guns blazing.

Calden White

Griff's, it's called, and it's the sort of place you frankly wouldn't take your out-of-town friends on their first visit to Denver. Not unless they were really into the hole-in-the-wall, old-school-diner scene, or unless you didn't really want them to come back. Tiny, trashy, and looking suspiciously fast food-y from the outside, Griff's is perched on the south end of downtown, right on Broadway where it's been since bell bottoms and flowers in your hair were in.

The dining room is miniscule. There's a counter for regulars to grab a seat and watch the kitchen staff fry, grill, and fry some more. The rest of the seating is mostly booths with cracked vinyl seats and slightly sticky linoleum-topped tables; a few smaller tables with freestanding chairs. And the patio, of course, with its rain-stained umbrellas and Costco-food-court-style tables.

This. This is the place Calden picks out. This is the place that he, by all accounts a thoughtful and well-educated man who's turned his family's ancestral cattle run into a modern all-organic grass-fed fully-finishing ranch business, considers an appropriate site for a first meeting with a fellow kin of the Nation. A fellow well-established, deep-roots-in-the-area kin at that.

It better have damn good burgers.

--

When Lola pulls up, Calden's truck is already there. A late-model Silverado with all the bells and whistles, only the heavy-duty tow rig and the double axle in the back suggests that it is, in fact, a working ranch vehicle. The man himself is nowhere to be seen, which probably means he's already inside. And indeed, if Lola goes in and asks at the counter, she'll be nodded toward the back.

Calden, then: mid-thirties, unshaven, with thick dark hair in need of a trim that trends toward auburn when the light hits it right. Wide and solid across the shoulders, brawny, earthy, big hands roughened by work. He's wearing a red-checked shirt. Jeans. Cowboy boots. There's a beer in front of him, which he's only sipped at. And he's sitting with his back to the door, presumably to give her the honor of sitting in the better-defended spot.

Chivalry amongst the Nation. It's a different breed entirely.

Lola Hawkes

The vehicle that pulls up beside Calden's Silverado is similar only in that it's a truck with a bed. That's where the the similarities end. The truck that rumbles into the parking spot beside this spruced up working vehicle is a big old metal deathtrap. It's a pick-up that was made sometime in the early eighties, and its white paint is faded and dull, flaked off in areas and replaced with rust. The suspension squeaks, the frame rocks when you take a corner or a bump, and the gas milage is awful. But the truck runs, and it does a damn fine job of hauling the remains of fallen foes for proper disposal at the end of the day.

If there's any judgment to be passed on the establishment that Calden provided her with the name and address of over the phone earlier in the day, it's silent and buried where no one can see. When Lola walks in and glances about, she's more concerned with the smell of the place than the look of it. It smelled like fryer grease and mucky sanitizing solution, but she was okay with that. The counter is ignored, as are the people at it. Calden wasn't difficult to pick out from the other sparse in-and-out denizens of the dinner, so Lola approached the booth he'd set up shop in without asking for directions.

"Hey," is a greeting that meets his ear before she comes into his line of sight, some couple of feet behind his shoulder.

The woman he'll turn around to find is young, quite a bit so more than him. Somewhere in her early twenties, like so many still-alive Warriors tended to be. She was some mix of Native and Hispanic, for her features were strong and her dark eyes were set under heavily expressive eyebrows. She had long, dense black hair that was tied back in a simple ponytail at the nape of her neck, and no trace of make-up on her face or polish on her nails. She dressed plainly, in jeans and a comfortable gray pull-over sweatshirt.

More importantly than her face and clothes, though, was her posture and how her body moved. The woman stood strong and proud, with her chin rarely dipping and her shoulders never slumped. She seemed to be forever defying something-- time, nature, birth right. Though of average height, it was easy to forget that she wasn't actually six and a half feet tall after she left the room-- that's the kind of impression she made.

When Calden looks back, regardless of if he stands to greet her or not, Lola Hawkes will stick a hand out for him to shake. Though she's unsmiling for the moment, she seems sincere when she says: "Lola Hawkes. It's a god damn pleasure to meet you."

Calden White

Calden is familiar with people like Lola. Calden and his family: they are people like Lola. Folks who prize open land and cattle and crop more than any million-dollar mansion; a firm handshake and good strong eye contact more than any amount of asskissing; the fruits of hard labor more than any unearned gift or charity.

