It was cold and yet the man was running toward Halifax as though it were not colder in the barren city. Sure plants were growing and growing strong, but it was winter and cold. They were dead for now and the winter sea wind beat at everything and anything in its path. Strel felt it as it pulled at his leather jacket and scarf, whipping around his neck. Scents assaulted him, from dirty disgusting trash to the freshness of the salty ocean water. Unfortunately the former was much stronger than he cared for. Grumbling, he pulled up the scarf to cover his sensitive nose, grimacing at the stench of death and decay. Strel sniffed into the material, relishing the smell of himself and his home. God, those humans were filthy, but they produced so much fantastic work. How did that work?

Crash! He jumped at the sound, the hair on his nape stood up in instant fear. The noise was loud, echoing through the alley he was taking. Shuddering, the redhead twitched his ear to the direction of the sound. It did not happen on its own, that was for certain. So something caused it and his curiosity got the best of him. Sighing at his inherent desire to risk things, he turned into the derelict building. If no one was there, he had just stepped into a deathtrap. Rather, a building that was more a deathtrap than the other ones around.

He heard movement and noise, suddenly stopping his own pace forward. So, someone was indeed there. But who? Slowly, Strel shuffled toward the room, pressing himself against the wall as he peered around the corner. It was a woman, a smaller woman. Probably a coyote. She smelled of Inferni and the man couldn't help but furrow his brows with worry. He still remembered almost fighting a 'yote on that clan's borders. Who was to say this one would not attack him? But it was a woman, who seemed terribly cold. Breath clouding in front of him, he could tell that this was not southern coyote weather.

"It's some kind of booze," he said, turning the corner, hands in his jacket pockets. "I don't know what kind, but it's booze alright."

300+
Way to goooo! DDDD

She looked at him and smiled, and the redhead instantly fell at ease. Usually attackers either didn't smile or gave a grin that struck fear into the hearts of children. But she clearly did not believe him at first, taking a whiff of the liquid after opening the bottle. The look on her face made him grin, knowing fully well he made a similar one when he himself first smelled and tasted alcohol. Strel just watched her reaction to the alcohol and her out loud musings as she examined the stuff. "Well, it's an acquired taste." Of course, he had liked it after he realized it gave such a ridiculous interesting feeling of euphoria and something he could only call a buzz, since that's what his head felt like after drinking just a little bit of the hard stuff. "I like it, personally. But some kinds too taste pretty awful." Like gin. Gin was not that good in his oh so humble opinion.

Strel faltered a bit at the name. A Lykoi. One of the coyotes that seemed to be the only ones to populate the place. Wasn't Rikka a Lykoi too, even with her different last name of Poer? No matter, this shivering girl wasn't a threat to the redhead. He plopped himself down in front of her, gently easing the bottle from her. "Strel. Strelein von Rosnete." Taking the bottle under his nose, he inhaled then drew back instantly, grimacing as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He deserved it, of course, for taking that deep an inhale over a bottle of alcohol that had been unopened for decades. "Whoa, that's potent!" he exclaimed, wondering exactly what the letters on the bottle said, because this was some hefty stuff. He wanted to try it now, to be perfectly honest.

Strel noted the way the girl reacted to the alcohol, wincing and looking away in surprise, as if the stale air in that direction was any better there than near the bottle. The air was stale everywhere in these damp buildings, rotting from the inside and from the outside, eaten by all manner of things. The alcohol was the one thing that smelled fresh, so to speak. It was far from fresh, old as this bottle probably was. It was a human design and make too, so it was easy to see that it had at least two decades on it. At least. It was probably about two and a half if not three decades old. That only meant it was still delightfully fresh if not even better than when it was intended to be drunk. But, lord, it still smelled horribly strong, but there was nothing wrong with it. He had been taught, or he had learned, that if the booze was brown and still fully factory sealed, it was good to go, but if it was unsealed, step away or you'd be drinking what surmounted to paint remover for painter.

Sage encouraged him to take a sip from the ancient (they have short life spans, more than two decades is an eternity) bottle of nameless alcohol. Oh, sweet poison, how the redhead loved it. He watched her glittering eyes and nodded, breathing out as he took a sip of the stuff, fighting back the weak urge to cough at the ferocious burning running rampant down his throat. He squinted his eyes as he did, then gave a loud satisfied sigh. "Oh, my. My god. That was..," he faltered for the want of the right word. He made a waving motion with his hand, as though it would waft in the word into his head with the slight cold breeze. "I don't know what to call it but.. I approve. I approve quite a lot." Sniffing at the bottle again, he smacked his lips in satisfaction. He shook the bottle a bit and then offered it to Sage. "Here, try it. You found it. You should have taken the first drink, to be perfectly honest." But that was moot now. Still, she could try it and enjoy her discovery.

