 
  the discomfort.

Salem watches the small figure on the fence for several more moments. Then he 
  starts toward her, footfalls audible as he blazes a new trail through the 
  snow.

Merria swings round at the sound of the approaching steps, one hand and one 
  foot staying in place. At the sight of the black figure moving across the 
  new snow, her face shifts some, the pleasure in it growing more subdued. She 
  simply hangs where she is, watching him come.

Salem stops a few feet from the Bone Gnawer, head tilted slightly to look up 
  at her. His expression is closed, tight as the doors into the sphinx's 
  pedastal. After a moment, he says, "Afternoon," in clipped tones.

Merria bites her lip for a moment, then grins a little. "Yeah, it is."

Salem's lips - badly chapped from the unforgivingly cold weather - thin as he 
  presses them together. If anything, his next words are even more brusque. 
  "You can tell your friend at the church that I regret the incident earlier 
  this week."

Merria's eyes widen. She drops neatly down from the fence and lands in a 
  flurry of snow, abruptly shorter than Salem again. "You do?"

Salem grimaces slightly at the other's show of astonishment, but answers, 
  "Yes."

Merria's mouth opens, just a little, then closes. She smiles up at Salem, a 
  little uncertain but much more warmly. She jams her hands into her pockets 
  to keep them out of trouble. "I'll tell 'em." She ducks her head a little 
  awkwardly. "Um. It's probably not gonna make 'em feel that different, for 
  right now, you know? But it...well, thanks." She hesitates, more awkward 
  yet. "You, um, know they don't want you on their turf for now, right? But, 
  um...you wanna go someplace /not/ McDonalds, an' get a bite to eat?"

Salem lifts his eyebrows as Merria gives him the news about Cavall's turf, but 
  he doesn't comment upon it. "Certainly," he says, replying to the question 
  about food. "You know someplace in particular?"

Merria says "Ummmm...there's all sortsa places uptown, but they'd look at me 
  pretty funny for payin' in change." She grins. "How about the pizza place?"

Salem nods; he still hasn't smiled. "Fine."

[Scene change -- Garcia's Pizza Parlor]

Merria walks companionably at the full moon's side. "What kind do you like?"

Salem takes his hands out of his pockets as the two enter the pizza place, 
  rubbing them together to get the circulation going again. He shrugs in 
  answer to Merria's question. "I have no preferences."

[Merria's Desc]
Merria is a small, solid, knotty young woman who, despite being 19, will be 
  called a kid for years to come, with big round eyes, a small sharp nose, and 
  an expression of perpetual innocent and amazed curiosity. She has a cloud of 
  frizzy, unmanageable dark hair, dark eyes, and skin which would probably 
  still be fairly dark even if she had just washed, which she hasn't. She 
  wears battered sneakers, jeans with holes worn through in the knees, a black 
  sweatshirt, and an ancient army jacket with as many holes as pockets. On her 
  shoulder is a lumpy, well-aged book bag that appears to hold nothing so 
  geometric as books. Her engaging smile, however, is fresh and nearly 
  ever-present; she regards the world around her with an almost proprietary 
  pleasure, as though she had just invented it and is still marveling at her 
  cleverness. Her step is light and has an extra bounce to it. Clearly the 
  only way she has found of using all her excess energy is to make each step 
  work double.

Merria blows on her own hands and scans the menu. "That's one of the problems, 
  isn't it?" she asks idly. Then, "You wanna split a large with olives an' 
  mushrooms an' garlic?"

Salem turns his head to give the younger, brighter Garou a small frown, as 
  though suspecting some hidden jibe in her remark. But he says only, "Fine," 
  and unbuttons his coat in order to gain access to the interior pockets.

Merria moves up to the counter, bouncing on her toes, and makes the order, 
  giggling with the girl who rings the purchase up. Merria starts fishing 
  handfuls of quarters and a few stray dollar bills out of her coat pocket.

Salem hangs back as he rummages up what appears to be the last of his 
  available cash, saturnine face settling into a deeper frown as he's forced 
  to scavenge for spare change in his other pockets. As he comes up behind 
  Merria, the girl behind the counter goes quiet, young eyes moving toward the 
  Ahroun, wide.

Merria glances from the girls face to Salem's. There's a second's calculation, 
  and then a casual, "Don' worry about it. I'll get it this time. It's /fun/ 
  to treat, when you can."

