sixthiterationlogs | [who let the dogs out?]

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[who let the dogs out?]

WHO: Major Lilywhite
WHERE: Major/Ravi's cabin, around the village
WHEN: Mid-October
OPEN TO: All, specific starter for Ravi
WARNINGS: PUPPIES.

Major had been lured outside by the sound of whimpering. Every ounce of softness and kindness he'd ever held in his body had been tingling like a small fire, spreading over the expanse of his body from head to toe at the sound. When he had opened the door, two boxes were sitting side-by-side on the porch - one about half the size of the other and, to his surprise, moving around like one of those fake ferret toys for cats, the kind that's glued to a mechanical ball that moves around.

Only a little less erratic.

He took the stationary box in first, setting it off to the side of the living room, before returning to get the one that had now seemed to calm down a little bit. As he lifted it, there was a quiet yelp from the inside, and Major knew in an instant what the mystery box's contents were, without having to remove the lid.

He sets the box down in the middle of the living room, carefully lifting up the cover to reveal the small, Basset Hound puppy gazing up at him inside. At the sight of his face, it lets out another yelp, this one happier but still pleading, and tries to stand on its hind legs to see outside the open top of the box. It doesn't quite have the hang of what it means to be coordinated yet, and so it tumbles backwards, causing a very loud "AWW!!" to come rushing out of Major's mouth.

He reaches inside, carefully scooping the puppy up in his arms. Once near enough, it begins to lick his face and squirm around in his grip. As Major's trying to check the box for any other dog-related items, the puppy manages to wiggle its way out of his arms and, before he can manage to do anything to stop it, runs straight out of the door that Major's foolishly left open by mistake.

He opens his mouth to shout a name, but realizes he doesn't have one at the ready, so he shouts the only thing he can think of:

"HEY! ... HEY YOU! COME BACK!" as he scrambles to his feet and out the door, chasing after the bounding, long-eared puppy.

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He's not screaming at her. He can't be. She doesn't know him, so he can't be calling her back to anywhere. Barely half a second later, she sees a small puppy come running down the road, previously hidden by some low brambles. So he's chasing the dog. Good for him.

Except now he's seen her, and he knows that she's seen him, and this town is too damn small. So this is what they're doing. They're hunting a puppy.

Natasha slips her backpack off her shoulder, leaving it near the side of the road. She takes the few steps into the middle of the packed dirt, right into the path of the puppy. If she's very lucky, the man will chase the little thing right to her, and if she's very still until it gets even with her, she should be able to grab it.

Major thinks to shout something to the red-haired woman up ahead, something about how to corner and capture the escapee currently flopping in her direction, but it doesn't take much for him to realize that she's doing just that - without any sort of instruction. Major isn't going to complain about that. For some reason, he feels like if he'd shouted the plan to the stranger, the dog would've somehow understood and completely thwarted it anyway.

So Major continues chasing the small pup, hoping that all will go according to plan.

But, of course, that'd be asking too much. At the last second, the puppy realizes what's going on and suddenly veers to the right, straight into a thicket of trees. Major slows to a jog as he watches the sudden change of direction, exhaling a disappointed sigh.

"Ah, crap," he says, stopping at the spot where the puppy disappeared. His breathing is a bit hard, having chased the thing half the length of the village, but he tries to act as though it isn't. He looks to the stranger. "Thanks for trying. Thing's too smart for its own good."

"What's its name?" She's only giving Major half of her attention, having move to the edge of the treeline, watching carefully. Dogs don't generally just run. They run to something, from something, or because they want to play. The dog hadn't been scared, and nothing specific had drawn its attention. So it's playing. It wants to play. Which doesn't mean it won't get itself lost or hurt, it just means that it doesn't actually want the two of them to stop chasing it. They can work with that.

Might help if she has a name to call, though.

"It .. uh ... doesn't have a definitive name yet?" Major reveals sheepishly, ducking his head as though expecting to be pelted with something. He offers a half-shrug. "I mean, I haven't officially decided on its name; it literally just showed up in a box on the porch. Like, just. But the thing looks eerily similar to a dog I had back in Seattle, which Ravi named Minor, so I have a feeling we're just gonna end up sticking with that. Minor 2.0, officially. That's what I'd write on the vet papers if there were any. But we can call him Minor for now, I guess." He glances towards the brush where the small thing had disappeared, crouching down a bit to see if he could catch sight of him.

There's nothing but leaves and grass, of course.

"Not that the thing knows its name yet."

His first comment doesn't get much of a reaction from Natasha. She doesn't think it's weird. It took her almost a year to give a name to the stray cat that kept on showing up at her window. Having a pet like thing without a name, no big deal. But then he goes on to explain that he literally just got it, that it does have a name, it just has no reason to know it, and even he only thought about it when pressed. She puts one hand on her hip, and looks at him out of the corner of her eye, most of her attention still on the trees. "Had a dog less than a day before it gets away from you. Not exactly responsible pet ownership."

