This rehearsal was turning out to be pretty shitty. Pacing across the bank of the lank, Kipling's head hung low, mouth full of feathers as the limp body of her catch hung from her jaws. She'd been practicing for little over an hour now with unsatisfactory results. The plan had been set in stages. First, she'd catch something, which even though it had been a simple quacker doing so had been a hassle. She nearly growled at the memory of trying to wrestle the damn thing to the ground, attempting to catch it's neck and snap it, not that it'd been easy to achieve having been pounded by wings at the time.
But now she was on step two, and step two was the harder part of the ordeal. In fact she rather have the duck slapping her face again. The whole thing from the get go was intended to be a show of skills. I killed this bird, look I'm useful, accept me into your pack. But that sounded stupid, and no matter which what she attempted to word it the whole plan seemed to be stupid, and she wished she'd thought this whole thing over better. Why was it that she was a wolf who couldn't figure how to be apart of a pack. It would have been simple, live together, do your part, and survive.
But the more she thought about it, she hated of how hard it had been for her to kill this duck in the first place, it shouldn't have been the struggle it was, she wasn't a yearling she was two fucking years old. She shouldn't even have been rehearsing how to join a pack, how ridiculous that seemed. This wasn't a show of skills, it was a lie. Kipling wasn't good at hunting, she definitely wasn't good at keeping herself from starving, she just wasn't good at anything! Boiling over with frustration, her fangs came down, shredding and tearing at the dead bird in a frenzy.
By the end of her fit she slumped to the ground with exhaustion, having made a great mess of the creature and yet neglecting to take a single bite.
It had been a long while since Ragnar had been to Duck Lake, having had a thousand and one reasons as to why he didn't need to go that far South (north?). If his stolen son Týr was still within the Teekon Wilds there was a good chance he had already heard of Ragnar's exploits, and while it was considered that he may not have, Ragnar found it unusual that the chocolate colored boy had not sought him out. Not even just to say 'hello'. The possibilities of why were measurably endless, starting with something as good as: he simply wished to ignore Ragnar's presence to something as bad as resentment. Not that Ragnar thought he had given Týr any reason to resent him, yes he had stopped using his deceased brother's name as a moniker but the young rekkr had never once been told he couldn't continue on his own path. Regardless of what had kept Ragnar at bay something had inspired the urge to head towards Duck Lake to ...check. Last he had been aware his son had been living with the wolves of Swiftcurrent Creek and very out of the loop this is where Ragnar considered him to be still. In truth, it mattered little because Ragnar had no real intentions of making contact with him anyway.
As Ragnar followed the winding path of the lake he stopped when eyes of Caribbean ice caught sight of what his black, leathery nostrils told him was a woman, tearing apart the duck he presumed she had caught. Downy feathers flew above and then drifted lazily to the ground as I they had not been violently ripped from the avian's flesh. Ragnar's approach slowed, scarred and unscarred platnium silver ears twitching as he studied the woman, a trademark coy smirk tugging at the edges of his lips in soft soft amusement as he watched her slump ungracefully to the ground, the duck discarded near her. "At least you know it's dead," It was the Scandinavian's attempt at a joke. It probably wasn't a very good one, he observed and might prove to only irritate her further and while many parts of Ragnar told him he should keep going he did not listen. Perhaps it was the Jarl within him that he deigned him to stop and see if he could assist her, or maybe it was nothing more than her allure as a woman. It was something though it could not he claimed that it was out of the goodness of a heart he swore he didn't have.
She'd been so caught up in her own frustrations, Kipling did not notice the snow clad figure until he rose to speak. His humor roused her to lift her head, forcing a snort of amusement while her eyes rolled at his brazen attitude. She'd probably have been the same way had the roles been switched, and felt somewhat embarrassed at her outburst not having meant for anyone to see.
Just being cautious.She mused, gaze shifting back to exam the work she'd done on the heap that now resembled just a mesh of feathers, flesh and bone.
You can never be sure about... zombies.If by some miracle the duck had been resurrected at this point, she would have felt bad for it for being some form of alive in such a state.
