[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

[littledhampir]

Her jaw tightens at his matter of fact protest, the logic in his words only making her work harder. Rose had never been known for her ability to listen to reason and this wasn’t even a normal situation. She needed this, whether she understood that or not. Needed to be useful. Getting rest, tending to her injuries, eating. They were things that would force her to stop and she wasn’t willing to do that just yet. Wasn't sure what would happen when she did.

The offer of food does lift her gaze, but there’s no interest in her eyes. She would be the immovable object to his unstoppable force until he relented or her body broke.

“I’m not hungry.” Truth in that answer as she continues to turn the earth over, her hands already feeling the sting of no gloves but for now it’s the kind of pain that keeps her focused. It distracts from the ache in her bones, the bruises that were darkening with every passing moment. It keeps her sanity intact when it's already frayed at the edges.

His words see her stop, the shovel half buried in the earth. A tension radiating through her shoulders as a shadow runs across her features. She hated that. People talking about somebody like they were still around to care what happened. Rose knew more about death and what happened to people afterwards than most, and while maybe Peeta was still lingering? He wasn’t about to waste what little of his energy remained on watching over her.

“He’s dead.” The words hard, cold almost as she doesn’t so much as lift her gaze. “He doesn’t have an opinion.” Her shovel pushing its way into the earth again as those words leave her mouth.

[underpinnings]

When she asked them to carry the body, Owen carried the body. If she wants to break her back and skin her palms digging a hole, he'll let her dig a hole. The opinions of the living and dead so equally dismissed, he's not sure why he's out here--any more than he's sure why he was at the inn, why he was back in the village at all. If he'd just kept to the plains, he wouldn't even know what had happened.

That would be worse. It's always better to know.

"Suit yourself," he says with a shrug, leaving the food and blanket in her reach, stepping over the line of dirt to pass back through toward the village. It's a long enough walk, he reorients just by putting one foot in front of the other. Peeta still going cold on a slab when he wanders through the clinic, no questions asked when he picks up tape and a jar of clear liquid--alcohol so strong there's hardly any flavor under the wheeze-inducing smell. Won't be fun to use, but it'll get the job done.

Proper gloves are harder to come by, back at the inn. He puts a winter pair in one back pocket, a couple of towels over his shoulder. The shovel he tests his hands on, fingers stiff and muscles protesting. The tips of his two remaining are raw from the bow, worsened by the rope.

It'll be days before should even start trying to replenish their arrows, and they might not have those days. If one can get that big, so could the others. In the end, he leaves it; if he picks up a shovel tonight, it'll only be to take it up from Rose's hands.

By the time he returns, there's enough of a hole her hands have to be feeling it.

"Just let me tape you up," he offers, alcohol and bandages carried plain. "Brought you some gloves."

[littledhampir]

If Liss were here, she’d be giving her a sorrowful look, pleading with her silently through the bond they shared. Slowly but surely influencing her mind with the calming, soothing thoughts that would mingle with her own. Without the bond, her mind was a quiet, lonely place. For years she’d fought to mask the bitterness she felt at never having a moment of peace. Now, she would have given anything to have somebody else's thoughts and feelings to help dull the noise of her own.

She knew she was supposed to feel bad about being short with him. For refusing to listen to reason, but she didn’t have enough left to layer on anymore guilt and she’d never been as good as Liss believed. Without the Moroi to smooth out her sharp edges, Rose had little reason to temper her emotions.

She can hear the grind of her own teeth as he gets up and walks away, Rose stilling for a moment as the sound of his retreating footsteps fade with distance and then she’s back to sinking her shovel into the dirt. Her aggressive attack on the earth doing little to help her mood but helping all the same in other ways.

The pain that should have served as a warning became the very thing she needed right now, as if punishing herself physically could ease her guilt, serving as a less than satisfactory penance for what had happened. She knew that nobody would allow her to take the blame for Peeta’s death, but that was exactly why she was out here and not in there. She wasn’t looking for anyone to alleviate her guilt, to absolve her of any responsibility. She didn’t want pity or sympathy or people to try and take care of her. She didn’t deserve it anymore than Peeta deserved to die.

The sting in her hands threatened to be her undoing as she took out her frustration on the ground beneath her feet, Rose forcing herself to push through the burn with every shovel of dirt she managed to clear. She doesn’t slow at his return, not daring to ease her pace. Rose trying to turn the marathon into a race that she didn’t really want to win.

He’d be able to see the emotion that sizzles beneath the surface as metal hits dirt once more, Rose lifting her head to stare at him now, with a slight shake of her head.

