(no subject)

[thecatinahat]

WHO: Cougar Alvarez & The Hunting Party
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: December 12th
OPEN TO: All - jump in wherever it suits!
WARNINGS: Discussion of violence
STATUS: Open

---

In a way, the village is strangely like coming home even though it's not one that Cougar would ever have claimed. Maybe it's not that he's relieved to see the village, but just that he's relieved that the long hike back with a heavy, eight foot beast on his shoulders that reeks and makes him smell awful has been wearing on his last nerve, making his patience dwindle to the point that when the inn comes into sight, it's a good thing, otherwise Cougar might have killed the first thing they came across.

The beast is large and looming and he's inclined to believe Helen's theory that this is what killed the animals and Karen. The rest of what they've found is equally as confusing, but given the amount of people they seem to be attracting given their cargo and the smell, Cougar doubts they'll have any trouble rallying the troops to discuss it.

He hefts up the animal over his shoulder for the last few feet into the inn when the door is held open for him, heaving it off his shoulders so it collapses on the floor. Cougar digs out his hat from his back pocket, sliding it on his head, and glancing over his shoulder at the people who have come in. He tips his hat to them as he glances back at the creature, bending down to haul the arrow out of the thing's eye, because he'd carved this one himself. "It's dead," he offers in a rough deadpan, the sarcasm dryer than some of the winter days.

Sniffing himself, he grimaces and heads off to the corner with one last jut of his thumb towards the group. "They know more." And with that, he heads upstairs to try and get some of the awful smell off and to wrap up the bruise on his chest, just in case.

Comments

OTA & Notes

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo is ready for any smell except the wendigo corpse. It was bad enough when it had hit them right before the fight, even in the suddenly something like blizzard conditions, but carrying it, dead weight and only not rotting fast in the icy conditions, only continued to make it worse. Not as bad as some things, but bad enough, and those things were long enough ago. Especially with all of them carrying it, shifting and balancing it and themselves in motion for days and days back again.

Cougar heads upstairs after dropping the Wendigo in the Inn (a minute irk, sliding through her at the thud, at the carpet, at inside, and not on the front steps or back), while Jo slides through the room, headed toward the main room and a certain table in it. All she's done for days was go over the details, over and over and over, in her head, trying to keep them as present, as detailed as possible. She wishes she had better supplies, but she doesn't even think about getting a shower, or about neatening up, or excusing her battered appearance.

Going toe-to-toe with a Wendigo wasn't a walk in the park, and her magical healing was so much slower in this place.
Still faster than anything normal, making her look far better than that day, but so much slower than she was used to.



None of that matters, when she's picking up the main book of details, and a handful of the carved charcoal pencils. There's a seconds' warmth in her heart when she catches Kate's handwriting on any number of pages, Kate having kept their agreement. To do what she did in her absence, as needed. After that second, she pushes herself up on to sitting on a table, noting where Mark, Riza and Helen are, ready to back up and add in to the story, while she's marking calendar days, and trying to pour too many details on to rudimentary supplies.

The number of days. The condition. The Wendigo. The viewing room in the cliff.

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn had taken to keeping to the woods more than anything over the last week, since he set fire to the wood pile when temper flaired and he broke the axe handle. Under the pretenses of looking for a new handle, but in truth he was keeping his distance. Worried he was a danger, worried about so much he couldn't control. It was easy to build a fire when he didn't need flint. He was teaching himself to try and control it. To try and master his own emotions in a way he had only seen one other do in his years... as he never realized how schooled Jo was in that art.

He made his way back towards the house from the woods having heard commotion, his big worry that had kept him from trying to find the hunters was the idea that something, anything could raid while they were gone. You never send all your muscle away. Thats how people like Arneis had come to suffer. He wouldn't see Kate, Peggy or Margaery suffer if he had a say. Making his way to the inn, his hands in his pockets at least until he saw Jo. He moved quickly across the room, his new cloak catching a bit of air as he did, the way the one he wore so often in Medietas did. This one heavier more suited for the cold. It was made by the skilled hands of Kate. He started to circle the table a bit like a vulture, looking her over for injuries without wanting to bother her from her writing.