She's teasing him. Kind of. She'd also like him to be quiet for a minute, so she reaches down with one hand to cover his mouth and praises one finger of her other hand to her lips in the universal gesture for silence. Easier to find the dog if she can startle it, and it won't be startled if it knows they're there and gets accustomed to the sound of their voices.

"Hey! It's not my fault! The thing just lunged itself out of my hands! I was holding onto it tightly, but I wasn't gonna crush it!" Major protests, slightly pouting. Mature, this one. He can be called a lot of things, most of which won't get the slightest reaction out of him, but being called an irresponsible pet owner when he only just got the puppy and was trying to be responsible by looking for puppy-related accouterments in the box and the thing forced itself out of his arms is not his fault! Humph.

He's about to continue on his 'I swear, I'm a good person and a responsible albeit new pet owner' when she straight-up covers his mouth, the way some scolding adult would do to a bratty, tantrum throwing child. It does almost nothing to make him feel better, and he grunts his displeasure before obliging.

His hands come out to either side of him in disgruntled resignation as he frowns, knowing that she's right. They won't be able to find the puppy if they scare it away - even though he wouldn't readily admit it to her face.

She's smiling by the time he's finished. He reminds her of Lila - that girl has a story, an excuse, a cunning web of circuitous logic to talk her way out of any situation. It's the girl's poor luck that her aunt and father are able to see through it with practically no effort, and her mother is almost as good. Natasha is reminded of the great bunny con of twenty-twelve. It's a bittersweet feeling, letting those memories in.

When the forest falls suitably silent, Natasha places her thumb and pinky finger at the corners of her mouth and whistles sharply. A couple of birds take flight, a few very small rustles in the leaves, and one much larger one. An animal that it not used to hiding its presence, and easily startled.

"There," she says, her entire focus on the origin of the sound. Gotta be the dog. A moment later, she's running. Not moving quickly and carefully through the underbrush, but flat out sprinting. Her footing is sure, even though the ground is uneven. She uses rocks and tree trunks and anything that will provide her solid footing for just one step. Catch the dog, catch it quickly, and be done with this. Minor barely has the chance to start running before she's on him, hitting the ground, one hand grabbing the back of his neck, the other planted on the dirt so she can roll over the little furry body without crushing it. When she's done, flat on her back and staring up at the sunshine through the leaves, a handful of wiggly puppy, she smiles again. "Got him!" She raises her arm, and Minor, high enough for Major to see, and then pushes herself into a sitting position.

Major ducks and winces at the eardrum-bursting sound of her whistle, silently admiring the fact that she can do The Thing that he's (secretly) tried to do on many, many occasions and has consistently failed at doing. What follows next, though, is straight out of a movie - or a really good TV show, one of those superhero ones that seemed to be getting so popular back home. Despite Major's best efforts - which are usually superior to the average person - he finds that he cannot keep up with the red-headed woman. He feels like a fumbling, tripping, clumsy ass bag of limbs and bones and feet that are too large to do almost anything but get caught on literally everything. And by the time he's caught up with her, she's holding onto the puppy, beaming, having fulfilled Peppy Hare's insistent advice.

It causes Major to slow to a walk as he nears, mouth slightly agape, eyes wide, brows lifted.

"That ... that was amazing," he murmurs, awestruck and slowly beginning to grin like an idiot. "Holy shit."

The only thing more embarrassing that chasing a dog through the forrest is not catching the dog you're dropping everything to chase through the forrest. So not catching Minor is not an option. She goes after him like he's an arms dealer. Except she has no desire to break his adorable little nose.

The puppy seems fairly content in her lap, too, with her arm wrapped around him in such a way that it lets her also scratch under his wrinkly chin. Her free hand is picking a few leaves from her hair - the ones she can see, at least. "It's my superpower. Puppy wrangling." Minor barks once, as though in response, and Natasha almost laughs, because she couldn't have planned that any better if she'd tried. "Minor is a he, by the way, not an it." Holding a dog directly above your head while you're prone on the ground gives you a very good indicator of its sex, whether you want it or not. "I'm Natasha."

"Well, even though that's a pretty useless power in almost all other scenarios, I'm eternally grateful for it in this very specific instance," Major replies, glancing up at her hair as she picks out twigs and leaves. He points to a spot on his own head, near the top, to indicate that she's got a big ol' piece of foliage stuck in there. He approaches and, once fairly close, sits himself down on the ground, cross-legged. He takes a moment to appreciate the fact that Minor's been wrangled by a real-life Lara Croft-type woman, and that he seems unfazed by the entire ordeal.

