Yi sits at the foremost pew nearest the altar, shuffling a small deck of cards idly, or maybe to pass the time as she waits.

Smokes-the-Weed bumps the Church doors, now restored, open. In his mouth he's carrying a Sunday newspaper, and the male looks a little scruffy. Those small humans who carry the paper are getting tougher in my old age.

Yi glances up and back as the church doors open, chuckling as she catches the lupus' statement. "Heyla," she greets him, giving the cards one last flip through. "I thought lupus in the city weren't allowed around this time?"

Smokes-the-Weed drops the paper and chuffs. They are. You just have to know where to hide. The dogboy pads over to the other Ragabash, propping his head on the edge of the pew. What are you doing?

Yi laughs softly, and taps the cards once. "Waiting for you... thought I'd repay your favor of teaching me some magic, by showing you some magic as well," she grins.

Smokes-the-Weed's ears droop. I am sorry, he explains. I have been busy lately. I did not forget the lesson, but there seems to be so little time.

Yi reaches over and scritches the other raggie's head just behind the ears. "That's ok. I've been a bit busy too." Her glance flickers to the newspaper, then to the cards, then back to the dogboy. "Seems like we have some time now, na?"

Smokes-the-Weed's tail starts to wag of it's own volition. First, he turns his head around, telling his tail to stop that. But, he looks sheepish as he faces Yi again. Yes.

Yi grins, and moves a bit off to the side on the pew, creating a space for the lupus to sit on. She in turn brings her legs up to sit crosslegged, left side leaning just slightly on the back of the pew.

Smokes-the-Weed backs away, shifting up to Homid before he sits on the pew. "Bleah," he says. "Mouth tastes like newsprint." But, he doesn't say anything else as he hops onto the pew, next to the Oriental woman.

Chuckling softly, she shuffles the deck of cards, and asks the Gnawer in front of her. "Ok, so a bit of mental thought. Why do things sometimes appear blurry to your eyes? Things like, when you just wake up in the morning, and can't see much of anything in focus... or when you look into your straw in a cup of water, it looks like it's bending?" Her eyes glance up at Joey, eyebrow arching gently in inquiry to him.

Joey takes off his cap, tapping the end of it into his own free hand, as he sits in thought. He takes a full minute to come up with an answer he feels is acceptable. "Because you're not really alert?" he says. "I mean, you get up in the morning, you need a few minutes before ya can think."

Yi nods slowly. "And because your eyes need time to focus. Even if it just a few seconds, you need light to see. The gift of blur... is a magic trick. It is, like the straw in the water glass, bending the image when in reality it is straight." She glances up at him, to see if he understood that logic.

Joey uhhhs. The hat in his hands is now being wrong. "So, like, it's not like you disappear, but you...you're just at the edge of where the other folks're lookin at?" He says that, but by the look on his face, he's not even sure he understands what he just said.

"That's right," Yi replies, still soft toned. "It's like, the things you see at the edge of your focus. Just out of the corner of your eyesight. Those things that you have to turn your head so you can really have a good look to see. With the help of your ... 'mojo', you can bend the atmosphere around you, the light and air around it making you go in and out of focus to the viewer's eye. So... let me show you, using these cards."

Joey takes a breath, trying to prevent his eyes from crossing. "Ok, so you mess with the air so folks can't see you...okay," he says. He pulls his legs up, turning to the side to he can have a better look.

Yi holds up a card in front of her. It's seems randomly chosen, but it's the Joker of the deck. "I want you to concentrate on this card... concentrate on memorizing every detail you possibly can about it...the face of the joker, the clothes..even the striped socks." Her hand is steady, the tips of her fingers just barely showing on the top and bottom edges of the card.

"Concentrate hard...and I'll disappear." Yi's voice is soft, quiet to let the newmoon look to the card.

Ok, this is something that Joey's better with; card tricks. But, he closes his eyes to focus on the task hand. As reopens his eyes, he lets out a breath to focus on that card, mentally committing it to memory.

As Joey continues to hold his attention on the card, the natural focus of his eyes cause whatever is in the background to blur out, including Yi. "Keep looking at the card...Now, can you see me?" she asks the newmoon.

Joey hmmms, still looking at the card. "Well, you didn't ask me to look at you. Just the card." But, he's focused on that task, as asked.

Suddenly, one of Yi's fingers flick out and the card goes flying right into the newmoon's face. Attack of the Joker! Splat, right on the nose for just a brief moment before it falls onto the pew in a flutter.

Joey jumps back as the card if flicked, but it hits him on the nose anyway. "Hey," he says. "What was that for?"

When he focuses the attention back to her, Yi shimmers, features seemingly out of focus, like a camera too close. This is only for a few seconds though, and she comes back into view, sharp edges again. She smiles a bit, pausing as the gift is negated and smiling up at him. "To distract you," she answers.

Joey relaxes again, his hat on the floor beside the pew. "And, it worked," he says. "So...that was kinda neat. But, I doubt banes and other kinds of shit wouldn't wanna look at playing cards."

