deercountry | yes I knew it was no moonshine, it is real

[ Robby has lived well at blotting others out, that he doesn't even think about anyone who's looking. He's not looking until he is, mostly attracted by the sight of Vi's own movements to do so; but he doesn't linger to see reactions when walking means that the person is already close to out of view. But he does hear Vi muttering under her breath, catching some of the words but not others.

That's my blood gift this month, she tells him, and it sounds like everyone's being hit with the shit. At least he can internally commiserate on it -- misery loves company, and all.

The most he offers is a (throat thick, but still) dry: ] Welcome to Trench.

[ City of bullshit. Why don't you join them?

Robby doesn't have it in it to ask more or to go on, but he does listen to Vi and her nose, no arguments on where they go. He could be pulled like a ragdoll despite the way he's head down, walks with faux purpose beyond the message of Don't bother me to the outside world. Not including Vi, who he doesn't answer immediately, but just so he can swallow, clear his throat. His hands balled fists inside the pockets of his jacket, except for when one needs to come out to wipe his face. ]

I got taken to some fucking church. There was-- some fishermen from the boardwalk. Old guy who'd tell him if my net was looking shitty -- he was alright. [ He'd say he was more than alright, but the lump in his throat doesn't let him, and he needs to swallow again, wait to start speaking again. ] I never even got his name, but-- he'd been there. Him and another guy.

[ And this is the part, isn't it? The part that kills him all the time to remember, that makes the pain be renewed, spikes him from the inside. Hitches his voice a note higher. ]

I was the one who told him-- we'd get out. We argued about it 'cause he can't walk right, but I told him--

[ He convinced him, and led everything into action that came next. If he hadn't been so sure, if he'd just agreed they should keep their heads down--

Robby isn't quiet with the way his breath exhales sharply from his nose, a noise or two that chokes in his throat, but he doesn't continue, not right away. Riding the wave, waiting for it to let him come back down again. ]

Up on the wall after a nap, checking things out given the break in his ability to pay attention, Duty looks at the nightmare approaching the wall and walking around it. Prancing almost. Duty shakes his head slightly but leaves the guarding to the guards.

He stops by the kitchen to take a whole pot of tea with him. Sorry folks, brew some more tea. There's a demanding nightmare on the other side of the wall, and Duty recognizes her. He exits the safety of the walls with seemingly little regard for his well being. He carries two pistols and a baton of bone, like always, but they all rest at his waist, not in his hand.

"My little pony," Duty greets the nightmare. He sets down the tea pot and removes the top to make it more accessible.

The Entertainment Feed, generally, is open to all. Murderbot is even proud of making the elevator work again so that it's more accessible to people who cannot use stairs. Sure, the ravens didn't care last month about it being a lamp location. They made their own entrance through a high window and flew all the way down to the ground floor (probably for the dramatics). Most people have few problems.

Murderbot clearly hasn't accounted for everything.

It should have, it thinks, remembering back to its first meeting with Waver, then a horse-human construct. Now it has an actual horse/unicorn, if it came from a horror film instead of a fantasy serial. The drone network tipped Murderbot off, and it's glad because it doubts this would go as well for someone else.

"Hey there," Murderbot says gently. It's hands are up, showing empty palms. "You're stuck facing the wrong way. Would you mind if I pick you up and turn you around?"

[ There's a relief in the fact that Vi seems to agree so easily with her idea. The last thing Chizuru would have wanted to do here is suggest something that might just throw the other straight into a frenzy - and so she instead smiles when Vi seems a bit more confident. ]

Grey is fine.

[ It's not like.. Chizuru has seen many wolves with her own eyes, after all. A few here, but before that, back home? Absolutely none at all.

And she's pretty sure the colour won't matter anyway for the Shinsengumi metaphor, so she just goes along with the other's first suggestion, and makes some casual conversation so Vi won't have to work in total and awkward silence. ]

What is it like, miss Vi? Living with wolves?

[ She shrugs. She knows a few networks of people, but she's not the type to keep up with what everybody in town is doing. ]

Huh? Don't think I've met 'em. As long as Trench is what it is, there's gonna be more of us than you can shake a stick at.

I suppose I could, at that. How pleasant it shall be to have a merry stroll.

[ Kainé looks down at her Omen, gives him a nod. Why not? He doesn't show his face very much, so if it wants to get out for once, she doesn't mind indulging it a little. ]

Go for it, fuzzball. Just try not to start any trouble. I'll have a couple ciders too.

