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WHO: Thorfinn Thorsson
WHERE: The Woods, The Blacksmith, The Boathouse, and House 8.
WHEN:September 14th
OPEN TO:OTA
WARNINGS: None
STATUS: Open

A: The woods
It was a day, he wasn't really sure which day it was since Fenrir's shakes he had lost track of his days to busy with his tasks. Making more soap, carving bone and a second bit of wood for Kate since he didn't like his the one she asked for turned out despite having given it to her. But when he wasn't working around the house he was out and about. As always his favorite place to be was the woods.

Some days he fell trees when he had an axe, other days he hunted. Days like today he just foraged. Part of it was for survivals sake. The rest was just a pure need to reconnect with nature. He spent so long in the woods trying to buy his freedom back that he felt more right in the woods. He no longer kept his injuries from the day of the quakes covered they were all scabbed over enough for him to no longer care. New scars would come and cover his skin. Things he didn’t give much though to, being blissfully ignorant to things like germs. Such things were not known in his time, and he's never thought about it since arriving in this new land, he lived by what he knew.

Which was part of why he was out, he was looking for herbs. His stomach had been bothering him for a couple days now. He couldn't pin why, but he figured he could find an herb to help ease the pain.

B: Blacksmith
Thorfinn had noticed the building but before today he hadn't ventured to close to it. Just idly looking and passing by. He wasn't sure why today the desire to get closer hit, but it did. He could recall being young and innocent running across the village he was born in 'Father! Father!' he would always call out. Happy to sit and watch Thors try to repair and make things. His father was such a bad blacksmith, but a good man. In Medietas, Thorfinn himself tried to become a blacksmith but a month of learning didn't do a lot for him here.

Stepping up he kept a hand on his pack, the other ran over the door before pushing it open. Disappearing inside the building. It was all different from the smithy in his village. Like everything in this village it was still rather futuristic but, he had the basic idea. He couldn't explain why, but he had the desire to be in the building. Sitting on the floor with his pack beside him he looked around the empty dark building.

C: Porch of House 8
When he finally made his way home he didn’t go right inside he tossed his pack on the porch taking a seat on the steps and pulled up the bit of bone he had been carving the night before. Sitting back against a post he pulled one leg close to his body to prop his arm on, the other stretched out to try and touch the other post, it didn’t work his legs weren't long enough. Yet he remained sitting the same as he shaved away at the bone in his hand. It was comb but this one made of wood, a piece he had been whittling down for awhile. Experimenting with new ways to make things.

He knew he could have gone inside, but he was feeling a bit out of sorts. Sitting on the porch in the cooling air seemed like the thing to do.

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Thorfinn would have violently protested anything that put him to sleep. He was very much ashamed of the dreams that plague him nearly every time he closed his eyes. He wouldn't risk people outside the house hearing his screams if he could help it. He remained still unflinching as the other worked. Some things never changed in men, the need to appear manly was one of them, and a big deal to his people.

"Yes, not good but necessary." His mind was still jumbled on how to process all of that anyway. "She still in Iceland." He took a sad breath, there was no hiding the sorrow in that tone. "I was gone many years, Cougar... I finally got home. Mother aged much, she recognized me though, and then this world took me."

Cougar doesn't mention that he at least had his mother's love right up until his family had figured out that his affections didn't just go towards women only. It's been nearly a decade and a half since then, which means his mother's love is a strange thing. "Maybe she will wait, hm?" he points out, because he doesn't think a mother would tire of loving her child.

"Or she can come?" he points out, stitching efficiently and swiftly. He's not sure if this place is so kind, but he'd like to hope so.

Thorfinn would feel bad for Cougar if the man had shared, his culture didn't care as much about who you loved as long as you did your duty and passed on your blood first. Sterile men were given a pass, but it was the other relgion that brought shame to the idea of men coupling. Thorfinn had never given much thought to love or romance, though he did appreciate beauty, and there were so many beautiful people in this strange new land.

"Yes, mother will, she always wait." He admitted still looking a bit down as he stayed still for Cougar to stitch. "She would not be well here, she very ill. My birth... it made her sick. She never got better." He had heard stories in his youth that she had been stronger before he was born, but even his sister's birth had been hard on Helga. "What about Cougar? What of your family?"

Cougar works on the stitches as he thinks about the family he was born to versus the one he had chosen, a dark look crossing over his face. "Not seen them since eighteen," he clarifies, because it's been sixteen years and counting since that point. "They do not like who I love." He shrugs, idly. "Found new family."

Of which one of them had betrayed him and Cougar had killed him, one is here with him and has become something more, and the other two are being very late in not coming.

"Fountain and waters heal, yes? Maybe your mother would not be sick, here."

Thorfinn looks back at Cougar with a confused look. Not so much at why, but more the way he said it since eighteen. Thorfinn had been under the assumption that Cougar was around his own age...which he only found out just before arriving in this strange place. "How old are you?" He asked, curiously. They had both been away from home the same amount of time though, Thorfinn got lost at sea at six, only finding his way home at twenty two. "Not all families work, new family treats you and your love better?" He asked curiously, taking the 'who I love' as Cougar was married.

