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The patrol of the prior evening was... eventful. Plenty of dead briarwolves need processing, and Sigrun is one of those people in the court that doesn't shy away from dealing with corpses. Skinning, butchering, and salvaging sinew, claws, and teeth. Even the bones have their uses. The hedge is a 'waste not, want not' sort of affair, and while the actual butchering has been done elsewhere, Sigrun is presently cataloguing the haul for the freehold's coffers. She's cleaned herself up... mostly. The smell of a charnel house still clings to her somewhat, though the blood is mostly washed up. Just her, a clipboard, and several drying racks for stretching sinew and curing hides.
Lux isn't the sort to appear in the Hedge that often. But sometimes you gotta chill around your own people. So here they are--wandering through the town, looking out of place against the more rustic atmosphere. They follow the sound of others over to where Sigrun is cataloguing Briarwolf bits. They pause a short distance away, nose wrinkling a little as they look over the furs, bones, and meat. "Uh."
Laura has offered to help, given she was present. And she's admittedly, the reason why there's about 12 briarwolf bodies, but only 11 briarwolf hearts. Plus, it does offer her a chance to talk to Sigrun in a somewhat more relaxed setting. She's mostly cleaned up too, but there are faint traces of blood under her claws and that gash across her cheek from where one of the wolves got in a lucky hit. "It was a good haul. Good practice. And it felt good to be able to stretch out." Green eyes go to Lux as they arrive, the large Beast offering a slight nod. "There was a hunt." She tells them quietly. "A fairly successful one."
"Yeah, sorry," Sigrun offers to Lux, what with the smell and the. Well. Drying hides stretched all over the place. "We went out on a patrol and a whole friggin pack of the things jumped us. I think I got like. Three of them? Four? I forget. It was almost over before it started, though. It was... intense. Fun, even." Sigrun examines her clip board for a few more moments, makes a final tick mark, then tosses the clipboard down onto the table she's set out, currently piled with claws and teeth. Ew. "You should have June take a look at that cheek, when you get a chance, Laura. She can get you fixed up."
It's then Chelle walks in. "Someone need healing?" asks the Spring. She looks around. "I'd be surprised if not," she says, blinking at the piles and the, well, smells... She nods to Lux and Sigrun, and smiles to Laura politely, eyeing that cheek wound.
"It's cool," Lux says with a roll of their shoulders. They're clearly not used to seeing so much carnage, but don't seem that bothered. Just averting their eyes to focus on the gathering Lost. "Sounds impressive. Glad there's badasses like you two to protect the Freehold." Chelle gets an upnod as she approaches.
Laura touches a claw to her cheek. "I know it has a cost." She tells Sigrun quietly, head lowering slightly. "But I'll talk to her if need be. It's not as serious as it could have been, at least." She pauses. "How has everything been Sigrun? We've not exactly had chance to talk." Her eyes move to Chelle and she shakes her head faintly. "Just a scrape, really. Don't worry about it." It's really not just a scrape. She gives a faint smile at Lux's comment though, gesturing at Sigrun. "I just gnaw on things. She's the real badass."
@Ally/Chelle (Cassildra-she/her): 6d10!>=8 = (10 3 1 6 5 10 3 1, 2 successes) = 2
"It takes all the courts to keep the freehold running. And all sorts of folx within them, too. There's a whole heaping raft of stuff I suck at, unfortunately. It's just that my durance ensured front line combat wasn't on the list." Sigrun's demure seems genuine enough, despite her pointy ears and sovereign seeming. "I keep working to get better at other things, though. Which is how I would up in charge of rendering all of these briarwolves into useful bits." She gestures at the carnage faux grandly. Behold: the sum of her responsibilities. Laura's question has her quiet for a long span of moments. Finally she admits, "I'm just sort of getting by, if I'm being honest. Leaving Miami sucked. I was making a good name there. I had a lot of friends. I really loved the mead hall. I wasn't expecting that, you know? Being it's Miami. I felt very seen. And just packing up and leaving you in the dust made me feel like total shit, too. Oaths are oaths, though. You go where your people are. I'm just. I'm tired of starting over all the time."
Chelle takes a step toward Laura, then notices... something heavy between her and Sigrun. She stops, shrugs, and turns with a smile. "Ok. I hope it heals all right." And then she turns to Lux, smiling. "Do you want to go somewhere?" she asks a bit abruptly. "Kinda... not for me around here. I don't like gore," she says, her eyes firmly on them. And not on the pelts, or the bones, the sinew... the splashes of blood... She shudders and deliberately does not eavesdrop on Laura and Sigrun.
