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When Sigrun travels on patrol on her lonesome, she does so on horseback for the obvious reason of being able to run the heck away. But in numbers, she marches on foot. Easier to keep pace with everyone, and also she's a better swordswoman off a mount than on one, as a rule. Armored up in her black leather and fur brigandine armor, armed only with her ax and her sword, shield strapped to her arm, Sigrun turns up at the Freehold Hollow to gather everyone together for the trip out. Once they're on their way, Sigrun explains what they're after, "Cerynitis’ Hope." Yep. "It grows in places simply lousy with hope, so I figure our best bet is to pay a visit to the hedge that's a reflection of the Philly Sports Center. Because that's about all Philly fans have these days. Hope." Said the Vikings fan. "We can keep our eyes out for other fruits, of course. But that's what we're after."
If it was just June along with Sigrun for a patrol the mount would still be a viable option, because for some reason the member of this little group with the shortest legs is the fastest runner. Since June, in commie red gothic plate armor, is holding her pace back in order to not pull far ahead of the rest of the group, she's instead bouncing eagerly on the balls of her feet like she's just waiting to be unleashed. She laughs at Sigrun's explanation and says, "hey, you know, it takes a lot of tenacity to maintain that kind of hope. You have to admire it." She isn't wearing any weapons, but her gauntlets do cut off at her fingers, which are sheathed in leather gloves up to the last knuckle and then tipped with wicked claws.
"Says the Vikings fan," mutters Teagan as they stand perfectly still, fading out of view. After that, there's nothing to hear from the Mirrorskin for a while. Presumably they follow after, because, uh, otherwise they wouldn't be here!
"Sounds like a plan to me," Johnnie croons, stretching and reveling in the mounting adventure before them. Her stretch is a languid thing of literally impossible grace, and she settles afterwards with a delighted sigh as she eases Sigknifr from her sheath and adjusts her grip to be comfortable. "Both eyes open, as they say~ and hey, nothing wrong with hope! Personal favorite of mine, in truth." She strides along idly, sticking close to the knot of friends and family, her shadows miming peering off in all directions- which isn't too far from the truth.
Sturm has adopted a position towards the back of the formation, standing silent and imposing in her full gothic plate. The icy, ram-like horns poking through the slots in the top of her well-designed helmet (thanks, Sig!) are probably the only real indication that this is Sturm. Y'know, besides how fuckin' big she is. She slides a set of newly-resized brass knuckles onto her fingers atop her leather-and-mail clad fists, and then rolls her knuckles in anticipation.
Sigrun heads south along the long trod. Familiar ground for those who patrol regularly. The hedge isn't a perfect analog for the real world, but certain parts of it take on the aspects of the world beyond them. A place where tens of thousands of Philly sports fans congregate seems a decent place to find hope. And blind rage. But also hope. So Sigrun unsheathes her weapon, murmurs a quick prayer to Freyja, and heads out. A few rudimentary blade tricks are sufficient to ease their passing through the hedge-- being on a trod doesn't hurt, either --and once they're a fair distance along, Sigrun comes to a halt and pushes her helmet back on her head a bit, peering around herself. "Alright, folx. Let's see what there is to be seen. Search for signs of hope, and let's see if we can find some native growth. It would be nice to have a stable population of these things to be able to return to."
Thankfully, Sigknifr is well suited to seeing Johnnie along the path in Sigrun's wake- even when the ways she clears start to hedge back over, it's easy to hack them out of the way and keep on her heels and in view of her quite capable self. "It would be, wouldn't it? Here, let me and mine take a peek around, might be we get a glimpse of what we're searching for." And so does she look about!
Sturm stands still and quiet - even in the wake of Sigrun's challenge, and the bright flash of light. With a very deliberate wave of her hand, the giant's shadow seems to envelop her, and her companions - covering them from whatever prying eyes and gleaming knives might be hovering beyond their sight.