Her own eyes nowhere near as striking as his own even in broad daylight, though that was not the reason she lifted them away after a quick glance. He made no move towards her 'food' at this point, but if he had she wouldn't have stopped him for several reasons. The first being while she could've fought he'd probably leave her with injures she was in no position to recover from, and second, her appetite seemed to have dissolved with his heavy cloud of doubt hazing over her senses. For now she was content with the mutual peace between them.
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| Ragnar's eyes danced with evident amusement and glinted with his usual mischief at her snort and the roll of her eyes though he was not close enough to distinguish the exact color of them. His gaze of caribbean ice followed her gaze to the mess of flesh, bone and feathers that barely served to resemble much of the duck it had once been. "I see," The scarred Scandinavian mused, accepting her response. Not that, of course, he had much of any other option. Her next words spoken, however, captured the Viking's curiosity, having never heard of a 'zombie' before. Even if he had the word was at least, unfamiliar to him.
"Zombie?" Ragnar questioned, mimicking the word she had spoken the best he could though it had came out, as he had guessed, sounding distinctly different from when she had spoken it. He could have, perhaps, drawn a rough conclusion if he would have followed the dots she had presented him with but he hadn't, unfortunately, been given enough information. She had called the duck a 'zombie' but he wasn't able to make the connection that she was making a reference to something dead that somewhat came back to life. "What is a zombie?" He inquired, wincing as the word left his own lips again though his curiosity was burning too brightly for him to be sheepish over his mispronunciation of it thanks to his accent. |
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| The scarred Scandinavian's ears cupped forth atop his skull, as he shifted when she spoke that a zombie was a ghost. He knew the word 'ghost' well enough but his fair companion went further to explain that it was a physical ghost. For a moment Ragnar processed that, ears slicking back to rest at half mast as he canted his head at her slightly, eyes of Caribbean ice burning with his curiosity and the fascination of her words. "A physical ghost," Ragnar repeated in a soft murmur to himself, staring at the duck with subdued interest for a few seconds before his gaze lifted back to the woman. "Is that possible?" His culture believed in ghosts just as thoroughly as they believed in their Gods and so Ragnar took her words seriously. Yet, he was dubious if only because he was not certain that ghosts had the kind of power to reanimate a dead body just to eat brains. That sounded like a waste to Ragnar who'd much rather just go to Valhalla when he died and be done with it. When the woman confessed that sometimes she felt like a zombie Ragnar's weight shifted and he settled upon his haunches, his curiosity peaked by those words. "You feel like you should be dead?" Ragnar inquired of her unable to help the burning, underlying question of why. |
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| "All things begin and end as stories," Ragnar told the woman, lowering his already soft voice in an attempt to add enigma to his words though he was, by far, not true saga teller. His religion allowed him to believe in what she thought was nothing more than 'old wives' tales'. Yet, Ragnar did not share this particular thought with her for the simple fact of keeping what was his, his. Not that, given by her reaction to his curiosity in her 'zombies', she would have believed anything he had to say anyway, Ragnar assumed. Ragnar's gaze of caribbean ice followed the motion of her paw tapping against the quite deceased duck at them, feather unsettling from the haphazard looking disfiguration of what it's once shape. It seemed that he had mistaken the meaning behind her words, easy enough given the language barrier and the sometimes trouble it presented him with despite his fluency in both is native and the common tongue. "What did you mean?" Ragnar inquired before she explained to him how she had meant the comparison of her and her zombies. Stoic face studied her as he took in her words, attempting to make them different than the meaning that he had assumed. "Do you not have a trade? Or join a pack?" Ragnar inquired figuring those were both two surefire ways to find purpose. |
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| Ragnar was silent as the woman seemed to be gathering her thoughts, finding silence holding some measure of comfort. His Priestess Wife said that he spoke too much but Ragnar was in disagreements with that notion because he thought that he spoke only what was necessary. His silence painted an illusion, a deception of lack of intelligence despite that, in reality, it was not cleverness that the scarred Scandinavian lacked with any sort of measure. Many times that fools illusion gained him the advantage during raids and he was not about to lose the years of perfecting it simply because he hadn't raided since he had left Odinn's Cove. He missed it — raiding. He intended to get a small group together to raid Wheeling Gull Isle if he could convince his subordinates that it was worth it. The satisfaction of gaining the upper hand, the thrill of battle if they were caught which was something of a fifty, fifty. He had not been trained in the art stealth and hardly feared the forever question of death. Attention focused upon his companion when she admitted that she wasn't sure what she was living for. With a twitch of his scarred ear, Ragnar contemplated the possibility of that. He could not imagine what it might be like to not have something to live for, and felt a pang of pity for her in the secondary thought that it must be awfully frightening to be so lost within oneself.