"Do you realize how long you were gone? You're hurt, why aren't you home?" He asked right out in Norse, hoping the lessons he had given were enough for her to understand him still. He didn't want to speak in english with others around at the moment.

[tobeclosetohim]

That Thorfinn comes to her side is not a surprise, and though she only glances up quickly, before looking down, it tugs something too sharp in her chest, twisting her mouth almost to a curve, while he's already throwing Norse at her. Making he have to stop, because she actually has to look at him and focus. Someone of it is effortless, but not a lot yet, and it's not something she can multitask through the way she can the rest of the room speaking English.

"I'm fine, Thorfinn," Jo said, without shifting her feet, and raising a hand to touch a cut from claws that had run along the back of her cheek. It was still a rough crease under her fingers, but she said, "Almost good as new again." It was a lie, but it was maybe the kind she told best. The kind that would be true in a couple days. It was barely anything now, but she wasn't about to freely offer up what it was then.

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn's eyes still sweeping over her, taking all of her in. It was a relief to see her here. Back in her chair, at her table, with her books. It had rubbed him all kinds of wrong seeing Kate writing in Jo's books, almost like Jo wasn't to return. Now it was all fine.

When she spoke back in English he dropped his language and returned to hers. He couldn't let himself stop using it. "I was worried, You were gone long, Jo. Cougar and the others to." A hand rested on her shoulder. "Tonight will you speak of what happened?" He didnt expect her to say a lot around the crowd but he was just glad she was home.

ota

[thecatinahat]

Cougar comes back downstairs when he's cleaned up, the bruise on his chest purple, but healing. It will be tender, he knows that, and he also knows he's going to catch trouble from Jake for it, but he's been in worse situations before. He heads into the corner of the room when things start to get going and people start to talk. His mind is fixated on that moment when the paper had disintegrated and right now, he wants to put those events in order. He's been using a short memory system to do it, but now that he's back, he finds something to write with and starts to scrawl on whatever he can in order to get it right.

It seems too coincidental. The papers disintegrating, the sudden storm, the animal. It's like whatever it was didn't want them to go any deeper. And it had worked. They're back here, aren't they? He moves to try and record that, hissing a little when he moves the wrong way and pulls at his bruise.

"Pendejo," he mutters to himself, righting himself as he bows his hat a little lower, keeping the meeting in view. He's not sure what's happened in the time that they've been gone, which is the main reason he's still here even if his tolerance for people is starting to dwindle and he really only wants to see a very few select ones, now.

[seekingvinland]

After seeing Jo and speaking to her a few moments he had slowly moved from her side over towards Cougar, his hood was back up despite being indoors, the fur hiding all of his blonde hair and shadowing over his face, but his beard was still easy enough to see. Besides his all to familiar stained up clothes. He moved to stand beside Cougar, his eyes taking him in from under the hood.

"Cougar?" He asked quietly, seeing the way he had hissed. "Are you alright, vinur minn?" He would be lying if he said he hadn't missed the other. Hell, Jo and Cougar both gone at once had made his past couple weeks rather boring... besides the new found ability, that was half the reason he was keeping himself covered.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar glances up from where he's fixing himself to get back to a righted state, smiling with relief to see a familiar face in front of him. "Kicked," is all he says, gesturing to his mid-section, thinking that it had been his own stupidity that got him injured. That said, it also got an arrow into the eye of the beast and distracted him long enough to deal with him. "What does this mean? Vinur minn?" he echoes, feeling sure that it's not just some English that he really doesn't know, but is instead Thorfinn's language that he speaks. The whole ordeal had been long and endless at times, making him feel more frustrated than before, but he's home now.

For all that this place is home, of course, but he's back.

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn tips his head to the side a bit, looking to Cougar's side as he had motioned and spoke the word. "Ahh!" He spoke as the meaning connected. "No broken ribs?" he questioned just to be safe. He didn't like the idea of his friends hurt. If not for the way Arneis had died, and the fact he had still been pretty wasted when the hunting party left he might have tried to go with them. He knew from his dead friends stories though, you never send all your strong people away. It asks for trouble.

