Konrad Vrdoljiak

Edyta
The highrise apartment building was one that boasted that money that was not something that its residents were in need of pinching pennies over. Sleek and modern designed, the building contained large spacious apartments that cost approximately the same as most small family houses would (if not more). The lobby was prowled by a doorman and security guard which were employed to ensure, apparently, the privacy of the residence, but this was of little import as his presence, if not description, had been mentioned in vague passing on her way down to the store earlier in the day. It had been the first time she'd stirred from the apartment, to the doorman's knowledge, for the last few days, but her predilection of remaining secluded was well and truly entrenched into the staff these days.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
His is the sort of face that didn't speak definitively of rank and status. Put him in a well-cut semicasuals and he could be the scion of some fabulously rich family. Put him in a muscle-T and steel-toed boots, and he could be a common gangbanger, muscle for the local drug lord. As is, he's something of both - the steel-toed boots half-hidden under black pants (corduroy, nothing so rank as denim); smoke-gray t-shirt, not quite a muscleshirt but close enough, under a slick black coat. Leather. And almost certainly tailored.

Something feral about this one, too. Something about the cast of the face, or the glint of the eyes that were more tawny than simple hazel.

The doorman and the security guard get a glance, more curious than wary. It's good to know they're around, though their presence doesn't fool him a bit: they're there for the look, and it's the look a kin of his tribe should have. He waits for the elevator sedately enough, back to the doorman and the guard both, happily ignorant, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, of their eyes on him. The girl in 1607 might've told them to expect him, but his was the sort of presence that could unnerve the other tenants.

When the elevator arrives with its muted ding, he steps in, punches the 16th floor button, and flashes a grin to the still-staring guard as the doors slip shut.

The ride up is uneventful. No sudden power outages. No influx of banes looking to (unsuccessfully) kick his ass. Another passenger gets on at the 13th floor, headed for the 20th, and he gets off before she ever reaches her destination. The 16th floor hallway is tastefully decorated, two large windows at either end letting in the pale wintry light. He glances at the room numbers and heads right, turning the corner to 1607. The doorbell chimes, barely heard through the thick sound-blocking door, and Konrad steps back, fixing the peephole with an expectant stare.

Edyta
He is left waiting there at the door surrounded by the silence of the hallway for a good few minutes. When the door does finally creep open a distance a sliver of a female face can be discerned through the opening. Long straight strands of pale blond hair, darkened by the moist touch of water, stick against her skin and she made no move to flick the errant pieces back and away. A slither of muscles tightening along the length of her jaw as she makes him wait another length of time in complete silence before she steps back and opens the door, one hand wrapped around the edge of the door and the other kept from sight behind the thick wooden facade.

If nothing else, her clothing suggested that he may have interrupted her in the shower or bath, for the slick satin of a lengthy robe was wetted in places that made it catch fast against the olive of her skin. When he has stepped into the heated apartment, she closes the door, twisting herself in the process of shutting the barrier that one hand remains behind her back and the other limp at her side. She, for a better description, just stares at him silently, although, granted, her eyes remain well below his own.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
And step into the heated apartment he does with barely a glance to her. His posture and carriage is classic alpha-male, if she were in a place to recognize it: back straight, chin up, jaw set, hands relaxed at sides, and ready. To be Alpha, one might correctly say, is born and bred into his family.

He paces a few steps, a small circle into the unit while he takes in what he can see of it, hear of it, scent of it. His nostrils actually flare as he inhales of the air, discerning steam, the faint scent of soap, keeping with the appearance of shower-moist hair as his attention finally turns on her again.

He's still moving. Bars of light from the vertical blinds fall across his face, and his strange eyes: now lit, and tawny as an African plain; now shadowed, and the sort of luminous almost-brown of polished wood. He stares at her just as silently, assessing, until a small curve hooks his mouth and he slides his gaze indulgently aside -

- and back. "Did I interrupt your shower?" A surprising voice, that: low, hard at the edges, but not unpleasant.

Edyta
The apartment was a haven of scents to those attuned to living their lives emerged in them and relying on them for indications of their surrounds and what may avail them within a moments notice. Steam still seeped out of one doorway left ajar, an indication of where the bathroom lay beyond. There was a waft of soap and cigarettes awash from that room, mixing with an stinging aroma of air kept stale in there for some long hours and only finally allowed to escape into the rest of the abode. There was the lingering tell-tale scent of a man also: the aromatic tale of aftershave and shaving cream mixed with masculine sweat and deoderant. However, to the masculine scent, there was no indication of anything remotely scented of the wolf-kind. The smells were too obviously human in nature.

