[MINGLE] Wendi-go-go to the inn

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: 6I Village and Inn
WHEN: 27-31 July
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
NOTES: The Wendigo threatening the village will be killed mid 28 July, with a Blue Lily, per these threads. Plot details here. Note: The final fight is close enough to be seen from the upstairs inn windows.
WARNINGS: Wendigo attack mingle, please warn in comment headers if discussing violence, gore, or related trauma. Possible mentions of character death.

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The urgent warnings come from villagers returning south from the lake: a creature twice the size of a man, antlered and voracious. Larger than any they've seen on the plains, stalking its way to the main village. Some might have their own names for this hunger in a skin of shadow; others might remember that it was the first to claim a life, in their village's short history.

Whatever context one has for it, best to secure all pets and loved ones before it arrives. With weapons and food stores at the inn, the call goes out to gather — And to bring back any tools, because there's no telling what doors and windows can do to stop such a creature.

Comments

[demonic_divinity]

"Of course I am." He replied, though he did take a step away from her. JUST in case. He's human now, he has to worry. He may have survived landing on his head after one hell of a fall as a nephilim but as a human, probably not.

"You disobeyed an order, which endangered your life, or even the lives of others. So you expect they are livid at you?" He took a guess from the things she had said, and how he would react if Kat disobeyed him. "That is why you are uneasy, but also curious about time flow."

[spoileralert]

Her insides went cold. It wasn't the kind of guess she was expecting. She wasn't prepared to come up with a complex, detailed lie, though, and she couldn't deny her guilt. She didn't have that right.

"It's, uh," she started, forcing the words out through a throat that was trying to close, "maybe, a bit bigger than that. And a fair bit more complicated." She stared at a single tree in the distance, trying not to remember fire, gunshots and screams.

[demonic_divinity]

He was good about that. Even without trying, though he watched her reaction. Drinking it in. Welp, that hit in button.

"But something close? It sounds to me, like you need to talk to someone. Not me, I am sure I am the last person you will want to tell this to, but talk to someone. Get the weight off of you before it crushes you."

[spoileralert]

"A little late for that, don't you think?" She was already suffocating under all of it, even discounting her minor breakdown of a few minutes ago.

"Anyway, it's not the passage of time I'm curious about. I don't really know how long I was..." chained in a basement "missing, before I died. They probably didn't know I was gone, let alone in trouble."

[demonic_divinity]

"It's never to late..." Yes it was. They were both likely dead, and unforgiven.

He arched one of his dark brows looking at her. "You were held captive?" He turned to give her his full attention, just a bit out of kicking distance though. he still didn't trust anyone enough. "Do you think they killed you, Steph? A good number of us had death blows dealt before coming here... others did not."

cw: injury talk

[spoileralert]

In a strange juxtaposition, she felt much more comfortable talking about the circumstances of her death than the events leading up to it. She pulled the collar of her tank top to the side to better frame the large scar on her shoulder.

"They definitely thought they did. I remember him walking away before I blacked out. Actually-" She twisted to point the back of that same shoulder in his direction, still trying to hold back her shirt.

"Did it go all the way through? I couldn't exactly tell, and it's a hard spot to see in a mirror." She was morbidly curious. As it happens the bullet did not go through, stopping instead to shatter a portion of her collarbone and break the shoulder-blade behind it. If he risked coming close enough for a proper look he might notice the still-puffy scars covering the rest of her back, arms and chest, and especially her wrists and hands.

[demonic_divinity]

Death was a dance everyone had to take sooner or later. It was easier than admitting ones mistakes.

"Well, you certain must be having lovely dreams." He spoke with a touch of sympathy. It wasn't real as much as sounding real, he was selfish in feeling his pain over-weighed it, but each persons tragedies were the worst in their own minds.

Looking at the wound when she pulled her shirt to the moved closer, still expecting a shove as he knelled on one knee looking closer. "You have scar tissue, its puffy... for lack of a better word... I would dare say the bullet may still be inside....Oh." Then it clicked, those scars were not from bullets. "It did not go all the way through, but if you don't want questions asked, I would advice against a two peice if we ever get a pool here. No offence intended."

[spoileralert]

She shrugged, letting her shirt fall halfway back in place.

“It’s too hot for long sleeves. What’s there to ask, anyway? ‘Hey, how’d you get all those dozens of scars?’ ‘Well, Joanne, this is what happens when you get snatched off the street by a bored sadist.’” She even used a funny voice for ‘Joanne’.

...Numb, that was how it made her feel. Like what happened to her body was entirely separate from what happened to her heart.

“Seems like it’d be obvious from looking that it’s not gonna be a fun story.”

[demonic_divinity]

He stepped back again, returning to leaning on the hot brick, likely the back of his hair would be stained with ash, but he'd wash it once he got home, god knows its already stained pink in the front from the blood he got splashed with helping out Nat.

"Local sadist, well, that certainly paints a lovely image. And Joanne is nosy, and sounds like she has a congestion problem." He commented looking to his finger tips. "I would say I am sorry, but I doubt you want sympathy. I know, I wouldn't. I would want revenge." He started honestly. "My next advice, do as my brother would, always say the other guy looks worse, and make up a different story each time your asked." He spoke in attempt to ease the mood. It usually worked with Kat.

[spoileralert]

She snorted a laugh as he insulted 'Joanne', and shook her head at the idea of sympathy. As for revenge, well... she'd tried. She'd really given it a solid effort. She kind of liked Dante's method, except that it was hard to think of reasons she might be scarred from head to toe.

