Sleepy Fox Hollow potage.

Tags for reference. Open!

As it was her custom to feed herself when in the care of a pack, rather than take from their stores, Stryx had left the fringe of Sagtannet's claim in order to peruse the surrounding territories. The mountains proved fruitless for her; they were difficult for her to navigate and dangerous too, so she headed down in to the middle of the range, where the mountains plateaued and became a rolling valley of green. It took a few hours longer than it should have, but Stryx was taking her time and enjoying the change in the scenery. She had left @Conquest with the wolves of the mountains (presuming @Praimfaya would keep an eye out).

While it was a bright summer day and the sun had risen to its apex in the middle of the sky, it was not as hot as Stryx expected. There were many layers of graduation to the terrain as she descended to the valley below, and coupling that with the density of the trees, she was quite content. Dust motes rose through shafts of light as she moseyed; she thought on more than one occasion that she smelled fox, but gave up that chase when something small scrambled up a tree trunk and perched over her head — a fat red-furred squirrel, which proceeded to shriek down at her.

A few days in the Canyons, and suddenly it was all Colin had ever known. Instead of waking up to a humid, muggy morning, he opens his eyes to a violent shade of blue. Cloudless and dazzling, it was less of a sky and more of an act of indulgence. 

He decides to take the time to explore the borders of the Canyon; a path takes him up through the mountain edge where the land abruptly opens up to a hollow. It is musty with stale air, and overwhelmingly quaint. He gingerly picks his way through the undergrowth. Gaunt and deprived of sleep, he cuts a tall but ultimately unimposing silhouette-- nosing through brambles and ferns, burrs stuck and trailing in his unkempt coat. 

A flash of motion guides his eye through the trees to a grey stranger, who's looking up at a particularly vocal squirrel. He approaches despite himself. The squirrel, either sensing Colin's presence or growing tired of his own polemics, drops an acorn and flees with a shudder of the branches.

Colin ducks, but its too late-- it hits his head with a small dink. More than anything, he's impressed with the accuracy. He smiles, sardonic, at the bobbing curl of the squirrel's tail as it disappears into the trees.

She watched the rodent with a bored expression at first, but the more it chattered and harassed her from above, the more sour she became. Something moved behind her and Stryx turned in an effort to keep her wits sharp, get a look at whatever it was while trying not to lose the squirrel.
The shape of a wolf seemed to materialize on the fringe of her vision and as it collected beside her she grew apprehensive. There was a scent carried on the stranger's coat that she recognized - but it did not make sense to her at the same time. Her mind flashed briefly to memories of Praimfaya bleeding on the edge of a forest.

A higher shriek from the squirrel brought her back to the present, and Stryx shimmied out of the way of the dropped acorn just in time, although she nearly hit the other wolf. The sound of the object hitting the top of his head seemed louder, sharper, than it out to be. The squirrel is gone; the man is smiling, and Stryx is frowning.

Let me take a look at that, she commands brusquely, going in to physician mode immediately. She's trying to get a better view of the crown of his head but he's a little taller than her, and it is a struggle. That was a decent shot. Are you dizzy? Any double vision...? She looked at him eye-to-eye as she got to this stage of the diagnoses and swayed slightly, trying to gauge his pupillary response.

Whatever he expected from this stranger, immeadiate concern wasn't high on his list. She's all around him at once, and issues questions like machine-gun fire. He leans away from the impromptu check-up. For a man who had been shouldering through vague health concerns for months, he thinks he's being reasonably calm. 

"No," he stammers. "I-I'm okay. Please." 

Doctors and hospitals-- their scrubs, the sharp smell of disinfectant, the distant but heavy presence of sickness and death behind closed doors-- they had never comforted him. Every soft prying hand, every critical eye looking down through a lens to a medical crosshair. Inside the corridors, there was only the mildew in the linoleum floor and a row of vinyl seats against the wall. 

So instead of comfort, or trust, Colin only feels a fierce discomfort; he stays away as if the clinical environment of sanitiser and fluorescent lighting is contagious.

