It's just another bright, lazy Sunday afternoon at the Brigg's house. Donnie, the mage better known as Tug, comes in from the Hallow with a green plastic watering can for his plants in hand and puts it on the kitchen counter, then flops down in his Lazy Boy and turns SportsCenter on mute. I wonder if Tom's here, or runnin' around today? Seems like we haven't seen each other in forever. Also, hot wings. Yes. Hot wings. Tug looks for the telephone.

Falx comes in the front door from his jaunt that he goes on some Sundays. Donnie hears Tom's shoes bounce off a wall near the front door. Tom walks into the kitchen. "Hey how’s your day going?"

"Heya, Tom," the big Thyrsus calls out from the recliner. "Just chillin' out. Watered the plants in the Hallow. A-ha!" he exclaims as he finds the phone. "Ordering hot wings. You want some, bro? Are you gonna' be around for a while today?"

"Definitely, ya I'm gana be around need to think some stuff over" He grabs two beers from the fridge and hands one to his brother as he sits down on the coach.

Tug takes the offered beer, but doesn't open it just yet. He takes a serious look at his brother's face. Thinkin' to do? I thought I was the sullen one. "Ok, cool. Let's get our grub on." He grins at his brother while he places a call for delivery. Once he has successfully negotiated thirty hot wings from A Kitchen Somewhere to Their Kitchen, he opens the beer and takes a sip. As he puts it down, he innocently asks, "What kinda' thinkin', Tom?"

Tom frowns. "It was a cluster fuck and I froze." He shakes his head. "I wasn't ready, thought it was gana be like over there. Forgot that we have magic and that the other guy does too."

Tug suppressed a laugh, in light of his brother's seriousness. It seemed that both Briggs brothers had a thing for wearing their emotions on their sleeves. This was good though. He was talking. So instead of amusement, Donnie nods sympathetically. "I'm not gonna' lie to you, Tom. I've heard talk. People were expecting you to step up back there, and you didn't. But you've been doin' this longer than me, remember? You've earned your way up the Arrows a bit before we moved here. I assume you were going up against rogue mages before, weren't you?” He takes a long sip of his beer.

“What really happened, Tom? Were you scared? Fuck, I was scared. Those things smelled like shit, too. I notice that kinda thing now." He laughs, just a bit, before continuing. "Did something remind you of something that happened in Iraq?" He looks into his brother's eyes, complete solemnity reflected in his own. "Talk to me, Tom. What's really going on?"

Tom swirls the beer in its bottle. "Ya I have...a few times tough bastards. Eh the circumstances just messed with my head. Bastards shooting up funerals like cowards then hiding behind zombies......man..." He looks up at his brother and smiles a bit. "My head wasn't in the game...it felt personal for once instead of like a job or something. I guess it is now, a whole new ball game. This is my life now, not a job I go to or an obligation. Just need to beat that into my head." He laughs.

"And ya I was fucking scared. Zombies? Mother fucking zombies I mean shit you would think our kind could be more original with the laws of reality at our fingertips. That and I don't want mom and dad to lose a son and not have a valid answer given to them."

He opens the beer bottle and takes a swig. "I wasn't prepared mentally. I was readying to scout around and maybe find something to do. Not to have a guy die in front of us and then go into a hellhole but that's how things happened. Should have taken a step back mentally." He takes another small swig, no need to get buzzed right now.

"Ok, bro. I hear what you're saying. And yeah, it is personal." He takes a drink. "We gotta be ready to fight whenever, wherever. This is urban warfare. You know that. You've done that. You've survived that. It's just the same out there, 'til we find that sniper, and that necromancer. Maybe it's the same person. Maybe it's ten. Damn, there's so much we don't know." He takes another drink.

"And, what if we find 'em, stop 'em? There'll be someone else. We're Arrows now, Tom, we signed on to fight any and all threats to the Awakened. But we gotta fight smarter. You almost died in my arms, and there was nothing I could do about it. The Wilds took my last mana and gave me nothing. If it hadn't been for Teegan..." he drifts off, turns away so his brother won't see the tears welling in his eyes.

"Magic is unreliable, Tom. That's what I learned from my Tower. That's why they call it the Wilds. You never really know what you're gonna get. What you gotta rely on, bro, is this." He points a finger at his thick skull. "You feel me?"

Tom nods. "Ya that time in there was a nice little reminder of paradox and that its just waiting to fuck us up. Magic is unreliable to some degrees but we are gana need it. Though our thick skulls will probably be more useful most of the time." He smiles and shakes his head.

"Thank you again for saving my ass. We won't have to worry as much about the mana issue now. I my knowledge of Prime is now equal with Teegan's so I can throw mana yours and other people's way to help. Though I am going to try to not step into clear view of things with guns. That was just dumb." Little gears in his mind click.