Salem pauses, and then nods. "I'll find a table, then." The Ronin turns rather 
  sharply and heads for a table near the back of the parlor, pocketing his 
  cash.

Merria wiats by the counter, joking with the girl until she recovers from 
  Salem's presence. In a few minutes, she receives her pizza - vast - and 
  looks around until she spots Salem and goes to join him.

Salem leans sideways in his chair, gazing out the window at the snow-covered 
  street scene outside. He glances up, one eyebrow rising, Spocklike, at the 
  size of the pizza.

Merria slides into her chair and grins at Salem's expression. "Did you teach 
  yourself how to do that, or did it just come natural?"

Salem looks quizzical. "To do what?"

Merria opens the box and takes a piece. "Raise one eyebrow at a time."

"Since I don't remember teaching myself," says Salem, "it must come 
  naturally." His tone is utterly deadpan, and he still hasn't smiled; the 
  aggressive, angry, snarling defensiveness seems to have given way tonight to 
  a milder version of his usual dour moodiness, as though the rage-beast were 
  sleeping, albeit fitfully.

Merria grins, and pokes the box toward Salem. "Lucky. I practiced for /weeks/ 
  once, until Jorge told me I looked like a sick blue-jay."

Salem helps himself to a slice of pizza. "Jorge?"

Merria nods. "One'f my brothers," she says, with her mouth full. She swallows 
  and adds more clearly, "Sometimes he's a twit, but that time he was prolly 
  right."

Salem grunts a polite, if noncommittal, reply to Merria and bites into his 
  slice of pizza.

Merria giggles and finishes her first slice in record time. Taking a second, 
  she says, "So, what's Sally getting for you? Drugs?"

Salem is still only halfway through his first slice when Merria pops her 
  question, and he nearly chokes as a bite goes down the wrong windpipe. 
  Coughing ensues.

With a low grumble from a modified engine, a gold '71 Plymouth Satellite rolls 
  to a halt outside Garcia's. It idles for a few seconds, then the engine 
  dies. Nick and Sally clamber out of the heavy, metal vehicle and head 
  towards the restaurant's door.

Merria puts her hand over her mouth and gazes at Salem with wide eyes, 
  apologetic, still curious, also a little aware of the humor of the situation.
Merria says, around the edges of her hand, "Are you okay?"

Sally MacKay steps inside with Nick, pulling off her fringed leather gloves 
  and sticking them both into a pocket as she laughs softly, "So Dave just 
  left and that was it." Together they move towards the counter, the blonde 
  still looking up at the menu board.

"Remind me to never ever cross you, Mustang. That's evil." Nick briefly 
  glances at the menu. "I'm not really hungry. Want to just split something?"

Salem, still occupied with the bit of pizza lodged halfway down his throat, 
  naturally hasn't noticed Sally's arrival with Nick. He coughs again, and 
  finally manages to get the food down. He glares at Merria, as though it were 
  all her fault. "Who told you?"

Sally casts a side-long grin at the mage, then nods to his question. "Yeah, 
  okay. Cool." She leans forward to check out the speciality pizzas along the 
  counter, despite her agreement of just a second ago. "What do you feel like?"

Merria takes her hand down again. "I heard you guys arranging somethin', and 
  that's just sorta what it sounded like. And, you know, it kinda made sense." 
  Indeed, there is no condemnation in her tone, just interest.

Nicodemus lifts a metal and leather encased shoulder. "I don't know. Salad?"

Salem takes a deep breath, regaining his composure. "It's nothing," he says to 
  Merria in a low voice, picking his slice of pizza up again. "Just something 
  for the moon."

Merria nods vigorously. "Cool. Does it work?"

"Well enough," Salem replies, shortly. He bites into his pizza, savagely.

"Okay," Sally agrees brightly. "And some mozzarella sticks?"

Merria nods equably and digs into her second slice. "What's your favorite 
  city?"

"Sure," Nicodemus responds somewhat flatly. "Whatever you want, really."

"Cool," Sally steps forward and places their order, then looks back to Nick 
  when the kid asks about drinks. "Beer? Soda?"

Salem chews, swallows. Carefully, so as not to choke again. "Don't have one."

Nicodemus turns his nose up at the option of beer. "You can have all the horse 
  piss you want. I'll stick with a Dr Pepper."

Sally MacKay rolls her eyes at Nick and smiles before turning back and 
  ordering in her sweetest voice, "One horse piss and one Dr Pepper, please."

"Really?" Merria considers. "I think I still like Boston best."