"Vinur minn, it means..." He thought a moment. "My friend." He spoke it in the English a second later, his accent always heavier in English.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

They don't hug a lot. It isn't that Veronica's too cool for it or Cougar wouldn't allow it or anything so dramatic as that; for them, it's simply something private. But when she surges in through the inn's front door, snow melting in her dark hair and cheeks pink from the cold, she pushes out a relieved sigh, crosses to Cougar, and simply wraps her arms tightly around him.

"Are you okay?" she asks him in Spanish when she leans back a moment later, her brow creased with worry.

[thecatinahat]

He only winces when she can't see his face, hugging her back firmly. He's never let pain stop him before from doing anything and he did miss her. Glad that he's showered off all the stink, he presses a brotherly kiss to the top of her head before he eases back, making sure that he's schooled his face and the only expression is an even slate, not giving anything away. "Got kicked," he admits, in a passive, nonchalant way that makes it sound like it's not a big deal. Honestly, he's cranky and tired and hungry and tired of dealing with strangers. He'd missed his team out there, missed knowing Pooch could find a way out of any situation and missed Jake's babble, along with Roque telling him to shut up. He'd missed all of that, but now he's back.

"What happened here? While we were gone, were you okay? Did anything else come?" he asks, worried that maybe the monster wasn't the only one.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"No," Veronica says with a slight shake of her head, but then shrugs. "I don't think so. I haven't heard anything. Just the bad weather. We were worried." It seemed like the group had been gone ages.

"Sorry," she says as she pulls back a little, and then glances to where the dead thing, whatever it is, is being borne back outside by a group of people more intrepid than herself. She can't help but think of Ren's suggestion to cut a dead thing open and sleep inside it to keep from freezing to death, and grimaces.

"Kicked by that?"

[igotacrossbow]

The fact that Jake misses Cougar's (and the rest of the hunting party too, but at the moment Cougar is more important) arrival raises hackles Jake didn't even realize he had. He doesn't do well with being left to his own devices, and while Veronica had still been around, there's only so much pestering she'd been willing to put up with before she fucked off somewhere else and Jake was left just with the dog.

So when he hears that the group has returned and Cougar is back safe and sound, he gets bundled up and plows through the snow like a frustrated bulldozer, carrying Baby in his arms so his poor little feet didn't have to get cold in the snow.

"Now listen here, you motherfucker," he starts as he throws open the door and stomps into the Inn, his voice probably far too loud for a simple greeting, especially considering how generally mild-mannered he'd been the whole time he'd been here. "I did not agree to let you go off to god-knows-fucking-where for god-knows-how-fucking-long to do god-knows-fucking-what without me, okay, we're part of a team, that's not on. I refuse to let you do it any more, next time I'm coming along." The dog goes into a paroxysm of ecstasy at seeing Cougar returned safe and sound, and Jake lets him slide through his arms so he can cavort around their feet, barking up a storm to rival the volume of Jake's shouting.

"Also welcome home, I guess."

All that having been dealt with, he reaches out to grab Cougar by his wet hair to haul him in for a kiss that's not quite as soft or welcoming as perhaps it should be. "Why's your hair wet?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's smile is a slow thing, building with every additional profanity even if he shouldn't be half as pleased to have someone yell at him this much. He reaches down gingerly to pet Baby while Jake yells at him, not bothering to apologize until the tirade is over. "You're coddling the dog," is all he says, at first, but then he's getting hauled up and he gets the opportunity he's been wanting, throwing one leg around Jake's waist to throw off his balance, pinning him back with the kiss that's definitely rough and angry and wanting. When he's done biting Jake's lower lip into an angry red thing, he eases back and bends to put the hat on Jake's head, drinking in the sight of him. "I missed you too," is all he says, his voice rough from lack of use.

He thinks that his words earlier had been the first in days, but now that he's back, he intends to stay for a very long time. "I showered. Smelled like you, after four weeks in the desert after you cuddled with camels," he teases, setting the leg that had been wrapped around Jake's waist down on the ground, sitting down cautiously as he reaches for the wrap that had come slightly loose from his hand.