[it wasn't very long ago that he'd been a kid on the boardwalk with a ration of arguably shitty food, and now he's saying welcome to trench like an old pro. she kind of hates it. yeah, there's a lot that doesn't suck about trench, but this? isn't it.

she has no problem waiting for him to speak, whatever spaces of silence happen are fine. maybe even needed.

and then, two things:

one, he says taken. it can mean a lot of things, and it doesn't always come laced with menace, he could say right now that she'd taken him on a little tour of lumenwood, but ...that's not the read she gets on him - especially with everything else.

two, he mentions a church. it's the reddest of flags, and when he says i was the one who told him we'd get out it's all hammered home. he's the first person she's talked to about it outside her own little group (just she, faith and manabu, and the few trenchies faith had managed to get to relative safety) - he's the first person she's spoken about it to that had actually been there. she feels it in her bones: he's talking about the wrong trench.]

Shit.

The churches.

[she thinks she might know the man - more than one of them had commented on the quality of her nets, but she didn't think of how many of the trenchies she knew and saw often could have been there - she'd lacked a full picture - lacked the scope of the whole thing. but now she sees it, and it's terrible. for every sleeper there was probably what ...three trenchies taken?

five? more than five?

her face says she knows what he's talking about, and it's all she can do to not clench her hands into tight fists.]

[she'd like to think she knows.

vi will let herself be puppeted to the music - if this will give the tiniest fraction of comfort to her sister, she's in. besides, a cat is a liquid and a solid, so it's easy to move her to the beat, and she'll lean into it, too, bobbing her head and looking at jinx with slightly less anxious blue eyes.

she nods yes to the question, adding a little meow for emphasis, wings flapping lightly.]

[it's an upside to being a batcat - maybe not enough to offset the blood drinking (please let this be over before she has to do that again) but people are free with their affection, and she's able to be the same without anyone getting the wrong idea, or anything getting weird. weird...er?

vi will continue to hang with scorpia as long as she's able, and when she leaves, she might just follow her out to make sure she gets home okay. a little worry's back, and she might be small, but batcats are a bit of a force to be reckoned with when they're on the offense. so it's +1 bodyguard tonight, friend.]

[huge grin. vi will go a little easy on the parkour - she doesn't know yet the limits of that excellence, but it's a fun spin on a short walk, and a great way to avoid crowds.

she gives a thumbs up before she's up and over the side of a building and navigating a series of uneven rooftops with ease.

(i'm an excellent shot)

maria won't see the sad smile that lingers just a moment longer before vi hits ground in front of the rookery.]

[It's a pleasant evening indeed! The batcat's as fun as any human companion would be, and she's in a jolly mood when she makes her way home. Not to mention that, as tough as she can be, she feels safe as she returns to her place. She almost wants to adopt the batcat! But she has the feeling that the kitten has a home already, so she just warmly bids her little companion farewell at her door.]

Hehe, awesome! (she lets go of the cat from it's force dancing and lets her sister sit there on her stomach. it comes to her then that, oh right. this batcat is vi. it's a pain how her mind just forgets sometimes.) — Y'know back home what I tried to do once? I tried to sneak into the academy to kidnap one of the professor's poro. They're just soooo cute!!

— I've always wondered where he got him. Definitely not in Zaun and I've never saw them in Piltover, either. Maybe somewhere else in Runeterra?

(a beat.)

... Too bad we've never gotten the chance to see what else was out there besides the two cities, huh?

Edited 2022-11-04 04:17 (UTC)

Vi doesn't get the reference (she will look this up later) - but no matter what kind of face she tries to make, confused or relieved - it all just comes out looking like resting Nightmare Steed face. She snorts when she sees him, though she'd meant for it to be a sigh.

Her eyes go wide when he removes the teapot's lid, and she stills herself, aside from the constantly flicking tail, taking a possibly ridiculous looking deep breath and slowly approaching to sniff.

Apparently you can lead a nightmare steed to a teapot, and it will drink all on its own, albeit clumsily and a not without noise.

How does one even account for this? Even by Trench standards this might be a feat. Her own feet (hooves) are an ungainly mess and somehow much harder to control than the cat's, which, she had sometimes avoided by defaulting to flight.

That's not an option, here, which is probably a good thing. Wings would likely only make for a level up in both destruction of property and clumsiness. But she tosses her head at Eden's voice, offering a shake of her mane and the best 'yes, please' she can manage - which is unintelligible. She doesn't know why she keeps trying to speak, it's a fail every time.

But she's still now, waiting to see if (she has no reason to think she can't) Eden can lift her out of this predicament. The worse her anxiety gets, the harder it is to make this body actually obey. It wants to bolt, and that's a big nope.

[she reaches for her paints, deciding the grey she has is too dark for what she wants to do, and that mixing her own is the best shot at making this happen. if she's using lady for inspiration, so be it.]

