The library's ground level is one large room punctuated by even rows of pier columns that confidently hold the weight of the upper floors. The building is old but solid, its lath and plaster walls dark with age. Here and there some of the plaster has worn off to reveal the wooden slats beneath. Heavy, dark grained and decorated mahogany wainscoting runs the length of the walls, complimented by thick, ornate crown molding along the ceiling and each of the columns. It's clear from the dilapidated condition that the building's been abandoned for decades. There is a somber, sepulchral quietness to the place, even when alive with people, that is perhaps a ghostly echo of the rigid, required silence that its wardens demanded when the library was in its heyday.
Compact is the word for him: wiry, not quite 5'6" in his bare feet, with a sense of compressed energy and imminence like a coiled spring -- or a cocked gun. Never quite still for long, balance flowing through the balls of his feet. There's a striking intensity to his narrow blue-green eyes, the colour contrasting with his fair skin and spiky copper hair; just below the left is what at first appears to be a faint mole, but closer inspection reveals as a small, long-healed scar. His features are appealing, with high cheekbones and a good jawline, but it's the confident mien and roguish smile that most often seem to draw people in.
The above are probably the first things people notice on nights during which he is not also wearing a fluffy, thigh-length caramel-coloured probably-faux fur coat. This not one of those nights. Under it, he's more reasonably clad, in plain black boxer-briefs, and his lack of shirt displays a small collection of tattoos. On his left arm, just below the shoulder, is a parachuting rat holding a crowbar and wearing a pair of glittery-gold star-shaped glasses; on the right side of his abdomen, about where the waistline of pants sort of act as the ground, are a pair of rats with a mortar aimed up toward the left. Both tattoos are all in black (aside from the glasses) and resemble spray-painted stencils. His back is covered by a phoenix rising from flames, smoke, and ash, in suitably fiery colours and a completely different style. A reasonably close-up look reveals a number of scars worked into the design of that one. There's a couple leather-and-bead bracelets on one wrist and a pair of dogtags on a length of ball-chain around his neck; his nails were apparently painted black some time ago, since they're starting to show chips. Late teens, most likely, and when he speaks it's in a mellifluous, southern-accented baritone voice.
And:
Compact is the word for him: wiry, maybe 5'6" in his beat-up black combat boots, with a sense of compressed energy and imminence like a coiled spring -- or a cocked gun. Never quite still for long, balance flowing through the balls of his feet. There's a striking intensity to his narrow blue-green eyes, the colour contrasting with his fair skin and spiky copper hair; just below the left is what at first appears to be a faint mole, but closer inspection reveals as a small, long-healed scar. His features are appealing, with high cheekbones and a good jawline, but it's the confident mien and roguish smile that most often seem to draw people in.
He's in a well-worn biker jacket of the traditional sort, all fairly closely fit black leather and silvery zippers and snaps. Beneath it, he's got old black jeans with a rip in one knee and the cuffs half walked off and a faded plain black t-shirt which fits rather snugly, in a flattering sort of way. There's a couple leather-and-bead bracelets on one wrist and a length of ball-chain disappearing beneath his collar; his nails were apparently painted black some time ago, since they're starting to show chips. Late teens, most likely, and when he speaks it's in a mellifluous, southern-accented baritone voice.
Shaggy brown hair and darker brown eyes frames this young boy's face. Justin has a slightly tanned complexion with a hint of Puerto Rican from his mother's side, Caucasian from his father's. He has a fairly lanky build that could use a bit of bulking upas he is built like a high school track runner. He wears loose fitted 'destroyed' blue jeans, simple tank tops, and worn down sneakers that are about five months in need of replacement, and during the cold, a thick green military jacket from his Grandpa. He looks like your average, ordinary American young teen that plays outside and is fairly active. Tall at five foot ten, he is a few inches higher than most his age for now.
