"Nice night for a walk, don't you think?"
May. 25th, 2005 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
renferretMouse, Salem, and Lefty go hunting for Mausumi.
The garou of the Hidden Walk lost the apostate's trail by the bridge. So, it's there that Lefty's gone, now, to try and pick up her scent. She waits, concentrating on the image of the ex-Fury, and holding a bloodstained rag in her hand.
As might be predicted, Lefty has a devil of a time getting a fix. But it /is/ easier than it used to be, and she can sometimes even get a fix for 30 seconds at a time! It points, generally, toward the city (unsurprising), and more specifically, toward the general area of the Industrial district.
To be sure, Mouse prefers the bridge on the Realm side of the Gauntlet to what they encountered in the Umbra. While Lefty works, her attention seems to be drifting over the bridge itself, and her expression is a little distant. She has her hands in the pockets of her coat, but not for any idle reason. Paranoia is Mouse's middle name.
Lenny: Matilda Paranoia Knight? Gosh, what mean parents.
Salem's attention twitches now and again to Lefty, but otherwise remains vigilant upon the surrounding area. His thumbs are hooked loosely into the front pockets of faded black jeans; the weather's warm enough for him to leave behind the usual long coat.
Lefty doesn't turn or gesture to her companions. She doesn't even look to make sure they're following her. Her full attention is on the broken sense of her prey, so fragile that she won't let herself get distracted lest she lose it again. With the first idea of a general direction, she sets out at a brisk pace, headed across the bridge to the industrial sector.
On one of Lefty's longer bouts of the Gift, she's able to realize it's really quite a few /long/ blocks away. On the order of miles. On the bright side, she's not moving. (At the moment.) And so they pace through the City -- from bridge to park to Mouse's turf, through Mouse's to Lefty's, and onward. And Mausumi's still in one place, it seems.
Mouse trudges resolutely--and silently--behind Lefty, clearly prepared to walk as long as it takes. Her eyes are on their surroundings almost constantly, and her shoulders slightly hunched.
Salem's body language is, by comparison, almost arrogantly casual, loose-limbed and easy, a steady ground-eating pace that he could, it seems, keep up for days. His face is difficult to read, decidedly neutral.
Lefty doesn't seem to mind the tediousness of the process. The stops and starts are frustrating, but the ragabash just keeps reapplying the gift, and when she catches another glimpse of direction, all the frustration washes away as she starts purposefully back down a given path. At one point, so focused is she, that a beat up taxi nearly runs her over as she jaywalks in front of it. All the Gnawer does is hold up her good hand to fend it off. "I'm walking here!" she yells, drowned out by the blaring horn. Then, she continues on.
The taxi follows her for a half a block, slowwwly. And then it peels out and turns right, the driver waving his fist at her. By this time, they're on Bridge Street. Lefty's unable to get a fix for a few minutes, and then once she does, it feels like there's static interfering, somehow. But from her tenuous connection to the Gift, their quarry /may/ be moving around again-- she's perhaps a block from where she was before. But then, 10-15 minutes later, after swift walking down Bridge and onto South Bridge, with few fixes, the Gift steadies again, or anyway, it gets as steady as it ever does, with Mausumi. She seems to be back in the Industrial sector. And they're much closer, by now.
Mouse eyes the taxi balefully in her peripheral vision until tears off, and then she's back to studying the area. She breathes in deeply as they go, jaw setting.
Salem maneuvers himself closer to Mouse and mutters, "You're going to give yourself an aneurysm before we even see her." His tone is dry as a martini. "Loosen up."
"She's close," Lefty stops to whisper. It's almost as if the Gnawer takes that extra time to say it, just to make it even more true. She closes her eyes to concentrate a little more, and then opens them to look at her surroundings. Right now, the Gnawer is less using her gift and more studying the area to try and gauge, tactically, what in her current surroundings might attract the ex-Fury.
This is an area a bit north and west of the Odeon and the true, complete gutter-depression of that section of Jermantown Avenue, but some of the same aura surrounds. Cheap, easy bars, occasional prostitutes, and frequent vacant store fronts and apartments. Some of these have left their doors flapping open; others have them boarded up.
Mouse draws up close to Lefty, eyes still watching, though for some reason or another, she actually seems a little more relaxed. One hand lifts out of her pocket only long enough to brush at an inch on her jaw.
