sixthiterationlogs | The gods are laughing.

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The gods are laughing.

WHO: Thorfinn Thorsson
WHERE: The Inn, House #8, The River.
WHEN:One Backdated to October 9th // The other for October 13th
OPEN TO: One thread closed to Sam, the rest OTA
WARNINGS: Some heavy cursing in Norse?
STATUS: Open

Backdated to the 9th: Closed to Sam
Once the rain had stopped, Thorfinn had been quick to get back to his daily tasks, he had days to make up for after all. When he came in the afternoon to drop off lumber he heard about the fact Kate and Margaery was missing, and he hadn't seen Margaery that morning, which in itself was strange but he didn't see reason for alarm when they were only out of sight a few hours at most. They had been seen at breakfast then gone after they went into the woods.

If it had been anyone else he would have rolled his eyes and gotten back to work, but it was both Kate and Margaery, and people were going off to look for them. So he watched and listened a few minutes before he looked to the person nearest him, Sam Wilson.

"You want me to go with?" He offered, though still he didn't look too concerned. If it had been a full day he'd be worried, but a few hours was not a big deal in his eyes. Kate was capable, and Margaery was learning.

OTA; Morning October 13th.

Thorfinn was making his way out the front door of House #8, he usually headed from the back door to the inn to collect and axe and get to work, today he was aching from a worse night of sleep than usual so he was going to skip out on collecting wood for the day and get to following the river. He made his way out finishing the last touch of his braids, twisting them into themselves to hold in place. While he messed with his hair he managed to trip on the box sitting on the porch and hit his knee in the process.

"Ríða! Stykki af skít, hvað í fjandanum!"

He had not expected something on the porch much less that heavy. The box was more or less crushed under his weight, and when he shifted off of it and realized there was a point sticking out dangerously close to where his leg had landed on the box. No wonder it hurt like it did. Thorfinn he realized it was the way the last box had displayed his name, of course the rest of his name was there. He shifted to sit cross legged despite the smarting pain in his leg. This was for him. Why were their captors giving him strange gifts, and leaving them in a place he could kill himself?

Tearing the box the rest of the way from the place the blade was sticking out he quickly realized what it was. An axe head it was unlike the ones he was used to, closer to the ones that came in the weapons crates but still strange in its hammer like end. He looked over the heavy item a few moments before he slowly looked up unamused. His face twisting to anger.

They gave him and axe.

An axe with no handle.

He was going to have to go fashion a handle and hoped it could support that weight. "Þetta er ekki fjandans fyndið." He placed the axe-head aside with a loud thunk. Looking to the rest of the crushed box, his eyes going wide. Wheat seeds.

He knew what they were by the sight of them. Looking up at the sky, then back towards the back yard…. He needed to make himself a little field and get these planted before it got to late, Einar had taught him Wheat could be planted in the fall. It wouldn't be able to be harvested in time for winter, but it might be good to do for next year if they are still here, if not maybe it could help someone else in the future. He just sat there staring at the box for a little while.

OTA: Following the river.
The axe-head was in his bag over his shoulder, but the wheat seeds had been left in his room. Thorfinn got to work quickly on moving to the river to start following it. He was looking for off orange coloring, for signs of bog iron. He wasn't an expert and his lessons on the stuff had been ages ago when he was in Medietas, but, it was something worth looking into. A possibility of getting the smith up and running. He didn't have high hopes on finding the bog iron, but, it was worth a shot to try. Worse come to worse he'd time to find a stick worthy of whittling down into a handle for the axe-head.

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Thorfinn was so used to being sliced and cut that he didn't show a lot of pain aside from pushing pressure on the wound. Blood still ozzed from under his scarred hands, over his fingers, it wasn't bad, but it was flowing from the think skin knees have, it was a pretty good knick, meaning he'd had a new set of stitches by the end of the day if he didn't wrap it in something beforehand. He didn't care about his blood, his old norse blood. Secrets he kept from even Jo, old royal lines in his bloodline, blue blood wasn't really blue, royalty bleeds just the same as common people.