1049
hahah is cool I kind of had explosive word diarrhea

Well that was certainly cute; she was so careful about it, not wanting to break the bottle, or something else silly like that. But the drink was not poisonous, nor would it explode in her hands unless it were lit on fire, and Strel was definitely not the one to put a lighter to it. He did not even have a lighter to use on it anyway. It seemed like she was almost afraid of the human glass bottle and the liquid inside, but his first reaction had not been exactly something that would ease fear in a young girl's heart.

He watched her, bemused, as she drank down the alcohol and gave a look of pain. Well, that he expected. No one drank the stuff with practiced ease the first few times, especially one so young and so unaccustomed to the very strong taste of the stuff. Strel even gave a soft laugh and a quick grin as she shook her head, as though it would stop the taste on her tongue and the burning of the liquid's path down her throat. He laughed again when she denounced the drink. The redhead himself had not done that when he had first tried the stuff with Rurik months and months ago. In his head, he had remembered being wowed by it and then tasting more. But who knew if he was actually just glorifying his memories to have seemed a natural drinker.

But then, all of a sudden, her look changed to one of searching, of confusion. He furrowed his brows at her, wondering what she was trying to say, mouth all agape. He put his palms hands up, trying to guide her words with the weak hand gesture. But she voiced no words, gave nothing to explain her look of bewilderment. What she did, though, was drink from the bottle again, with much more vigor. Strel cocked his head a tad, feeling his own face twist into mild surprise. That had definitely not been the direction he had thought she would go, especially after calling the drink "terrible" and looking as though it had caused her some kind of pain. Granted, Sage still made a hard look when she downed that gulp, but that was also expected. She could not get used to it so fast! That would be just uncanny!

She thanked him, and the redhead put up his hand and shook his head. "Nah, don't thank me at all. You found it. I just happened to creep by." It was true. What had he done other than walk by and hear noise in a long abandoned building? Strel also disregarded her fingers stroking his arm; such light touches were not something he took much into account, especially by a woman, let alone a woman he had never met before. Sage reminded him of Rikka, a bit. She seemed to not mind the fact he did not have coyote blood in him, even though her clan was one to dislike the purebred wolves that roved the lands of Nova Scotia. Were they not the clan that wanted the wolves gone and the coyotes running the show, as it were? Oh well. Maybe that's why Sage was a bit like Rikka; she did not seem to care, even though it was obvious there was no coyote in him, not even a drop from a distant ancestor.

Sage confirmed his thoughts, that this was the more peaceful Lykois. "Inferni, eh? Would your approve of your drinking with a purebred?" he asked, jokingly with a very light tone. He was still a tad bitter that a coyote from Inferni borders had almost attacked him. Granted, it was during a war with another wolf pack, so it was probably they had their orders to attack anything that did not smell of Inferni or that looked to be of Dahlia de Mai, or of full wolfish blood. "But no, I agree, I don't think people should be mean. They just are because they did't get enough love or something." In truth, he had no idea whether or not people were mean because of their parents and upbringing, or if they were born like little devils in the cradle. He, in all honesty, did not care. People were who they were and chances were they would not change, but could be punished into keeping it out of the light. Not that he was going to be the one punishing anyone.

"And I didn't tell you where I was from. Though I figure I smell more than strongly enough of Cours," he answered, dismissively. He had been there for a year and a half and seemed to just bob in and out of the loop of the pack. He ought to know more, being the horrible gossip that he was. Sometimes, the redhead wished he had more responsibilities for the pack than he had now, which was just to do what he did; tailoring. Lately, he had been rather missing from sight and he had lost some standing in the kingdom, which broke his heart a bit. He had been there so, so long and yet he remained on the slippery ladder. "But yeah, I'm from Cours des Miracles. I'm the tailor there, since no one else seemed remotely competent enough to handle a needle. Of course, I am so I took the post." He made it sound like he had won the position, rather than just told Jacquez he wanted it for himself. So far he was the only one and it seemed he would happily remain the only one.

Sage offered him the bottle again and his purple eyes looked at it for a moment before taking it from her grasp. He carelessly grazed her fingers as he did so, putting the bottle to his lips and taking a long drink from it. When he put it down, he smacked his lips happily, sitting it down on the ground (after clearing some debris away from the area) between the two of them. It was within easy reach of Sage and of himself, should either one want another swig of the stuff. "So, tell me more. About your sisters? You said you were with them in Inferni? What's it like in the clan?"