"Hey....I talked with West after I took a walk with some other mages. He told me of a sanctum that used to belong to the Pentacle but has fallen into others hands. I'm planning on scouting it out, actual scouting no going into anywhere unless we have too. If you would help that would be great, I'd like my brother watching my back and me his for this. I understand if you don't, I haven't exactly proven my leadership capabilities recently. Part getting our shit back and part showing I'm not completely incompetent, I hope."

Donnie smacks his brother on the shoulder. "You don't have to thank me, bro. Just don't die," he laughs, a little forced. "And, of course, I'll be there when you need me. Listen. I know you can do this job. You know you can do this job. You had a bad day. I've had bad days. Pick yourself up, there's another game next week, right?" He smiles at Tom. "Where are those damn wings, anyway? I'm starving," he jokes. "I'm always starving," he chortles, looking toward the door. "So what else you been up to? Anything? I've been checkin' out this gym, run by this crazy, sadistic bastard. It's great."

Tom chuckles. "Dying isn't something I plan on doing for a while." He nods. "Ya new game this time around." He smiles. "Ya wings would be great right now. I've been helping out at a church down the way that tutors school kids on the weekends to help them stay in school. And there's a hot teacher running it. So the gym is as much fun as I think it is? Might have to go by there and see what its like."

"Hot teacher runnin' around? I might have to go by there and see what that's like," he says and cracks up. "Nah, I'm kiddin'. She got a sister? Maybe, one who's a nurse?" He laughs so hard he almost doesn't hear the front door ring. "Wing-time. I'll get it." He looks through the peephole at the uniformed delivery person and opens the door. He returns with two packages of spicy chicken and places one on each end of the small table in the kitchen, the dining room being a little too large for just the two of them.

"Grab some paper towels, would ya?" he asks Falx, and sits, taking in the sweet aroma that makes his taste buds salivate. "Oh, hey, I forgot. I'm gonna get a flag football game together for all the mages, y'know, encourage better relations between the Orders, sorta thing. I'm talkin' to West about security, first chance I get. You're in, right?" He smiles broadly at his older brother, recalling the pick up games they used to play when they were kids.

Falx grabs some paper plates and paper towels as Tug comes back with the wings. "No sister nurse that I know of but if she has one I'll let you know." Falx chuckles happily. "Ya why not. It will be just like old times won't it? Getting Donnie smashed." He smiles remembering playing football with Donnie when they were younger.

"The games going to be on the Circle grounds?" Of course his mind goes right to security....though that doesn't stop him from grabbing a few wings.

Tug laughs at the challenge. "Yeah, smashed, haha. We'll see," he answers about the question of location. He understands what his brother's getting at, though. "Don't worry, Tom. Security's my top concern, too. If we can't get do it safely, we don't do it at all."

Then he tears into some wings, devouring several in seconds. Mmmm. Hot. Good. HOT! HOT! BAD! He grabs the beer and drinks half the bottle in one go, then grabs another, after wiping his hands off. "Hot," he laughs. He pauses, and takes on a more serious tone.

"Listen, Tom, I need to tell you something. I...I see dead people." Then the serious look is gone, and he slaps the table hard as he guffaws. "But, seriously, though, I do. After the Park. It was weird, I just...learned Death. I learned some more Spirit, too, hanging out with Animus. I met a werewolf, too. How 'bout that? Fuckin' werewolf wolverine badass motherfuckers. Didn't seem much impressed with us," he sniffed, "but whatever."

Tom nods. "I did too....its weird especially as its a weak Arcana for my path. Congrats on the Spirit. Werewolves huh...that would be weird if I wasn't a mage. The werewolves smart at all or just feral and shit." He takes a big chunk out of a wing and downs it with a swig of beer.

"Really? Weird. Still, that's good for us, we should be better prepared when we find the necromancer behind all the deaths at the Park." He looks down at his plate. [i]Logos. Ghoster. Guy. Ollie. Bacchus. All dead. Too many, way too many. "If I find another zombie...I can affect it with my Life magic now." He smiles.

"So, yeah, werewolf. He just looked like a normal guy, talked a little slow. Kind of an asshole, really, he wouldn't let us in their territory to meet the big spirits. So we left. Animus, he said they can fight like hell, and we were just goofin' around anyway, so the gain wasn't worth the risk, really. Maybe they turned us away for our own good." He shrugs, perfectly willing to concede that talking with powerful spirits might not be the smartest move.

"I met a little bunny rabbit spirit, he was a jerk, too." He laughs, then resumes masticating chicken to the bone.

"A bunny spirit that was a jack ass.....that's a new one." Falx digs unto the wings as well and turns on the TV.

”Heh, yeah,” Tug agrees, and settles down to watch some TV with his brother. Just another lazy Sunday afternoon at the Briggs house.