"I dunno," she said at last, "I like the revenge idea. Every time somebody asks they get punched in the face. Twenty points if I break their nose." She shot him a grin that lacked any kind depth, just to let him know she appreciated the effort.

[demonic_divinity]

'Joanne' needed to go mind her own damn business. Granted, Vergil had issues with noisy people without purpose, even if Joanne was just a pantamime.

"Well, then, maybe I can be of service to you." He offered with a light smile. "I am well versed in the act of revenge." destroying a demonic empire did not an expert make. "Oh please, at least twenty five, and a bonus three if it makes a pop when you do." He figured playing along might lift her spirits some.

[spoileralert]

“25 points for a broken nose,” she agreed, “20 for a black eye, and an even 30 for a knock-out. That seems fair.” What these points counted towards, why, or how many people she expected to actually ask about her scars she didn’t know or care. It was all in good fun. And it did raise her spirits some, making her feel a little more like herself and less like the shell of a girl she knew wandered around town in her skin.

[demonic_divinity]

"I will spare a page just for the point system. Update me and I will keep your score up to date." Was he serious? Fuck yes he was. And he will keep that score system on hand. "No, 40 for a knock out, namely it they hit something on the way down." He added with a wave of his hands. "And as a bonus, if you make someone cry when you tell them off you get 20 points."

[spoileralert]

She laughs, if only briefly, and shakes her head.

“You know I’m not really going to go around punching people, right? For one thing I doubt anybody is going to ask. For another, I’m pretty sure the answer is plenty punishment for anyone who does.”

[demonic_divinity]

"I'll still make it just in case. You can get a laugh now and then." He replied amused, looking from her to the battle again. "Most likely, yes."

[spoileralert]

She let the conversation lag for a moment, thinking how nice it was that he liked to make her laugh and very little she felt she deserved even that small consideration. She watched the battle below without really seeing it.

“So how did you die? Fair’s fair.”

[demonic_divinity]

He took a long, exaggerated breath, and sighed, just as dramatic, before he shifted to sit down on the roof, and yep the back of his hair was now black from the soot, he didn't notice yet thankfully.

"I was murdered, by the person I loved most." A true note of pain in his voice, as he looked at his nails again, tugging at a hangnail... his hands used to be so perfectly soft, hangnails weren't fair.

"We had a disagreement, and it escalated until I was stabbed in the heart."

[spoileralert]

She did her best not to judge the dramatics. It was just who he was.

"I'm sorry," she offered, condolence and not pity. She was from Gotham. Murder by a loved one just wasn't that uncommon.

"Was it about your revolution, or just personal?"

[demonic_divinity]

At least she understood.

He offered a shrug of those wide shoulders before sighing again. "Thank you. And yes and no, both at once yet neither. We overthrew and slayed the demon king, we set our world free, but unfortunetly, we didn't see eye to eye and it simply got out of hand." He explained with a wave of his hand.

"No where near as exciting as local sadist."

[spoileralert]

She nodded along as though this explanation didn’t sound completely insane. Demon kings trying to take over the world... Where did he live, Metropolis?

“Yeah... it’s always sad when that kind of thing happens.” She couldn’t offer much more than that.

“Bored sadist in the middle of a gang war,” she corrected, half bragging. She regretted it immediately. She didn’t want to explain why the gang war happened, what she was doing out during it, even how bad it got.

“Exciting is overrated,” she went on quickly, hoping the strain in her voice was a clear enough sign not to ask questions.

[demonic_divinity]

Limbo City, but the same idea. Who names a city after Limbo?

"Every great revolutionary dies young, otherwise they grow to be a villain." He offered with another shrug, sad fact was he knew he was already the villain in someones story, but that hurt. "We are meant to live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse, while our murderers pretend to weep at our funerals."

He's a little depressing at times. He shook his head some.

"You'd think he'd be out torturing gang members? Seems like the best time to be a bored sadist. A gangwar though, you must be quite the fighter." His blue eyes shifted to her. What was this woman? "Tell me about yourself Steph, you sound like you've seen much."

[spoileralert]

Steph turns as far as she can away from him without hurting herself or moving the rest of her body. She is not going to talk about living fast, dying young, gang members being tortured, or anything on those lines. She wasn't.

"I'm from Gotham," she said instead, as though this explained everything. "Of course I've seen a lot. I can name five classmates I know of who were killed when we were in school together, and twenty more whose family members did. We had an earthquake once and the government declared us 'not worth the trouble'. Surviving is a matter of luck or money, and we never had much money."

[demonic_divinity]

He was just waxing poetry.

He nodded as he listened. "That sounds horrible, how old were you when it happened? And, no, I do not know a Gotham." He admitted as he listened. "But it sounds a lot like Limbo... without as much death. There is a lot but it's usually swept under the rug." He propped his arm on his knee resting a hand in his hair before a flake of dried blood flaked free like disgusting dandruff. How the high have fallen.

"I had money, a lot of it. I always have, that's how I funded the Order. Learning to live here is a challenge to say the least."

[spoileralert]

“It was last year,” she answered flatly. “I was sixteen.”

But this was a much more comfortable subject to talk about, so she turns to raise an amused eyebrow at him.

“That explains more than it doesn’t. Definitely the penchant for drama.”

[demonic_divinity]

"Damn, and you already have a gang war? Is tragedy just in that city?" He looked a little concerned, but demonic damage was usually fixed pretty quick.

"What? What does that mean?" He scrunched his brows a bit, "Money does not make one dramatic."