Salem regards this part of town with more than a little recognition and more than a little extra alertness. His thumbs unhook from his pockets; his arms swing smoothly, easily, with his steps.
Lefty redoubles her efforts of concentration and sets off again. She moves slower, now, aware of her surroundings as she follows the sense.
It's about four blocks more when Lefty realizes she's gone beyond the fix. The neighborhood isn't quite into actual Gnawer turf yet; it's some distance from the Odeon. But it's pretty run down, and there are more abandoned apartments. As Lefty circles around to get a better idea of just where the woman might be, it becomes clear she's in one of the empty apartments, one with the door (theoretically) boarded up.
Mouse's eyes move upward, scanning for lighted windows when she's not watching the street.
Salem's gaze goes up as well, following Mouse's. His eyes narrow slightly.
Lefty stops short of actually approaching the apartment. She looks up toward the Walkers and then leads them, with a look, back to the building. "In there," she whispers. "Somewhere, in there." She seems decidedly proud that she's done this.
None of the floors are lit. (But it doesn't feel as if she's very high up, to Lefty's Gift.)
Mouse breathes in deeply, holds it for a moment in her lungs, and then releases it, as silently as anything else that she's done this evening. She gives the Gnawer a questioning look, one eyebrow lifting.
"So what's the plan?" Salem asks in a murmur. He looks down from the building to the pair of Fostern.
Lefty scratches at the back of her neck, regarding the building one more time. "Alright. I'm gonna try sneaking behind and maybe seeing if there's a window I can peak in at, or something. See what I can see. But I'm not gonna take any chances." She takes a step forward, stops, and turns back. "If we can pinpoint her, what do we do then? go back and get the others?"
At this point, there's some noise-- nothing obvious like thumping, but someone's clearly moving around in the front room. (Whatever that room may be.)
Mouse nods emphatically to the question, though she gives the building a sharp, suspicious look. With a finger, she gestures to the three of them, and points--and then she startles very slightly at the noise, peering towards it.
Long distance to Lenny: Mouse imagines the effectiveness would be nil to none, but Cybersenses for heat vision sorta thing? (I'm so technical.)
Lenny pages: Oh. Uhm. Just one person.
Salem simply nods, all his attention on the building. The loose, easy demeanor has been dropped; he's much more obviously alert and tense, now.
Lefty is not as startle-able as Mouse, but the sound or movement from the apartment does make her a little more nervous. The Gnawer employs her other gifts now, Blur and scent of Running water. She eases herself toward the house, low to the ground and out of sight of any windows--boarded up or not. She slinks into the backyard, looking for a way to peak inside.
Mouse's attention on the building seems to /focus/, sharper and more intense than before. She points to the building and holds up one finger, then follows Lefty's lead and motions, though only far enough to keep the Gnawer in sight.
Salem, after a moment, shadows Mouse.
The window Lefty's under appears to be a bedroom. (With the absolute minimum of furniture.) Whoever's in the front room finishes what she's doing (it may involve putting clothes on) and evidently starts towards the front door.
Lefty crouches low and gestures to Mouse and Salem, who are (I think) somewhere at the side of the apartment building--allowing them to still see the front, as well as the back, where Lefty is. The Gnawer's motions are designed to express the idea that someone's leaving by way of the front.
Somehow, Mouse seems to get this impression as soon as Lefty does, because she holds up that single finger again and turns right around, brushing carefully past Salem in an attempt to get into a place where she can observe the front door, but not be observed herself.
Salem stays where he is, not quite equidistant between the two, and closer to Mouse. He gives the area a quick glance-over.
The most visible person is probably Salem; Lefty's well hidden, with Gifts and stealth, and Mouse is in among a hydrangea bush. The boards on the front door are evidently for cosmetic purposes only, as a woman, about 5'8" tall, starts out the door, entirely confident, and, as is her wont, entirely oblivious to her surroundings. She notices the vagrant panhandling across the street, she registers the various people coming in and out of the convenience store down the street, but the Garou, she does not seem to notice. For those who have seen her before, she's rather changed; the graceful posture is just slightly hamstrung, her movements no longer so smooth or easy. Her once-untouched face, showing clear in the light of a streetlight, has been caved in on the left side, although she seems to react as if nothing has changed. After missing the small clutch of people practically on her doorstep, she strides off down the street, shrugging the hood of the sweatshirt she's wearing onto her head.