"Never been there," replies Salem. He pauses, taking another bite, chewing, 
  swallowing. "I was in Raleigh for about a month."

Merria lights up. "Really? I was in Raleigh, once, just for a weekend."

"Heathen," Nick breathes teasingly at Sally as the cashier departs to do 
  cashier-ish things.

Salem finishes off his first slice of pizza and reaches for another. "Mm. 
  Better than most cities, Raleigh," he remarks.

Merria gnaws on her crust. "How come?"

Sally MacKay bounces forward a step, then rests both forearms upon the counter 
  as she watches the going-ons behind it. "Damned straight I am," she says, 
  making it clear she's taking it as a complement.

Salem shrugs. "It's... cleaner than most cities." He grimaces. "Better than 
  New York. I hated New York." He still hasn't noticed Sally and her friend.

Merria wrinkles her nose and reaches for her third piece of pizza. "New York 
  is gross," she says. "I mean...I don't know. The first couple days I was 
  there, Mike an' his pack were showin' me the cool stuff, and it looked like 
  fun...an' then I saw the shadow." She shivers. "It wasn't the same after 
  that. you start realizin' all the things you eren't seein' before. You know?"

Salem's face tightens, freezing the grimace onto his face. "I know," he says 
  to Merria, after a moment.

"You'd be boring if you weren't." Apparently, the goth had meant it as an 
  underhanded compliment despite his accusatory tone. "Man, a whole weekend 
  ahead of us. You have any idea what you're going to get into, yet?"

"Sorry," Merria says softly. And then, "At least you got outa there."

"Not a clue," Sally answers, sounding little fazed by her lack of plans. She 
  stands back up as their drinks arrive, taking her cup into one hand and 
  turning to face the dining area. "Let's grab a seat while we wait." She 
  scans the place, then tilts her head slightly to one side as her gaze 
  returns to one dark figure. "C'mon," smiling, she heads towards Salem and 
  Merria.

Salem grunts agreement to Merria, his mouth full at the moment. He doesn't 
  look up at the sound of Sally's approach, as though trying to tune out the 
  rest of the pizza parlor.

Nicodemus scoops up his own drink and follows Sally's lead, apparently simply 
  rolling with the flow for the moment.

Merria looks up and grins. "Hey, Sally," she says, half greeting, half alert 
  for Salem. "And...." she gropes around fr the name visibly. "Nick?"

Slipping her coat off one arm as she walks, Sally transfers her cup to her 
  other hand to get it the rest of the way off before they arrive. "Hey," she 
  nods to Merria, then looks to Salem to include him in the gesture, trying to 
  catch his eye as she raises her eyebrows a touch. After tossing her coat 
  over one of the chair's back, she sits.

"Nicodemus," the goth corrects futily as he nods in a slightly edgy gesture 
  before taking a seat at the table along with Sally. "I forgot.... Oh, no I 
  didn't. Carry on, carry on." He doesn't bother removing his jacket, though 
  sits in such a way that the barbed wire accessories don't wreck the 
  furniture.

Salem turns around now, his eyes fixing on Sally for a moment, face frozen, 
  tension waking up along his nervous system. "Evening, Sally." The Ronin's 
  voice is stiff, a bit hollow.

Merria nods to Nick. "Did it /used/ to be Nicodemus?" she asks with innocent 
  curiosity.

"Evening Salem," Sally echoes in the same tone and cadence, lightly teasing, 
  though removing any bite with a smile that's not restricted to just her 
  mouth. "Things ... better today?" she asks him.

Merria looks from Salem to Sally and back again, bright-eyed and speculative.

"Nope," the goth replies with pointedly intentional crypticness towards Merria.

Salem makes a noncommittal sound in reply to the blonde Kinswoman and suddenly 
  finds that finishing his pizza slice is a very interesting procedure.

Arlen pauses once inside the door, inhaling appreciatively. Glancing about, 
  she gives the young Gnawer a brief grin, and then steps up to the counter.

Merria sees Arlen and waves brightly, really pleased. Then she grabs her 
  fourth piece of pizza.

Still smiling, Sally raises her cup to drink, watching Salem eat for a moment. 
  Something seems to be amusing her, then she returns her attention to the 
  rest of the table.

Arlen stares at the menu fixedly for a moment, then orders a pepperoni, 
  broccoli, and garlic pizza. And some garlic bread. She settles down, arms 
  over chest, next to the counter, to wait.

