sixthiterationlogs | I accused him there with his tortured lamb

Entry tags:

I accused him there with his tortured lamb

WHO: Bobo Del Rey
WHERE: Butcher Shop, South village
WHEN: Throughout November
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Talk of animal death and slaughter

There was a time when most of Bobo's life wasn't taken up with drinking and herding revenant cats and general being a fairly psychotic bastard. It's a time over a century in the past, and until coming to this place, he's been glad to leave it in the past, as buried as the man that had caused the curse that had changed everything for Bobo. This place though, it's like a damn time capsule in many ways, and it is finding a way to get under his skin and stir up memories of a man long dead though his body continues on.

He had once been a man who helped, whose entire life was devoted to another, to doing what he could for his town and for a hundred plus years he has lamented that being that man had caused him not only to die - that he was prepared for - but to be cursed and damned for it. People paid for that, yet now in this place, that all feels like someone distant, just as Robert Svane has felt to Bobo for so long.

Here in this place, everything has changed and much as he might deny it, Bobo is changing with it. Including needing to do more than cause hate and discontent. A talk with Margaery at the inn led him to spending a few days hunting and trekking through the areas to the north, away from others for the most part. Trying to clear his mind, to remember who he is, not was. Except even that didn't work. That man who died apparently wasn't nearly as gone and forgotten as Bobo likes to believe. In the end he ended up at the butcher shop with his coat hung on a nail, water brought up from the river and set to work scrubbing the place down.

Taking more time than he had so far with the house since poisoning the village is not acceptable. Working hard, harder than he has in a long while, using the soap left there on the counter and rags he made from those damn walking blanket things. It takes several days, leaving the doors and windows open to air the place out as he goes. Going so far that the first night he just curls up with his coat, not wanting to make the hike back to the North village.

By the end of the first week, the place is clean enough you could eat off the floor. Or at the very least eat what is killed and slaughtered there and likely not die. Maybe killing things isn't the best therapy for the aggression he still feels, the nature of the beast as it were, but he figures it isn't hurting people so, for now, it will work. Both for his own kills and, if others bring them in, butchering items for others in the village as well.

Eventually he can be found there most of the daylight hours slaughtering those creature he kills. Using that space to butcher them, and to cure and tan the hides. Some of the meat and fish he takes over to the Inn. Some of it he starts processing with red salt, hoping it will do the same as the salt curing he'd done before. Some he puts out on racks to dry, thinking he can turn it into pemmican for the winter.

Some days he can be found scrounging wood, looking to build a smoking shed out back to use on the salted meat when it's ready, knowing he's starting too late in the season to hold them all through the winter, but he doesn't care. He cares that some of the oppressive weight of hatred and loathing is lifted from his shoulders while he works, and for now that is enough.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Doing the things he is in the village, Bobo hasn't let himself think about why he's doing it. Nor how he feels about it. So to have someone tell him that he's nice is almost painful in that it's not words he's heard for decades, and the man he was when he did is so much different than he's become.

"It's kind of weird. I hadn't thought about it that way. It started out as something to help me here." Which might not sound all that good considering he's talking about killing and skinning animals, but it did help and is something that not everyone has experience with, he knows. So it's turned into help for others, and now nice. "But thanks."

Again, words that aren't entirely comfortable to him, unused for so long in the life he's led. He had spent over a century not thinking about how much of that man he hasn't been, until he finds hints of him creeping out in the things he does, and says.

A brow arches when she speaks of the scar, head canting slightly, watching her with narrowed eyes. "Sounds like an interesting fight in his past. And it it's something lame like him falling into a window, don't tell me. I like the idea in my head better," he says, and there's a hint of a smile, finding that as well. A hint to humor that isn't just sarcasm to deflect from everything else.

"You got lucky though. The one from my world, she's..." He pauses, considering how to word this without being that dick and starting World War III with Wynonna because someone tells her what he'd said. Though it could get worse." But if Holliday shows up, he's moving further out than the North village. "We've called a truce though, and manage to avoid on another mostly." Sure he harassed her at the party, but he hadn't known it was her at first.

It's nice having those that come in and help, so used to herding cats as it was with revenants, and so he gets back to work in lining it so that it will hold in the heat. "I can't remember when I was even a teenager," he admits, making a face as he looks at her, considering that he hasn't thought of that in years. "Good thing you'll still have those moments here then too."

Rinoa smiles at him, the edges of her dark eyes crinkling. "You could have kept it as only something for yourself, and you chose to instead think about others and put in the extra work. Not everyone does that, you know." She can't help but see the best in people, even strangers. Especially in strangers. In some ways she knows she has to get tougher and less trusting, but she also doesn't want to entirely change just because of bad experiences in the past few months. The sorceresses already took too much from her.