"I said it's nothing, sorry to worry." He looked up finally seeing the veins. He tipped his head curiously, letting some of the pressure up as more blood slipped free. "You okay?" he asked concerned for his friend,

"Ég mun ekki meiða þig." His words spoken soft as he held his hands out. He didn't blame the dog for being weary, he's had to kill a couple in his years when being chased. It didn't always bring the best memories, but he was a better man now. He wished no harm to any, he only killed for food now. He switched back to english as he ran his scarred fingers over the puppy's fluffy head. "That is smart of him, it will take time, but surely he will pick it up."

"I will help with all if you wish, I do not know cotton but it may be nice. The wheat can be planted if we do it soon, if we wait more than two weeks we may as well wait till spring." He admitted. "we may have to anyway." He looked towards Mark's field. "Winter coming, plants die in winter, wheat sleeps, but I do not know. We risk if we plant to soon and turning a field takes time without many hands." he wanted his field though. "Do you have apple seeds?" By the gods he missed heated apples.

He nodded another smile forming. "Yes, it is beautiful how it changes. The first time I grew something it was the best feeling. For one like me who used to destroy so much, to bring life, it was the best feeling." Of course the field had been destroyed by the people who bullied him and Einar but the fact remained. He didn't often talk about his old days of destruction, just that he used to be a warrior and princes guard.

"No," he answers honestly, voice sharper than he wants it to be as he turns away from him, fingers laced behind his head. He tries to breathe through it, force that feeling gnawing at him down to his bones to pass. Thorfinn wasn't just some random person, he was a friend, as reluctant as Kol is these days to put that label on anyone. Time was when he'd not have thought twice about it, simply would have gotten a little rough about it, and drained him dry. But he wasn't exactly that person anymore. Violent, sure, a murderer, absolutely, but not like that. Not in over a year.

"I--" his voice is tight, and it's pretty clear, even with bis bsck turned to him, that he's holding something back. "You need to stop the bleeding." As much as it may have been minor to the warrior who has seen and suffered so much worse, Kol can't stand either the scent or the sight of it right now. "It's not...safe. I'm not--" he lets out a frustrated growl. If he could just feed, regularly, and on humans, this would never have been an issue.

The sharpness in his tone and the way the words came out. These things triggered the instincts that Thorfinn so often tries to ignore. The need to recall where his blade is on his person and be ready. But the common sense of him feels that is extreme.

A split second feels like longer as he was at war with himself.

Kol was his friend, Kol was the only person he could speak to without ever tripping on a word, without having to reconsider if his words were not okay. Jo he loved to speak to, but his english, despite being much better, was still in the works. He still had a lot to learn before he could speak to her on the same level and not trip over words.

His blood upset Kol. That much he understood. Even if it was strange.

He pushed up fast letting go of the wound. Moving quick past Kol without another word. words were unnessisary in moments like these. The axehead still had some of his blood from the cut, and he was dripping a bit but he made it quick to his room slamming the door, mostly slamming because his window was always open. Doors shut harder with open windows.

He moved to the closet digging around between dried pelts and the few clothes he owned until he found the strip of sheet he had used to cover the cut on his arm until Cougar stitched it. A sock grabbed as well he moved to get the bleeding to stop and cover the wound. Of course his pants had blood on them as well so despite not liking the Overalls, he changed into them. Moving from his room to the bathroom to wash the blood off his hands as well, with the door pulled hard behind him again from the bedroom. He hated indoor water but something was wrong with Kol, something with his blood so he had to make sure he got it cleaned up.

The voice inside still screaming to be prepared.

After he was cleaned back up he stepped out of the bathroom and into the main room. "Kol? Blood gone now."

Cougar finds himself smiling, even if it's a small thing. He still has Jensen here, but he misses the concept of a team. He misses working together as one group towards a common goal. "Yes," he agrees. "Team sounds good. Better," he says, because he's willing to do whatever work that needs to be done in order to work together.

And better, he wants to learn. "We can share," he promises. "You will teach me."

