"You like lager?" They're walking up to an old brick building, once just a house, that looks a lot like your standard English pub. Jean, his young Eurasier dog, lets out a single bark from inside when they get close. Alain's in clothing that he considers pretty standard for walking the beat - a trench coat, a loosened neck tie, and his revolver holstered under his arm. It's been a long day, and the informants are dissapointingly reporting what they've been telling Alain the last few weeks - things have gone pretty quiet after the recent spike in vigilantism. Wren walks alongside in step with Alain, a dark blouse and black skirt over stockings and common leather boots, standard, smart costume for the lowkey, unremarkable appearance she has undertaken while on the field with him. "I don't mind it", she says rolling her neck and shoulders a bit, "I prefer brandy, of late anyway", she enthuses with a passing smile, her attention drawn to the shadows that cross their faces as the building rises before them.

"We've got brandy. We brew our own lagers, though." He moves to unlock the door, frowns, shakes out his right hand a couple times, and turns the lock with his left hand instead. Inside are several booths, a few tables, a long bar, a pool table, and several chairs arranged around a fire. "I never really understood brandy..." He looks over his shoulder at her as he tosses his coat onto a table on his way to the bar. "What's the draw?". She smiles over a shoulder to him in turn, as she slides into a booth to face him in a smooth motion, deliberate and timed. "It's one of the first drinks I ever had, something like that sticks with you, if by memories urge and that being the only thing. I enjoy it, warm", she sits forward, tilting her head to him, "But as it's home brewed, I'm going to break my rut and have a lager". "You won't be disappointed," he grins at her as he walks behind the bar and taps out an amber lager for himself. "I think my first drink was chouchen - sort of like mead, I guess, but it never impressed me much..." He selects a second glass. "Pale, amber, or black?". "Amber", she replies with a slowly forming smile of gratefulness, eyelids falling a touch. "Thanks Alain", she begins to look over the surrounds, eyes adjusting to the lighting.

The lighting's dim, typical of a pub. Jean the Eurasier puppy wanders over to Wren for a curious sniff - he's not small anymore, but he's still a juvenile. He's also exceptionally fuzzy, with a thick, soft coat. Alain says several words to Jean in something that might be French, but it's more removed from most dialects of French than Acadian is from Parisian, but Jean pays him no mind, too occupied with Wren even when his master makes his way over with the two pints. Black brows arch in a friendly way as she sits side on to the booth table, waiting, legs sticking out from the very edge of the booth seat, as reaches out to caress the dog, run her fingers through its fur with tentative movements. The longer she does it, the more her face changes, from one of a cool detachment to something endeared. "Where do you hail from, Alain?", she finally asks, drawing her eyes to his from where she sat, and searching out his face in the scarse light, offers a curious, intrigued look.
Jean is quite friendly, and licks at her hand a few times, but he's also quite sleepy. After a minute or so, he wanders back to the fireside to curl up. "Nouveau Bretagne," Alain replies to her, passing her the pint glass and sitting across from her. "I came here with my sister and my cousins almost two years ago. Ever heard of Earth?" He nurses his pint. She nods. "I have. Do you miss it, at all?", she inquires gently bringing her own glass to her lips in the pause, as she regards him consideringly. "Horribly, sometimes." He sets his glass down, considering. "But it sort of helps in a way that I can't go back... and the Nouveau Bretagne I miss has changed." There is a pause. To go further...? No. Not today. "It's on Earth... but I think our history is different than most people I meet here who come from Earth."

Her eyes fall as she listens, and her glass placed onto a coaster, Wren crosses her hands on the table between them, empty. "I don't really miss my home, it's a funny thing. I miss it for the people I cared for, but it was mostly family", a thoughtful cast to her features as she lifts her eyes, "I'm feeling very lucky to have been dropped here. I'm not entirely sure what happened, I feel like Dorothy in Kansas lately", a curt laugh and she rolls her eyes, holding them on the ceiling for a moment, the gesture stretching her pale throat, returning his gaze with a crooked smile. Alain places his hand along his whiskered jaw, watching her. "I should count my blessings, then - all the family I had left and cared for came with me." He takes another sip of his lager, and while he thinks, his tongue ring clicks, just once. "Can you go back?". Her brows furrow a moment at the curious click of his tongue, piercings and such a whole world away from her knowledge, and she shakes her head, "I wouldn't know how. I met a woman a few nights ago who insists she can help me, but everyone has a price, and I've only just arrived, I want to take things a step at a time", she explains softly, watching him in turn, "It's nice.. to hear that", she then adds again, ponderingly, with a few nods, "that you've your family...", she forces a warmer look, glancing away only to lift her drink, she was aware of his attention, and his gaze was the piercing kind, and she made herself steady her attention there, straightening her spine once again, "So, is there anything I can help you with coming up? I'm keen to get on my feet with you"

