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Never Lose Your Hat!

Ivy puttered around as Jötz made his own inspections, attempting to wring stagnant water out of her hair with one hand while simultaneously trying to trap the wheel under her newly truncated arm. But her Jaeger friend's announcement that he'd found more tools -- as well as more of the barge -- quickly overrode any other interest she had in the boat or its wheelhouse.

"Really?" she blurted, suddenly giddy with possibility. "What kind of tools? I've been thinking, we could really use a wrench that doubles as a precision laser and also maybe a hand cannon, like the one I made you, but bigger!"

She followed the sound of his voice to the hatch, remembering at the last moment to take her mint lamp between her teeth before she followed him into the darkness.

"Mm cunnig don!" she announced even as she was falling the few feet to splash into the water beside him. She felt her heel catch something solid and furry and tried to angle herself away from the rest of what she assumed was Jötz body.

"Oof -- smfy -- " She righted herself, squinting the in the murky, bluish light as she spat the mint-flavored lantern in her her good hand. "I mean sorry. Where're the tools?"

She pushed past him without waiting for an answer, first finding a small assortment in a shallow tin box. Her eyes widened as she took in the new fare.

"Finally!" she exclaimed, sifting through the box with oil-stained fingers. "I bet I can make a new arm with some of these!" She glanced at Jötz briefly over her shoulder. "Do you want one, too? I promise I won't cut your arm off until I finish the new one."

Never Lose Your Hat!

Ivy found herself lost in Jötz stories in a way that made her feel unexpectedly homesick. She could just see in the murky darkness of the canals, but her mind drew images of barges doused in color, strung up with steamers and bunting and tongues of colored flame, exactly the sort of thing she'd have loved to see, even just a few days ago, but now felt distant and dangerous and strangely indulgent.

She was nervous and excited enough by the time he mentioned a boat she was nearly vibrating behind him, standing on tip-toe, and probably walking entirely too close.

"Where?" she gasped, whispering as though the boat might hear them and take flight. She squinted through the darkness, then gave up and darted around him to examine the barge by her own faintly blueish light.

Ivy dropped to her knees at the edge of the dock, leaning out as far as she could to study Jötz find. The air around her smelled of rust and stagnant water, making her think the barge had been there for some time. But it was still floating, bobbing gently on the water, and in the back of her mind, Ivy could imagine it dressed in paper streamers and confetti, floating down one of the canals, back to Motorhum, or even farther.

A slightly manic grin suddenly lit upon her face, and in and instant, she was standing, shoving her winterbright contraption and her apron into Jötz's hands without so much as glancing at the Jaeger.

"Hold that," she commanded impatiently, backing up the the crumbling wall behind her before taking a small running leap to land herself aboard the barge.

At the last moment, her foot caught on the edge of the boat, pitching her forward to roll directly over the other side, landing with a resounding splash in the brackish water.

"Owww," Ivy muttered distractedly, brushing dark hair back from her eyes as she searched for what made the barge go...and what else she could add.

"Do you think the Canallers ever had barges that could fly?"

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Something was wrong.

Well. No fucking shit. This wasn't your average Tuesday afternoon, this was Bain and Hoyle. "Something's wrong" was pretty much their logo, only stylized and in Latin.

But this time, something was really wrong. And it wasn't the wight, or the fact that he was holding his own against pissed off souls who'd already started showing up for the game. And it wasn't godwolf or the way his soul writhed in her vision dancing, immaterial, in her line of sight, ginormous as shit and just waiting to be taken down. And it wasn't the fact that Daisy was once again dabbling where she wasn't supposed to be.

It was MaxThad. Or just Max. And the fact that he was here, and he definitely should not have been.

That much was evident in the Reaper's face as she turned to what she have been the most minor of threats in the area, between the wight, the souls, godwolf, and herself...and yet somehow represented the greatest of them all. Even if he wasn't pissed -- and he was. She could feel hostile aggression rolling off him like a physical heat -- she'd have been worried. Because while she'd singled out the wight to take with her, she hadn't been anywhere near Veti's boy toy. He shouldn't have been able to get through at all.

But he had.

And that? That was wrong. That was dangerous. That was...scary.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Daisy blurted, for once not sarcastic or cynical, just confused, and more than a little freaked out. She could count on one hand the number of creatures she'd seen able to cross over without her help, and they were none of them good news. She was flicking back through her memories, trying to remember any cases, even just one, where she'd accidentally brought someone over to no effect.