A roll of her shoulders in a faint shrug, the one hand kept behind her back as she backsteps through the alcove into the shining metallic kitchen and turns only when she has moved well outside of his line of sight. A drawer opens in the kitchen, something heavy placed into the confines before it slides closed again on well fitted runners. A few moments before she emerges again and crossed the open-plan living area to one of the italian leather sofas. She gathers up a soft pack of cigarettes in one hand, tapping one out with the palm of the other and places the length of the cancer stick between reddened lips. A flicker of a small lighter flame touched to the end of of the cigarette, the end flaring brightly as she inhales deeply before allowing the miasma of smoke to slither forth like a hazy snake.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
More easily than it appeared, it seems, the smile is gone, replaced by a blank awareness. He studies her backing toward the kitchen, and though he does not follow her into it, his head tilts to catch the sound of whatever it is she placed into the drawer. He's still watching her when she comes out, and since she does not invite him to sit, he does not bother to make her feel more at ease by doing so.

He's tall, Konrad: a few inches over six feet, and the way the leather coat falls (european cut, none of those tacky studs and spikes for him) suggests strength and not inconsiderable muscle mass. His moon is, after all, the full. To the faint scent of gunoil covered by the acridity of smoke, he provides a certain hidden tickle of rage, overpowered by a strong will - not quite iron, perhaps, but close enough. She sits; he stands; he looks down at her, lacing his hands loosely behind his back now, a certain detached curiosity in his eyes.

"Are you a mute?" They had not told him of this complication.

Edyta
"No."

She leans forward on the sofa, the pristine black leather creaking under the movement as she hooks the corner of the ashtray perched on top of the glass pane of the styled coffee table. She curls her thumb around the cigarette filter, flicking the vermillion polished nail against it and disloding a small section of ash.Tap... Her expression was stoically nuetral, a well placed mask of indifference and glacial cool scrutiny. Belatedly, whether on purpose or not is hard to discern, she gestures with the hand that captured the smoking cigarette towards the other sofa across the way. No other reply, however, was issued.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
A slant of his eyes toward the profferred seat, and back to her. He doesn't move. That must be a refusal. No, thank you; or simply no. A blink of those halfway inhuman eyes seems to herald a change like riverwater: amusement. "That's good to know." And in the next beat, "What's a freelance photographer doing with guns? A new project? A hobby? Do you hunt for sport? Kill for fun?" His questions, you must understand, are not fired off interrogatorily; they come easily, almost gently, and with such an ego-crushing edge of deprecation. "Or profit, perhaps."

Leather creaks: he takes a seat.

Edyta
Whatever desired effect he may have been looking for as a result of the manner in which he asked the slow string of questions, he was merely rewarded with a mute silence and a blank unreadable glance as she looked towards him, eyes previously contented with observing the curl of noxious fumes that trailed indolently from the end of the cigarette. She places the cigarette to her lips, lungs breathing in the smoke deeply till they are filled to brimming and she speaks around this cloud of escaping fumes from both her lips and nose. The gray haze slowly obscures her features, slipsliding over her features and escaping upwards towards the ceiling high above.

"That's my business." and not yours... She lifts the ashtray, already containing various spent and crushed out filters, and places it on the arm of the sofa beside her and reclines back against the thick-set padding.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
To her blank unreadability, nothing: nothing but that curl of amusement, which could easily be callous. He strips the coat from his shoulders and sets it aside on the arm of the sofa, then leans back, the length of his legs crossed at the ankles, incongruous steel toes on the boots glinting almost merrily in the sun. Biceps bulge when he folds his arms; the breadth and thickness of chest and shoulders stretch the fabric of the smoke-grey shirt. For all that, he has a litheness to him, halfway pantherine, and he watches her with near-inhuman eyes that, hooded or not, pierce the smokescreen she casts. Poets would say they pierce right to the soul.

Poets would not dare meet his gaze.

"Of course. Your mate, then. Do you have one? And I don't mean that..." a deep inhale: raise of the chin, narrowing of the eyes - perceiving, and a thin smile, "...human, whose scent fills the air. Or is that also your business?"

Edyta
"No, I don't."

Tap. A further fall of ash from the end of the cigarette into the ashtray perched precariously on the edge of the sofa armrest. She rolls the tip of the cigarette against the glass edge of the ashtray, smoothing and sculpting the smoldering tip slowly. The other arm lies along the other armrest, motionless for a moment as she stops the minute examination of the cigarettes length to look across the short space between them. Her eyes find themselves resting on his face, more specifically on his cheekbones because training was ingrained in this tribe's kin to not be so ingracious (or stupid) to stare a monster in the eyes without a damn good reason.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
He is, how shall we say - handsome, without being attractive. They are not one and the same. He has a collection of features that makes cameras fall in love; his face would grace any picture. Meet him on the street, though, and one tends to walk the other way.

Too feral. Something about those eyes. Too primal. Something about that smile.

"Why not?"