He looked back towards the forge thinking about it a moment. "That would be good, but, she better at home. She likes being with Ylfa's children." She didn't get to raise her son, so she was enjoying raising her grandchildren.

"Thirty-four," he says with a nod of his head. He knows that he's not middle aged yet, but he's starting to feel his bones creak, starting to feel everything start to feel heavier and harder. "New family doesn't know of me and my love." He might be in a unit with some very perceptive people, but none of them had cottoned onto his feelings for Jake, which is good.

It let them serve properly.

"Maybe you just need a mother figure," Cougar suggests, finishing up with the last of the stitches.

Thorfinn blinked a bit more, twelve years older. He didn't see that coming. He was almost certain that was around the age Bjorn had been. "Thought you were my age, Twenty-two." He explained why he asked. "Is your love here?" he asked but not who, he wouldn't ask who. It wasn't his place. "You are lucky, many never know love. Most not so lucky." He didn't expect to marry for love, he expected he would be married off for money or land. The jarl's blood in him meant nothing to him, but, he had a feeling it would come back and bite him in the future.

He let a light chuckle pass. "No, to old for mother. No time to live in past, must move forward to future. For Vinland."

While Cougar takes care of himself, he's much older than that. He hides it with his hairstyle, hats, and the way he carries himself, but thinking back to when he'd been twenty-two almost gives him a headache. He had been young and impulsive, then, coming off the happiness and anger from falling in love at nineteen after being disowned.

As to his 'love', all he does is give an even sound. "Someone is here," is all he says. "And I don't know about love," he adds, because he thinks it could be, but he also doesn't know it well enough to be sure.

"Then maybe children?" Cougar suggests. "For you?"

Thorfinn was never good at pegging peoples ages, and before his beard grew in everyone just assumed him a child even at eighteen. He just assumed the man was young, but hearing he was older he was impressed.

Thorfinn nods to the words, but respects the other's privacy and doesn't inquire more despite his own curiosity. "I do not either. Love is...strange." He didn't get it, but he knew people fought and died for it. Even lost families as his new found friend clearly had.

He looks a bit embarrassed suddenly at the idea of children. "I...must one day, but no time soon. I have much work to do. No time." In truth he was fearful he would be a bad father and husband whenever it came to pass. He didn't want a child having to grow as he did. Vinland, once he got Vinland going then he could settle down and raise a child in a good place.

Cougar just isn't sure that what he feels is or isn't love. He's very bad at understanding his feelings, but he knows that he doesn't want to see Jake with anyone else and that he wants to make him happy, as best as he can. "I will work to love him," he says, and the 'him' is telling and given freely. It's a confession that he offers because he trusts Thorfinn.

He raises his eyebrow about the 'no time' when it comes to children. It seems like it would be a good way to make something of meaning in this place, but he supposes he understands how it might not be a priority.

Turning, and starting to try and rewrap the bloody cloth around the stitches since he doesn't really understand germs he looked up to Cougar again when he made his comment. No judging in the young man's eyes. More he looked happy. It was nice to hear that people could be free as they wanted here. "I wish you all the best, and lots of happiness with him." Though he had curious questions he didn't want to ask something and possibly cause offense.

At the raise of the eyebrows though he smiled a little more. "Back home, I am much busy. Going to colonize Vinland. No time for love or children. Many people will depend on me, I cant afford to be distracted." he looked towards the door. "Many here need the same. Winter is coming and none are ready."

Cougar settles his things away, planning to disinfect it later. "Yes, I do too. I will have to work for it, though," he says very firmly, because he both knows he's not excellent at relationships, but also that Jake can, on occasion, be somewhat high maintenance. Sometimes.

"You will be needed, yes, but you must also be happy," Cougar points out.

Thorfinn nodded while he tied the cloth back in place. "Anything worth it, is hard work." he offered the words that had been given to him by the Elder Master once over a meal, though it had sounded much more elegant when not broken by struggling language.

He shrugged a little then looking a little bit like he had been caught in something he hoped not to be caught in. "Happiness not as important, happiness come in time. Hard work comes first." It had always been his way to shove his own wants and desires aside and trudge on no matter how tired or upset he was. Life wouldn't wait on his emotional storms.

Cougar can get behind that and understands it, but he also thinks it sounds joyless. All his hard work in the past has come with happiness in the form of card games, the bars they had gone to, and for Cougar, it had been both in the physical pleasure he had found, but also in the knowing that he was keeping Jake from a true connection. The latter hadn't been a permanent end-game, just until Cougar could make his move.

Now that he has, he knows he has to work hard at it. "Don't work so hard you never have happiness. It's no good," he provides.

Happiness had always been something rare in Thorfinn's life. Einar and Arneis had been the rays of light that pushed the dark clouds away. The Elder Master, and Snake also helped. He didn't think of friends as a source of happiness, more a means to get through the hard times and a reason to improve and protect to keep those people around.