His mind changes tracks once she brings up business. He breathes out a thoughtful sigh. "The Division always has plenty to do... but SPI's casework has slowed somewhat. RhyDin's underworld has gone quiet, and I'm not sure why. Either recent developments have worked that well, or something larger is in the works.". "I don't trust that something's being planned... so I'm trying to keep an eye on the movement of weapons in RhyDin, which can be mind-bogglingly difficult to do."

"Well that sounds like something I could do for you. Maybe, from the inside?", she offers with a cunning smile, green eyes almost slit with the expression. "I don't want to get you killed," he says almost immediately, her youthful exuberance at the prospect sobering him.
"I don't either, but it's the way I was raised. Do a good job, don't just try. Do it the best way. It is only an idea", she raises, with a solemn look, the smile slipping aside. "I guess I am being forward..", she frowns faintly, and sits back.. He rubs at the back of his neck, looking down at the table. "...There's no denying your idea makes sense. You're a fresh face in RhyDin, and the only one I have working for me." He looks up at her, suddenly serious. "We'll set you up - but you'll learn handguns as well as hand-to-hand inside and out. And you will tell me everything about everyone who approaches you."She squares her shoulders and nods at him a bit, taking her lager for a long sip. "Where will you base me?", she leans back into the seat, comfortably, tilting her head at him, a hand moving into her tousled, black locks to push some hair behind an ear. "Before I became a P.I., I... worked the other side, so to speak." Gulp of lager. "I was a smuggler - and I still know a lot of people in the smuggling community I can call allies. I'm not sure if it'd be a pawn shop per se... but we'll set you up with something along those lines." He places his fingers against his brow, eyes drifting away from her again. "You should know something - that since I've become a detective, three women I tried to protect are six feet underground, none of them killed in pleasant ways. RhyDin's a dangerous city, and I can't promise your safety... Are you completely positive you want to do this?"

Wren gathered her thoughts and filtered out the best description she could, it was bleak, but true, "Alain, I have nothing to lose. Not that I do not value my life or view myself as dispensable, but I want to help, and all work like this involves a cost. I'm smart and I'm no nonsense, and have absolute faith in myself. Trust me when I say I am ready", her face is cool, her eyes steady. "There is no one to mourn my loss, no children or lovers I leave behind..", her blood she felt slowed saying that, by her own admittance. Her eyes moved out the window, and she thought with mild terror on Isidore, this man who wanted her, who frightened her for some reason, for what he offered, but it was so soon to speak on that, and so she felt that what she offered Alain was correct. "I have no one to lose me.... That is why I can do this and act freely", she adds, with a heaving sigh, her chest risen and staying there.

"You take the utmost care," he says firmly to her. "When you get the first inkling someone's onto you, that your cover might be blown, you tell me, and we'll pull the plug on it. You have a lot of passion, Wren... but that passion can't do anyone any good if you're dead."