Edyta
"I just don't."

There was more than likely a better reason than that, given that their tribe judiciously watched and trained those who showed the pure breeding of their lines, even if they didn't breed true themselves. Such commodities were rarely allowed to roam so freely, unhindered by kin and cousin, without some hidden agenda or purpose.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"That's not a very good reason," he points out: crushing gentle, an opium overdose.

Edyta
"I highly doubt you are of a position to be privy to the information, so how about we leave it at it's a 'need to know' basis." ...and you don't need to know...

Her tone was impeccably nuetral and slidingly cool, the edges barely even touched by any trace of an eastern european accent. It was also the longest string of words she'd said to anyone in a very long time. Social conversation: definately not her forte.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"And I highly doubt you are so valuable to the tribe as you think, to be exempt from the," irony, "holy duty of breeding. May I?" - her cigarettes.

Edyta
Unflinching at his comment, she replies around another thin exhalaltion of smoke, "I doubt you are either."

She picks up the soft pack and negligently tosses it across the distance between the sofas, fully expecting him to be of the reflexes to be able to snatch it out of the well-aimed flight.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
Catch it he does, pulling it deftly out of the air and turning it about to read the label before tapping one out. Garou and their kin tended to smoke a lot - moreso, even, than the average twenty-something. Blame it on the stress. Blame it on the knowledge that lung cancer would never affect a Garou, and would be a kind death for many a kin. There are many worse. Kidnappings, rapings by Dancers; utter shrieking insanity and terror; killed by a frenzying mate; or simply wasting away from one child every nine months, year after year, from puberty to menopause.

Lighting up, he flips the pack back toward her, and catches her eye - or as close as it comes, when hers shy away. "No," he murmurs, "indeed, I'm not."

Edyta
"Then why or why I am not mated is a moot point."

She taps the ashes from the cigarette and sculpts the end of it again with the slow percision of rolling the length back and forth between thumb and forefinger against the ashtrays edge. A flicker of a glance in his direction before her attention returns to the cancer stick.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"Hardly." His eyes fall to the ashtray, measuring the distance between, and then return to her. "It's the point of a proposal I have for you." Surely the irony of the words are not lost on him. "Purely in the interest of duty. Would you like to hear the terms?"

Edyta
"I always like a good joke," a slither of a twisted smirk catches the edge of her lips, lifting them slightly in a vapid ghost of a smile.

"Go ahead." An idle wave of one hand.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"Mating." You and me, baby, ain't nothing but mammals...wonder if she heard that song before. He leans forward, stretching across to ash his cigarette into the ashtray unless she was so kind (she is obviously. not kind.) to extend it toward him.

Leaning back again, he continues, "Or at least the lipservice thereof, unless circumstances make me decide otherwise. I don't promise you love," a hooking flash of a razoredge smile: if this is a joke, then that is the punchline for him, "fidelity, or even any great measure of protection should you land yourself in more trouble than you can handle. I do promise you this. I'll tell the elders we're carrying out our duty whether we are or no. I'll attempt to refrain from abusing you. I'll allow you your privacy. And I won't expect anything from you that I have not given in turn."

He pauses to smoke. Then, "It seems a fair proposition to me, and the offer remains open until my situation changes. If you don't find it acceptable, I suggest you take precautions not to tempt me." Another drag; another smile. "Not that you're in any danger of that, so far."

Edyta
"Be still my beating heart." The comment drawls sardonically and besides that twisted smirk that ghosted across her glacial features, it was the first actual emotion that had played across her nuetral mask of an expression. She stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray, tapping another from the rumpled packet and lighting it, a curl of smoke escape her reddened lips as she continues, "The child has a sense of humor."

She curls her legs up under her, using her free hand to pull the wrap of black satin around her trim figure and exposing only the thinnest olive line of flesh of one thigh as she readjusts her position.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"Call Lucifer and inform him of the blizzard coming his way," he returns with a low laugh, "the glass maiden has shown emotion."

Humor, never quite harmless, never quite mutual, glints in his tawny eyes: half-human at best. He brings the cigarette to his lips and inhales, cheek hollowing beneath high wide cheekbones, clearly and undeniably east european, despite his relatively unaccented voice - a touch of british, if anything. Then, leaning forward to ash again, it's hard to tell if he's still amused; if he's laughing at her; if he's all too serious, and on the verge of anger. "Should I give you more time? A night to sleep on it; a year and a day?"

Lean back, replace cigarette, stretch out.

Edyta
"I'm already in a contrived relationship," she gestures idly at the living room and the expanse of the well-appointed apartment that was paid for almost entirely out of another person's wallet and wages.

"What purpose would it serve to abandon that facade for a stripling youth that, to this point, has yet to prove that his bloodline is actually worthy of my families?"