Salem seems to lose his appetite about halfway through that second slice of 
  his and pushes his chair back. "Excuse me."

Merria glances up, disturbed and worried as Salem rises. She starts to ask, 
  then bites her lip.

Sally MacKay also turns her head to watch him stand, but unlike the Gnawer, 
  she doesn't seem about to say anything. Looking back to the table, she takes 
  another drink.

Salem disappears into the Men's room at the back of the pizza parlor; the door 
  swings shut behind him.

Arlen looks at the somewhat active table simply because she's always 
  observing, but she merely looks hungry, and not worried or blase.

Nicodemus busies himself with tearing little bits of napkin off from the edges 
  of the whole, whittling away towards the center in a tedious manner.

Merria glances sideways at Sally, not accusing but curious.

Sally takes another sip of her beer, not meeting Merria's eyes. After a moment 
  she stands and says, "I'm gonna go check on the food." With that she wanders 
  back towards the counter, just happening to put herself into the path Salem 
  would take to get back.

Merria's brows crook together over dark eyes as she watches the young kinfolk 
  woman go. Then she looks at Nicodemus and grins. "They make you nervous, 
  hunh?"

Arlen munches on a mozzarella stick, looking at Sally speculativel.

The door into the Men's bathroom remains closed. No Salem. Then again, only a 
  few minutes have passed.

Sally MacKay leans her back against the counter, not really looking to worried 
  about their dinner. Her arms folded loosely across her chest, she waits.

Nicodemus finishes tearing off another dime-sized piece of napkin as he 
  glances at Merria. "Pardon?" He leaves the torn napkin on the table and 
  moves his hands to grasp his own arms.

Merria shrugs. "It's okay. He does it to everyone." She glances at the door 
  again. Then her eyes narrow. She picks up a piece of pizza, but instead of 
  eating it, she rips twelve small chunks off and arranges them in a circle in 
  front of her. Her attitude, as she does this, is of someone mindlessly 
  toying with food they no longer really want, but it's still kind of a 
  strange thing to be doing.

Arlen finishes off her mozzarella sticks, just as her pizza arrives. She grabs 
  a Coke, pays, and plunks down at the table next door to the Gnawer and mage. 
  Raising her Coke in a toast to Merria, she digs in.

Merria sweeps the pieces up into s little pile, tosses one up in the air and 
  catches it in her mouth, and grins. "Hiya," she says to Arlen.

Sally MacKay's head starts nodding slowly and her lips move, and though her 
  voice doesn't carry, one wouldn't be wrong to guess she's singing to 
  herself. She waits.

Arlen catches the pattern before it's swept up, and looks bemused. "Fancy 
  meeting you here," she says, mouth half full, and finishes before saying, 
  "Should meet you somewhere other than a restaurant, someday."

Merria grins cheerfully. "Okay," she says, as though it were a concrete 
  suggestion.

"Yeah, well," Nicodemus pauses for a moment. "Nevermind," he says as Arlen 
  addresses Merria.

Salem's absense continues.

"No, wait," Merria says, looking back at the goth. "What?"

Nicodemus shrugs in return, seemingly no longer as edgy as he was a few 
  minutes ago. "Nothing."

People come and place their orders, others pick up theirs. Folks leave, they 
  arrive. The restaurant moves around the leaning blonde, and still Sally 
  waits.

Merria continues to eat pizza-pieces. "Either of you ever been to Raleigh?"

"North Carolina? Can't say as I have." The Fury jerks her head, slightly, 
  towards the restroom, raising a querying eyebrow to Merria.

Merria shakes her head a little, thought her gaze flicks from the door to 
  Sally.

"Never heard of it before," Nick replies, glancing between Fury and Gnawer 
  with the mildest of interest.

Merria laughs at Nic. "You never /heard/ of it? Where are you from?"

Arlen's eyes flicker at Merria in thanks, and smiles slightly. "Some people 
  are better at geography than others."

Salem remains conspicuous by his absense. One might wonder if he's actually 
  still in there, or decided to slip out the back window. Or something. In any 
  case, it seems like Sally's in for a long wait.

Nicodemus answers with a single word. "Here." From the sound of his voice, he 
  isn't overly fond of 'here'.

Merria's eyes widen. "And you stayed? Or came back?"

Sally MacKay's waiting time is cut short as hers and Nick's food is placed at 
  her elbow. Grabbing one dish in each hand, and after a more direct glance at 
  the door Salem was last seen going through, she heads back towards the table.