Kol feels like an idiot for all of this. He should be keeping better track of things, with the limited resources he has, with how dangerous it could be, a starving vampire in a place like this. It was stupid, and he has no excuse for it at all. Though it does have his mind going in a hundred different places in once now, because what if this becomes a more consistent issue? What if they reach the point that he can't feed, even on animals? What if he does still need White Oak to be anything like contained? How the flying fuck has he reached some point where he almost wants to dare wish that they had one of those blasted daggers?

While Thorfinn is cleaning up, Kol takes a frustrated flop to the nearest available place to sit and presses his palms to his eyes. He's going to have to explain this now, and he's not sure any of it is going to even make sense to him. He's dead, but he's not, twice over now. He drinks blood to live and doesn't normally need food, but suddenly he does. It's all going to be such a confusing, nonsensical mess, and he just hopes the younger Norseman won't want to ask too many questions.

"Thanks," He mutters as leans back and drops his hands to his lap when Thorfinn comes back and Kol just stares up at him. He's not ready for this conversation. He'd thought maybe he wouldn't have to have it at all, for all the decrease in his powers, he has wondered for awhile now if they were just slowly disappearing for being here in the first place. Maybe it's part of how the village existed at all--by draining the magic, the energy, from all of them. Even the most basic of humans had certain energies about them.

One good thing for Kol was the fact that Thorfinn had spent his earliest years at the feet of Leif Erikson, the old man had told him so many unbelievable stories and legends that Thorfinn had a vast knowledge of things he considered bullshit until proved otherwise. Vinland had been one of the few stories Leif told him that he never questioned, likely because Thors believed it. The tales of the Draugr were old as time itself in his opinion, he had heard Leif explain then, he had heard the warriors by firelight trying to scare one another with it.

He had no idea how human like such a creature could really be.

Despite Jo explaining a little what Hunting was in Medietas he always assumed monsters came in a look you would KNOW. He moved to sit down as well. His stuff left on the porch, he was more worried about Kol, and if somehow he had offended him with his blood. Which made no sense when Kol was Norse.

"Your welcome." His english constantly improving. "I sorry if I offended. I did not mean to." He spoke honestly, and worried that he had upset his friend. "You okay now?"

Gilbert sniffed at his fingers, stepping closer hesitantly, but eventually relaxed into Thorfinn's touch. Margaery watched with a soft expression. He wasn't meant as a pet, she knew that, but it felt nice to have a companion with her, someone that was loyal and loving. She didn't have to worry about what Gilbert thought or felt, he loved unreservedly, as all animals seemed to.

"I think that's a good idea. We could begin later today, if you like? I have little else that I need to do." Most of her chores were done in the morning. "As you say, we need to plant as soon as possible." She didn't want to wait until spring. There was no telling how long the soil would be hard. "I do. I received apples, peaches, grapes, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and cherries."

Without Einar around, Thorfinn had started to return to his old ways of pulling everything on himself. Even with Kol and Jo with him it wasn't the same as having his brother at his side to help. Thorfinn had put much thought into the offer before presenting it. He figured two hands in the project were better than one, namely if something happened to either.

He offered a hand over with a nod. "It is deal then. I teach what I know, you help and we figure out more together." He gave a sharp nod. "We need much bog iron, it is not pure so it will take much."

Thorfinn smiled once more once Gilbert relax into his touch. As one who never had a pet, he always found animal companions to be a sweet idea. He didn't think he was the type of man who needed a pet though, so he just liked to play with other's animals. He knew if push came to shove he'd eat his pet or sacrifice it if things ever got bad enough, thus he didn't want to open that world of pain to himself.

"...I...I am not sure Margaery." he admitted, even looking a little concerned. "I am to look for iron today, and cut more wood for the winter coming. Very busy." He admitted, then sighed. "But... I could push it off. It's a lot of work. We might be best asking Mark for part of his field... but it is also late, wintersnight approaches." he moved his hands trying to explain. He pushed himself to stand and motioned her to follow as he walked around the yard. The backyard almost looked fenced from the way he stacked the wood about waist height. Beyond the back yard was the inn in the distance perfectly seen. He looked towards the woods then and back to Margaery. "Ríða, A week sooner and this wouldn't be hard." he wasn't sure she was strong enough to help clear the land but he wasn't about to say that. "We try. if ground is already hard we have no point in doing so. Your fruits though, those can't grow in winter. Ask Mark for those he may have ideas. I know wheat."