One of the most interesting things about being the center of attention is that you are, in fact, the center of attention. Sigrun feels the fact that she's the center of attention before there's a sudden wave of hope, pride, and frustration all wrapped up together that targets her intensely. The inside of her armor suddenly feels hot, as though she's been tailgating for hours at the end of August, and rattling around inside her skull, over and over:
nobody likes us, we don't care, nobody likes us, we don't care
As Sigrun recovers from her trademark one-two punch of reel them in and blind them, something clearly washes over her. Some power, some influence. Something. Because the usually calm and confident shieldmaiden begin to shudder and briefly convulse before throwing her head back and howling like a fucking madwoman. She even goes so far as to gnaw on the rim of her shield as she growls and snarls. A second wave of something too causes her to briefly backpedal a step, shaking her head as though trying to clear it, though spittle is now trailing from her mouth and snot from her nose. "YOU THINK MADNESS CAN STOP ME!? I REVEL IN MADNESS! I'LL SHOW YOU MADNESS! I'M A VIKINGS FAN, MOTHERFUCKER!" What follows this claim is an explosion of Sigrun's mantle, complete with raven cries and beating war drums. "I'M A VALKYRIE, BITCH!" Yeah, she's not okay in the head right now. But she's doing real good with it.
nobody
... ... .. nobody nobody nobody
nobody
nobody likes us
the words echo off of the inside of the shell-like thorns, off of the inside of skulls, whispered and repeating, always repeating. nobody likes us and huddled across the open field, Johnnie spots first the huddled humanoid form in its tattered green and silver and white
nobody likes us
How the fuck does June move so fast? The moment she spots the ghost she takes off like a bolt of red lightning, crossing the width of the football field in a sprint that would make any running back weep with envy, and she's going so fast that when she's about ten yards away she simply leaps into the air, diving headlong, claws extended out ahead of her, and tackles the thing that's attacking her motley.
She and the hedge ghost tumble a couple of yards as pieces of the specter go flying. Is that an arm? Yep! That's an arm. And then June stops, as suddenly as she attacked, before she leaps back away from her target like it just hit her with a live wire. "Oh shit! Fuck, fuck!" comes the high pitched voice from inside her helmet.
And there, on the ground, dissipating into the aether which formed it, are the pieces -- yes, the pieces -- of what was up until a few seconds ago the ghost of a girl. Thirteen? Fourteen? No older than that.
nobod--
Dissipating, she leaves behind the scraps of a jersey. The number and name have faded. Of what was once a human being, only a tattered edge of cloth remains.
Once the threat has been eliminated-- the one they're aware of, anyway --Sigrun's heaving and howling begins to quiet down. She sets down her shield and sword onto the ground and doubles over, hugging her own head for a few seconds with both arms. She peels off her helmet in the middle of it all, bouncing the thing against her forehead a few times. On the final headbutt, the force is rather pronounced. But it seems to do the trick. She wipes off her face on the back of her sleeve, slides her helmet back into place, and hefts her weapon and shield back up. She rolls out her shoulders, tosses her head from side to side with a satisfying crack, and clears her throat as though none of that actually happened. Fairest. "Let's find some fruit."
June spends a little time cursing as she climbs back to her feet and slowly comes to the realization that she did, in fact, only dismember a hedge ghost, and not an actual teenage girl. She misses most of Sigrun's recovery from the ghost-induced insanity simply because she's convincing herself of that fact, and that ultimately she helped lay the poor girl to rest.
Finally she comes clanking back over in her armor, even if her casual jog is somehow like 20 miles per hour. When she gets back she says in a subdued, sorrowful tone, "anyone spot anything that might be the fruit? I'd just as soon get out of here; I hate the damned hedge."
Sturm is still shrouded in her Cloak of Night. Y'know on account of not moving or speaking. Like a good Winter ought to. She takes a few steps forward to stand at Sigrun's flank - still inside of the Valkyrie's peripheral - until she's finished shaking off her madness. "Yeah, fuck this place," she nods at June before turning her efforts off in search of fruit...
"Well, that was fucking disturbing." And now is the time when Teagan walks down the walls. They'd been trying to position themself to come down between the group and the ghost, but then June went off like a shiny red bullet in its direction. "You okay, JuneyJune?" They tuck their hands into their pockets, and offer, "We'd better fucking find this fucking thing."
