Sixth Iteration

Lions, Tigers and Bears Sound Quaint (For Karen Page)

Alex has been spending more and more time in the inn since discovering the records, especially since Tony's mining expedition and the snake hunt. Mostly, he's been adding to what notes he can- especially for the ones he's been studying up close- mostly the fever snakes, since he's been handling those so much lately, but there have been pages on the snake bats and peacock cats added as well, since he's had so much experience with them up-close of late.

It's the ice mice that have him here today, with some anatomical sketches (including some that are clearly drawn from references of dissections) and as many of the field notes he's taken that he thinks will be useful. He isn't expecting to find someone else when he comes in, but smiles pleasantly when he spots a familiar face.

"I was starting to think this place was being haunted by the ghost of a librarian," he remarks to the woman he'd met in the corn. "It's Karen, right?"

King of (Birdlike) Cats for Kat

The peacock cats tracks aren't exactly like a domestic cat's, but they're similar enough that Alex can, after a couple of hours in the woods, he's able to locate a clowder (or would it be a flock?) of them. Most of the adults want nothing to do with him, and the juveniles are jumpy- except one, which has him confused at first, until he notices the way it's favoring three out of four legs.

When he arrives at Kat's door, the peakitten's left forpaw has been bandaged. Having just come from the wild, it's a good deal less plump than the litter he'd been fostering. Despite the frostbite, which he thinks might be the result of a failed attempt at preying on an ice mouse, and maybe some slight malnutrition, there are no other problems he can identify with the cat.

Boudica had just about thrown a fit with an unfamiliar cat in the house for as long as it had taken to bandage the poor thing up (he'd sacrificed one of his pillowcases for the cloth), so it'd been clear he couldn't keep it. Kat was the first person to come to mind- her notes on the animals here were enough to convince him that she wouldn't have any issue taking care of it, and she'd mentioned being interested in one.

Of Ice Mice and Men OTA

The mice in the schoolhouse are getting bold, if you ask Alex. Not quite as bold as he's used to mice being, given the... unique nature of the Aeslin mice that lived with his family. Thinking of their songs, their little shouts of "HAIL!" and the countless hours of theosophical debate almost makes him feel bad about the small knife he sends flinging through the air at the one he sees skittering across the plank wood floors, skewering it in place.

They're keeping his knife-throwing skills sharp, at least. Pun not intended.

Where There's Smoke... OTA

Like most people in the village, Alex is the type of person who runs towards screaming, so when he hears a surprised shout and the FWOOMF sound of something spontaneously combusting, he does just that. The fire isn't terribly large- enough that between the stomping of heavy hiking boots and armfuls of snow, he's able to smother the flame before it does too much damage.

"Are you alright?" he asks, checking his boots for signs of the treads melting, and finding them mostly intact. "No burns or anything?" It was hard to tell if the shout had been in pain, panic or both.

One of the last things I remember is voice of my sister coming from the TV screen at the end of that last episode of her reality show. I hadn't actually been paying a whole lot of attention to her dancing, admittedly. Do you want to watch your sister shimmy and gyrate in a costume appearing to only be held together by dental floss and Swarovski crystals? Didn't think so. My eyes had been drifting to Shelby for most of the show.

Shelby hadn't even had the chance to meet Verity yet, but she'd been helping my colony of hyper-intelligent mice vote for her spot on the Dance or Die reunion show all the same.

My family is weird, and my fiancee is proof that sometimes, just sometimes, the universe throws you a break. A gorgeous, blonde break. One that, in my (ok, entirely biased) opinion justifies the existence of every single venomous and deadly thing in Australia, since Shelby is all the more deadly and glorious for her time stomping fearlessly and expertly through the Outback and underbrush.

What can I say? I'm in love. I can't pinpoint the moment I knew it, but I can tell you I spontaneously proposed after watching her wrestle a half-crazed cryptid the size of a large crocodile to the ground, and when she held me to it a year later, I was entirely happy to go along.

Watching her gleefully sending text after text on Grandma and Grandpa baker's supply of burner phones to vote for "Valerie Pryor" as Sarah (mostly) helpfully rattled off numbers and facts to make their voting strategy all the more effective.

It had been a moment of domestic bliss as far as I was concerned, listening to the people I love the most talk excitedly about Verity's Argentine tangos and hip hop numbers.

At least until things went sideways, with a snake cult once again making my sister's life- and by the looks of things- all of our lives even more complicated and dangerous than they already were. Shit. Why had they sent Grandma Alice alone, I should have flown out to LA, it was a snake cult. Why am I never the one the snake cults bother? I could have been helping, I could have been-

And then there was darkness.

Arrival, Bunker

Dr. Price, Alexander Jonathan. Vitals stable, chamber lock disengaged. Begin retrieval process: Y/N?

The man inside is unassuming, though the fact that he's unconscious probably helps. Clad in black scrubs with short, sandy blonde hair, with a large scar on one bicep that looks like the work of some sort of animal, with months of healing behind it.

The nearby box of supplies contains a pair of glasses along with the usual mix, and it isn't hard to imagine him in them. Even floating unconscious in a glass tube of water, he still has that look of this right here is one giant nerd.

Schoolhouse

Even if his desire was to disappear into the wilderness for a few days for intense, first-hand study of the local wildlife and the ecosystem supporting it, he's not so stupid as to go out into the field unprepared.

And the best way to be prepared is to know as much as you possibly can about where it is you're going. So for the first week of his time in the village, Dr. Price can usually be found here, making his way steadily through as much as what's written about the area as possible, while trying to beg sheets of paper and ink off anyone who might have any to share, or trying to figure out if there's any kind of memo app on the network watch.

Inn, sheriff's office, Various (location of your choice!)

Everyone has to eat, and a cryptozoologist is no exception. What other people don't have to do, and Alex seems to think he does, is ask questions over dinner. Or around the fountain. Or while visiting the hot springs.

Because as much as he's Not Great with people, collecting first-hand witness reports about things is often even more useful than simply reading about them.

Word spreads around pretty fast that the new guy is looking for stories about encounters with the local wildlife, and spending as much time as he can watching the livestock in and out of their jail cell pens, eager to speak with anyone working with them.