As Three-Mountains:
In his Hispo form, Watcher's coywolf heritage is far less noticeable. He's far bigger than a wolf and dwarfs a coyote, resembling some primitive creature or an oversized hybrid of wolf, dog, and bear. As a whole, though, he still physically resembles his coyote heritage more than his wolf as a whole. He's smaller and leaner than most Hispo, with the longer ears and a lighter build. He's got a thick coat, though, and it lends him a bit of false bulk that usually makes him just look a bit shabby. His muzzle is a bit broader though not so heavy as a wolf, though in Hispo it hardly matters. Those jaws are massive, his paws and claws even more so. Overall, he's a tawny grey-ticked coloration with a darker saddle. His undersides are lighter and he has yellow eyes.
It is early in the morning at the library and Justin is currently awake and eating breakfast as he sits on his large beanbag. Today's breakfast is McDonald's hashbrowns and a diet coke.
Three-Mountains comes and goes freely from the library, though more often than not he's with his pack - which means here and not with his tribe. The urrah-tena can be heard bounding upstairs none too quietly and comes lumbering down the stairs, his nose twitch-twitching. He smells It. Licking his lips, he zeroes in on Justin with his tail wagging hopefully.
It's not long after all that bounding and lumbering that there's the sound of a door opening on the second floor, and not long after that that Felix is coming down the stairs, in his underwear and that fur coat, hair all askew and expression tired and annoyed. "'s goin' on?" he asks as he gets his packmates in view, "An' why's it doin' it so =loud=?"
Holding out one of the hashbrowns to his best friend, Justin wiggles it side to side teasingly, then gives it a lob upwards towards him. At the sight of Felix, he blanches at his wardrobe, then asks, "What is being loud?"
Whoosh! Watcher goes partly airborn and snaps up the hashbrown. Part of it may get sheared off to flop on the floor, but the one part is finished in a nip and a gulp and the remainder slurped up faster than the five second rule. Only then does he look up, licking the grease from his muzzle, and glances over towards Felix with a most innocent whisk of his tail. Nice fur!
Felix narrows his eyes briefly at the pair of them, and then points to Watcher. "You is bein' loud. I was sleepin'! ...and these stairs are fuckin' cold, Jesus Christ. Hashbrowns smell good, though." He runs a hand through his hair, and sighs. "Well. I'm awake now. Save me a bite or somethin'." He starts back up, perhaps to at least get his boots, but he does pause to give the lupus a quick, small grin, "An' thanks. Half these philistines don't appreciate it."
"Oh boo hoo, you're fucking loud at night. Between the moaning and the music it's a wonder how any of us can whack off in privacy." Justin says as he takes out another hashbrown, then wiggles it in front of Three Mountains. "I got a bag of hash browns that a friend who runs cashier hooked me up with. I got some pack business for us to discuss though."
Three-Mountains tilts his head at Felix and looks between him and Justin. What are those? And who are half of them? In short order the coywolf forgets he was ever concerned with it and snags the dangled hashbrown with glee. Smacking his jaws, he flops down onto his rump next to Justin. What does the pack need to do?
"I was =sleepin'=," Felix reiterates, with a flash of anger crossing through his mien, "an' the first part of that mostly ain't so much =me=. Oughta thank me for providin' an inspirational soundtrack, anyhow. An' if we're--" He breaks off, shaking his head, and closes his eyes briefly, reining it in. "Fuckin' hell. Just lemme go get some pants on an' do somethin' about this headache. Be back in a sec." He gets almost out of range before calling back, "An' philistines are people who don't appreciate awesome shit like this coat!"
"Maybe I need to start cranking up some dirty Mexican music and put the speakers right against /your/ wall at three in the morning!" As he watches him walk off, Justin rolls his eyes upwards and gives an amused look to Three Mountains. "I'll tell you when Felix gets back down hopefully with pants on."
Are we singing at night now? Watcher inquires with a hopeful prick of his ears, though they are quick to go askance. But he just said it was noisy. The Galliard just ends up huffing noisily and settles down on his belly with his head on his paws and keeps glancing sidelong to the bag.