She came up dry.

Max should not have been there.

Something was very, very wrong.

Before she could say anything else, though, the wight was knee deep in water, wrestling with another creepy grayish soul. Her eyes flicked to him, trying to communicate the danger without even realizing it. He wouldn't know what this meant. He wouldn't understand -- would he? -- what it meant that Max had been gone for a year, and now he was back and untrustworthy and dangerous, and she didn't want him anywhere near Veti...let alone herself.

"T-try it, and I leave you behind," Daisy said, trying to sound smug instead of scared shitless. Because here, on this side, he would be stronger than her. Oh, he didn't know it, or else he wouldn't be threatening here. But after a year on the wrong side, especially with Daisy already exhausted and distracted...if he wanted to hurt her, he could.

Still. She braced herself and put a hand on her hip and smirked imperiously. She couldn't afford to lose the advantage here. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Max was just scared, just like she was, a fucking cornered animal at the end of his rope. Besides. She and MaxThad had never been friends. But she and Veti were. He wouldn't really hurt her.

Right?

"You wanna get out of here," she said after a moment, "help him watch my back." She thrust a finger at the wight, her gaze once more lingering longer than it should have. "Let me fuck godwolf's shit up from this side, and we get an easy ride back to the other side."

Then she turned away from him and went back to her work, slowly siphoning the silver-gray aura from the godwolf, ignoring the cold sensation filling her chest. She could no longer tell whether it was godwolf's spirit...or just fear.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Oh, wow, y'all have been busy. =) I'm I'm wonderful company here. AND I have a few days off to post. Sadly I'll be spending most of today at the airport, but I'll try and get a post up tonight! Hopefully without missing too much of the action. =)

EDIT: Aaaaaaand flight delayed. If I can find some wifi, I'll try and get a post up before I take off. /mixedfeelings

Never Lose Your Hat!

Ivy followed dutifully after Jötz, still caught in a sort of post-Spark bliss as she watched the chalky white orbs clack gently against each other in the coils of the perpetual motion spring engine she'd created, the air around her pungent with mint. She was just a little sad the mints were all gone, though she was mostly confident she could find another batch at the next town they stopped at -- assuming there really was a next town -- and probably cheaper than she'd bought them back home.

The thought of home gave her another dull ache somewhere deep in her belly, just long enough to draw her attention from the roughly lightbulb-shaped device in her hand, down to her other hand, or rather, to the empty space where it had been. She frowned through the darkness at it, lifting her stump -- it really had been a clean cut, which was good, because that would make future augmentations much easier. She'd always felt five had been rather too few fingers, anyway.

Jötz stopped walking so abruptly -- or else her mind had wandered further than she'd realized -- Ivy had nearly run into his back before she realized he wasn't moving anymore, having paused to gape at what appeared to be a series of underwater channels. Intrigued, she stepped around him, mostly bare toes at the edge of the stone platform to lean as far out over the water as she could manage, squinting down the tunnel in each direction before turning back to her Jaeger companion.

She hadn't realized she was hungry until her offered her the dried meat, and by the time she realized what it was, her stomach was growling too loudly to politely decline. So, she took the offering with a small, if grateful, smile, gnawing quietly on the strips of meat as they walked, trying to remember what Jötz had told her about the canals. She was almost positive it hadn't all been positive.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Preeeeetty.

Saloon City -- A Rural Noir RP

In general, Jacky Avett prided himself on being the coolest head of all his siblings. If it had been Kitty or Willa standing there, things would have turned out differently. To a point.

Their daddy had taught Willa how to fight when she was just eight years old, right around the same time she learned she wouldn't ever be happy playing dress up with Kitty and Vi. And for all the chaff there was between him and Willa, the one thing they agreed on was Kitty and Vi. Willa had always been a hell of a lot more spontaneous than Jack. She'd have had Luke Norman on his back before he even finished speaking.

Kitty? Well, Kitty would have done her best. She was a tiny thing with no real taste for violence, but she was smart as a whip, and if she didn't like you, she wouldn't let you forget it. Give her half a day, she'd have everyone in Pickett stealing sidelong glances at Luke, giggling and whispering behind their hands about his newly discovered impotency and his apparent lust for menfolk.