Konrad Vrdoljiak
A shake of his head. "You misunderstand. There will be no 'relationship'. Keep your human lover, or whatever it is he is to you." He could almost smell the chill in their relationship...

...echoed, now, by the chill in his voice. "As for my bloodline, I assure you it's your blood that will be diluting mine. Or are you asking of my personal valor?"

Edyta
"You have spine, at least, I'll give you that," she replies cooly as she taps the long span of ash that had grown along the length of the cigarette as she stands, first one long leg uncurlig followed by the other. Her hair was still water-moist, but drying slowly, but the satin robe no longer sucked along the line of her spine where her hair had been hanging. She was near on silent as she padded across the polished floor of the open-plan living area and into the kitchen, smoke tendrils trailing after her movement to mark her passage.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"What a coincidence. I could say the same of you." He turns to watch her wander into the kitchen, perhaps because he wonders what it is she clunked into the drawer; perhaps because her backside isn't exactly hard on the eyes. A moment later she's disappeared into the kitchen, and a moment after that he is at the archway into it, as quiet as she is. "Be a good hostess, would you? Offer me a drink." Then he nods toward the drawer. "What's in it? A camera or a gun?"

Edyta
She opened the gleaming metallic fridge door and pulled out a bottle of imported beer, cracking the cap and tossing it against the metal bench, letting it slide over the edge and into the sink. She doesn't close the fridge door as she steps away from it, her passage taking her to the drawer that he indicated with his question and plants her hip against it. She tilts the neck of the bottle towards the open fridge door.

"Have a drink."

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"Thank you," he replies, helping himself to a can of cola that he doesn't open immediately. For the road, one supposes. His eyes aren't quite so inhuman for the lack of light; the resonant gleam is not there. Still, they are cuttingly perceptive, and flick to her hip against the drawer, wedging it firmly shut. His mouth curves. "Oh. Pardon me. Toys of a more personal nature, then."

Pop-hiss. He wrenches the tab off entirely and drops it into the trash can, one of those gleaming metal affairs that complimented the gleaming metal refrigerator perfectly. "When does he come home?"

Edyta
"He works late." and from her tone it was quite obvious that the long hours of 'seperation' between herself and this human partner of hers was hardly something that was regretted or pined over. Most of the time she didn't pay any any more attention to Mark, whether he made it home at 5pm or 11pm. They led their seperate lives, so to speak, and he knew that she kept secrets from him on a regular basis: he just didn't know exactly how many secrets and how detrimental to his health they could be. She downs a swallow of the ice-cold beer before turning around, reaching across the bench to the adjoining breakfast bar and snags one of the many ashtrays that could be found in the strangest places in the apartment expanse.

Konrad Vrdoljiak
How kind of her. He reaches forward and stubs his cigarette out; there's still a good drag or two before the filter. As the last of his smoke dissipates, he replies, "And how much does he know about you?"

Edyta
"Almost nothing," she replies, exhaling a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth as she leans back against the counter languidly. "I prefer it that way."

Konrad Vrdoljiak
"I've noticed." Their conversation is a slow-motion gunfight. Their comments are not snapped, nor bitten off, but fly to and fro with the accuracy and directness of bullets, nonetheless. He takes one sip from the can and sets it down. "Let's leave it that way. I'm going to go." He goes to pick his jacket up from her sofa.

Edyta
She rolls a shoulder in an approximation of a shrug, but is otherwise silent in answer to his commentary. He walks through the living room to retrieve his jacket from the sofa and she crosses from the same expanse of warm polished wooden floor, undoing the sash around her waist with one hand as she moves. The satin robe flutters to the ground around her bare ankles as she steps through into the bathroom, the door shutting behind her and the latch being thrown. Obviously he has to show himself out...

Konrad Vrdoljiak
While she heads for the bathroom, he slides his jacket back on. The trip to the door is short and simple, but he pauses, adjusting the fall of the leather as he turns toward the hallway she went down. "Oh, and Edyta." Her door shuts and the lock clicks, but the doors inside the flat aren't made of the same soundeating material as the front door, and so she can hear him well enough. "Was that a yes or a no?"

Edyta
A silence reponds for some expanse of time before the lock is thrown and the door opens slightly, a bare olive shoulder leaning against the naked frame of the wooden doorway. If he stepped slightly to one side he may even be able to get a glimpse into the polished refines of the bathroom, although that would probably require effort he wasn't willing to spend. The crack in the door was mostly barred by a long trail of olive skin, from face down to a long stretch of leg to an ankle.

"I'll consider it."

Konrad Vrdoljiak
The olive-skinned blonde's parting remark is returned with a single acknowledging nod. "I'll see you again, then. Soon." Konrad turns and lets himself out, reaching behind him to click the lock on the knob home. The door is pulled shut quietly enough.