"Not sure I know how to find happiness." He admitted with a shrug. "I only know what I know." He explained as he looked back to the forge a second. "Maybe one day, not yet." Maybe when Winter came he would have time to seek out happiness, but he wasn't sure where to look for such a thing.

Cougar had felt that he couldn't have happiness for a very long time, especially after Bolivia. He had been miserable and damned and depressed and while he's not better, he still feels that he's searching to find whatever happiness that he can. "Don't say no to it," he says firmly, because he likes Thorfinn and thinks him a good person. He would hate to see him miserable just because he thinks he's too busy for it or keeps putting it off.

Thorfinn didn't understand what depression was, he felt his lack of energy somedays was a curse for his old crimes. That along with his nightly nightmares, he felt he was truly cursed and had to work hard for everyone to make up for it to make the curse go away.

He offered Cougar a slightly saddened shrug. "I will do my best, it is all I can do." He wouldn't seek it, but if it presented itself and he wasn't looking the wrong way... maybe he would accept happiness, if the dead allowed him it.

"We should seek bog-iron, surely this place has some... somewhere."

Cougar isn't entirely convinced, but isn't sure what else he could do in order to try and bolster up Thorfinn's spirits, so he simply grunts at his promise to do his best. "Bog-iron?" he echoes, giving Thorfinn a wary look. "What is it used for?" Maybe a vitamin? Or something else that helps to strengthen the body and spirit?

Whatever it is, he wouldn't mind knowing more, but needs the information.

Thorfinn had to find his way on his own, to get past his own issues before he could accept the words of others. An inner battle he was still waging. Oddly being i the village helped as much as it hurt. A place where no one knew him short of Jo, a place where he could start a new and repay the dead that haunt him so.

"Ja, it is found in water, makes water a different color than dirt, more like red." He explained. "makes Iron." he added with a wave of his hand pointing to the forge then. "Make metal, and tools. Bog Iron is best way with nothing else." He wanted to see the black smith up and running. At least he knew what it looked like, and little bits of his old lessons in Medietas.

Cougar raises his brow as he goes on, more and more interested. He thinks that if Thorfinn were able to get actual iron, then Cougar might be able to start coaxing things out of him. "Maybe, if you do get this," he says. "I could ask for a weapon." Something long-range, but not sure yet what he wants. He knows he can't build a gun, but maybe a proper crossbow would be a good project, if he found what he needed.

"And I'd give things back," he promises, wanting Thorfinn to know he wouldn't simply be taking.

"Would take practice. I was just a novice... just learning. And I was much young when Father was a smith." He gave a look that almost read as defeated. "We try, what is the worst that happen?" He shrugged and offered a more hopeful smile. A new project was likely the last thing he needed but, it would be something good.

"If it works, Cougar have weapons." He spoke with a nod. Even if he wasn't fond of violence anymore, he KNEW weapons were necessary. If not just for hunting than for protection. Places like these don't stay peaceful.

"You get hurt," Cougar deadpans, when asked for the worse. It wouldn't be the absolute worst (that would be death), but he feels like he should at least be realistic about it. He gives Thorfinn a smirk, though, to show that he's teasing and doesn't think that will actually happen.

"A knife, it would be nice," he admits.

"Used to that, no problem as long as no limbs lost or no death." He actually chuckled, as morbid as it was, it was his way of life. He got hurt so often he rarely reacted to it. Getting hurt was a small price for some metal in his opinion. "We could get ready for winter easier with more axes. We need much, and we can't keep hunting, we kill off the animals we die ourselves in the cold."

Thorfinn looked back and gave a pleased grin. One that almost said it was trouble. "Cougar, why not ask before, I can get Cougar a knife."

Edited (wording.) 2016-10-13 14:06 (UTC)

"Jake has been getting ready, with wood," Cougar provides, but that falls away when Thorfinn says what he does next. His brow raises in interest and he wonders why he hadn't asked before. "Something I can use for hunting," he clarifies, thinking of one of Roque's better knives that he could turn around and use for his own purposes. "It means I do not need such precise arrows."

After all, if all he has to do is wound the animal, the knife can do the rest. He's not squeamish about that sort of thing, especially not if it means that he will get to feed the community with bigger game.

"You and Jake smart, winter come soon wintersnight is approaching." Thorfinn was pretty sure he had figured out the time of year by the moon cycles and little tells from nature. Much the same way he tracked time back home. Thorfinn stepped back and pulled the scrub pants up a little under the faberic against his leg was a sharpened up boning knife. Thorfinn had the sharpened end in his boot, the handle held in place by a bit of rawhide string. If Thorfinn hadn't taken to wearing the socks he might have cut himself with it the way he kept it in his boot. It was sharpened and clearly he had spent awhile working on reshaping it to be better for his needs. He held it over to Cougar.

"Many houses have cooking knives, Jo found much, this is my favored. If we find one more like this it is good for hunting. It is what I use."