closed.

[propulsion]

WHO: Tony Macaroni Stark, Dickdickerson
WHAT: Bros being pals (pejorative)
WHEN: Late Drakonis
WHERE: Free Marches
NOTES: Unbridled sexual tension

It only isn't raining because it has just finished raining. The clouds above are taking a big deep breath before the next deluge, and kids, that's just science.

And it's a Free Marches special, being somehow both cold as well as muggy, the air heavy with moisture while layering a chill over everything. When Tony catches a trickle of wet down the side of his neck, he is not entirely sure if he secreted it on his own or not, banishing it with a broad rub of his hand, before returning to his task.

They're not so far outside of Kirkwall. Northwards, but out of reach from the main body of significant Imperial presence, still sheltered in the southern-side of the Vimmarks, within the heavy blanket of forested foothills. Half a day's worth of travel more and they'll be there, investigating whatever triggered the signal it had sent back. For now, the sun is scooting fast for the horizon. Tony had said something like I know a spot, hopefully safe from flooding and landslides.

Appears to be. But everything is wet. Tony had done his part on his way in, ferreting out some kindling-sized pieces of dry wood out the bottom of a splintered tree, sized variously and sitting in a pile next to him while he frays down a likely piece into little thread-y fibres, being a little precious about the prospect of splinters in the doing as he frets at it with a small knife.

"Do you have ghosts or ghost stories, where you're from?"

It is spoken as a binary, the question being one or the other, rather than multi-choice.

Comments

[nonvenomous]

A wet pop marks the wrench of a rabbit’s hide inside out over its ankles, stringy muscle stripped raw in the evening light. Richard is seated on a log dragged in expressly for the purpose of sitting, not quite warm enough to stave off a shiver with his sleeves rolled and damp seeping in through the seat of his pants.

Still.

He’s deft with a knife, and clean, making quick work of cracking joints and twisting viscera from the gut and so on.

“Yes,” he says. And in the event that isn’t sufficient: “Both.”

He hasn’t been talkative. He rarely is.

Outside, Thot the hawk rolls in wet leaves like a dog, snipping sticky tufts of fur from her talons with the hook of her beak as the mood strikes her.

[propulsion]

Travelling on horseback for hours at a time really allows for some practice in mindfulness.

Intentional breathing, meditation exercises to try not to think too hard about how much your ass bones and old man hips take issue with this particular mode of transportation and trying to invisibly expel those aches and pains out of the top of his skull, and hey, if you try real hard, having a song stuck in your head is a lot like listening to it. Richard has had to put up with some humming or quiet, absent singing along the way.

But perhaps a surprising lack of attempts at conversation. Some little prodding lines here and there, a peppering of shop talk around healing potions and supplies and budgets, but otherwise, Tony hasn't felt a desperate need to make Dickerson his source of entertainment.

Still, he says, "Cool," and then, "Wanna share any?"

Not looking up, first, crouched kind of gargoyle-style as he fishes his company-brand enchanted firestarter from a pocket. The thready woody bits have been clustered into a ball, and he picks at it with his fingertips as he touches a flame to it. Ribbons of smoke unfurling more aggressively than the little flames that start to nibble at the fibres.

[nonvenomous]

A light toss sees hide and guts and disembodied ends landing (plop) in the wet beside Thot’s revelry. Surely she will see to the mess when she is finished.

“Ghosts are thinking, feeling creatures suspended in a state of confused consciousness. They are driven by yearnings they do not understand and cannot fulfill alone. Many of them never find rest and succumb to madness. They may persist for thousands of years.”

Dickerson’s carving knife is sharp enough to clip buttery smooth through broken joints, quartering haunches and shoulders and so on without a sound. A damp stick will serve as the skewer; he shaves it down to a point in three strokes while he watches Tony’s tinder soaking in the start of a flame.

Then it’s back down to his work, bony hands increasingly sticky in the cold.

“It strikes me as unkind to make light of their suffering.”

[propulsion]

It's to Thot that Tony glances, a speculative eyebrow raise to see if she is digging this ghost story, and then, ow, flames licking at fingertips. He only jerks them back by a fraction, quick to go back in and turn the tangle around. Poking in fresh twiney bits of wood. Feeding it like a small animal.

There's a long pause after Richard reaches his conclusion, Tony focused on getting flames to catch to larger kindling. Everything feels a little wet despite his best efforts, but slowly, blackened char carries with it a flame. A bigger furl of smoke.

"The end," he adds. Helping.

Glances back to Richard, the slow disassemblage of an animal into meat.

"I guess that means we're talking shop instead."

[nonvenomous]

Tony glances to Thot to find that her head is fully buried back in the leaf litter. Her mood must be gauged by the flexing and squeezing of her talons in the air over her exposed belly.

Pop, Richard pushes a piece of rabbit onto his stick, splaying matchstick ribs. Focused on his work.

“If we must."

[propulsion]

"We must," has an uptick of drama to it, a big sigh out accordingly. Richard's life is very hard under the yoke of Tony Stark's tyrannical rule.

In a controlled roll of motion, Tony sits back out of his crouch, feet wide apart to permit the fire situation as he continues to feed it little scraps of wood. It's easy to become fond of a fire, this way, like a small animal prone to biting and hissing, ungrateful in the way it takes food from your fingers, but yours all the same.

And also if he looks too closely at what Dick's doing to that rabbit, he's gonna lose his appetite about it.

"What do you know about mass blood sacrifice used to power a magical ritual, like say, closing or opening a portal? Like, is it much?"

[nonvenomous]

A beat’s pause, a fluttering adjustment of sticky fingers around meat. Not entirely unlike the aforementioned animal prone to biting and hissing, he shoots a glance across the fire to gauge the intent behind Tony’s reach. Prickling, suspicious.

His brow furrows as he goes back to skewering.

“It would be inefficient given we have other means,” he says.

The glowing sliver in his palm shows sickly green through a sheen of gore.

“Less so if the sacrifices suffer.”

[propulsion]

"Obviously we'll be looking into alternatives. We're a small organisation."

Only so many throats to slit.

Foray into dark humour is (the twist at his mouth says) perfectly characteristic, a glance to bat aside suspicion and prickle, or absorb it.

"How do we measure how much power is represented by a dozen dead elves and all the blood in 'em?"

[nonvenomous]

“Hmm.”

What a curiously pointed series of hypotheticals to think about.

Richard spears the last haunch and tightens his focus in on the fire struggling to root itself in scrap wood between them. Not quite substantial enough yet for cooking, but plenty to keep the wrinkles in his monkey brain occupied while he considers their respective positions.

“Why not humans?”