While being admittedly a bit cruel with her inspection she sees nothing that indicates trauma, and backs off with his word. She cannot help but observe the rest of him now. There is a ragged quality to him that Stryx is accustomed to seeing in herself - or in other rogues - but it looks as if his worn state is exacerbated by something else. He seems healthy enough, his coat retaining some luster and his eyes bright. It could very well be that Stryx has alienated him; it wouldn't be the first time her overbearing tendencies have pushed people away.

She clips at him sharply, Sorry, habit. As if that's a suitable apology; it certainly isn't sincere. Her eyes cast about as she looks for the ornament that had smacked him, and she spies the acorn laying discarded in the grass, kicking it away and listening to it clatter in to the debris further along. It is too bad the squirrel had been spooked - Stryx was hungry and it could have been a nice little meal.

You owe me lunch. She points out, almost as an afterthought.

Her apology is just as scalpel-sharp and antiseptic as the rest of her. He slumps as she withdraws, sinking back into his shoulders. His heart beats out a rapid fire rhythm; he places a hand over his chest, discreet, and wills it to slow down.

"I do." He says, hollow. Then, making an effort to chain together a semblance of coherency: "You're a doctor. We could use a doctor." Who, Colin? Pull yourself together. Who could use a doctor? "We, as in the Saints. Have you heard of them? Or of Donovan?"

If Donovan had been as relentless of an entrepeneur here as he was back in the forest they had been driven out from, Colin had no doubt that word had spread. He was a monster in a business suit, really, complete with a business card in the inside pocket and a giant clawed hand tightening the Windsor knot of his tie. 

He would be lying if he said that he didn't feel a little out of place-- a pastor alongside a group of scarred soldiers, but he would also be lying if he said he wasn't thankful for it.

He didn't put up much of a fuss about lunch, to her chagrin. But when he goes on to ramble about Donovan's little band of rogues she feels a groan pulling its way out of her throat before she can curtail it. She's taking a breath and looking up at the sky for a moment, then closes them, like she's pinching her nose to obfuscate a ream of emotions as they play across her previously empty face.

Once she is a little bit more composed she takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. Yes, I know of Donovan. Did she need to go in to details? For a moment Stryx mentally berates herself for not recognizing the scent the man carries with him - its so telling. She's an idiot. But, she also had that little arrangement with Donovan's crew and was, at the very least, holding up her end of the bargain.

She ignores the invitation. This is the third attempt the Saints have made to enlist her; was there no communication among these brutes? How many times would she have to deny them before they were all on the same page? But it wasn't this man's fault he did not know - he must have been new to the band.

How did you wind up with them? You seem too.. civilized.

His suspicions were correct-- she had heard of Donovan, and most likely more than once, judging by her exasperation. The man must've gone on to build billboards: Join the Saints! Put your faith into Donovan Azura. He's at once impressed, apologetic, and bemused. 

At her next words, his brows can't help but raise. Civilised. He was aware of the difference between himself and others in the group like Nemisis, but hearing it come out of somebody else's mouth made him feel all the more self-conscious. He silently and internally protests. Why should I care about what others think of me?

"Donovan takes in people of all backgrounds," he says. "I'm a priest. There's a soldier who was exiled from her home, and a man who's lost... basically everything." 

Point is, the Saints did not discriminate.

Of all the people she'd expect to align with Donovan, a priest wasn't one such being. Then again Stryx had a pretty foul opinion of those with any faith outside of the physical world; a bias she had yet to see in herself with her own sworn vows and dated beliefs, but we'll gloss over that for now. It was good that Donovan was offering a space for those who the general population could not handle, she supposed. It sounded like charity work—she couldn't be opposed to such a mindset.

You sound like you admire him. Stryx points out. Perhaps this man felt he had nowhere else to turn, so she could understand feeling indebted to the first person to welcome them. She had been on the road a long time and had very few invitations to show for it; but then, she was usually very clinical with her sworn duties, and few enjoyed her bedside manner.