#goldfinchfreehold

Sylvi comes out of the small studio and heads to the kitchenette to put Piper's favorite warm (non-alc) drink together for her.

A mug of instant cocoa for herself. And, what the hell, it may be past the season for candy canes, but they make good stir sticks.

Soon they arrive, though the cup of fruity not-actually-tea tea may have gone a bit cold.

Jonas of course is invited in, unless he needed to get back to the kids?

Reheating with the microwave might not be how her mom would prefer to do it, but it works.

And the microwave IS the extent of pipers cooking talent, and much beloved of her.

Jonas wipes his feet "I can remain a bit but you two talk."

"Okay," Sylvi nods to Jonas as she hands Piper her drink. "Upstairs or down?"

Piper kicks the snow off her boots and gratefully accepts the cup. “You’re not sore that I didn’t make it out for snow removal?” A little guiltily. “Those drifts were over my head!” An exaggeration, but only slight.

"They weren't, but no worries. You're a delicate fucking flower," she adds with a wink.

“Oh anywhere is fine. It’s not private, just not for muggle ears.”

"Downstairs, then. C'mon." Sylvi leads the way.

Jonas looks bemused at the talk of snow drift size.

“I'm worried about… well, a lot of things.” She says as they walk. “But specifically, it looks like we have at least one ICE agent hunting on our grounds.”

Her face twists with a look so sour that no amount of honey in her tea will cure.

Sylvi's expression goes serious. She doesn't say anything in reply until they get downstairs, into the Freehold. Usually, her first move would be to open the flanges on the balefire spotlight, but not this time. "They're that close? Did they get anybody?"

“One of my coworkers at Muddy’s says they nabbed her cousin… and an agent “ this word said like a curse “came into the bar and was snooping.”

"Dammit." She sets her half-finished cocoa on the bar top. "Y'know, I can't even accept the word 'agent' with them. It sounds too professional. These are thugs with no authority but plenty of entitlement."

"What's Muddy's take on them being there?"

“He didn’t… like… “ a fidget. “I don’t think he’d appreciate them bothering his employees, but on the same time, he’s not barring the door. I get it. He had a business to run.”

“People gotta get by.”

"Okay." She paces a bit, frowning in thought. "How often has the...the 'abominable snowman' been there?"

“Once that I saw, but I have only been doing odd sets. But the way that Corazon was talking- that’s our lead waitress- she’s been seeing a presence around AND a relative already taken.”

Piper thinks back- was the hardware store Corazon mentioned inside Bergen ?

"I don't know if there's a lot the small numbers at Goldfinch could do about finding and recovering that relative. But maybe Teaneck. Knowing-things is kinda their specialty."

Yes. Yes it was.

“As harsh as it sounds, and I B don’t mean it like that, but my concern isn’t so much with finding this one guy- don’t get me wrong, I want to help with THAT too! … as it is in nipping this in the butt.”

“It's one man now, that we know of, but what happens tomorrow? Or the next day? What about our dreamers?”

She is fidgeting with her phone as well. Tapping a message, but hovering, unsure about sending.

"Yeah, that's the other issue. I'm just thinking, we need to get somebody to start working on the relative thing, somebody who has the resources. But that's not our strength here. Wwe're stronger with the keep-it-from-happening-again game.

She's still pacing. "There's protecting our people, and there's getting rid of the abominables. Two fronts, but working on one helps make progress against the other."

“I know I shouldn’t bother her… but… I really wish Dagmar was here. For more than one reason.”

She stops pacing and nods with a sigh. "I know. I don't think it would be bad to update her on stuff. But what she's doing is important, too."

“Like, she’s doing important work up in” (an involuntary shiver) Alaska… I admit I don’t know what, but it’s important right? But I would feel better if she was here. Not just because of her muscle either.

“Did you ever meet her, uh, prodigal friends?”

"I...think so."

“I mostly remembered a gal named Lulu, terrible table manners but a voice like a friggin’ Angel. But… there was another girl too, and her name was Lupe. “

Piper puts emphasis on the Latina name. “If these snowmen target her, or any one that she protects? Things are going to get MESSY. Maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way. But at the very least, Dagmar could pass a message to warn them maybe? Or she’d know what to do.”

Piper looks uncomfortable, out of her league.

"Well, yeah, at the very least we gotta do what my mom calls a 'good ol fashioned phone tree'...which I'm a little hazy about, but it sounds mostly like a group chat alert. We gotta figure out who is most likely to get targeted and see how to get them on a group we can ping easily."

“And as awesome as it is to think of werewolves eating ICE? Messy means noisy and Noise can be dangerous too any/all extra-special people, ya know.”

Sylvi blinks. "Oh. Crap. Yeah, I didn't think of that side of it. The thugs wouldn't stand a chance, but there'd be consequences we'd have to deal with later."

“But even if I thought of it, I am in no way volunteering to help wrangle honest to God were wolves. I can’t even get Mic to get off the counter!”

"Mic is a special case," Sylvi says automatically -- it's a common refrain around here.

"Do you want to reach out to Dagmar, or should I? Because you're right, she should totally give them the heads-up, but also point out that things have to be handled carefully. No fallout."

“Do you think it’s okay to call Dagmar? I mean, not to pull her off her mission, but… surely she can at least stop by to help out?” Hopefully

"Call? I mean....text, yeah. Calling is weird."

A muffled laugh, “that’s as if we could keep her AWAY if she knew there was trouble.”

Piper might not be blue, but she had learned trolls fairly well

"Trouble is, if she's got obligations up there, she might feel conflicted. We can handle it, for now. But it should be on her radar, y'know?"

“Maybe she can leave her boyfriend up there to cover for her.” Piper says hopefully

A blink. "Symon. Cover for Dagmar."

“It's just a thought!” She says, feebly!

"You realize how absurd that sounds, right?"

“Isn't he an immigrant too? I mean, I’m sure he can handle himself, but…” she trails off. “He could end up a target. Just like I don’t want Siv getting involved.”

“Not like I could stop her…” a sigh