To (Mouse, Lefty), Lenny pages: E.g., she's had /at least/ two battlescars in the space of about 2 days, if not more.
Lefty moves out from behind the corner of the house and joins first Mouse, then Salem after the woman moves off down the street. she seems entirely surprised by the sight of wounds on the woman. She does not say a word, however. Instead, she simply sets off after her. The Gnawer allows the woman a huge lead, though, keeping her only barely in sight.
Mouse is decidedly, visibly twitchy, and the sight of injuries on the woman elicits no sign of sympathy from her. As Lefty moves, she moves as well, trailing carefully behind the Gnawer.
Salem arches an eyebrow and moves after Lefty, running shoes light on the dirty pavement.
She seems, after a few blocks, to be heading to Harbor Park. Although on the way, she breaks up an incipient potential-fight outside a bar, mostly by glaring meaningfully at one man. She also stops a drunken sot a block or two away from hitting his significant other; she glares at him intently as he backs up carefully, memorizing his face. And then she drops a card into the woman's pocketbook, without a word exchanged, and continues down the road, toward Walker turf.
Lenny: (She has a message to find, see.)
Lefty gives Mouse a look. Again, there's some surprise there, but the Gnawer just shakes her head and continues following the woman. She uses the urban landscape to her advantage, moving between cars and stoops and streetlamps, using shopfronts and alleys to keep her stalking stealthy, but always keeping the woman just within sight.
The Walker Theurge shadows Lefty as best as she's able. While she's no Fostern Ragabash, this is territory that she's intimately familiar with, and it's clear she's not foreign to the concept of urban sneaking. As they move, she lets the space between them widen just a bit more, though after that she keeps a fairly constant distance.
Mausumi seems to memorize the faces of several other annoying men, along the way. As she gets nearer to the Park, gives a female vagrant some small but not insignificant amount of money; they seem to know each other, the vagrant smiling nervously and then getting out of her way, Mausumi bestowing a shattered smile upon her as if nothing in her own life had changed.
Salem has put back on a facade of casualness, his stride easy. He doesn't own the place, but he's lived here for a damn long time. Unlike the other two, he's not that difficult to spot... but he does keep his distance, and pauses here or there for mundane things, like lighting a cigarette.
Lefty gives the woman Mausumi interacts with a wide berth, but she takes at least a moment to memorize the woman's face, much as Mausumi did those men she passed. Then the Gnawer is back on the trail. She makes a mental note of the route the woman's taking, the direction she's headed, but mostly she just follows.
Mouse likewise follows, quietly, carefully. At one point she tugs the collar of her coat up just a little.
Once she actually gets to the park -- having, as she has since before Friday, avoided the Tenement -- she heads for the fountain, crouching in a parody of smoothness to uncover something from underneath a rock. She scans what seems to be a piece of paper, her brow slowly furrowing; the rage that is usually banked not-so-far beneath the surface pulsates, and she crumples the paper savagely. But she doesn't throw it away. Instead, she smoothes it, carefully, several times. Very carefully. All of her attention is on the paper.
Salem, lit cigarette hanging at a lazy downward angle from his mouth, pulls a hair elastic from his pocket and stops, still some distance away from Mausumi, to pull his hair back into a ponytail. He keeps her in his field of view, but doesn't look at her.
There's a certain trait that Gnawer's have. Most others might call it, simply, curiosity. But in a Gnawer, it's not that simple. And in a Gnawer /ragabash/, that statement is doubly--no, triply-- true. Lefty bites her lip, clearly dying to know what's in that little piece of paper. She remains on the streetside of the chain link fence, out of the streetlamp light, simply watching.
Likewise, Mouse slips along the outside of the fence, in the opposite direction from Lefty, though not so far as to lose sight of either her or Mausumi. Her pace is deceptively casual, but her footfalls, like everything else about her, are absolutely silent, as if she weren't actually touching pavement at all.
There's a moment more of smoothing. And then something-- perhaps Salem's movement-- draws her from her reverie, and she raises her head, nostrils flaring as if catching a scent. And then she says, her once beautiful voice like a crow's call, harsh and unyielding, "How long have you been there, mule?"