"In that case, I'm a really really bad hunter," he said, laughing a little bit. He knew that it was hard to hide oneself in the creaky, dilapidated old human dwellings. The floors were rotting and they were breaking apart, noisy as all hell. Good luck trying to get up the stairs without a sound, it just was not a possibility at all. Most often the quietest thing in the city was the middle of the street where one could prowl and not make a sound on the hard pavement ground. But inside, nothing was still, nothing was quiet. In the winter, especially, with the wind howling through cracked windows and between the wooden panes and under door frames. Roofs collapsed and snow would tumble in, only to further the rot when warm weather melted all the ice and snow into base water. No wonder the city was decaying. As long as gems like these bottles were still surviving and well preserved, then there was no worry!

Waving his hand, the redhead scoffed, as though the girl was just joking around. "Please, I figure you'd try it yourself, just at home, instead of here, in case it was poison or something." If he had done it himself and not known what alcohol was, he would have done it himself. Found a friend, or Alaine, to be prepared with a way to get him to vomit the poison if that were the case. And because the redhead did know what was in the bottles -- or vaguely know what it might be -- he was going to help himself to a couple before he went home to stick in his dresser and build his stash. He really aught to consider talking to Vigilante and becoming the supplier of booze close to home as well as being the kingdom's tailor. That sounded like a good idea...

He rolled his eyes a little bit, almost joining in with her laughter. But he couldn't, not when he remembered the crazed coyote who had scared him half out of his own skin. "Yeah I bet. I'd say my family is in the same league, though they never started wars," he added softly, remember their ancient ways mantras and their fervor to maintain the "old ways, the good ways" that the elders no longer could even remember. God, how glad he was to have lit out of there when he did, wondering if their old blood mania would have affected him too if he stayed. Ugh, spending his prime adult years there? That sounded worse than dying a virgin.

"It is," he said, smiling gently as he thought of his pack lands. "But plenty of places here are pretty too, don't get me wrong. I just have a preference for home," he finished, laughing slightly. Home sweet home, after all. Then, she suddenly seemed so excited to know that he was a tailor, that he knew how to sew and all those flamboyantly gay things. "I'm not that good with leather, but I can make anything you like with cloth, needle, and thread," boasted the redhead, looking rather smug for someone drinking with a perfect stranger. "And I bet you'll get better the more you practice. You don't the notes perfect every time you pluck a guitar, so it's all about practice." Strel, at some point, was a horrible tailor; this was about the time he settled down from wandering across Canada and settled here, far from home but still in his breed's home.

Strel nodded along with the girl, taking the bottle from her and taking a quick sip of it rather than a large swig of it. He needed to get home sober rather than plastered; drinking away from home was not something he liked to do in excess. "The war, huh?" he began rather coldly, not directed to the girl but the war itself. "Yeah, I was here before it started. And I was here when it ended, too." He took another quick, light sip and set the bottle down. "I didn't fight, I didn't do much, but I did almost get attacked by a coyote on your clan's borders, when I got lost. Guy didn't even offer to help, but he seemed really cracked in the head. Got all turned around at the end, all confused, so I skipped home without much damage.. but it was so odd, and rude.. All I really wanted was direction home..." Strel's eyes seemed blurred, misty, as he struggled to remember it; it had been a year ago, or so he thought, but it was fading fast from his mind.

Sage hugged her blanket close to her. The redhead assumed that the coyotes here were at a heavy disadvantage with thinner pelts. How did they deal with the winter. Strel hated the cold but it was not enough for him to carry a blanket or a heavy jacket. How was this coyote girl dealing with it? "Me? Cours... Cours is my home and it's my family, even if none of them are my blood brothers and sisters. My own family didn't follow me up here, so I sort of had to find myself a family of sorts. I came from a pack further southwest, near a huge lake. I think it was Lake Heron? Huron? But yeah, I came up here a year and a half ago." He gave the girl a curious look, sly almost. "I ran away from home, you see." He figured if he could milk the drama for all it was worth, Sage wouldn't be bored by it. Well, there was that time in Toronto where he couldn't remember several days...

Ah the memories... "See, they didn't like the human things. Like, they hated that more and more of the children could shift and walk around like two leggers. They didn't like it at all." Strel still wondered why they hated it. No humans survived! What was the big deal? They could use their remaining artifacts for themselves, make life easier, more fun. "Even the human stuff left behind they didn't like at all. Once, I found a jewelry box and brought it home to the pack. In a few hours the alpha showed up and took it from me. Said he was going to remove the human disease from my family. I managed to save this though, by stealing it back from him later," he said as he lifted up his wrist to show the rainbow plastic bangle. It was still as gaudy as ever and Strel refused to part with it. "Imagine that. After that, I kind of bailed and then had a wild rumpus all the way here."