[MINGLE] One-Man Show

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Inari Shrine and elsewhere
WHEN: 25 January 2019 through ?
OPEN TO: All opted in characters
WARNINGS: Please warn in the subject line of your comment as needed, and remember to move anything turning adult to a new post.
IMPORTANT NOTES: Final reminders and informational links are here. Please label all top-levels clearly so that there is no confusion who they are open to and what they are for, and DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR TAG!
Have fun and ask questions here!

Comments

[lastofthekellys]

"Alone? Surrounded by all these people?" There's a brightness to her voice. Not anything genuinely cheerful, but bright as the winter's sun on morning frost. "And here I'd have thought such an enterprisin' gentleman such as yourself would not give up as easily as all that."

Those sharp eyes are back on him, trying to see how serious he is underneath the flippancy.

"Werewolves? And... nature spirit? Now I do hope Lady Fortune was kind enough to leave you with some weapons to deal with such things."

Like guns. Like prayers.

[ombranera]

"Well, I suppose we might not all perish in the woods. The foxes can only attack so many at a time, a third of us are dressed for the occasion. Perhaps three, four people? If we are lucky." Pragmatism rings true above all else. Expecting to manage this hike without illness, injury, or casualty?

Is foolish. But that is a concern for those in the middle and the rear of their shuffling procession. He scouts, he minds for foxes, that is the help he can offer.

"A good assassin has at least four knives on their person at any moment. I have seven. We are quite safe, for now."

[lastofthekellys]

She doesn't argue, for he is right. If they are lucky, that is how many they will lose. Kate might not have come from an area with snow, but she knows cold nights and how fast they can kill even without snow. It is one of the many, many reasons that whenever a child goes missing in the bush, no matter their kin, everyone searches for them.

It is one of the reasons that, while she's offered to share her coat and scarf, she hasn't offered to give them up entirely.

So her smile is wry, and she tilts her head in acknowledgement of his point.

Then, he keeps talking.

Assassin?

Well. Well, why not, half the time this place feels as if it were nothing than a melodrama, so why not a suave assassin? He at least knows how to cook.

(If he poisons them, though, she swears as God and all His saints as witnesses, she will come back to haunt him for wasting resources like that.)

"Oh, knives is it? I hope for your sake, Mr Aranai, that they are the throwin' kind and not the cuttin'." Throwing is a touch more useful in these situations. Throwing with knives... Well, she'd been in the circus. She'd tried her hand at it. But for all her aim, she was always better with guns.

[ombranera]

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other. It pays to have a variety on hand as you never know what manner of trouble you will find in the wilds." This wood isn't half as wild and strange as those he'd met in Ferelden but- there is a tension in the air he cannot shake.

Perhaps it is the after effects of everything they've seen and endured.

Perhaps it is the foxes yet in the wood, darting through the shadows.

Or perhaps it is nothing more than the worries of an overtaxed mind. Time, and rest, will tell.

[lastofthekellys]

For a moment, she considers asking to borrow one. She does have excellent aim, even if knives had never really been her skill. And it'd.... it would make her feel better.

She dismisses it. Anything coming close enough for her to stab or swipe, she could more easily kick or punch, and have a better effect. And throwing - no, she'd lose the blade, and then where would she be. Not for the first time, she wishes for a gun. If nothing else, the sound from one shot should be enough to scare off any of the strange foxes.

"True enough," is what Kate says, considering him and then glancing back at the treeline. There'd been a flicker of.... something. Oh, she'd believed Mr Arainai said it was clear of foxes, he seemed a man who could spot most things. But there were other things. Other things that hid. And, too, there is the wind, making them jump at shadows.

"Though I must confess, it's hard picturin' a throwing knife bringin' down somethin' like a deer or a kangaroo."