Lux glances between Sigrun and Laura, head tilting curiously. "Hmm... I'm Lux," they offer, but the two seem to have some things to work through so they also turn to focus on Chelle. "Hm? Uh, yeah... sure." Their hands hook behind their head. "Anything in mind?"
Chelle laughs. "Not here?" she says. She's not triggered, exactly, but she IS unhappy.
Laura frowns, rubbing her muzzle and studying Sigrun. "From what Taegan said, the moving will stop. I.. get it. I left things behind too. I don't want to do that again either." She huffs. "I'm here now." She tells her, eyes intent. "I've not been left. But I wasn't sure where you were, exactly, or what the situation was until Taegan contacted me."
Lux glances aside towards Laura and Sigrun a second. "Aahh, yeah." They step closer to Chelle, bouncing a bit on their heels as they walk. "Wanna walk through the gardens or something?"
Chelle nods and smiles. "Sure! Let's take a walk." She heads slowly for the garden, a rolling step that will let Lux keep up but that gives Laura and Sigrun space.
One of the cottage doors opens suddenly and BANGs against the wall, stuttering on its hinges, and Bianca walks out--or rather she backs out. It might even be hard to tell that it was Bianca if she did not also shout right after slamming the door open, "It smells like shit out here!"
She is backing out because she is dragging what appears to be a large copper cauldron, except it probably won't hold much, what with the holes rusted into the sides of it. And it is /quite a process/ for Bianca to drag it, as it appears quite heavy, and she does not seem able to firm up the best grip with her fibreglass arm--but she's wiggling it back and forth, back and forth, and makes slow progress.
Today, she is back in her coveralls, navy blue and covered in grease stains. They are zipped open down to her waist, where the top is tied in place. Beneath them she only wears a grey tank top, which is also covered in black stains.
Sigrun lifts a hand to Chelle and Lux as they seem destined to depart. "Good seeing you again, both of you. Sorry about the mess. Once I've found a better place to set out the drying racks, I'll get them moved. But. If we don't start the process, at least, they'll be ruined. And this is too much fodder to pass up." Bianca's arrival has Sigrun calling her way, "You good, or do you need some help?" Sigrun then nods aside to Laura. "I should have talked with you. I'm sorry. I genuinely am. Leaving like that was shitty of me. But it's not the first town we've blown through, and it gets harder each time. I didn't want to see That Look in you, too. Which is no excuse, I know."
"Mm, be safe." Laura calls out to them quietly, then eyes Bianca with a nod. Sigrun's already asked if she wants help, so she waits for that response, speaking to the Valkyrie again. "I'm not trying to, I didn't mean you needed to.. agh, fuck." She sighs. "I mean, I want to talk to you Sigrun, because I fucking missed you. I just didn't know what the hell to say, if we were still good, or.." She growls in frustration. "Basically, I'm planning to stay, with Direct Action, if everyone accepts me. And you matter a hell of a lot, and I wanted to say that. But the hunt happened, and things were tense when I saw you. So, yeah. A mess, kinda."
Lux jumps a bit, their neon lights flaring brighter a moment before they blink over at Bianca. They hesitate, but the beefy person is offering to help so they just offer a nod in greeting. "Hows it going?" they ask Chelle, wandering off towards the more pleasant setting of the gardens.
"Do I look like I need--" Bianca begins to growl, turning around to address Sigrun, but then she halts in place, immediately shrinking back a little bit and bumping up against the cauldron. She lowers her eyes and reaches up to brush her fingers through her hair, "Oh, hey. Didn't see you there. No, no. I've got it under control, right? I mean--do I--how are you?" She is not actually looking at Sigrun, let alone anyone else. For now it is only the ground, which the toe of her boot is firmly lodged in, which has her attention.
Sigrun glances back to Bianca when she growls, but Sigrun doesn't react particularly negatively. Perhaps she was somewhat expecting the response. "Sorry. I have to ask." Why she has to ask isn't elaborated upon, but apparently she feels she must. "What are you up to, though? With the cauldron, I mean." It's far less an interrogation and more a curiosity. They are, after all, in the process of rendering briarwolf corpses into useful materiel. Maybe she's here to render the fat, or something. But then she's turning towards Laura, standing on her tippy toes again, and wrapping her arms around Laura's neck in a big, big hug. That is her answer. She just gives Laura the biggest of hugs that she has. And then, after a good and proper length of time, she steps back and nods her head, "Yes. Please stay. Please join us. Please."