Ragnar, himself, lived for many things. For battle, for the love of his wives, for his children, his legacy, Odinn and most importantly he lived for Valhalla. It was the driving force between everything that he did in his life: prove his worth to the All-Father so that he would, when he died, go to Valhalla and fight alongside his ancestor in Ragnarök. That was his ultimate goal. The woman's anxiety was clear, the exposure he had created by his curiosity even more clear. He had managed, it seemed, to take down this stranger's guard with relative ease. Whether this was a new weapon to add to his arsenal or something Ragnar had had all along he couldn't be sure but he had a desire to see if the Consular in him could aid her. Eyes of caribbean ice studied her with a softness borne of his pity. "Why?" Ragnar inquired, not letting her know that he was the Jarl of one of the packs in the valley. It was true that he would be hesitant about accepting a wolf with no real skill set but in the end he considered the usefulness of it, that she was pliable and could be taught. "There are many trades that are accepted by the packs of these wilds," Ragnar assured her with a twitch of his lips coyly. "I could teach you," The Viking offered her simply waiting patiently for her response. |
His attempt to restore confidence in her though did manage to leave Kipling with a pinch of hope. It was true she wasn’t really good at anything, but perhaps she’d simply not found something she was good at. After all, with a bit of practice Red had managed to make her somewhat more successful when it came to hunting, perhaps she wasn’t such a lost cause entirely. And while in hindsight Kipling would admit it was a kind gesture she would have maybe offered in the same position, his proposal to teach left her wide-eyed and taken back. All this hopeless gushing and she’d gain his sympathies—in truth she was mildly disgusted with herself. Did she really look so forlorn and brought down?
“I… um…” She wavered uncertain, “It would help me immensely.” Embarrassed her ears snapped down against her crown, a sheepish smile pulling her lips though she brushed her tongue against them in an attempt in hide it. She found the confidence (or rather the discomfited urge) to stand then, lifting herself from the ground and stepping back as she lowered her head finally lifting her eyes to his briefly before flicking them across the lake. “I mean, you could. If you wanted to.” She added, trying to come across as casually as she could. “Where would I find you?” She didn’t even know his name.
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| His offer had been presented to her but just because he had placed it on the proverbial table between them did not mean she had to take it. The freedom to make the choice was hers and either way mattered little to Ragnar. She didn't even have to accept it right off the bat, either. She could take as long as she wanted to make her decision. Lips twitched slightly upwards into something that resembled a ghost of his usual coy smirk at her uncertainty though the expression never took form. Her uncertainty made it very clear to Ragnar that his prying likely made her uncomfortable. While he did not apologize for it (despite that he'd tried to exploit and explore it further) he did harbor a small amount of guilt in his chest. It left as soon as it had arrived.
"Whether you take my offer or not, the choice is yours," Ragnar had no intentions of forcing her either way. He may not have known when to surrender — no Ragnar didn't surrender — he knew when to back down and let the bones fall where they may. This was clearly, to the scarred Scandinavian, one of those moments. "I can be found in a pack called Stavanger Bay, north of here, along the coast or in one of the unclaimed territories around it. Just call for Heimdall and I will appear." The Viking spoke with the intention of making an air of mystery before he turned and disappeared back the way he had came, wondering if she would come to find him. |