Salem, hair safely and pragmatically out of his face, lets his hands drop and hooks his thumbs back into his pockets. His jaw tightens at Mausumi's words, nose wrinkling like he's smelled something bad.
Lefty freezes, gaze shifting immediaely from the ex-Fury to the Walker theurge. Still out of the light of the lamp, the Gnawer withdraws, allowing the flood of light to mask her movements as she goes behind it, around, and hopefully behind Mausumi.
Mouse lifts her head, working one shoulder back as she turns to look toward Mausumi. She doesn't say anything, but she does move her chin to one side, eyebrows lifting in a vague, uncaring sort of shrug, as if Mausumi were about the least interesting thing in the entire park.
The woman still seems not to recognize Salem. She turns, with one movement which, though still sinuous, is so reduced in grace from mere days ago that it's almost an affront. She stalks, predatory, directly towards Mouse. "Good evening," she says, just this side of polite, were it not for the hatred and the rage that emanate from her, the violence that walks with her. "Nice night for a walk, don't you think?" It could be interesting, in some ways, the menace she can pour into a polite question. Were it not Mouse she was doing it to.
Lefty watches the woman move. she shakes her head a little, marveling at how different--how broken--she is, and yet, how she retains that presence, that menace. As she closes with Mouse, the Gnawer's jaw tightens. A few select words are barely uttered. Whispered into the air. IT's a prayer, or maybe a curse.
Salem moves, smooth and swift, socketing into place just behind Mouse's right shoulder, like a bodyguard, his scarred face stony, his stare cold and businesslike. Rage leaks out from the edges of his mask, showing its teeth like an attack dog on a chain.
Mouse's own jaw tightens as Mausumi approaches, something that somewhat interferes with her attempt to seem unconcerned. Whether or not she might have given ground, however, is a moot point as soon as Salem is there, as she straightens, head lifting a bit more, and gestures vaguely toward her mouth with her left hand. The other remains snug in her pocket.
Insects start congregating. The once-Fury bats at a few of them. She smiles patiently at Mouse, the edge of irritation at the insects making it into something not quite like a smile; the motion tugs the left side of her face unpleasantly, making it into a grimace. But she almost forgets Mouse-- almost-- as Salem makes himself more obvious. Something in her responds to him, her own Rage just barely leashed. The insects swarm further, until one of them lands on her ear, another, another, starting to be tens, multitudinous, and she /snarls/, a purely animal sound. Her skin almost bubbles, her hands clench, the tendons in her neck stand in relief. She stands for seconds, while more insects join, and then she snaps into movement. There's no farewell, there's no further taunting, there's just running, fast, very fast, away, at speed-- away from the Park, away from the Tenement, in a direction she did not come from.
Lefty comes out of her hiding. The Gnawer runs to catch up with Salem and Mouse, cursing under her breath. "I thought she was going to gut you, right here. Dammit, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist, though. She'll probably not go back. That was dumb. We've lost her again."
Salem's smile is small, tight, and to be truthful has a touch of vicious amusement in it as he watches the woman flee. His eyes track her steadily until she's out of view.
Mouse doesn't step back, as Salem's there, but one foot /does/ slide in that direction as Mausumi verges on boiling over. When the Fury takes off, however, Lefty is given a look that's hardly disappointed. Mouse practically /beams/ at the Gnawer, terribly approving. She even gives her the thumbs up with the hand not in her pocket.
Lefty flashes a grin to Mouse, but then sighs. "I'm gonna ark myself on a rooftop tomorrow, watching her lair. Maybe she'll return. She doesn't know, I don't think, we stalked her all the way from there. Maybe she'll return. If not, then we'll just find her again. Now we know it /can/ be done, at least." A beat. "I want to know what was in the little package."
Salem rolls his shoulders and lets out a breath, nodding to Lefty. He asks Mouse, "You need an escort back to the Tenement?"
Mouse nods at Lefty, and then tips her head toward Salem. She hesitates, though it's obvious the first answer was going to be some form of 'no'. Then she nods again, mouth quirking up just briefly, a faint and uneven smile.