"Alain, I am an optimist.", she sat straight, stomach pressing lightly to the curve of the table, "Everything has a gamble to it, and I'm aware of what I'll be encountering, generally at least, from the field that you've shown me...", she reaches across the table for him, "I appreciate it. I don't think this down has lost all its vigor and hope of being a good place to live in. I've met quite a few lovely people for all the horrors I've heard about. I'm not even a social type..", her hand slowly retracts back across the wood as she engages Alain with her eyes, chin raised, face broken up in shadows that moved with the swinging of a light. He watches her, and then raises his glass to finish off his pint in a few more gulps. "RhyDin can be a pretty decent place... and it's easy to lose sight of that." She taps her glass just under her nose, along her lips, and then finishes it off, leaving a little juice to clink along the ridges at the bottom of the glass, where the yeast settled. Then, she sidesteps as she raises, and runs a hand through her hair, "That sounds good. Do you have the paperwork on you?", she looks him over a bit.
He shakes his head. "I'll drop it off tomorrow. Where should I bring it to?" He too rises from his seat, and slaps his thigh twice - Jean stirs at his spot by the fire and wanders over, and Alain moves with him towards the side door.
Wren follows after a few steps, look few times on the edge of the table. "It'll take some time to set that up. I'll try and teach you what I can, but shadowing me out in the open probably isn't the wisest move for you if we're sending you undercover. I'll give you paperwork to take home with you and sort out there until we set this up, so no one sees you around the SPI office all the time."

She nods, and raises her lager, gaze drawn over to the dog as it nears its master. "I live at Aisling House. It's a metal door up the first small hill off the marketplace, near the pastrie vendors. Walk up a little and it's on the righthandside, a white building. Slip it under the door", she nods then, pulling on her jacket which was draped over her arm. "Good night Alain", she smiles, drops her gaze and wanders out the front door.

Alain DMourir pauses to watch her go, a frown written into a few fine lines in his brow. Then he opens the side door to let Jean out into the yard.

He was conflicted as to letting her in, he didn't need another girl six feet under on his conscience.

Some hours after the visit to the Inn, where upon paths had crossed and run ins had made her head spin, she left Isidore's side, kissing his arm, his cheek, as they sat slumped and content in her apartment, having been watching another old film cuddled up on the old leather lounge, Wren gently unhooked his arms from around her, lifted his warm, sleep-heavy head from her breast, resting her cheek there, savouring the smell of his hair, and leaving him to a comfortable position, she dressed in quick, with warm favour, rugging herself up for the bite of the early morning air, and hurried across the Market and towards the S.P.I Office.

Unlocking the door and briskly moving down the back to the desk she had been assigned, she scrambled in a rushed fashion, mind whirling, as she sought out a simple pen and paper, ripping a sheet from a pad on her desk and wheeling open a draw roughly with her anxiousness, and with shock at spewing it out a little too far, she madly grabbed a pen, and jotted down a few lines for Alain.


It had been relaxing, finally her day, after hours on her feet and the strange encounters of the inn, to ease up beside her boyfriend and watch a movie, half aware really, but utterly content, sharing comments with one another and brief, nervous kisses. Sometime after, while the beginning of their third film for the night played, and they sat there holding one another, asleep, her eyes opened and she sat staring into nothing, heart racing, prompted by an uneasy feeling that came over her. She didn't know what it was that bothered her so, exactly, but it had to do with 'Joe', which clearly was not his name, but to whom had been flesh and blood and real for the short time they discussed the urgency of his tidings. Yes, she was contemplating the veritibility of his statements, and of his actual existance, for she had gone to see him off down the stairwell from the hall, and he was gone. And when he walked away, hadn't he walked without shuffle or falter, but with heavy footfalls, certain steps, stalk of a tall, well built, confident man, not like that of the old man she had sequestered away with to the Hall, to discuss his matters in private.

Standing, paper in hand, she snapped back to the present, and then rose a hand to her head, cursing beneath her breath. She'd forgotten her notebook, the one with Joe's contact card in it, upon which was simply written, in calligraphy of a sort, his number!

Over to Alain's desk she went, and slapping the few lines down to his desk, securing it in place with a strip of sticky tape from Adrianna's desk, she stepped back, thought of anything else she could do, and realised she needed her book, that was it, there was nothing else she could do until she spoke to her Boss.


Out onto the street, lights off, door locked, she headed back to her apartment, attic room, where her love slept. Without removing her jacket or beanie, she walked straight for her desk and took the notebook out, leaving it in place of view for her to see, and then returned to her lounge, and His side, cuddling up against Him, fingers within the collar and cuffs of his shirt, and she fell asleep, just like that...


~~The note reads:

Come by my place tonight anytime after five pm until 8pm. If you can't, find me at the Inn later in the evening, I'll be waiting.

This is important.

Wren