Which isn't to say he isn't a gentleman. Because he is, and perhaps more so than most men walking the streets these days. See: he still gets up when a lady comes into his presence. "Miss Hawkes," he says, and that's a miss and not a miz, "it's good to finally meet you."

When she's seated herself, he slides back in across from her. They sit a little offset: more room for both their legs. He slides one of the menus over to her. It's a laminated placard, the lamination clouded with use and time, and it looks like someone might've printed it off their home printer.

"I'd recommend the triple-giant cheeseburger meal," he says, straight-faced but for the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. "If you're going to clog your arteries, you might as well go whole hog. Sorry this isn't exactly a gourmet meal, but I promise you the beef here is great. One of my good friends in the business supplies this restaurant."

Lola Hawkes

Naturally, raised in a rural setting by a family with ranching values, Calden was a gentleman. He stood up for the lady that he was meeting for the first time, even if she had a reputation of being the farthest cry from a damsel that you could summon to mind. When they shake hands, her grasp is strong, and she does keep eye contact through the exchange.

The hooded sweatshirt stays on when she sits in the booth across from Calden, but spaced enough to make room for both sets of legs comfortably. She does push the sleeves of that sweater up her forearms, though, and accepts the plastic single-sheet menu that he provides for her. She glances down at the options, but has her attention pulled away from considering the options when Calden recommends one for her. The triple-giant cheeseburger.

For a moment Lola's jaw tightens and the corners of her mouth pinch up in something akin to distaste at the idea, and she shakes her head and looks back down to the menu. "Doesn't quite suit my tastes right now-- burger sounds rough." She glanced briefly down at the limited menu again. "Probably gonna go with the chicken instead." Something about how she stated that almost dared him to call her a pussy for going with white meat instead of red.

He probably doesn't, though, and he won't get too much opportunity for it because she's looking past him, over at the counter where two regulars are sitting chatting with one of the wait staff. "They do local meat here, though? Good on 'em. That'll make all the difference. Might have to swing by for a burger when I'm more in the mood for it next time I'm out here on patrol."

She doesn't make small talk very well, he can pick this up from her right out the gate. Lola is a direct person, blunt, straight to the point. She'd sought him out to discuss something in particular, no doubt, or at least she did so with some end goal in mind. Watching her body language and listening to her tone of speech, she doesn't seem the type to reach out and make friends just for the sake of it.

But, because she did have some kind of end goal in mind, no doubt, she still made an effort at socializing properly anyways.

Calden White

Well; he doesn't call her a pussy. But he does smirk outright.

"I'm sorry," all over-sincere apology, this, "here I thought with your reputation and your family's, you'd be wolfing down the red meat at every possibility. I'll be sure to suggest an all-vegan falafel place next time to better suit your tastes." The smirk relaxes into a smile, then. "I'm teasing," he adds warmly. "Order whatever you like. I won't judge. Much."

He turns, then, raising a hand to signal a waitress on the far side of the little diner. As she starts heading over -- taking her time to pour coffee for one of the regulars -- Calden turns back to Lola.

"Patrol?" He's openly curious.

Lola Hawkes

"I said I'd be back for the burger," Lola told him when he teasted about suggesting a vegan place instead. There was a bit of a fire in her voice, a defensiveness there when she'd insisted that she wasn't afraid of red meat, that she was planning her return to consume a burger, if only just to prove her point by now. When she'd met what she apparently percieved as a challenge on her willingness to eat like the Wolves do she'd looked up at him quickly, gaze even.

But he expresses that he was teasing, and his tone is warm and the smirk on his face is teasing but friendly. A second ticks by on some cloud-faced clock on the wall and in that span of time Lola seems to realize how she'd come across, that her hackles had gone up for no reason, and so she clears her throat and looks apologetic but doesn't communicate this vocally.

The poor dear. She's just so bad at making friends.

He'd gestured for the waitress to come over, and she started to make her way but paused to pour coffee for other customers. Lola took the time that the waitress was using to pour coffee to explain 'patrol' for Calden.

"Yeah. Making rounds, checking out dark corners, listening for screams and wails of anguish. Y'know-- seek out the things that He sends and make sure that I send them right back."

Calden White

At least Calden doesn't seem too put off by Lola's instant defensiveness. If anything, the Stagsman looks faintly apologetic -- sorry he'd made a joke too early, sorry he'd hit a sore spot, something.

Neither of them say much of it, though. They move on: she talks of patrols, he prompts for more information. She tells him. He quirks.

"As in you call in the info to the rest of the family, or as in you run in guns blazing?" -- and here they have to pause briefly because the waitress arrives. They order: Calden gets the double giant cheeseburger. Lola, meanwhile, gets what Lola wants.

The waitress departs. Calden waits until she's out of earshot before raising his eyebrows at Lola, waiting for the answer.

Lola Hawkes

Their conversation takes a brief lull when the waitress arrives. Calden orders himself a double burger, not a triple. Lola hands the menu up to the waitress and expresses that she'd like the number six combo and a coke. While the human woman is around Lola is impatient for her to leave. You see, Lola doesn't have a lot of experience interacting with regular human beings. She doesn't know what to say to them, what to talk about, or why she would even bother to care about what they could have to say. As far as she was concerned, they were the flock, and the ignorance that weighed down their brains and limbs and hearts made them precisely as simple as sheep.

But at least she has the decency not to make this too obvious. She's not cruel to the woman when they order, after all.

Once the waitress has gone away, Calden seeks clarification that Lola is willing to provide.

"Guns blazing." The Kinswoman adjusted her position and leaned back more comfortably in the bench that she sat. One arm slung up over the bench's back, and the other hand settled on the semi-sticky tabletop to idly push around a cream colored plastic salt shaker.

"See, I was supposed to be True Born. So I grew up that way-- learned to fight, learned to wage war and win it, right? Well, I hit like sixteen years old and get told 'nope, sorry, that's not the way things are', but by then it's already in my bones." Lola hasn't had to explain this to too many people. She doesn't stray away from the Sept of Forgotten Questions very often, and by now all of the Guardians new her face and her story. The Hawkes clan has been a part of the Sept going all the way back, in one way or another, after all. She isn't sure of what sort of reaction to expect from people when they learn she had a birthright stolen away by fate and poor predictions. When the news broke water at first everyone looked at her with big sorrowful eyes and it burned her so hot and angry that she would lash out in a fit of pubescent rage. Those looks stopped some time ago, though, so it's hard to say how she'd respond to them now if they were to come again.

"So I keep fighting. It's what I'm good at, and frankly where I think I belong anyway."

Calden White

Lola isn't the first kin Calden has met who wanted a place on the front lines. Most of them -- they're driven by something a little more predictable. Vengeance for a loved one. Jealousy of a loved one. Idealism. Youthful bravado. Something.

Stolen birthright, though. That's a new one.

"What do you mean," he asks, a touch more carefully this time, remembering her easy defensiveness, her painfully obvious lack of social radar, " 'supposed to be True Born'?"

Lola Hawkes

She'd caught his attention with the reason she gave for wanting to join the fray. He's heard plenty of excuses, reasons and motivations. However, a stolen birthright wasn't something he was familiar with. What did that even mean?

His tone was careful, like he was walking on eggshells. This woman was strange and unfamiliar. He's only heard about her, just as she's only ever heard about him. She knows that he's a Fianna kinsman who lives up north, and that she's never actually seen his face before although they've been Kin in the same geographic area pretty much all of their lives. He knows that she's part of a family tied to Forgotten Questions and that she's got some reputation toward aggression.

He sought clarification as to what a stolen birthright was, and Lola was willing to explain further. She starts out at a normal tone for the first couple of words, then remembers herself and drops it to something softer that won't branch out too far from their corner booth in the dinner.

"You know how when a baby's born, they'll take it to a Shaman to determine if it's True Born or not? When they did that for me, the Shaman told my parents that I'd be an Ahroun. No one questioned her, she was old and wise and hadn't been wrong before.

"Well, she was wrong. I kept waiting for the Change, and while it found the Cubs around me it never actually found me. My sister tried to push it on me, and I'd been in some places where it should've come, but..." She realized she was losing her point and shook her head a little. Just because she spent time with a pack of Galliards didn't make her one. "We went back to her, and she said that I was Kin, not True, that her first reading must've been murky or misguided or some shit.

"So here I had this right that I was brought up knowing would be mine, and then it was stolen away." She snapped her fingers. "Like that. But I don't think all that training and work and dedication should be put out to pasture because of it, you know?"