Lefty bids goodbye to both, the Gnawer slipping out vaguely in the same direction that Mausumi went. Vaguely. "I'll be by in the morning. See you guys." With that, she disappears again.
The garou of the Hidden Walk lost the apostate's trail by the bridge. So, it's there that Lefty's gone, now, to try and pick up her scent. She waits, concentrating on the image of the ex-Fury, and holding a bloodstained rag in her hand.
As might be predicted, Lefty has a devil of a time getting a fix. But it /is/ easier than it used to be, and she can sometimes even get a fix for 30 seconds at a time! It points, generally, toward the city (unsurprising), and more specifically, toward the general area of the Industrial district.
To be sure, Mouse prefers the bridge on the Realm side of the Gauntlet to what they encountered in the Umbra. While Lefty works, her attention seems to be drifting over the bridge itself, and her expression is a little distant. She has her hands in the pockets of her coat, but not for any idle reason. Paranoia is Mouse's middle name.
Salem's attention twitches now and again to Lefty, but otherwise remains vigilant upon the surrounding area. His thumbs are hooked loosely into the front pockets of faded black jeans; the weather's warm enough for him to leave behind the usual long coat.
Lefty doesn't turn or gesture to her companions. She doesn't even look to make sure they're following her. Her full attention is on the broken sense of her prey, so fragile that she won't let herself get distracted lest she lose it again. With the first idea of a general direction, she sets out at a brisk pace, headed across the bridge to the industrial sector.
On one of Lefty's longer bouts of the Gift, she's able to realize it's really quite a few /long/ blocks away. On the order of miles. On the bright side, she's not moving. (At the moment.) And so they pace through the City -- from bridge to park to Mouse's turf, through Mouse's to Lefty's, and onward. And Mausumi's still in one place, it seems.
Mouse trudges resolutely--and silently--behind Lefty, clearly prepared to walk as long as it takes. Her eyes are on their surroundings almost constantly, and her shoulders slightly hunched.
Salem's body language is, by comparison, almost arrogantly casual, loose-limbed and easy, a steady ground-eating pace that he could, it seems, keep up for days. His face is difficult to read, decidedly neutral.
Lefty doesn't seem to mind the tediousness of the process. The stops and starts are frustrating, but the ragabash just keeps reapplying the gift, and when she catches another glimpse of direction, all the frustration washes away as she starts purposefully back down a given path. At one point, so focused is she, that a beat up taxi nearly runs her over as she jaywalks in front of it. All the Gnawer does is hold up her good hand to fend it off. "I'm walking here!" she yells, drowned out by the blaring horn. Then, she continues on.
The taxi follows her for a half a block, slowwwly. And then it peels out and turns right, the driver waving his fist at her. By this time, they're on Bridge Street. Lefty's unable to get a fix for a few minutes, and then once she does, it feels like there's static interfering, somehow. But from her tenuous connection to the Gift, their quarry /may/ be moving around again-- she's perhaps a block from where she was before. But then, 10-15 minutes later, after swift walking down Bridge and onto South Bridge, with few fixes, the Gift steadies again, or anyway, it gets as steady as it ever does, with Mausumi. She seems to be back in the Industrial sector. And they're much closer, by now.
Mouse eyes the taxi balefully in her peripheral vision until tears off, and then she's back to studying the area. She breathes in deeply as they go, jaw setting.
Salem maneuvers himself closer to Mouse and mutters, "You're going to give yourself an aneurysm before we even see her." His tone is dry as a martini. "Loosen up."
"She's close," Lefty stops to whisper. It's almost as if the Gnawer takes that extra time to say it, just to make it even more true. She closes her eyes to concentrate a little more, and then opens them to look at her surroundings. Right now, the Gnawer is less using her gift and more studying the area to try and gauge, tactically, what in her current surroundings might attract the ex-Fury.
This is an area a bit north and west of the Odeon and the true, complete gutter-depression of that section of Jermantown Avenue, but some of the same aura surrounds. Cheap, easy bars, occasional prostitutes, and frequent vacant store fronts and apartments. Some of these have left their doors flapping open; others have them boarded up.
Mouse draws up close to Lefty, eyes still watching, though for some reason or another, she actually seems a little more relaxed. One hand lifts out of her pocket only long enough to brush at an inch on her jaw.