She chuckles and clasps her hands, rolling to the tips of her toes and back to her heels as she considers what to say. "Oh it was an interesting fight, from what I've heard, but he is a terrible story teller. It was technically during a training match, but he and Seifer rile each other up so easily. "They were the two best sword fighters in the Garden. A training match with them is a duel to the death for anyone else." The two of them competed in so many ways, but they never really did over her, and she's glad. She hates the idea of being a prize of some kind. "Seifer used magic to cheat and they have parallel permanent slashes on their faces. That sounds less exciting spelled out, but I was assured it was very intense at the time."

Rinoa's head tilts curiously at his pause, but she's not going to press either. Obviously there's some history. She's not likely to assume anything on one person's word alone. She's naive, but not stupid. Still, maybe it's just a difference in opinion. "I'm glad you called a truce! There's enough about being in a new world that's difficult, having fights would make it worse." She doesn't follow up with a 'we're all in this together' cheer, although she's very much thinking about it in her head.

She watches what he does on top of bringing him the wood, hoping to learn something in the process. She laughs though, shaking her head. "Oh you're not that old, come on. Are you one of those people who turn forty and think the world is over?" She's gently teasing, which she knows you're not supposed to do with strangers, it's impolite, but she likes him and hopes he won't take offense.

She's true, and he can't argue that, but it is also a reminder of the past. A time that had never ended well, and which Bobo hadn't thought of in too long. Being a good man hadn't been important as a revenant, and there is nothing to be done in helping more than keeping them herded. At least it's what he's told himself for years, told himself instead of trying to be a better man. Suddenly, finding himself away from them all, he's trying once more. Letting himself think about it though is unsettling. Having another acknowledge that is a bit nervewracking in ways he doesn't want to share.

"Yeah, I guess I could. When you're trapped together, all you can do is band together." Which is how it should be, but not how he's done so much of the years of his life. It's easy though to do such things when you're not thinking about it, but the moment someone brings it up, trying to do the right thing feels so much harder.

So he focuses on her story about this friend of hers and the scar he bears.

"No, it sounds exciting, and fucked up," he admits, chuckling ruefully. "Did it end up duplicated on both of them because of him cheating? Does it work like that to stop cheaters?" It's how it sounds but he's not sure if it's that much karma or not.

He hears that cheer though, and much as his trying to do something in this place might say the same thing, he's not nearly cheerful enough for that. And glad she isn't entirely either. Even if he suspects her cheer in general will be infectious in this city.

Glancing sidelong at her as he works, Bobo chuckles at that. "Kind of, though it was slightly past forty," he admits, being honest without going into the details. "And some people are older than they look."

"That's my experience too. People might not last out here long if they don't." Rinoa figures it would never get that far. If someone wanted to isolate themselves, surely people would still try to get to them. She would try to get to them. But it's much easier when everyone is on the same page. "We're not just trapped here, we're kidnapped, and I hear they cause strange things sometimes?" Rinoa's brand new so she hasn't really seen it herself. She's heard a few harmless ones that don't sound too bad, but that doesn't mean they'll stay that way.

Rinoa shakes her head. "Oh, no, it's like ... let me show you." She starts miming it out. "Seifer used fire," putting out her hand, boom, "Squall was thrown off. And then Seifer went slash." She pretends to bring a sword down, and then lines up the mark on her face exactly how Squall's was. "So then Squall put his sword on the ground and whooshed it up at him, and cut Seifer the same way. Just a different angle." She doesn't seem to care that she probably seems a little silly at the moment putting on a show for him.

In truth ... forty sounds old to her. Her father is in his 40s. A lot of the people there look that age. He doesn't really, but he is tall and intimidating and maybe she can't read the age well. Edea and Cid were in their 40s, probably. She squints at him thoughtfully. "Are you talking about yourself?"

"And we wouldn't know who hasn't," he points out, in a much too cheerful voice. "If they wandered off, there's a dozen ways they could die and none of us would ever know. Cliffs. Drowning. Who knows what large animals are out there," he adds, ever so cheerful about it. Not rudely so but not bothered by the idea either.

"I haven't been here long enough to know for sure, and what is a kidnapping to many? It was a rescue for me," he admits, shrugging. "But for Halloween, we got new clothes which somehow turned into costumes when we got into the horror movie corn maze. So if that's the worst they do..." He's really all kinds of okay with it.

Bobo goes still, watching the show, and how it happened. Better than magical twin wounds from cheating but... He winces nonethelesss. "Okay then. That's both better than I thought and damn, what the hell were they thinking?" Chuckling as he shakes his head. "Also, people in your world just use fire a lot?"

He's hearing about it more and more, and not as if he hasn't had an ability of his own either. "As for the old people thing, yeah. Definitely talking about me, though I'm not the only one I've heard of."

"That's a little bleak ----" Rinoa's eyes widen. "I was just going to say that's a little bleak, your name, and I realize I haven't even asked. Oh I would be in so much trouble for being so impolite!" Her father was strict and she ignored him in many ways, but politeness was something ingrained in her schooling too. She knows her mother would have given her a look. Her hand reaches unconsciously for the necklace that should be hanging around her throat, and feels a pang of sadness when it's not there. "I'm Rinoa."