[igotacrossbow]

"I am not!" Yes he is. Jake knows full well he's coddling the dog, but Baby is his baby, alright, and if he's going to coddle something, it's going to be his precious smol dog son. Cougar can train him to do whatever he likes, but Jake is going to worry about his poor paw pads in this horrible snow. He doesn't have dog booties here!

Luckily, Cougar distracts him from his outrage by throwing himself at him with enough force to send Jake stumbling back a step or two until his back hits the wall, kissing him angrily. Well, that's fine, Jake is pretty angry too.

"You stupid fucking bastard," he growls, fighting the urge to pout and failing miserably. "And hey, fuck you! The desert is fucking cold at night, and camels are warm, you're such a dickhead, I swear to god."

Despite the quite rude language he's spouting, his hands are gentle when he reaches out to touch Cougar again, a careful questing touch down his side to make sure he's not too hurt. "Are you okay? What happened? You better not be hiding any injuries from me, I'm going to find out about them sooner or later."

[thekittenqueen]

"Are you all right?" Margaery asks once he is back downstairs again. This is her first concern. Those that had to face the creature could be injured. Given how efficiently it killed Karen and the animals, it was capable of slicing through a man without much effort. "Were you cut?"

Once assured that he was fine, her eyes returned to the monstrosity, uncertain of what to make of it. Shock was still holding firm to her mind, leaving her reeling about what any of this meant. What was this creature? Where did it come from?

"Have you seen anything like this before?"

[thecatinahat]

He shakes his head when she asks if he was cut, because the thing did have claws, but he'd been charged and shoved back and he's still not sure if the bruise is from being hit in the front or from where he'd hit the canyon wall so hard. "I've never seen anything like this," he says darkly, given how awful the thing had smelled and how terrible it had been upon first glance. Cougar's also not convinced that this is the only monster out there and he's still wary about what they might have done in disturbing the pod.

"It came when we found something," he says, with a look in his eyes that says he thinks that the two are connected. "We are lucky to have come back. It did not die easily."

OTA

[ofspaceandtime]

She hears a loud whump in the entryway, and Ciri peeks her head round the corner from her table near the entrance to the main room, and sees the creature sprawled on the wooden floor. The man who placed it there is already half-way up the staircase, and she has never seen him before. This must be the hunting party she'd heard of, those who'd left in search of whatever creature had killed one of their own, just before Ciri's arrival.

Taking in the the beast's shape, her breath intakes sharply, and she is on her feet in a blink, not entirely believing her eyes. She has only ever seen a creature like this in her home world, but here it lays, for all intents and purposes on the village doorstep.

"A leshen?" she finds herself asking aloud, an emerald gaze sparked with pure curiosity. It certainly looks like one, and it certainly smells like one. Ugh. She is already crouching down to examine the wounded eye socket where the arrow had been removed. "Perfect shot. If this what I think it is, they are not easy to kill."

On closer examination, it is not quite a leshen, and yet, the resemblance is striking enough to give her pause. She is already inclined to give the beast a thorough autopsy, however, she waits. She is new, after all, not sure of the others' input, or expertise, and not wishing to overstep.

[hawkeyesniper]

Riza removes the harpoon from her shoulder. Shortly after she had dealt the finishing blow and they had made sure it was down, Riza had removed it from the creature's chest herself. She intended to clean it and return it to the weapon stores. So it might be pretty obvious to some based on the red staining the tip what was used to kill it. The snow might have cleaned some of it, but for the most part she just hadn't had a chance.

That could wait though. Right now, Riza watches with some envy as Cougar treks up the stairs. She wants to follow, but she feels it's a better idea to be here in the inn to answer questions as necessary. After all, she already notices some new faces in the mix. She turns her gaze away, letting it drift back to the body and the person currently examining it.

"I don't know. I've never heard that term," Riza admits. She looks up again, wondering if she can find a bucket of water to wash the harpoon off with without going back outside in this weather. However, she also doesn't want to leave just yet, so she turns her attention back to the woman looking over the corpse, "The shot was good. Unfortunately, that wasn't the killing blow. For whatever reason it didn't go down until I hit it with this harpoon. The arrow through the eye only irritated it," she explains, her words not boastful just matter of fact.