Salem regards this part of town with more than a little recognition and more than a little extra alertness. His thumbs unhook from his pockets; his arms swing smoothly, easily, with his steps.
Lefty redoubles her efforts of concentration and sets off again. She moves slower, now, aware of her surroundings as she follows the sense.
It's about four blocks more when Lefty realizes she's gone beyond the fix. The neighborhood isn't quite into actual Gnawer turf yet; it's some distance from the Odeon. But it's pretty run down, and there are more abandoned apartments. As Lefty circles around to get a better idea of just where the woman might be, it becomes clear she's in one of the empty apartments, one with the door (theoretically) boarded up.
Mouse's eyes move upward, scanning for lighted windows when she's not watching the street.
Salem's gaze goes up as well, following Mouse's. His eyes narrow slightly.
Lefty stops short of actually approaching the apartment. She looks up toward the Walkers and then leads them, with a look, back to the building. "In there," she whispers. "Somewhere, in there." She seems decidedly proud that she's done this.
None of the floors are lit. (But it doesn't feel as if she's very high up, to Lefty's Gift.)
Mouse breathes in deeply, holds it for a moment in her lungs, and then releases it, as silently as anything else that she's done this evening. She gives the Gnawer a questioning look, one eyebrow lifting.
"So what's the plan?" Salem asks in a murmur. He looks down from the building to the pair of Fostern.
Lefty scratches at the back of her neck, regarding the building one more time. "Alright. I'm gonna try sneaking behind and maybe seeing if there's a window I can peak in at, or something. See what I can see. But I'm not gonna take any chances." She takes a step forward, stops, and turns back. "If we can pinpoint her, what do we do then? go back and get the others?"
At this point, there's some noise-- nothing obvious like thumping, but someone's clearly moving around in the front room. (Whatever that room may be.)
Mouse nods emphatically to the question, though she gives the building a sharp, suspicious look. With a finger, she gestures to the three of them, and points--and then she startles very slightly at the noise, peering towards it.
Long distance to Lenny: Mouse imagines the effectiveness would be nil to none, but Cybersenses for heat vision sorta thing? (I'm so technical.)
Lenny pages: Oh. Uhm. Just one person.
Salem simply nods, all his attention on the building. The loose, easy demeanor has been dropped; he's much more obviously alert and tense, now.
Lefty is not as startle-able as Mouse, but the sound or movement from the apartment does make her a little more nervous. The Gnawer employs her other gifts now, Blur and scent of Running water. She eases herself toward the house, low to the ground and out of sight of any windows--boarded up or not. She slinks into the backyard, looking for a way to peak inside.
Mouse's attention on the building seems to /focus/, sharper and more intense than before. She points to the building and holds up one finger, then follows Lefty's lead and motions, though only far enough to keep the Gnawer in sight.
Salem, after a moment, shadows Mouse.
The window Lefty's under appears to be a bedroom. (With the absolute minimum of furniture.) Whoever's in the front room finishes what she's doing (it may involve putting clothes on) and evidently starts towards the front door.
Lefty crouches low and gestures to Mouse and Salem, who are (I think) somewhere at the side of the apartment building--allowing them to still see the front, as well as the back, where Lefty is. The Gnawer's motions are designed to express the idea that someone's leaving by way of the front.
Somehow, Mouse seems to get this impression as soon as Lefty does, because she holds up that single finger again and turns right around, brushing carefully past Salem in an attempt to get into a place where she can observe the front door, but not be observed herself.
Salem stays where he is, not quite equidistant between the two, and closer to Mouse. He gives the area a quick glance-over.
The most visible person is probably Salem; Lefty's well hidden, with Gifts and stealth, and Mouse is in among a hydrangea bush. The boards on the front door are evidently for cosmetic purposes only, as a woman, about 5'8" tall, starts out the door, entirely confident, and, as is her wont, entirely oblivious to her surroundings. She notices the vagrant panhandling across the street, she registers the various people coming in and out of the convenience store down the street, but the Garou, she does not seem to notice. For those who have seen her before, she's rather changed; the graceful posture is just slightly hamstrung, her movements no longer so smooth or easy. Her once-untouched face, showing clear in the light of a streetlight, has been caved in on the left side, although she seems to react as if nothing has changed. After missing the small clutch of people practically on her doorstep, she strides off down the street, shrugging the hood of the sweatshirt she's wearing onto her head.