Her expression turns a little confused. "A rescue for you? Were you in danger?" She does know that some people were happy to be there, she's heard a few stories and read the books. This isn't the first time she's been kidnapped, so she's mostly just glad she's awake this time. And able to control her own limbs. "New clothes doesn't sound bad." But also the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Rinoa rolls her eyes. "They weren't thinking, they were being stupid competitive boys." Teenagers, like she said. She is one too, but she tries her best to be more mature. Most of the time she manages. "They could have easily killed one another in what was supposed to be an innocent spar." They seemed to get that was the wrong thing afterward. If she'd been there she could have stopped them, but also she didn't know Squall at that point so he wouldn't have listened to her anyway. "Oh, yeah, magic can be used. You store it by drawing it from creatures we fight ... I'm not sure how to explain it better than that, and I can't show you here." She pauses. "There's a natural form of magic but ... it's rare." She bites her lip. She had it.

She looks at him, fascinated. "So like ... how old is that?"

It is bleak, and Bobo knows his view can be that way, but when she explains what brought her to that moment, he can't help but chuckle. "I promise not to tell on you," he says, smiling a bit more warmly than most get. "Most just call me Bobo. Since it's really the only name I give. Pleasure to meet you, Rinoa." Since she's possibly worried about manners and all.

"I was likely going to die," he admits, shrugging as he works, dismissing it as nothing. Even if it's anything but. "I was wounded, and betrayed, and have since learned the person I was with was killed moments after I arrived here, so I can only assume I'm next." Again that shrug. Nope, nothing really. "So this place is kind of a godsend."

"Was it innocent for them? I mean, there's a possibility there was more to it than that. Seen it enough times," he admits, knowing true motives weren't always revealed. Though when she talks about how the magic works, his head cants, watching her. "And from one another? I mean, that could be why an innocent spar could turn," he points out, not trying to stir trouble, but curious.

He turns back to working for a bit, considering that answer instead of dismissing it entirely. Some know. One knows all of it, not counting Wynonna. "I was nearly forty when I died," he says, waving his hand to indicate time. "That was over a century ago though."

Some don't believe him, and he accepts that. He's been assured he's not the only one here living on extra years though.

Rinoa laughs, feeding on that warmth from him like she's a flower soaking up sunlight. She enjoys making other people smile or laugh, and she also has a tendency to seek approval from parental figures. But really, he seems like someone who should smile more! And she is an expert on making those types bend to her warmth eventually. "Hello Bobo, nice to meet you too. I'd curtsy, but I don't have a dress on." She usually wears pants now, so it's mostly a joke, and then she gives him an extravagant bow instead.

This of course immediately made her gasp, putting a hand to her mouth. "Oh no! I'm so sorry." Rinoa steps closer to him just so she can pat him comfortingly on his arm. He's much taller than her, so she can't pat his shoulder, so it's the elbow instead. Her eyes are full of empathy and sadness for him. She thought her problem with Squall missing years is bad, but this is so much worse. "And your friend died too? Oh Bobo, that's awful." She may or may not feel like crying for him right here and now, which was absolutely ridiculous so she didn't do it.

Rinoa doesn't question what he's saying. If that's how old he is, that's how old he is. If he didn't seem to hesitate telling her the number, she might have assume he was some long lived other race that only looked human. Which would've been fine. "So ...." She blinks a few times. "So you died but then you lived for another century but then you maybe died again?" She thinks she might have that right, but it's confusing. "How did you live so long?"

It's easy to joke, and often it's easy to even make light of what he's been through, but today with her reaction, it's a little bit harder. So Bobo falls quiet for a moment before making it all clear.

"She died. I found out. After I ended up in this place." Murdered not dead, but that's a whole other story and if Wynonna hasn't ratted him out, he's not turning tables on her either.

"I died, a hundred and fifty years before I found myself on my back from a grenade blast," he says, touching the faint scars on the side of his face, and hearing her leaving me behind," he says, speaking carefully to make it all sound as if it was nothing at all. Even if that is the biggest lie he'd ever told. "It was about a hundred and fifty years," he says, shrugging.

"But that's the kind of thing I enjoy telling others for shock value," he admits, canting his head and gesturing as if to dismiss it. "Not used to getting sympathy, so thank you."

He's not used to it but that doesn't make him appreciate it any less. "Come on. Let's get going on the smokehouse. If nothing else, it means we don't starve this winter. Don't know about you, but I'm kind of for that side of things."

Because distraction is easier than genuine emotions. Both directed at him, and from him.

Rinoa wanted to say more, but she also could take a hint. Maybe they could talk more about it another time. She smiled and nodded. "Yes! I want to see how you do this."

[and scene]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I accused him there with his tortured lamb

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject