sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Wendi-go-go to the inn

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jesus.

You know, I was there the last time this happened. There aren't all that many of us left generally, and I'm the last man standing from the group that tracked the thing back into the woods. I'd taken my turns hauling its stinking carcass back to the village, too — Our absolutely meaningless prize, won too late.

And now we're right back here again, another stinking carcass and a sweet, soft-hearted boy laying dead on the lawn.

This is supposed to be what I'm good at, the picking up one foot and putting it in front of the other part. But that doesn't make it easy.

I trail Owen upstairs, and hesitate a moment in the open door before I swallow back the things I don't have time for right now and step forward.

"Sit down," I gently say, pointing at the lid of the toilet and open up one of the cupboards to find a washcloth.

When he looks up, there's something shuttered, almost pissy on his face. Pissed that anyone's up here with him, when they could be down with the others. Pissed that circumstance won't just let him be alone.

Pissed that Peeta is dead, and wanting anywhere to aim it.

But it's Mark: Owen hackles down and, after an equally exhausted look to the toilet, backs himself onto it, elbows to knees, palms up to keep from touching anything else. If he's lucky, or just a goddamned idiot, the state of his hands will kill him before anything else goes sideways.

"Next time we'll know," he says, like it's any consolation. "Use the lilies, keep our distance." Tell people like Peeta to stay inside.

"We should have had a plan in place before," I concede, although picking apart the details of what we all could have done after the fact really isn't going to help anyone, least of all Peeta or the people who'd been with him.

I twist on the taps, wait for the water to warm as I slide another look Owen's way. "We'll do better next time. But you did good this time. Everyone in this inn, all the people locked up in their houses, they're safe because the group of you went out and risked your lives. Thank you for doing that."

I test the water, soak one of the washcloths I've pulled from the cabinet and then wring it out before passing it Owen's way. "And I'm sorry you had to go through it, too."

Thanks always rankles, but more in the context. One dead in what seems to be approaching a hundred people--that's not a bad roll of the dice. Still stings like failure. Still feels like new tools, a little slippery, a little new. He only went out there because he couldn't stand to sit inside and wait--for the creature to get in or for proximity to sour.

"We had a plan," he says, keeping his eyes on the cloth and not Mark himself, as he takes it. Hands first, compressing the warmth between cramped palms to ease them. The blood on his hands isn't his, and isn't even mostly the creature's. They'd had to carry Peeta to the clinic, before Rose would let them examine the other body. "Based on what people could tell us about the last one. Waiting for more information, it would have just been someone else. Some poor fuck coming out of the fountain, those girls in the old jailhouse."

When he tries to transfer the cloth to his fingers, perform a motor skill beyond grinding it between his palms, it falls. "Shit," he mutters, lifting it back up on a grimy boot. "He just--he shouldn't have been out there. He should have said he was hurt."

I stoop to pick up the cloth before Owen can get hold of it again, and carry it back to the sink to rinse it out. "I could tell you that torturing yourself imagining all of the things that shouldn't have happened isn't helping anyone, which is true, but I know you're going to do it anyway because anyone would," I say, and carry it back over. "Hold out your hands."

Leading with cleaning the kid up like I'm his dad didn't seem like the best idea, particularly when I know how fiercely he guards his independence, but everyone has moments when they could use a little help. God knows I've been there.

In Owen's perception, evidenced by all of history as known to him, a father is violent or he's fucking useless. The good, realistic man, with no ego, doesn't have a reason to make a kid in the first place. Mark fits that bill well enough, he gives up the stiff hooks of his hands for some help.

"I don't torture myself over people I don't know," he promises. He can't even dislike what Mark says, sensible as it is. He doesn't like the way it chafes--that it chafes at all. "I'm not pissed at myself. I'm--"

Owen slants his head, looking at how the lip of the tub curves instead of Mark, instead of his own hands. "Pissed off at him, kind of."

"Me, too." Knowing it's part of the cycle of grief doesn't really help with the sensation, the loop of being angry at Peeta for putting himself in a situation he was poorly-equipped for, then guilt over being angry at an earnest kid who is now dead. And on it goes, the two feeding off each other.

"What I said still stands," I add as I wipe down Owen's hands and forearms with gentle efficiency. "I'd say being pissed at Peeta counts as a form of torturing yourself."

"Then it's just one more thing that shouldn't be that way but fucking is." Torture successfully halved, or maybe doubled: he doesn't want to be pissed off at Mark, either. Anger is irrational, anger is just the shitty response to helplessness, embarrassment. A way to not be sad. They're all useless feelings, but if he got one to wish away--he knows which one destroys a man and everything around him.

Everyone who went out there today was ready to not come back. That Peeta and Rose felt the same way, at their age--even he'd still wanted to live, back then.

As much as it amounted to: sitting on a toilet while someone cleans a kids blood off his hands. Owen squares his feet on the floor and sighs less than silently through his nose. Flexing his fingers makes him suck the air right back through his teeth. "Don't mean to bite your head off."

"It's fine," I say, then reconsider as I step back to the sink. "Well, it's not really fine, but I get it. I'm not taking it personally, Owen." There is no easy way to do something like this, to get through the plain fact of the pink water swirling down the drain in front of me. I think we're all going to be feeling this for awhile.

"You want me to run you a bath or shower or something?" I ask, less because I'm inclined toward mothering and more because it's something for him to do: One foot in front of the other in front of the other, until he realizes he can walk again. Then again, he might just want to cry or scream or sleep, and all of that just as valid.

He's gone longer in his shoes and clothes, gotten them dirtier; been hungrier, been different kinds of exhausted under the same kind of upset. But only out of necessity. Here, he lets himself a hot shower when he's home, doors locked and traps set around the windows.

The inn is one bathroom and a crowd of people outside the door, preoccupied now in the worst way. Refusing and walking home is an option, but he can't pretend it's the smart one, anymore.

Maybe it'll just make Mark feel better, doing it. "Can you find me some clothes," he asks, reaching down to tug at his bootlaces. "I can do the rest."

[MINGLE] Wendi-go-go to the inn

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