Laura's head had snapped towards Bianca at her reaction to seeing Sigrun, eyes narrowing slightly. That stops as Sigrun hugs her though and she returns it, arms going tight about the Valkyrie and nostrils flaring as she inhales her scent, most of the tension she carries fading. "Yes. Always." She answers. "You're family." A tap of a claw to Sigrun's cheek before she pads over to Bianca, gesturing at the cauldron. "We can watch you struggle alone, or one of us can give you a hand. And to answer your question, yes, you look like you need help."
Bianca continues to stare at the ground until Sigrun asks about the cauldron, at which point she turns around to stare at it--which she does for several moments without answering the question. All of this to say she does not catch Laura's stare at all, nor does she watch the two of them hug. "It's broken. It needs to be fixed. I mean--it's broken. Look--" she bends down into it. It is massive which means that her whole top half disappears. Then, through one of the holes, her rose-gold prosthetic pokes out and waves at Sigrun and Laura. "See?" Her voice echoes.
Then, there is a moment of silence and some mild clanging from inside the cauldron. Then, another moment of silence followed by, "I don't need your help."
Laura opens her mouth to answer, baring her teeth a little, then pauses. "Is saying you don't need help a.. let's say a habit of yours?" It's not the first time she's encountered something of that nature. "I'm better with food then fixing things though."
"We offered. She said no." Sigrun's take on things is quite pragmatic. Once someone refuses her help, they're on their own. "I'm going to go get a crate for the teeth and claws and useful bones and such. Start packing those up for storage. Might make some good arrow heads. Or throwing knives, maybe. Maybe I can make Vorpal a new hunting knife. He'd probably like that." Sigrun briefly picks up one of the wickedly sharp claws, and turns it over in her hand. She then pockets it, but heads on into the Summer Hollow in search of storage crates. "I'll be right back!"
"-couldn't ask for a better field test."
Vorpal's muttering to himself, sounding rather pleased as he comes back in with an armful of handforged knives. They're not his work- they bear stylized phoenix maker's marks- but they had proved very useful in butchering and he'd hurried off to clean them after putting them through their paces. "Alright, got them all scrubbed back down, so they should smell like oil instead of-"
He pauses, spotting Bianca folded down into the cauldron, catching that last line. "You're the last person I'd expect to need help, Bianca. It's nice to share the load, sometimes- on both sides, you know?" One of his shadows waves at Laura for him. Sig knew he was here, obviously, but she gets a smile all her own. "Any work left to be done? Or can I stash the knives and take a load off?"
"Sinew could work for bows." Laura calls out after Sigrun, moving to start gathering the different parts for storage. "And I could always use some more armour if there's enough hide for that.." She waves at Vorpal as he appears, smiling faintly. "Hey." She tells him simply. "We're mostly done for now, Sigrun just went to grab some crates. Unwind maybe, if you need?"
Another few moments pass, and Bianca still has not extricated herself from the cauldron. There is further clanging and a hissed, echoe-y cuss word, and then slowly, the cauldron tips on its side and Bianca pulls her torso out, none the worse for wear except that her hair is a little wild and in her face.
"Well," she begins, as if carefully choosing her words, several of them even shaping her lips silently before she continues, "When people treat you as if you are incapable on a regular basis, you turn things like that into a habit--so sure, the fault is mine. I apologize to you. Thanks." She turns around than, brushing her hair out of her face.
Which is when she catches sight of Vorpal. "Why? Are you asking me for help?" She remains with her back to the others, and does not quite notice Sigrun's departure.
Before Sigrun ducks into the Summer Hollow, she answers Vorpal, "If you can grab some water, we need to wash away the blood and such. Cleaning up the butchering knives and such would be helpful, too." She isn't gone for long, returning with a pair of wooden crates which she brings back to the table. She begins moving the teeth and claws into them one by one, trying to ensure they're at least somewhat arranged by size and purpose. Always busy, Sigruns.
"On it, Sig!" Vorpal throws a grin her way as she heads out for a moment.
Meanwhile, Vorpal grins and nods to Bianca."Sure- wanna rack these knives? The new kid Art forged'em, and I put them through their paces prepping the wolves for tanning and everything. Would be nice to have some help puttin'em back so I can clean the boring knives and get water for the mess." He heads her way and gingerly offers an armload of sheathed knives, if she's interested. "Nah, no sorries, Bianca. You didn't do anything wrong. Independence isn't something to apologize for."
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