He shakes his head when he apologizes, "No, it's not that." 'Then what is it?' Fuck. He scrubs a hand down his face. How does he even ease into this? He's not sure there's a way, honestly.

He sighs and stares into the middle distance, trying to form his next words just so. When he does finally speak again, hr switches to Norse. "What stories have you heard of the undead?" That's as good of a starting place as any, wasn't it?

Kol knew him well enough to know the words that indeed tumbled out of his mouth a second later, only without the fuck. He tried not to curse at his friends... but Kol at least hears him curse more than most, since his curses stay in norse.

"Then what is it?"

He was a little selfish like that, he assumed it was him. He had to be the problem. Until Kol speaks that is. Something about it in their own language makes the hair at the back of his neck rise. "I know tales of the Draugr, and the camp fire tales many warriors tell." He admitted but his mind thinking of Jo suddenly. Could this be connected to why she looks at Kol like she does? "Explain." he spoke the one word, he didn't like being confused.

If the conversation was literally anything else, he might have it in him to be amused at his prediction of the others words. As it stands, however, it's a bitter shadow of amusement in his head.

He nods in recognition, he remembers the stories well. Every culture had them, theories and feara of the dead coming back to life, usually as horrible monsters that fed on human blood or organs, or who terrorized villages and killed senselessly. The Draugr were another in a list of reanimated corpse ideals that happened to have it all wrong.

"I'm assuming the word 'vampire' doesn't mean much to you..but it's the term for it. For what I am." He's never been one to be ashamed of what he is, he left that job to Finn and instead made it his job to embrace all of the terrible parts of their changed physiology, but this is the closest he's ever come to feeling that way. Maybe it's more the lie of never mentioning it that's eating at him, he's not sure. "I'm not...dead, technically. But I'm not really alive either."

His youth spent trying to stand outside the circles to never be counted as one of the men in the band. But many nights he would find himself sitting by the fire listening anyway. He always loved tales. The more unbelievable the better, at last until someone would make a comment about him joining them closer and he would stomp off into the night.

He was older and wiser now, and this man wasn't one of those bastards, this was one of his only friends. He couldn't get up and walk away from Kol.

"I do not know the word, but I will remember it." He was oddly calm, he didn't freak out, it helped that he was already piecing it together in his mind. "That answers so much... I wondered how you were both of my time and modern." Thinking more of the other Kol. The Kol that had been trying to teach him English back in Medietas.

"I will not tell anyone." Oddly he felt like a weight was lifted that he didn't realize was there. Kol had secrets, Kol was a monster to in his own way, more literal than Thorfinn had been in his past, but still it felt revealing to know.

Then a thought flipped in his mind. "You wanted my blood." He spoke like he was just talking about the weather.

He nods a bit, glad that he's taking this seriously, committing these things to memory now that it's all out in the open. He isn't entirely sure how to feel about how calm Thorfinn seems about all this. That should be a good thing, probably, but part of k wonders if he hasn't exactly pieces the whole picture together yet.

He smiles, small and thin, but it exists, at the comment about the modern part of Kol's existence. He switches back to English now, "Mmm, yeah, I have lived for over a thousand years. Missed a century in there, thanks to my brother." And if he sounds bitter, it's because he absolutely is.

"Thank you," he nods quietly at the promise. "Jo knows." He adds after a moment, just to be sure he knows he doesn't have to keep this from her, at least.

And then everything he'd worried about managed to click together in Thorfinn's head. Kol nods slightly, "Yeah...yeah, it's-- how we survive. Until I'd showed up here, I hadn't needed real food in centuries. Something's different here, though." He squints suspiciously about that fact, but doesn't comment beyond that.

Thorfinns attention was fully on Kol as je spoke a new world opening for him. Jo's world of real monsters. He never expected them to look like humans. Somehow it made the idea of the hunters harsher, to kill those that looked like themselves could not be easy.