"I wasn't really sure," he admits, shrugging one shoulder. "I didn't have a chance to look for any sort of anything before he leapt out of my arms like a gazelle. For such short and stubby legs, the pup can jump." He raises his gaze from Minor to the woman with a pleasant smile. "Major. I'd offer to shake your hand, but you're otherwise preoccupied."

Edited 2017-10-25 03:22 (UTC)

Natasha moves her hand to the top of her head, manages to get two of the three bits of foliage out on her own. "Oh. I don't know if I'd say preocc--" Minor, his timing staying true to form, licks Natasha's face mid-word, managing to get his tongue in her mouth. Not the worst kiss she's had. An elderly Finnish diplomat comes to mind. It's more surprising coming from the puppy, though, and briefly derails her train of thought.

Only briefly, though. It circles back around rather quickly. "So..." She points at the man. "Major." Then at the puppy. "And Minor? Really?" She honestly can't decide if it's cute of incredibly narcissistic. The puppy, meanwhile, has noticed that there are now two people down close to his level, sitting practically knee to knee, and that a simple flop and roll just might encourage them both to pet him at the same time. Freedom is all well and good, but love and attention from people? True doggy bliss. Natasha obediently scratches her short nails gently back and forth across Minor's belly.

"Oooh," Major says with a wince at the sight of the puppy frenching. "Good thing he hasn't had a chance to get into anything super gross this morning. Pretty sure Mythbusters also did an episode showing that a dog's mouth is significantly cleaner than a human's mouth at any given point in time, so you've got that going for you, at least." He can't help but chuckle a little at the scene, though.

"Hey! I didn't name him! Ravi did. He thought he was being Super Hilarious pulling that joke. Admittedly, I didn't even get why he called the dog Minor until much later. Huh. I wonder if I shouldn't admit that. Is that embarrassing?" He shakes his head as if to say it doesn't matter; he's already got his foot in his mouth as it is.

The puppy flopping down on its back makes Major have to bite his lower lip to keep himself from whimpering from the cuteness, and he clears his throat to steady himself before following Natasha's lead, only at the backs of Minor's ears instead of his belly.

"So you're saying i'm lucky I got my thank you kiss from the dog and not you. Because your mouth is filthy." Natasha nods her head once. "Noted." She is absolutely giving this man shit, but in her defense, it is incredibly easy to give him shit.

Minor seems utterly thrilled that he's got two humans using four total hands to lavish attention on him. He's a cute little thing, even if Natasha is pretty cure he's going to be trouble for his owner. "It's kind of embarrassing, yeah, but only because you're going around telling people." Again, just so easy. Minor snuffles happily, sneezing at nothing, as puppies do, and trying to lick the both of them at once. Which, of course, does not work. It's an unbelievably adorable failure, though.

A master assassin, with leaves in her hair, sitting on the ground with a random guy, petting a puppy. At least Clint isn't around. Her shame is relatively secret, and the only one to see it is a guy who, she can already tell, is even more ridiculous than she could ever hope to be. Not a bad thing, necessarily. Civilians have that luxury.

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying, though you didn't have to be quite so mean about it," Major says, putting on a playful frown for good measure. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that if, given the choice, almost everyone would choose Minor over me as it is, and it's just a fact of life that I'm learning to accept. It's cool. It's not like I've got a damaged ego to contend with or anything. No big deal."

God, this dog is going to kill him. Major's never going to be able to yell at him or reprimand him or be anything but a big puddle of goo around him. It's terrible.

But it's a wonderful problem to have, in the grand scheme.

"Yeah, I do that. I should just learn to keep my mouth shut, probably, but where's the fun in that?"

"Hey, there's not much in this place that's fun. If it makes you happy, you should do it. Still not sure why telling everyone that you're slow makes you happy..." She's smiling, because the effort required to put on a blank face is currently not worth the benefit. Who's Major going to tell? Who would believe him?

Minor really is a cute little thing, yipping and snuffling contentedly and licking at their hands while he squirms around. Natasha is ready to grab him if he tries to make another break for it, but so far he's showing absolutely no indication of wanting to run again. Puppy's attention span. Whatever made him desperately desire freedom has currently been forgotten in favour of love and attention. "He's going to need a harness. He's too little and energetic to be walked on a collar. You'll hurt him. Do you have any paracord?"

"The element of surprise? Make everyone think that I'm a fumbling idiot and then, BAM! come out with something super crazy smart when they least expect it. The long con!" Major has no idea what he's talking about now, mind running only at half capacity in terms of attention span thanks to Minor sucking up all of his proverbial bandwidth. He can't help it. He's so soft and furry and wrinkly and uncoordinated.