[ofspaceandtime]

"It appears to be a very similar creature. Eerily similar, yet not quite the same," Ciri replies to the blond woman who is also a new face to her.

She listens to her recounting of the beast's slaying, and it peaks her interest even further as she leans over the body to get a closer look at the chest where the harpoon had carved a visibly deep wound.

"If this is anything like the monsters back home," she begins, now peering at its claws, noting in her head its differences and similarities to the forest monsters she had encountered back home. It's limbs appear far more bestial in form, less the winding branch-like claws of a Leshen. "They were quite susceptible to silver. Is it possible your harpoon in fact contains silver?"

She realizes she has yet to introduce herself. "I'm Ciri, by the way. I've only just recently arrived."

[thekittenqueen]

Margaery glanced at the woman in confusion. The "what" and "why" were still racing through her mind. She had never encountered anything like this before and to hear someone call it some kind of name gave her a measure of relief. Even if it was wrong, at least someone had encountered this sort of thing before.

"Is that what this is? A leshen?" She asked. It was large and frightening, whatever it was. It wasn't a surprise that it had killed the animals and Karen so easily.

"Do they have these in your world?"

[ofspaceandtime]

"It's not quite," Ciri admits, having had a chance to give it a closer examination. "Though the resemblance is very close. The leshens of my world appear more... well, more tree-like in form. They're spirits of the forest, usually a very old forest. This creature here much more closely resembles a beast. It's claws are quite distinctively animal in nature. The form of the head, however, the shape of the body, are all reminiscent of leshen anatomy... as if they were cousin species."

She manages to pause in her examination to look at the woman who addresses her, trying to offer her the most reassuring smile she can manage despite the rather terrifying sight of the body at their feet. "The good news is, this one appears to be exceedingly dead."

OTA

[markwatney]

In this place where so much is unpredictable from day to day, I guess it's reassuring to know that we have someone like Cougar, who can be counted on to be consistently gruff and reticent. I watch as he tromps up the stairs, and it's not like I can blame him -- I'd be running toward the first available bathtub, too. But somebody has to explain, and since I didn't kill the thing or carry its carcass back here, I guess it's me.

Despite that this shaggy, rotting corpse has been a constant companion for the last couple of days, I still can't help but pull a face when I look down to where Cougar's dropped it. The thing reeks, as one could expect from a decomposing body of any variety, much less the musty werewolf one.

"So yeah. Two things," I begin, casting a glance around to the handful of people gathered about the room. "I need at least one other person to help me move this outside to a snowbank, and I need someone to play Paul Revere and let everyone know we're back and we all need to have a chat at the inn right now."

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn stepped away from whichever his friends he was hovering around when Mark spoke up, holding up a hand as he approached.

"I will help move it." He had felt utterly useless staying home when everyone else was out facing whatever danger they had faced, aside from the monster, of course. The least he could do. The smell of death and rotting didn't bother him the way it might a normal person.

[repressings]

He'd finally come down, mostly due to curiousity than anything--it had taken a light rapping at his door from Alex to push him out. That and the fact that he was awfully hungry.

His appetite is squashed the moment he reaches the stairs, and he tries his best to be polite about it but a sharp cough signals how ill prepared he is for the stench. He places a pale hand over his mouth, glancing over at his friend of sorts and then the rather intimidating figure volunteering to take it out.

If he's being honest, the reason why he speaks up is partially because of the rotting smell, but also because he's fairly certain the one who held up his hand and volunteered to move it could snap his neck in two. That's always a driving force for the need to be seen as useful.

The sooner he gets away from intimidating figures, the better.

"I can start letting everyone know," he says, and it's the loudest he's ever spoken--so essentially, he's using a normal voice instead of his usual half-whisper. He hasn't been outside yet. He's used to being outside at least once a day, but with the hunting commotion he'd done nothing but hole up in his room.

[thekittenqueen]

"I can alert the others," Margaery offered, feeling a chill run up her spine. She wanted to at least do something. Simply staring at the creature set her on edge and there would be no answers this way.

"Let me go get them now."