"While you were focusing on the card, you didn't see me. I willed myself to become blurry to your eyes, and because you were not looking, you didn't see me for a few seconds before you focused again. That's what the gift is. While your viewer is distracted, even for just a second, the gift bends air and light around you to make you look hazy." Yi picks up the Joker card, pushing it into the deck somewhere in the middle. "Banes and other things, have worse to worry about. In the heat of battle, there are other Garou and their claws, teeth, and other nasties to just briefly take their eyes off you. When you're scouting, they don't expect you to be there watching, so their eyes are elsewhere. This gift can be used just to make you harder to hit at. You strike from behind, blurred to their vision, and as they turn you move again out of their focus." She pauses, glancing at him to see if he had any further inquiries.

Joey seems to have this part understood. "Ok, that...sounds right. Hit them from where they can't see you, and there's no problems with hitting them low."

Yi then offers the deck to the Gnawer. "This deck of cards, is actually a full deck. Funny things you find when you're walking along." She chuckles. "Try it, the gift. The card is to distract, while you make yourself blurry." She smiles. "If you succeed, this deck belongs to you." Then she pauses and chuckles. "I can't play poker anyway, never learned how."

Putting on a wide smile, Joey does take the deck. "For my collection," he says. "And, one day I'll teach you how to...play poker," he says. Though, his style of playing probably involves something different. Like hidden and marked cards, but he's not going to admit that now. He shuffles through the card, picking out one.

Yi grins. "Well, I'll have to ask you to teach me sometime," she replies, waiting for his magic trick.

Joey goes through a few routines. He shuffles the card from hand to hand with expert precision. He's done this before. A few cards appear and disappear in his hands at random intervals. Then, he spreads out three cards on the pew between them. Two spades and a Queen. "Ok," he says, turning the cards over. "Follow the queen," he says, shifting the positions of the three cards in a row.

Yi cracks a grin, before nodding and looking down at the queen, eyes narrowing slightly. Like the game of cups, it would seem.

Joey's hands move more quickly now. As opposed to his usual routine, he doesn't go with the witty banter this time. Just shuffle the three cards back and forth. Or, at least that's what Yi can see. He keeps at this for a few more minutes, concentrating on keeping the Canto-Gnawer occupied.

Like the audience waiting for the magician to pull the wool down their eyes, Yi keeps following the queen back and forth, around the spade, under the spade, this whole time her eyes kept on the card. Eventually, she's lost track of the hands moving the cards as her eyes are focused completely on the moving queen.

Joey tries to grin, but he's that busy concentrating on the next part. He's attempting to keep this speed of switching things around, and the next part of the trick. As Yi is completely engrossed in the game, he picks up one hand, bending the remaining cards forward until they splatter over Yi in a wash of cardstock.

"Aiya!" Yi blinks for a moment as a waterfall of playing cards splut onto her neck and the back of her head. She jerks upwards, not expecting that like a cold wash of ice water. Eyes wide, her hand moves up to remove some cards stuck between her neck and her fleece as she glares with a glint of humour at the other newmoon.

Joey tilts his head to the side, giving Yi his sweetest smile. The kind that most folks, those who really know Joey, wouldn't believe for an instant. "First card game I elarned," he says. "Called Fifty-Two Pick Up."

Yi shakes her head in a short toss, flinging a card from her hair onto the pew as she blinks a few times again, Joey coming into focus again. "Very funny," she laughs as her hand extracts a Jack of Hearts from the collar of her shirt. "Well... congratulations." She grins, handing him the card. "I think you've earned your deck."

Joey chuckles softly, and decides to spend a bit more time picking up the now-scattered cards. "Thank you," he says, looking for each one in turn.

Yi glances down at the now splattered cards all over the pew, and she picks out one of them amongst the pile. Holding it up, she smirks at Joey, showing him the face. It's the queen, from earlier. "This must be your card," she laughs softly.

Joey snorts, amused. "Nah," he says, shaking his head. To me, that all is a Galliard card." He pokes his head under the pew, coming back up with a pair of cards. he holds up one, then 10. "This is the Raggie card."

Yi shakes her head again and laughs before she removes all the cards from her hair, and helps the newmoon gather the rest of the deck. Scanning under the pew and over the back of it for any strays, she gives him what she gathered. "I think that's all of them." Standing up from her spot, she gives her fleece a quick shake and one last card drops out into her hand, the Joker from earlier. "Or what looks like all of them." Another shake of her fleece and some more cards spill from the arm onto the pew. "Ok I'm done.. really." She grins some more.

Joey laughs. "Hey, if you ever want another job, you got the making of a good con in ya," he says. He reassembles the deck. Then, all of a sudden, he turns it over to Yi. "You take this," he says. "Remember me with it, okay?"

Yi blinks, looking down at the offered deck again. The bewildered look fades, as she slowly reaches over and takes the cards with a nod. "I'll do that," she replies softly, then smiles again. "But I promised you a deck of cards, and so I will insist that you have one as reward." Her other hand comes up to cup the newmoon's hand, and she drops a second deck, in its original box albeit a bit battered, onto his open hand. Then with a short laugh, she moves towards the center aisle. "I've got to get to work, but I'll see you around, na?"

Joey looks down at the cards with a curious expression. "Aren't these mine," he asks, rummaging in a pocket. He pulls out another deck, similarly battered, with with a different colored box. "No. But...wow, thanks, Yi. I mean it." He looks back up with an actual genuine smile.

Yi chuckles and dips her head in a bowing nod. "My pleasure, Joey." With that, she heads out, opening the church doors almost carefully and shutting them with a quiet click.