Arlen gets up and orders some chicken fingers, and then sits back down again, 
  a slight frown moving across her face.

"Always lived here. It's not too bad," he admits. "Seattle is only a hop skip 
  and a jump away, so you can get a taste of the big city pretty easily."

Merria nods. "Stopped by Seattle on m'way here," she says around a mouthful of 
  pizza. "S'nice enough, seemed like." She looks at Arlen's expression. 
  "What's up?"

Sally MacKay pushes both the plates to the moddle of the table, one with their 
  salad and the other with the sticks. She takes one and swirls it in the 
  sauce, stealing another glance in the direction of the men's room.

The door to the men's room swings open, but the pimply, overweight, redheaded, 
  balding man that emerges sure as hell isn't Salem.

Arlen shrugs, eating pizza herself. "Nothing. I suppose," she manages after 
  burning her mouth. "Just... Sally, you ok?"

Sally MacKay nods as she looks to Arlen. "Doing good," she says in her same 
  old cheery as only Sally can be voice.

Arlen breaks a piece of cheese. "Mmm hmm. Glad to hear it. Where'd you get the 
  bruise?"

Merria gives Areln a quick sidelong look and ducks her head, hiding what is 
  almost certainly a suppressed fit of giggles.

"Seattle kicks ass. Last month I was out there with some friends and two days 
  before gothic night over at this one club, their bass player came down with 
  the shits from eating a box of Ex-Lax in a post-joint munchies fit for 
  chocolate so I got to...." Nicodemus trails off as he notices the concern 
  over Sally. "What?"

Sally MacKay doesn't pause in her dipping of the other half of her cheese 
  stick. "I-" She gives Merria a decidedly not amused look, then continues, 
  her words sounding oft repeated, "-was fooling around with someone in class 
  and we fell. I hit a desk," she touches the spot on her cheek lightly with 
  her fingers.
Sally MacKay shakes her head to Nick and says firmly, "Nothing," trying to 
  halt another round of questioning before it begins.

Merria suddenly stops. She lifts her head up, and looks straight at Sally for 
  a minute, clear-eyed, not asking a question for once. Actually, it looks 
  more like she's answering one.

Arlen says, "Mmm hmm. 'Least there's no door involved in this story. If you 
  need help... with anything, Sally. There're people around who'd like to."

"Oh, come on. It's not like anyone here hasn't ever seen a hicky before." 
  Nicodemus rolls his eyes and takes a stab at the salad with a fork.

Merria gives Nic a startled look, but whether it's because she hasn't or for 
  some other reason is unclear.

Arlen shoots a mild glare at the goth. "I've seen hickeys. Hell, I've given 
  hickeys. That's not a hickey. But," her voice softens, "If she wants me to 
  drop it, I will."

Merria wriggles in her seat for a minute. Then she stands up. "I'll be right 
  back," she says, and moves off toward the lady's room, a little bounce in 
  her step.
Merria pages: So, what do you think. Is there a way out of them or not. :)
You paged Merria with 'Gotta be a window. Since I _do_ have to leave and I 
  don't think Salem would brave the Gauntlet under these circumstances. :)'.

As if suddenly realizing she was holding a cockroach, Sally drops the last of 
  her sauce-covered fried cheese stick to her napkin. Her eyes harden at 
  Arlen's door comment, but she bites back her words until the two continue. 
  After Arlen's hickey information, she confirms, "I Want You /All/ To Drop 
  It." The words are hardly all out before she's standing up.

Salem still hasn't come out of the men's room. He's either long gone by now, 
  or is stuck with a bad case of what squeamish people call 'stomach trouble'.

Long distance to Merria: Salem thinks he's gone by now, yeah. :)

Arlen holds up her hands, in the classic, 'I give up, hold on' posture. 
  "That's fine, I will. Not a problem. No need to leave over it, either. 
  Subjects change easily, honestly."

Nicodemus decides to re-examine what was originally brushed aside, looking 
  over at Sally. "I see our resident hickey expert is correct. It is more of a 
  bruise tha..." He stops as Sally speaks and stands. "Hey, it's no big deal. 
  New topic."

"Fuck the new topic," Sally mutters under her breath. She pulls out some 
  crumpled bills (a five and a few ones, it looks like) and tosses them onto 
  the table. "Catch you later," she says hardly any louder as she crosses to 
  the door, bumping past anyone not quick enough to step out of her path.