He shifted in the chair listening to Kol explain things he had quietly questioned and felt he should not ask. Now he was understanding and it was both better and worse.

"How did your brother make you miss such time?" He asked very curious. "So, ou need blood here? If you don't need food before here, why do you now?" So many questions now. He was curious and yet an idea in his head as he nodded committing it all to memory. How could he help Kol?

"It's complicated," he admits at that first question. "Magic made us what we are. Our parents' way to keeping us safe, after we lost the youngest of us to a werewolf attack." He shakes his head, "The spell that created us...White Oak, from a specific tree in our homeland, was used and the wood from that tree is the only thing that can harm me and my siblings. Or-- it was, with the differences here, I'm not sure if that's still true. But there were a set of daggers dipped in the ash of the tree. The daggers don't kill us, but they neutralize us," he pauses before adding to clarity, "puts us in a really deep sleep until it's removed."

He wonders if Thorfinn understands the branch of trust this is, explaining all of this. He never thought much of it back home, or even in Lawrence. He and his family entered the city with warning labels of all varieties slapped across them, there was hardly a soul in the whole of Lawrence that didn't know their only weaknesses. Here, he'd kept everything more close to the vest. Jo, he'd unloaded on unsuspectingly, amid debris and heartache, forgetting she wasn't the Jo he knew. With Thorfinn, it was a choice of his own. Well...more of one, anyway. The blood and the lack of proper feeding were a bit of a catalyst, he supposes.

"I do," he nods, not thinking of where the other Norseman might take that fact. "I need both. And I'm not sure why. I'm weaker here, too, by a lot. I don't know that I have all the abilities I usually do, either." He hadn't bothered testing any compulsion on anyone, having grown used to not using it much back in Kansas. "I think our captors have found a way to suppress things, somehow. Magic, maybe. Or something else."

Edited 2016-10-28 21:12 (UTC)

Thorfinn listened to Kol speak, those brown eyes of him looking at Kol almost like he was looking right through the other. Kol was telling him how to hurt him, to put him in a deep sleep.

And as this hit him all Thorfinn could do was stare. Wondering if any of that wood was in the woods and if so, he would find it and make sure that tree vanished into their furnace. "White oak... At least it is not here, I do not think anyway. If so, we destroy it." He spoke what was already brewing in his head. No one should harm Kol. Kol was his friend. Friends were rare and he wouldn't lose Kol it he had the choice to help him. Not when it was magic keeping him alive.

He pusher one of his braids aside and nodded thinking about it. Weighing his words. What would Jo say if she knew that his mind was brewing? She told him what monsters do... and yet Kol had a need.

"How much blood do you need Kol? I can bring animals home and give you blood from them. It it doesn't help, we can find other ways." He looked down at his hands then to Kol. "Our captors shouldn't win. "

There's a stir under his skin, a tug somewhere in his chest, at the easy way Thorfinn decided if there is White Oak here, they'll just rid of it themselves. Dammit. He wasn't supposed to care, to get attached, to do any of this all over again. Well, fine. The two of them, here, in this house. He'll allow himself that, he supposes. "Hopefully it won't be a problem at all."

That question has him snapping his head up to look at Thorfinn, gaze fierce, serious. "I've been doing that. With the animals I've caught. But we're in such short supply as it is... it's risky in itself." He doesn't want to think what he could mean by 'other ways', because no way in hell would he ever get away with that, especially not under the nose of a hunter.

Thorfinn shook his head easily. The wheels of his mind already turning. He'd have to drag Kol into the woods with him eventually to be sure. Surely Kol would know the wood upon sight. It would be easier than him taking a guess. As long as Jo knew Kol was a monster, hopefully his train of thought wouldn't raise problems. He wanted to repay a kindness not get them in trouble with the hunter.