To (Mouse, Lefty), Lenny pages: E.g., she's had /at least/ two battlescars in the space of about 2 days, if not more.
Lefty moves out from behind the corner of the house and joins first Mouse, then Salem after the woman moves off down the street. she seems entirely surprised by the sight of wounds on the woman. She does not say a word, however. Instead, she simply sets off after her. The Gnawer allows the woman a huge lead, though, keeping her only barely in sight.
Mouse is decidedly, visibly twitchy, and the sight of injuries on the woman elicits no sign of sympathy from her. As Lefty moves, she moves as well, trailing carefully behind the Gnawer.
Salem arches an eyebrow and moves after Lefty, running shoes light on the dirty pavement.
She seems, after a few blocks, to be heading to Harbor Park. Although on the way, she breaks up an incipient potential-fight outside a bar, mostly by glaring meaningfully at one man. She also stops a drunken sot a block or two away from hitting his significant other; she glares at him intently as he backs up carefully, memorizing his face. And then she drops a card into the woman's pocketbook, without a word exchanged, and continues down the road, toward Walker turf.
Lefty gives Mouse a look. Again, there's some surprise there, but the Gnawer just shakes her head and continues following the woman. She uses the urban landscape to her advantage, moving between cars and stoops and streetlamps, using shopfronts and alleys to keep her stalking stealthy, but always keeping the woman just within sight.
The Walker Theurge shadows Lefty as best as she's able. While she's no Fostern Ragabash, this is territory that she's intimately familiar with, and it's clear she's not foreign to the concept of urban sneaking. As they move, she lets the space between them widen just a bit more, though after that she keeps a fairly constant distance.
Mausumi seems to memorize the faces of several other annoying men, along the way. As she gets nearer to the Park, gives a female vagrant some small but not insignificant amount of money; they seem to know each other, the vagrant smiling nervously and then getting out of her way, Mausumi bestowing a shattered smile upon her as if nothing in her own life had changed.
Salem has put back on a facade of casualness, his stride easy. He doesn't own the place, but he's lived here for a damn long time. Unlike the other two, he's not that difficult to spot... but he does keep his distance, and pauses here or there for mundane things, like lighting a cigarette.
Lefty gives the woman Mausumi interacts with a wide berth, but she takes at least a moment to memorize the woman's face, much as Mausumi did those men she passed. Then the Gnawer is back on the trail. She makes a mental note of the route the woman's taking, the direction she's headed, but mostly she just follows.
Mouse likewise follows, quietly, carefully. At one point she tugs the collar of her coat up just a little.
Once she actually gets to the park -- having, as she has since before Friday, avoided the Tenement -- she heads for the fountain, crouching in a parody of smoothness to uncover something from underneath a rock. She scans what seems to be a piece of paper, her brow slowly furrowing; the rage that is usually banked not-so-far beneath the surface pulsates, and she crumples the paper savagely. But she doesn't throw it away. Instead, she smoothes it, carefully, several times. Very carefully. All of her attention is on the paper.
Salem, lit cigarette hanging at a lazy downward angle from his mouth, pulls a hair elastic from his pocket and stops, still some distance away from Mausumi, to pull his hair back into a ponytail. He keeps her in his field of view, but doesn't look at her.
There's a certain trait that Gnawer's have. Most others might call it, simply, curiosity. But in a Gnawer, it's not that simple. And in a Gnawer /ragabash/, that statement is doubly--no, triply-- true. Lefty bites her lip, clearly dying to know what's in that little piece of paper. She remains on the streetside of the chain link fence, out of the streetlamp light, simply watching.
Likewise, Mouse slips along the outside of the fence, in the opposite direction from Lefty, though not so far as to lose sight of either her or Mausumi. Her pace is deceptively casual, but her footfalls, like everything else about her, are absolutely silent, as if she weren't actually touching pavement at all.
There's a moment more of smoothing. And then something-- perhaps Salem's movement-- draws her from her reverie, and she raises her head, nostrils flaring as if catching a scent. And then she says, her once beautiful voice like a crow's call, harsh and unyielding, "How long have you been there, mule?"