The wolves here are super chill, and very sweet. Lady's Sansa's wolf, and well, S'mores was adopted when a friend of hers ...went back to the ocean. They're both really smart and like getting ear scritches, but they're good protectors, too. Lady saved my ass a while back.

[okay, this color seems good. she'll dip her brush in and ...no, maybe a thinner brush. she holds her finger up in a 'wait a sec' gesture, deliberates on which thinner brush, and after finally selecting one, she starts to create the grey areas.]

You thinking of getting a wolf?

[kidnapping a professor? bad. kidnapping their poro? okay, not great but understandable! they are that cute. they're the opposite of a punchable face. so, a mew of agreement, here.

probably somewhere else, yeah. how much of somewhere else was there? this cat is now imagining the following scene:

just the two of them, growing up on an airship, traveling wherever it might take them. wait, no, they're pirates! mostly friendly pirates, but they've gotta make a living. and somehow they have a poro.]

Of course HorrorHorse cannot talk. That would be too easy. Media is not a good source of animal body language, so Murderbot hopes those movements are a reluctant consent in order to get out of this situation.

"I am approaching your side," Murderbot announces, voice level and clear. It stands next to HorrorHorse (it is not trying to ascertain sex) for a moment, enough for the creature to be used to its presence.

Then it crouches, wrapping both arms underneath the main body, at an angle wider than itself. "Up we go," Murderbot declares, and up they go. It stands up, lifting all four hooves off the floor. Slowly, Murderbot turns. It doesn't have to turn its head back and forth to check. The drones with it keep it informed of exactly how much clearance it has.

When they turn a hundred and eighty, Murderbot puts HorrorHorse down. "All right, lets step away from the lamp," Murderbot says. You know, so no one disrupts this stable scene. "Good... horsey."

Duty, the reigning expert on resting neutral face, watches the steed carefully. He pulls out his own thermos and joins the nightmare steed in drinking. Not everyone has the kind of relationship with their omen to permit communication when other options are... nonexistent. Vi's relationship with her omen isn't something he's cognizant of, but it's either off the table or not thought of. Hard having that pointed out when failing to communicate.

He checks out her equine shape. "You're really into nightmares," Duty comments. Vi chose to wear a mask or face paint. Something. He's also seen her efforts toward them and the success toward befriending one of her own. That's real commitment, even if she didn't mean to be this committed.

[vi tries not to, but she fails. she also tries to, and fails at that. it's a curse of knowing too many people, and maybe spreading herself a bit too tin, but she'll never admit that.]

And that's good. As long as we outnumber the beasts. They're uh, well, we're building a fortress outside Trench. Just in case.

[she will first pad over to where cider's being slung, increasing in size as she goes nearly immediately returning with six bottles curled in her very long tail, which she extends toward the sleepers. but not without comment. (how to hold three bottles? not her problem, sorry not sorry.)]

ᴠɪᴏʟᴇᴛ ꜱᴀɪᴅ ᴀ ᴄᴏᴜᴘʟᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ꜱʜᴇ ᴍᴇᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ. ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴇᴀᴄʜ.

[fang shoots a grin at the omen that is all teeth and mischief. she wonders just how big can they grow? she's never tested this.]

ᴛʜᴇ ʙɪɢɢᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴇʀʀɪᴇʀ, ɪ ꜱᴀʏ. ɪꜰ ɪ ᴀᴍ ᴠᴇʀʏ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴀʀɢᴇ, ɪ ʙᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴘᴜʟʟ ᴍᴇ ᴀʟᴏɴɢ ᴏɴ ᴏɴᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰʟᴏᴀᴛꜱ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴡʜᴇᴇʟꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴋɴᴏᴡ. ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴘʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴄᴇ ᴍʏ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴄʜ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛᴇʀʀɪꜰʏɪɴɢ ʟᴀᴜɢʜ. ɪ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴘᴀʀᴛ ʀɪɢʜᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʙᴇᴛᴛᴇʀ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ɪᴛ?

No better place, if you ask me. Except maybe the party. Go, get your laugh on. Scare the shit out of people. It's what they seem to want this month, so why deny 'em?

[the omen will become bigger by degrees, a shadowy cloud above the parade, though she'll be some distance away before she tests out her monologue skills. will she play a game of chase me chase me with the other omen? absolutely. she will become smoke so that she doesn't crush people or destroy buildings, though. (but making people possibly shit their pants? that's fine!)]

Now all we have to do is stay out of trouble.

[one of those ciders is going in her belt. she can double fist the other two, she guesses.]

Surprise me. I want to see what you can come up with that will compliment the designs I already have.