"Any what now?" he asks, looking up at Natasha. "I get that you're like, a living video game character, and you might as well be running around breaking pottery for hearts and rupees and all, but I'm a jock. A socially conscious, heart-of-gold jock. What's paracord?"

"Short for parachute cord. Nylon rope with a little bit of stretch in it." She holds up one hand briefly, showing him a bulky and not all that attractive bracelet that's made of about twenty feet the stuff and a wooden ring and toggle that are keeping it on her wrist. This is function, not fashion. "This is paracord. You looked like you might be an outdoorsman. Camper or hiker. Sorry for assuming that something crazy smart was coming." At this point it seems entirely possible that Natasha will be giving Major shit for the entirety of the time she knows him. Still, that smile hasn't gone anywhere. She's not trying to be mean.

Minor objects to the twenty five percent reduction in petting, and she goes back to it. "It's grown beyond the official use, which is of course in parachutes. I was thinking that, because of the give, it might do for a temporary harness. The nice part is that it can then be taken apart, adjusted, rewoven as he grows. Means there's no wasted resources. If you don't have any, we can use this." She probably wouldn't be offering if not for the fact that she has more at home, but he doesn't have to know that. At the moment, it's not a strain to use some on a dog. If it ever becomes a strain, well, she'll deal with the ill will of having to take it back when it comes up.

"Parachute cord," Major repeats, brows furrowed. It sounds vaguely familiar - like he might've heard some of the other mercenaries at Fillmore Graves talk about it at some point, but he'd only just started his training when he came through the fountain. He hadn't had a chance to actually get to know any of the recruits or their lingo. He glances at her wrist, then snaps as he points towards it. "Oh, right, that stuff. I totes saw that in an LL Bean catalogue once, I think. Or maybe it was Eddie Bauer. Anyway, point being is that I've seen it and heard of it, and have seen many a survivalist talk about how it's a necessary item in case of the apocalypse, but I don't have any myself, no." He makes a good show of pouting at her insult, even though he isn't offended at all. "I'll have you know that I got these amazingly strong muscles from years of playing football, as well as spending far too much time at my local gym. The football probably also explains why I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes." He taps his temple with his finger.

Her offer gets a brow lift and a flicking glance back and forth between her face, Minor, and the bracelet.

"Wait, really?" he asks, finally settling his gaze on her for longer than a second. "It's cause of him, isn't it?" He points towards the puppy who's being so god damned cute that Major was definitely experiencing a random bout of cute aggression. "You know that having me as an owner sets him up for failure, so whatever you can do to help give him the best fighting chance .. Is that it?"

"LL Bean. Yes. Totes." Natasha gives their surroundings a subtle once over, looking for any sign of Clint snickering quietly to himself in a tree. If Major is a prank, he's a good one. If he's not, then he's the most aggressively normal seeming person she's met in a long time. So far, he's like the cover an inexperienced agent would concoct if asked to create a totally average Nice guy civilian. Right down to the sheepishly self deprecating jokes.

She raises the bracelet to her mouth, using her teeth and tongue to quickly slip the toggle out of the ring so that she doesn't have to stop petting Minor entirely. "It's because we're a small group of people here working against pretty harsh odds to survive. If we don't help each other, we're fucked. Yes, we're talking about a puppy harness and not basic food and shelter, but the principle is the same. We help each other, because everyone is more likely to fail on their own. It's a sliding scale, but... everyone could use better odds, right?" She waits a beat, then begins unraveling the bracelet, tucking the toggle into her shirt pocket. "And yes, I'm pretty sure this little guy doesn't stand a chance if you don't get some help. I could see you wasting an entire set of sheets trying to make something usable. That doesn't do anyone any good. You're still going to give up your shoelaces for a temporary leash, though. He is your dog."

"HA! That works on two levels, I just realized! Totes like totally and totes like .. a tote! Which LL Bean sells! Good one, Major," he jokes, going so far as to high five himself just out of pure amusement. Look, it's been a really long time since he's been able to go braindead thanks to video games, and he's a little starved for entertainment. Give the guy a break, okay?

"Uh, what're you --" he starts, seeing her start to chomp down on her bracelet. He almost thinks to suggest going to the Inn to get some food for her until everything clicks, and he gets what she's doing. "Yeah, yeah, you've got a point. I mean, I'm a liberal ex-social worker from Seattle, so I'm all about helping each other to the best of our abilities because it ensures our greatest chance of survival. I just .. uh, didn't think I was gonna have to be living that out like this. In a strange village, floating in some altered plane of existence." He opens his mouth to protest her suggestion that he isn't smart enough to fashion some kind of harness, but she isn't exactly wrong, either. "Yeah, okay. Shoelaces," he says with a slight pout, stopping to pet the puppy to go about undoing his boot's laces.

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[who let the dogs out?]

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