Salem, hair safely and pragmatically out of his face, lets his hands drop and hooks his thumbs back into his pockets. His jaw tightens at Mausumi's words, nose wrinkling like he's smelled something bad.
Lefty freezes, gaze shifting immediaely from the ex-Fury to the Walker theurge. Still out of the light of the lamp, the Gnawer withdraws, allowing the flood of light to mask her movements as she goes behind it, around, and hopefully behind Mausumi.
Mouse lifts her head, working one shoulder back as she turns to look toward Mausumi. She doesn't say anything, but she does move her chin to one side, eyebrows lifting in a vague, uncaring sort of shrug, as if Mausumi were about the least interesting thing in the entire park.
The woman still seems not to recognize Salem. She turns, with one movement which, though still sinuous, is so reduced in grace from mere days ago that it's almost an affront. She stalks, predatory, directly towards Mouse. "Good evening," she says, just this side of polite, were it not for the hatred and the rage that emanate from her, the violence that walks with her. "Nice night for a walk, don't you think?" It could be interesting, in some ways, the menace she can pour into a polite question. Were it not Mouse she was doing it to.
Lefty watches the woman move. she shakes her head a little, marveling at how different--how broken--she is, and yet, how she retains that presence, that menace. As she closes with Mouse, the Gnawer's jaw tightens. A few select words are barely uttered. Whispered into the air. IT's a prayer, or maybe a curse.
Salem moves, smooth and swift, socketing into place just behind Mouse's right shoulder, like a bodyguard, his scarred face stony, his stare cold and businesslike. Rage leaks out from the edges of his mask, showing its teeth like an attack dog on a chain.
Mouse's own jaw tightens as Mausumi approaches, something that somewhat interferes with her attempt to seem unconcerned. Whether or not she might have given ground, however, is a moot point as soon as Salem is there, as she straightens, head lifting a bit more, and gestures vaguely toward her mouth with her left hand. The other remains snug in her pocket.
Insects start congregating. The once-Fury bats at a few of them. She smiles patiently at Mouse, the edge of irritation at the insects making it into something not quite like a smile; the motion tugs the left side of her face unpleasantly, making it into a grimace. But she almost forgets Mouse-- almost-- as Salem makes himself more obvious. Something in her responds to him, her own Rage just barely leashed. The insects swarm further, until one of them lands on her ear, another, another, starting to be tens, multitudinous, and she /snarls/, a purely animal sound. Her skin almost bubbles, her hands clench, the tendons in her neck stand in relief. She stands for seconds, while more insects join, and then she snaps into movement. There's no farewell, there's no further taunting, there's just running, fast, very fast, away, at speed-- away from the Park, away from the Tenement, in a direction she did not come from.
Lefty comes out of her hiding. The Gnawer runs to catch up with Salem and Mouse, cursing under her breath. "I thought she was going to gut you, right here. Dammit, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist, though. She'll probably not go back. That was dumb. We've lost her again."
Salem's smile is small, tight, and to be truthful has a touch of vicious amusement in it as he watches the woman flee. His eyes track her steadily until she's out of view.
Mouse doesn't step back, as Salem's there, but one foot /does/ slide in that direction as Mausumi verges on boiling over. When the Fury takes off, however, Lefty is given a look that's hardly disappointed. Mouse practically /beams/ at the Gnawer, terribly approving. She even gives her the thumbs up with the hand not in her pocket.
Lefty flashes a grin to Mouse, but then sighs. "I'm gonna ark myself on a rooftop tomorrow, watching her lair. Maybe she'll return. She doesn't know, I don't think, we stalked her all the way from there. Maybe she'll return. If not, then we'll just find her again. Now we know it /can/ be done, at least." A beat. "I want to know what was in the little package."
Salem rolls his shoulders and lets out a breath, nodding to Lefty. He asks Mouse, "You need an escort back to the Tenement?"
Mouse nods at Lefty, and then tips her head toward Salem. She hesitates, though it's obvious the first answer was going to be some form of 'no'. Then she nods again, mouth quirking up just briefly, a faint and uneven smile.
Lefty bids goodbye to both, the Gnawer slipping out vaguely in the same direction that Mausumi went. Vaguely. "I'll be by in the morning. See you guys." With that, she disappears again.