“Why?” It’s not an accusation, not harshly thrown at him but there’s nothing soft in her response either. You’d almost think from the way she looks at him, that nobody has ever really tried to help her before. “Why are you doing this?”

[underpinnings]

Because if there were anyone else else to do this, they would be. If there had ever been anyone else to do this, he suspects, she wouldn't be out here digging a hole for a boy she'd met the once, tearing herself apart over it. Because they need to take care of each other just enough, to be worth handing a weapon to if another one moves in on this one's territory.

Those lilies only seem to bloom in the storms, and he doesn't know how many patches are left, this many days without them.

"People irritate me," he says instead, shifting gear in pockets and hands until he can wet the corner of a towel in the reeking contents of the jar. They didn't always--confounded, frustrated him. But tonight everything chafes, enough to know he isn't as unaffected as he'd like to be. If he hadn't already lost two fingers to this kind of stupidity, he'd be helping her dig the hole. "So I decided to come irritate you." He knows she doesn't want him here, but he isn't shy to stand there, not giving a shit. Curling his fingers outward around the towel, he holds them up where she can see the two nubs, fingers shorn off at the middle knuckle.

"And I know if you don't take care of your hands, in places like this, you start losing them."

[littledhampir]

She’d never had that, though. Not even when she should have, when she’d had people around who would have, in theory, done this for her. She never had because she was the one who always took care of everyone else. Her whole life had been about doing exactly that, her own wants and needs coming second to those of another. Even her life was unimportant in comparison. To the person who was raised from birth, to die for another, it was hard to comprehend why anyone would ever care enough to go out of their way to try and look out for her. It’s not the way things worked, not for Rose.

"People irritate me.”

It was so unexpected that the hardness in her features actually slipped away, Rose blinking at him stupidly and giving an infinitesimal shake of her head, as if somehow his words would rearrange into something that made a lick of sense. It was so the kind of thing that she’d say, that she didn’t know how to respond to hearing it pass somebody else’s lips, her digging at least for now, stalled as she waited for where he was going with this.

The end of that sentence earned a huff of irritation of her own, eyes rolling but any sarcastic retort was cut off at the wave of his missing fingers. The sobering sight forced her to look at her own hands. At the blisters that had already begun to form and as much as she wanted to tell him to fuck off and leave her alone, there was just enough sense in his words for Rose to think twice on that.

“Fair enough.” It wasn’t much, not at all what his actions deserved, but Rose wasn’t exactly good with… people. “As long as you’re not going to try and stop me again.” Like… at all.

[underpinnings]

Bit of attitude, bit of blunting--it's better than thanks. Gratitude always chafes, always feels like ego--he doesn't have enough to expect it, and he doesn't want to know if anyone thinks themselves that important, that he'd do anything for them.

The people who thank you, shake your hand, they're the ones who give you shit when you don't show up.

Better she just give him shit for showing up now. "This hole's getting dug tonight, I get it." How well it's getting dug, and who contributes, remains to be seen. If he can take a turn at it long enough for her to eat, he probably won't make too bad a hypocrite of himself. At least his hands are already washed and wrapped.

"Gimme the first one," he says, good hand out, half-fingers disappeared in the folds of the towel. "This is going to sting." There's alcohol enough to seep into every broken bit of skin, and he won't be surprised if the towel winds up a little pink.

There's less gauze in the clinic than shredded linens, so he pads her palms before he wraps them, then holds out the gloves. "I'll take over when you need a break, so don't put your stupid ass in the clinic."

[littledhampir]

She hadn’t hit him. That was about as close to a thanks as Rose generally got with anyone she didn’t trust with the life of her best friend, so he had no real danger of that one… though she might still take that swing.

“Good.” Rose offering a curt not in response. She could deal with a certain amount of fussing, provided nobody tried to stop her but once she made up her mind about something, trying to meddle was bad for your health.

She hesitated at first, not for fear of pain or having somebody care for her in general, but because of the last time somebody had done this for her. The only time anybody had taken the time to notice the state of her hands. A shadow passed over her features, a memory she’d all but buried pushing its way to the surface long enough to make her swallow hard and by the time she thrust out her hand for him, she welcomed the expected sting.

Rose tensed, breathing in a hiss of air through her teeth, the pain providing her with the distraction she needed as he dabbed them with foul-smelling liquid, Rose allowing the hurt to calm her mind and ease the emotion that had swelled in her chest as he set about cleaning her up.

“No you won’t.” The hardness back in her voice, but the reason for it being there was far different than before.

“When I need a break I’ll take one.” Refusing to elaborate more than that. She’d already allowed one person who wasn’t physically able to go into a fight. She wasn’t about to risk him losing more fingers because she wasn’t willing to say no again.