Calden White

There's a quiet irony in this not quite lost on Calden. That Lola should have been prophesied an Ahroun and turned out a kin; that she should have gone on to -- well, if not quite to resent her nature, then at least to be driven to overcome it, to make it as close to what she thought she would be as possible. And all the while, another woman in his life had quite the opposite story. Prophesied a kin. Raised a kin, treated as a kin, groomed for a useful life as a kin -- only to up and Change one day. And then: to miss the life she thought she'd have.

"I'm sorry," Calden says quietly. "That sounds like it would be devastating."

Their burgers arrive. The timing could be better; it interrupts a pensive moment. Still, Calden keeps his composure. He spreads a paper napkin in his lap and arranges the lettuce and tomato on his burger before mashing the top bun down on it.

Then, after the waitress is thanked and departs: "For what it's worth, I have a friend who had the exact opposite happen to her. She thought all her life she would be kin, and then -- she wasn't. And you know, I don't think she's any happier about losing what she thought was her future."

A small pause.

"She is happy with what she is, though. It's possible, I think, to regret losing something even while you appreciate gaining something else."

Lola Hawkes

Quiet follows her story, pierced by Calden's quiet apology. This is interrupted not by either of them breaking the quiet, but instead by the waitress arriving with their food. Calden arranged his burger in a way that would keep it from falling apart and told her a short story about someone he knew with precisely opposite the problem.

Lola plucked the pickles from her chicken sandwich, set them aside on the tray or plate or what-have-you that the food arrived on, and looked up at the rancher with eyebrows raised inquisitively.

"Ah... Winona, right? I know her."

She drinks about a quarter of her soda in one go before setting the cup aside and leans forward to take her sandwich up in both hands. He said that he thought it was possible to regret losing what she had, but still appreciate what she had gained. Lola's answer to that is a harsh, unapologetic scoff.

"Not sure what there is to be gained when the shoe's on the other foot here. Winona? She gained abilities-- she can go to the Spirits, she can Change, she can command Powers. Me? I lost all of that. Not sure what I gained to replace what was lost that couldn't have already been there in the first place, friend."

And the chicken sandwich is consumed, also a quarter of it gone before she takes her first break in eating.

Calden White

"I haven't the faintest idea who Winona is," Calden replies, that smile stealing back onto his face, "but obviously that's a more common story than most.

"You did lose all that," he adds, "but what you've gained is the ability to do what we're doing right now. Sit in a diner. Eat. Be anonymous, pretend to be human. Not get stared at like we're the worst sorts of monsters, even if we're just minding our own business.

"You also more than likely gained the opportunity to live a full life. Have a job. Do something with your time other than fight, fight, fight and die. Graduate college, get married, have kids, watch them grow up, watch them graduate college and get married and have kids of their own. Grow old. Die peacefully in your bed knowing -- not just hoping, but knowing -- your descendants have all done well for themselves, and your family's going to be fine without you."

Calden shrugs, a lift and fall of his shoulders. "It's not to say either one of the options is necessarily better than the other. It's just that for everything you think you've lost, I think someone like Winona could name something she's lost that you still have."

Lola Hawkes

Waxing poetic as he is, it seemed to Lola that Calden might have preferred that mundane type of life. He speaks highly of the opportunity to blend in to the crowd, to lead a normal life and have a job. He says that she could now get married, have kids, be a grandma and retire and get old and die peacefully in her bed.

The longer he talks, the more offended Lola appears. He gets to the point of saying 'Do something with your time other than...' and she's biting back some vocal ejaculation or other, and when it occurs to her that she has to actively try not to interject with her disagreement Lola reels it back in. She realizes how she's letting herself appear-- oh, not in front of Calden. She was glancing toward the patrons in the diner instead, making sure that she hadn't pulled their attention over their way. When the one gentleman glancing distractedly in their direction looked back away to his coffee, Lola looked back to Calden's face. This time, though, her expression is more restrained (not necessarily tempered or entirely quelled).

When he shrugs and concludes, Lola leans over the plate and the sandwich she has since put down upon it and taps her finger tip lightly on the tabletop between them to punctuate her point that she followed to make in a slowed (but not to the point of threatening yet) and low voice.

"That's what they are, White." The name, not the race, it's not like that. "We are with our Cousins. Our allegence doesn't lay with them, neither does our cause. To bleed into their society like that? To live in that world more than the one we belong to? Ain't how it's supposed to be. Sometimes that's how it has to be, for the purpose of money and saturation, but it isn't ideal.