And as they say that, the light from Sigrun's skin shimmers off to where the bits of cloth lay in the Hedge still; from between the ratty fragments of jersey poke a few stems of Cerynitis' Hope, blossoming out of the site of the desperate hope of rescue, held until the very end.
Sigrun, her wits regained, starts to head in the direction of the now obvious fruit. Not entirely how she'd intended for this to go, obviously, but the results seem to have worked out well enough. She stoops down next to the blooms, sets down her sword, and pulls out her boot knife, carefully harvesting one of the blooms for herself. She looks at it in her palm for several moments before tucking it carefully in her herb pouch. The knife is replaced in her boot, her sword reclaimed, and she rises back to her feet, nodding down to the remaining blooms and over to Sturm. She'll need it, too.
Johnnie is notably quiet after June wipes out the ghost, eyeing the space where she'd been. "She... hadn't been here all that long." She falls quiet again.
"I'm gonna start checking here on the regular."
June freezes when she spots the forming bloom, then frowns a frown that nobody can see because her helmet's visor is down. A moment later she drops down to sit on her butt while the others are off harvesting the plants, so she can wait for the business to be done and cry quietly where nobody can see it. The benefit of having a helmet on.
Sturm follows, taking a knee and removing a wicked-looking bowie knife from a sheath in her boot. Plants aren't really her thing, but Sturm has careful hands and removing one of the blooms for herself is simple enough. She returns her knife to it's hiding spot, and stands with a small grunt. "What's this shit for, actually?"
"It helps you find Icons," Teagan explains, following after Sigrun, and leaning down to cut a blossom themself. "You'll want it for the New York trip." They tuck the plant away in their briarwolf leather coat, stretch their arms up over their head, and then trundle back to where June is sitting down, and crouch down next to her. "Hey, JuneyJune," they murmur quietly. Helmets conceal crying, but the motley knows June well enough to know how things land. It's not hard to figure out she's probably upset under there.
"I'll be alright," June says quietly when Teagan comes back over to her. "I just... that poor girl. She ended up in here somehow, and just... got stuck. And died. Hoping someone would come and rescue her. If someone knew, I'm sure they would have. Who else might be out here, waiting in a place where we could get to them if we only knew, dying with hope on their final breath?" There's a sniffle from under the helmet. "Does anyone need me to fix their heads before we head back? It's probably good if everyone's seeing clearly."
Johnnie is notably quiet after June explains the ghost, eyeing the space where she'd been. It takes her a few moments, then- "Oh."
"I'll... I'm gonna start checking here on the regular, then. Just... make sure."
Until June verbally elucidates the tragedy to which Sigrun has been witness, she seemed rather oblivious to it. Just a huge blind spot, apparently, in her approach to life. That's what happens when you're a supernatural corpse sorter. You kind of get inured to it. Her brow furrows, and her expression tightens, though it's pretty obvious her concern is over June's reaction, more than the death itself. "I can't believe we don't have a trod out this way. It beggars credulity, honestly. If you plan to patrol out this way, Johnny, I suggest we bring this matter to the crown and see to it the trod is made official and part of the patrols of the freehold in general. The more of us walk it, the stronger it will become, and the safer time we'll have patrolling it. And we should absolutely be here during game day."
Sturm, ever the awkward bean, tucks the blossom into a pouch at her waist. She nods along with Johnnie and Sigrun - crossing her arms over her chest as she watches their discussion - too uncomfortable with nearly every aspect of the current setting to do much more than offer silent agreement and close ranks.
"Yeah. Creating a trod out this way is probably a good idea. And like... the new stadium isn't that old. I'm not surprised it's not looked after. But we should change that." The Mirrorskin looks off through the Hedge, letting out a soft puff of breath. Something about this has rattled them rather a lot all of a sudden, and they roll up to their feet. "Right. So. Let's go home. Anyone need anything before we start to get the fuck out of here?"
June reaches out a hand for Teagan to help her up, even if she doesn't need it, and then lets out a soft sigh. "I really hate the hedge. I'd really like to go home, if there's nothing else we really have to do. I'll do what I can to help build a trod out here, but I've had my fill for today."
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