Just Felix's hand makes a reappearance down the spot where the spiral staircase passes through to the upper floor. Just far down enough to flip Justin off. There's the surprisingly quiet sound of a door upstairs opening and closing again, and just a couple minutes later, again. Another minute, and then Felix is coming back down the stairs, untied boots appearing first, then (lucky everyone!) jeans, shirt and jacket, apparently freshly-washed face, and rather more usually arranged hair. He's taking a drink from a half-full plastic Coke bottle as he makes his way down, and looking probably at least somewhat safer for human consumption.
Once Felix finally comes back downstairs with all his clothes on, Justin takes a hashbrown out of the bag and lobs it over to him, then tips it over so that Three Mountains can root into it. "Thanks for getting dressed so we didn't have to stare your morning wood." He scrunches his nose up. It is early morning and the three packmates are currently surrounding Justin's beanbag. There is Mickey D's hashbrowns for breakfast.
Unless Three-Mountains eats them all, which is a real possibility. As the bag is offered to him, the Uktena goes headfirst into it. He's at least trained in politeness enough to root out a few hash browns and set them aside for the others, but the rest? He pulls out three of them, papers and all in his mouth, and scoots away from the bag to start yanking them free of their wrappers to be devoured.
Felix, still somewhat drowsy and headachy, is a touch slower than usual, and just =barely= manages to snag the hashbrown out of the air. It requires a lunge and ends up pressed against his chest by the forearm of his free hand, but at least it doesn't hit the floor. With his boots unlaced, it leaves him somewhat off balance, but he parlays it into flopping backward onto the couch, knees hooked over the arm of it when he lands, and actually manages to make it look like it might have been intentional. Managing not to spill his drink helps with that. He takes an immediate bite of the hashbrown, and snorts at Justin. "You wish." A gesture toward Justin with the rest of the hashbrown, and he does actually say, "Thanks," presumably regarding it. Surely his mother would be proud.
With a glance about, as if searching for someone else, Justin shifts his jaw and then says, "Okay, so two things. We are going to establish formal pack territory now. Thane and his pack is moving to become full time guardians on the bawn, which means his territory is wide open for the taking. After the Spirals ended up hanging out at the club literally down the street from the Vault, that means we need to establish a presence there."
Three-Mountains looks between his packmates and then settles on Justin as he speaks. That is a dangerous area of the city, points out the coywolf. It needs looking after. The others will respect us more if we chase out Spirals!
Felix lifts his head slightly and his brows less so, looking over at Justin. "Yeah? Awesome. Ain't that I don't like our usual stuff, but it's weird not exactly havin' turf. An' not livin' in it. So what're we thinkin' for boundaries? Exactly what they had, or we sortin' out our own that happens to overlap?" He starts to move the bottle to take a sip, realises just in time that this works poorly while one is lying down, and twists to sit up properly so he can wash down hashbrown without spilling. Or drowning. "...an' yeah, definitely, they'd hafta."
"Well, someone has to look after the garage for Thane while he is big dog, and since my car is parked there, we'll make the garage our base of operations while still respecting the Shadow Lord territory. We won't go inside and fuck with their stuff." Justin says firmly. "Just the garage. From there we will spread out about five blocks and then clear out the Umbra of nasties. Once we set the mood, we'll see about expanding if necessary, but I don't want us to bite off more than we can chew."
Three-Mountains doesn't seem disagreeable to the territory aspect until he mentions the Vault at which the Uktena utters a faint, uncertain noise. Living in another's territory is strange. We can watch over it but should have our own home. There are many places there. One will work.
Felix doesn't look entirely sold either. "Make it our base how? 'cause I don't particularly wanna live there," he says, with a slight nod to the other Galliard. "If it was up to me I'd say we oughta be makin' our turf right 'round here. But seein' as that's pretty much taken already, I'm okay with goin' a bit afield an' coverin' what's gettin' dropped..." A small shrug.