[The lines of the geometric patterns all over his skin create a definite harshness to Maul's face that otherwise wouldn't be there, making areas like his cheekbones and nose very prominent. He wants to see how Vi will attempt to overcome the challenge.]

[ It hadn't crossed Robby's mind to explain the beginnings, the actual beginnings; because if people are being taken, if random warping into bizarre and nonsensical places is such a norm that it's happened twice for him in a single month, then it's obvious it's one of those places he's talking about, right? He doesn't clarify right away, doesn't ask more from her, needing a moment (needing a lot more than a moment); but, eventually: ]

Yeah, I dunno. [ It's mumbled, but still loud enough to be heard. ] Some weird fucking freaks -- talking about some Riteoir.

I don't even know what they wanted. [ That's the kicker, isn't it? The disgusting, ugly kicker, words that Robby close to spits out. ] It's like they just wanted to gather people and -- kill the first one who stepped out of line.

[ Like it empowered their faith, made their way more righteous, correct. As if anything in that place made sense, built on nothing but violence.

He draws his arms closer to him, but the chill comes from remembering them and recalling everything that happened. He stops abruptly in his walk, but turns to face Vi, his voice stronger. ]

What the fuck was it? What was that place?

[ Why was it? is the question he's seeking under them: why did it happen? Why did they have to go through that? But he'll take anything he can get, standing there with a searching gaze bruised by the exhaustion and emotion worn into his face. ]

[ Vi's cat impression draws forth giggling cackles from Beatrice and she follows after the woman with a swish of skirts, her smiles broad and plastered on her face in a sense that seems all too suiting for the death's head she's chosen. She watches while the other woman acquires a pair of cat ears--then bends a little as she bumps right into Vi so that she can offer her head for them to placed properly. ]

[ Chizuru just makes sure to sit as still as she can, not wanting to be the cause of Vi screwing anything up here. Thankfully she's pretty good at that - even resisting the instinctive urge to shake her head when Vi asks her that question. ]

No, I.. don't think I'd be really good with them.. [ Even if they can be as friendly as Vi is describing, wolves still seem like pretty headstrong animals, right? A little too tough for a girl like Chizuru, whose Omen is just the tiniest little thing. ]

Maybe they seem so.. um, 'chill' [ Chizuru's eternal quest to try and use the hip new slang without sounding like a grandma.. ] to you since they respect you, miss Vi. I could imagine that. You're really someone worth respecting.

One nervous step away from the lamp---oh, that's only one leg.

Let's try to coordinate the rest. There they are. See? That's not so hard. If she concentrates on being very still, then the flicking tail's the only wildcard, besides the ears. And the nostrils, which flare as she tries to "Breathe Out Bullshit".

Vi is only able to breathe out a little of that bullshit.

But she's able to at least look Eden in the face now that she's stepped - and that's exactly what she does, her unblinking blue-grey stare trying to communicate at the very least that she understands what's being said to her. Deep breaths from the horse that is Vi, and an attempt at an awkward smile that probably looks like a threat.

She doesn't know any of the appropriate horse faces to make, and if she knew Eden's struggle in depth this might be a little funnier than she finds it.

Oh, Fang's around, just not available for this particular side quest, though if Vi could think through the could of anxiety she is clearly not prepared for (at least not on top of this new development) she would find her Omen useful ...and smugly amused.

Caffeine and nerves are possibly not the best combination, but that's fallout that will be dealt with on her next stop. (The Entertainment Feed: best place for a caffeinated horse!) Just now, the sounds of her own sloppy drinking are re-imagined as a babbling brook, a trickling flow of steady, calm, chill water.

Her concentration on that scene is so strong that she manages to undo it by stopping the act of drinking, and startling herself back into it.

She did not mean to be this committed, that's for sure. And though she's pretty self conscious about that herd, they're more concerned and vaguely curious than they are unnerved. But she has not yet learned to read them and the more anxious she gets the worse she is at it. She nods at him slowly, tail flicking. And then nods again, even slower and more pronounced, lest it be mistaken for anxious horse head tossing.

She knows Duty. She's covered him with a blanket when half the Outpost was napping. They've drank coffee in comfortable silence and even some words (mostly Vi's, but that's fine). They've drank tea in much the same circumstances, but this is not the most comfortable silence. It could be much less comfortable, though.

[she can do that. there are a few options - and she's going to have to take a deep breath to not get sucked into the overwhelm of those options. so, paint. sure. she's got lots of paint and that's fine.]

You want a change up of color, or are you good with a red and black scheme? 'Cause I've got a few ideas, and they're all a bit unsettling, which ...you're probably going for. Scary's the flavor, this month.

yes I knew it was no moonshine, it is real

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