"I was gonna be out there with them anyways. I wasn't gonna leave my post or put down my arms. You might have? 'Winona' might have," and yes, she's using the name Winona figuratively, representationally. "But not me. I just got shit taken away, right? I didn't bring nothin' back.

"So, stolen birthright. And that's why I keep on these patrols and go alongside the Cousins. 'Cause it's what I know, and what I was made for."

Calden White

Lola looks offended. Calden looks -- well. Not angry, not quite, but: a little flummoxed. A little put-off. The Fianna is frowning, no longer eating his burger; he's looking at Lola like something about her just doesn't quite compute for him.

At length he gives another shrug. "No one's asking you to lay down your arms. I've just met you. I don't mean to tell you how to live your life. I wouldn't, even if I knew you far, far better than I do.

"I just don't think going through life feeling cheated of something you never had in the first place is a very fulfilling way to live. And I think feeling constantly less because of what you do have is ... self-sabotaging."

Lola Hawkes

For a few moments they sat, both looking bothered and confused by one another. Calden couldn't grasp something about her, he couldn't get why she pined to be something more than what she was so much that she would risk herself emulating it. Lola, in turn, couldn't come close to wrapping her mind around the concept of, what she perceived to be at least, leaving the Garou Nation to the side in favor of living a life among the drab flocks of society.

Calden White lived with other people and owned livestock. Lola's family was gone, and she wouldn't keep animals on her land because it was so close to the Bawn. As much as she might have wanted a horse to ride around on her patrols of the Bawn's perimeter, she instead had to settle for her own two feet and occasionally either the dirt bike or four wheeler, depending on the season. A horse would only be a waste of money-- it would be killed by a Garou within a year, for certain.

It was the older and wiser of the two Kinfolk that spoke first, diplomatic and polite. I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, he said. He said, simply, that thinking less of yourself is setting yourself up for failure.

Lola's hackles smoothed back down, and she picked up her sandwich again. "Alright," she concedes. "But I'll have you know that I don't think less of what I am right now. I wish it could'a been the other way, but things are what they are. I'm doing just fine with the resources I have."

Sandwich washed down with soda, and she leads into: "So, yeah, I'll patrol. Not through the city so much these days, though, since the Spire got their shit back up and running. I stick closer to home anymore, until they need me here again."

Calden White

She doesn't think less of what she is, Lola asserts.

"Good," Calden says. He sounds warm. He sounds like he means it. He sounds, perhaps, just a little relieved. "I'd hate to think you went through life despising what you were."

There's a small pause.

"I do get it," he admits, then. "I do get how sometimes you might look at one of our cousins and wish you could run that fast. Jump that far. Move so silently, or so quickly. Kill so easily. And I get how sometimes you might think you got tails on the cosmic coin flip.

"But I try to remember that I have a lot of things, a lot of opportunities, they never could. And I try to remember that if tables were ever turned, I'd lose just as much as I gained, if not more."

He takes a sip of beer. Then he sets it down, looks across the table at Lola. "If you ever need help," he says, "you should let me know. I don't exactly cruise for danger, but I'll help a friend in need. And if nothing else, you're welcome to hide out on my ranch if you need to."

Lola Hawkes

"If the fuckin' Feds ever come after me, I'll be sure to."

Lola's referring to the park rangers of Roxbourough State Park, actually. She feuds with them regularly, although she's been on a dry spell since the spring of this year and has done a good job of leaving them alone these days. Calden, however, might worry that she'll try and hide on his property after the cops shine a flashlight on her while she's dismembering fallen foes for clean-up.

She doesn't clarify for him, that's just left to hang, and he can't be sure if she was joking with him or not. Her tone wasn't nearly clear enough.

"If you need anything in return, though... I mean a fighter or some hands and muscle for helping with something on the Ranch-- dude, I'll bet those floods kicked your ass, huh? -- You let me know."

They didn't see eye to eye necessarily, but both had firm and mutual understanding of the importance of creating these alliances, and that it was counter-productive to make rivals or enemies of someone instead.

So the rest of the meal is pleasant enough, if not made a little awkward by Lola's lack of social grace. They finish their food and drinks, Lola pays for her meal (yes she does, god damnit, and if he leaves anything for that tab it'll end up tip for the waitress if you ask Lola how the cash was divided), and they head out to the parking lot.

Calden will drive North.

Lola, to the South.