"No, we aren't going to live there. Just say that the garage is the spot where we can meet up for official pack shit and clear out the Wyrm using it as a focal point on the map. I'm sure Thane would not want the vault to get taken over by Wyrm shit or tagged by those spiral revolution assholes. That's all I'm saying. At least until Thane is no longer tied to the Bawn if he makes someone else the Warder." Justin shrugs his shoulders upwards.
Three-Mountains does not know of other Shadow Lords. The Uktena flicks his tongue out across his nose. If they exist, they can protect it. If not, is the Alpha okay with it?
"Okay, I'm down with that," Felix says, nodding, and polishes off the last of his hashbrown. He glances toward the bag to see if any remain, or if Watcher's finished them all. "...yeah, I was gonna say, he knows about the idea, right? Or were you checkin' with us before you check with him?"
"A little bit of A, a little bit of B. I'll talk to him later tonight and tell him my plans. If he doesn't like it, I guess I can just come up with something else, we can meet in front of the garage for all I care. the territory needs to be protected." Justin takes another hashbrown, then flicks the last one to Felix.
Three-Mountains seems content with the assurance things will be checked out first. He planned to go to the forest today, it is a good day for the pack to travel. He must check on the pack there. They are his tribe's kin.
Felix looks satisfied with that as well, and reaches to catch the hashbrown -- with the wrong hand, so it bounces off the bottle and up into the air again, then drops right into his other hand. He looks entirely startled by this for a fraction of a second, and then moves it directly to his mouth for a bite as if there were nothing odd about that at all. "Sounds pretty sorted out, then, 'least as far as us and now. So what's item 2 on the agenda?"
"So, the other news is that Nick Dalton has asked me to ask you guys if you are interested in doing some home restoration. Since I'm good with my hands, I can probably teach uh ... you and ... Benny." He says with an apologetic smile to Three Mountains. "I can try and find something for you to help out with. But, he wants to buy houses, then we work on them, fixing the place up and what not, and then he flips it for profit and pays us for the work."
Three-Mountains tilts his head at this proposal. Help make dens? Interesting. He will not be good at building. Remarks the Uktena with wrinkle of his nose before he lifts his head and perks up his ears. He can protect them! Dens being built are places bad people may want to live in. Do bad things to. He can watch them until they are safe.
"I'm allergic to work," Felix says, twisting again to sit sideways on the couch, back to the arm, and settling into looking ridiculously comfortable, "Got the forged doctor's note to prove it." He washes down another bite of potato with a good swallow of his drink, and glances at the ceiling a moment before looking over to Justin. "How =much= is he plannin' to pay us?"
"I don't know, but the housing market here is pretty good. You buy cheap, sell high, then pocket the profits. Either way, it is easy money. But, if you don't wanna get paid, Felix, it's cool." Justin says with a smirk on his face. "Sides, I may not be here one day and someone else is gonna have to learn how to keep the place running."
Three-Mountains snorts over to Felix. The sept thinks we are useless. We can prove otherwise. This is helpful, to the city and a kinfolk. It will be good to do. It cannot be that hard. A glance over to Justin then. Is it?
Felix sips his drink again. "I do like gettin' paid," he grants, "...but my ways are =fun=." He considers a moment more, then shrugs. "I'll try it. We'll see. But I wanna know how much he's payin', first." He looks to the Uktena, studying him a moment before noting, "You could always put on thumbs for a while if you wanted to get swingin' a hammer, or whatever it is needs done."
"You can carry stuff and protect the den." Justin assures Watcher as he hops up to his feet and brushes his pants off. "I'll talk to Nick and ask him, but easily a couple thousand a job most likely to be split about the pack. If you see Benny, let him know too. I'm going to hit the shower, then we can head out to the woods to find lover boy here a fuzzy girlfriend."