faderift | war table: how many riftwatchers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Jude absolutely fucking terrifies the horses. It's just his presence; being near him has them rolling their eyes back, stamping, dancing sideways, like they're sure he's about to leap at them and tear their throats out. He doesn't even try to come near them the first day -- instead he cheerfully says that he's never minded travel on foot.

And then he shifts into an Fuckoff Enormous black wolf, and takes the opportunity to scout ahead of the party. He returns when they're on foot, keeping to wolf form much of the time, though he sometimes returns to pace them companionably. Despite the heat of fur it's useful for keeping the insects away. He's faster than those with two legs, so he ranges afar, scenting for potential dangers and helping guide the party through safer pathways for their feet.

When they break camp, Jude personally delivers one of the game birds, trotting into camp with it in his fanged mouth. He drops it by the fire, and shifts back to human near-directly into a pair of trousers, followed quickly by a long-sleeved shirt in defense of bugs.

"Used to think the sunset over Yellowstone couldn't be beat," he says warmly, gesturing towards the stunning view.

"Glad you're having a nice time, Bolto."

It doesn't take Thedas alone for Tony to be inoculated against weird shit. Spend a week working on a time heist with a raccoon and you find yourself adapting to just about anything. Jude Adjei says he can turn into a wolf, and Tony believes him. He'd underestimated how frankly useful that would be, making a note to himself on taking the dog out during field work.

Anyway. Tony says this where he's sat by the fire, crouched in place and building it up, and his tone isn't derisive. Maybe he is glad he's having a nice time, and he flicks a glance to the lake. Sure. Nature. He picks up the game bird by the corner of a wing, and leans to simply place it down further away from him for someone to deal with.

He asks, "Lot of werewolf weekends in Wyoming?"

"Balto," Jude corrects him with a sideways smile, watching how he handles the bird. When he doesn't, Jude shakes his head lightly and takes it in his hands, plucking out the feathers like he's done it plenty of times.

"And not a werewolf, even if those legends are based on wolf shifters."

He lightly flicks a few feathers Tony's way.

"I live there full time. Makes me biased. You ever been, or you prefer the city?"

"White Fang?"

We have now exhausted Tony's reservoir of famous wolf references. Maybe. There could be more. (There are more.)

He subtly leans away when nasty feathers are flicked his direction, but makes no complaint as he feeds more twigs and curls of bark into the flames. At least he's not handling carcasses, and can achieve this one little outdoorsy thing. "1981," he says. "Family vacation. Dad spent most of the time on the phone, mom was allergic to just about everything."

No forlorn childhood bitterness, here, just dry humour as if this implies his own relationship with nature. "Couple of cities. New York mostly, but settled upstate. Cabin, lake. Trees," he confirms. "I saw them."

He sits back on his haunches some, dusting dirt and misc tree crap off his palms. "It's nice."

"Both of those are dogs," Jude says patiently, but his smile's wide, a light in his eyes that says he's waiting for the next one, when he thinks of it. Whether it's in a few minutes, or a few years.

He notices that Tony doesn't talk about what he did. But he remembers the year they went.

"You settled down in a cabin in upstate New York?" Jude repeats, his voice settling into something quieter, curious. Those things don't add up, but there could be a lot of reasons why, and he's not outright asking why, just leaving him the room.

"I've been visiting up there. Big change from New York City."

"Toto. Benji. Otis?" Tony queries, hands spreading, and then transitioning into a sit in the dirt. "Of Milo and Otis fame."

Fucked up that they have all these famous wolves in common and he has yet to meet an Earth stranger who has ever heard of Stark Industries, as an aside.

"We needed it," he says, back on topic. There's a glance up and aside, conscious of people he knows around. Ellis the most and Gwenaëlle a little bit, specifically, but they appear to be out of immediate earshot, so he goes and says, "Me and the missus. We had our daughter, decided on a different kind of speed for a while."

A jolt of a shrug. "It wasn't what you'd call primitive, but it was quiet. Maybe you'd have liked town. Lot of wolf walking culture, you'd be surprised."

Yes, out of immediate earshot.

Though Ellis is near-finished preparing the brace of rabbits he'd caught and clearly means to roast for dinner, so eventually he'll be drifting towards the fire to proceed with that. In the moment, he lifts his head to sweep around the clearing, mark everyone's place, then return to his work.

"You just keep getting colder."

Jude notices Ellis, stacking his feathers as he keeps up his conversation with Tony, but when he unloads the spits for the meat from one of the bags, he makes sure to take enough out for Ellis' rabbits, too.

Jude doesn't comment aloud on the revelation of Tony's daughter, but by the way his eyes move to his face, it's given him pause. It's not pity by any means but it contextualizes a few things. Jude is far from the only one with family worlds away.

"Wolf-walking culture?" he asks, skeptically, looking like he wants to laugh, but yeah, he's very much enjoying himself. "What else about your world should I know?"

"Well," Tony says. "To my knowledge we don't have werewolves, or," his open hands gesturing to Jude, "shifters, but I wouldn't exactly be shocked if we did. We got about everything else. Some of it's from space."

He tracks Jude's glance on a delay, clocking Ellis. "Looks like we got Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail on the menu. Good catch," a little louder, then back to conversational volume. "We don't say it, but it's crucial to get someone who can wrangle something to eat on one of these things, unless you want extremely colonically brutal outcakes for a week. I guess that's not an issue for you.

"Do you have pizza? In your world, not here." He talks, just, so fast.

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail is an assortment of words taken in stride. No follow up question, only a small, brief smile flashed up at Tony before Ellis returns to the business of attaching his catch to their designated spits.

It's a reference. Tony will clarify if he needs to.

And Ellis perhaps knows better than to distract from the topic of pizza.

Jude's expression pinches at werewolf, but Tony corrects himself, and he favors him with a smile. He likes the way he teases, gently biting. It's exactly the kind of teasing he's used to.

Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail get a snicker under his breath, and reaches for a knife from his pack, guts the bird- (sorry, gross) and wraps it with string.

"You bet we have pizza," he says with a grin that melts into a dreamy look. "Been a while since I've made one but I bet we can come up with the ingredients, back at the Gallows."

Jude glances at Ellis.

"Do y'all not know about pizza, here?"

"They do not. Or like—"

Vague gesture.

"One of the cooks back home knows about some grilled flatbread thing, but it's just not—you know what I mean. Anyway, I built an oven, figured out a decent dough formula,"

and here is a little bit of rambling about what a process that was, like sure he could probably rig up a functional electrical grid if he had the funding, but who carries around a pizza dough recipe in their heads when they bamf into Oz,

"But I think we've nailed it. It's good, right?" to Ellis.

And to Jude, "I bet old timey forests are pretty much the same as modern ones. Maybe this isn't the biggest leap for you." He seems so chill, around the stage at which Tony was pretty well into his second nervous breakdown, give or take a week or two.

Tony isn't so far off the mark. Fortunately, Jude's good at compartmentalizing, and work is therapy, right? Right? So healthy of him and not avoidant at all.

"Wouldn't go that far," he says, forgetting and licking a bit of blood off his finger.

"One of our pack-owned assets is a modular home engineering firm. We have a small complex commissioned, takes advantage of the heated pools in the park for power and warmth. Some of us are fine with sleeping in fur, but the elders and pups need a warm, dry place to bed down in. Then there's the greenhouse, kitchen, dining, apothecary."

Jude shrugs. "Place for the big-screen TV and the popcorn machine. Y'know, movie nights."

war table: how many riftwatchers does it take to change a lightbulb?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

slides in on socks