Thorfinn's expression didn't change much, more falling a little flat, as if he wasn't sure why Kol was looking at him like that. "That is my point. Things are in short supply, that why I do not hunt as much, but there is bigger game, like bear and deer. Things we don't have the weapons for." He should try to make a bow, but he doubted his skills on it. Just because he could shoot a bow didn't mean he could make one. That and a lack of arrow heads. "Bigger game would have more blood to help you, and more meat for Kate to cook, and fur, I want fur." He's been vocal about the fact he's keeping fur, that he intends to have a cloak when winter comes. "Tell me how to help, and I will. We three have each other here."

Jo watched him hold the top of what looked like it should be an axe, looking it over, testing the weight. A faint creeping tension crawling up her spine, like a creature with slender metal legs, pricking into her skin with each step. At the whole idea that these boxes could be handing out weapons, or even pieces of weapons, to anyone, or everyone, who was receiving them. It wasn't like anyone had to tell anyone else what was in their boxes.

"Any kind of alcohol would be welcome at this point." Jo retorted, even though it might have been as much cover for not commenting on his last words. Because she wasn't sure she agreed with that in the slightest. Too much blood in the world was exactly what made the people like her do the jobs they did. She wasn't sure it was a contradiction. They did well, but they all ended the same way. Even though there were families, and generations. Lines carrying on.

Even his wanting it and saying those words about deaths might not stop anything from happening our here.

Jo didn't even clear her throat. That wasn't even a thing she did.

She'd made it up the stairs and to standing in front of her front door. Their -- the front door. Partially hanging open, with the words of a conversation she wasn't even positive she'd ever wanted to happen, and yet debating having almost everyday. But maybe hadn't expected Kol to take part in. Or wanted him to. Except there was more. More right here, in the word he said while she stood still, skin too tight, with a familiar itch, speaking of more than she knew even.

The White Oak stake, that Thorfinn might destroy, but Jo definitely wouldn't. The family. His parents, and his brother. The parts he hasn't really talked to her about, or anyone. Not aside from general details. Home, and the apocalyptic Lawrence before now. People who'd been with him. But a century was a long time to lose. But. And maybe that would have been fine. The strange shift in her chest about not liking to hear about vampires with families and family shit drama.

But it all goes out the window when Thorfinn hits his next topic and Jo is not having that in the slightest.
Not even a little. That's not a thing that's happening here. Here in this house. Here in this world. She would kill them both.

And then Thorfinn says there are three of them. Offering her up on a platter to the vampire, too, should he need her.

Jo's hand finally hits the door hard, and shoves it all the way open, on the men who couldn't have been more than halfway across the living room. Sitting near each other. They get a cursory of look, that's more sharpness than amusement, and droll distance, with just the edge of a warning already brewing. "The next time we decide to have intimate family chats about the truly deplorable state of Kol's life choices, could we at least do it with the door closed?"

Cougar reaches over to shake his hand firmly as he can, seeing as he's glad for something that isn't the constant worry about hunting the population to extinction. Besides that, it's the type of survival skill that he likes to pick up and put in his pocket for later. There's nothing about this that can be wrong.

"How will we get it all? Sift?"

She understood that he had a great deal to do, it was asking a lot that he put aside his chores for this. However, winter was setting in fast and there was only so much time before the soil would harden. "I don't intend to plant my fruit seeds until spring, as well as the cotton. I think the wheat is more important."

There was a great deal that she didn't know, but harvests and planting were cultivated skills in her lands. She learned from her grandmother who had run the Reach as though it were still under her control. (Which in a way, it was.)

"There is no better chance. The rains hydrated the soil enough, it should be easy to till and aerate."

Thorfinn unlike Jo, didn't think much of weapons coming in the boxes, after all, given the weapons in the inn. He figured if anyone was going to go berserk on them they would have done so by now. Everyone seemed calm and collected, but winter was still coming. Winter would make or break them.

"Mead's not hard... I just don't know how to do it myself." He shrugged some. It was never something he had an interest in back home. Not when he was free, and even less when he was not. "Oh well." He shrugged, no sense dwelling on it. They wouldn't have it any time soon if at all.

He watched her a second, taking in the way she didn't say anything. "You okay?" He asked it often, wanting to make sure Jo was fine, above all else, Jo was the important one in his eyes.

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The gods are laughing.

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