But Jacky Avett didn't have Kitty's foresight or Willa's temper. What he had was a badge and a gun and an LT and a reputation as the one un-crooked officer in his city. So, it wouldn't do to beat on the guy like Willa, or spread petty rumors like Kitty. And yet neither could he let Luke Norman tear down his little sister and just walk away. It was as much a point of honor as the badge.

Jack stared at Luke for a long moment before that eerie handsome smile crept across his face. He squared off, hauled back, and leant hard into a right hook that sent Luke stumbling back against the wall, lip split.

Jack shook out his hand with a wince and turned to Tom, who stood with an expression that was half gape, half grin.

"I smell liquor on Mr. Norman's breath, Tommy. Oughtta get him downtown before he becomes any more of a danger to himself."

Never Lose Your Hat!

Ivy stood there for a moment, chewing her lip and lost deep in the sort of concentric thought circles that would have gotten her smacked by Mama Petra, if Mama Petra had been there. But, of course, she wasn't. No, things had changed quickly, and now her only companion was this Jaeger for whom she'd been so mysteriously concerned just a few moments ago.

And, she supposed, the warty stump of an arm in one corner of the room. She was still vacillating between screaming and taking it with her for future examination, and it took her another long moment to realize Jötz was speaking to her again.

"Hm?" she said, distracted, until she remembered she was supposed to be angry, or at least wary, and made herself snap back to attention. "What? Oh. A light. Uh...sure, hang on."

How long had she been away from home? Two days? Three? And already she was reverting to the Spark like it was second nature...though she supposed, at least abstractly, it rather was, and had been for some time. Years, maybe. And it was only now at eighteen she was able to make anything of it.

She folded into herself, still feeling weary and uncertain as she awkwardly draped her blood-stained apron across her knees, already frustrated that she was one hand, and several items short. She felt something spark against her temper and briefly glared up at the Jaeger, still searching, one-handed, through the pockets for anything she could use.

Her fingers found a few small, chalky orbs, a smile spread across her face as she withdrew a small handful of her absolute favorite confections. In Motorhum, even Spark wares deemed 'mostly harmless' were essentially contraband. But it never stopped the tinkerers who occasionally happened through (and then were subsequently chased out of) town from selling to interested parties. And once a month, Ivy found herself spending her meager allowance on Professor Durwick's Delightful After-Dinner Mints, which had the added benefit of sparking when you chewed them in the dark. Also, when you chewed them anywhere, dropped them on the floor, and sometimes spontaneously combusted in a shower of minty freshness.

Grinning, Ivy popped a mint into her mouth. The arm, the Jaeger, the trauma was forgotten, and a few moments later, she was muttering, almost singing to herself.

A few moments after that, she was struggling to her feet, apron tucked under her bad arm, holding out a contraption made primarily of wires, springs, and after-dinner mints. It exuded a faint, blueish glow that flickered like clockwork every thirty seconds.

"We should hurry," she said reverently, staring at the thing like one might a child. "It'll explode soon. But we'll have more light to see by, and it will smell like spearmint when it does."

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Hmmmm...deal. =D

Heroes, I dunno if you got my PM. I assume you're just busy. But Daisy's current plan is to attack from behind the scenes pretty much. Let me know if that's no good. =)

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

It had been a shitty couple of hours. But if Daisy had any soul at all to speak of, the fear in the wight's voice did it good.

"Calm down," she said, feeling quite smug despite herself. There was no reason to be smug, really. In fact, she'd somehow landed back in the very place she'd so hoped to avoid -- and it her plan succeeded, things were going to get much worse, much faster. But after everything that had happened in the last few hours, between the attack and Veti and Aislynn, and the second attack and the futility of their rebuttal...well, she was damn well going to take some good where she could find it.

"You're not dead, just...visiting," she went on, pretending to approach him from behind on coincidence alone. She'd scanned the general location before she'd pulled him through. They were safe for a few moments at least, though once she started working, that would fast change. Especially she she already reeked of the dozen wolves she'd killed not two hours ago. A thick gray mist swirled around them, appearing to rise and sink all at once. The cold and muggy water swirling around their ankles in tiny eddies was calm enough, though he would feel the pull more strongly than her.

Still. They were both about to be very busy. It was unlikely he'd go under without her noticing. She might even be obligated to help, if he stayed on task.

"Hokay, rules," Daisy said, as she reached for the Scythe, now returned to its semi-visible, intangible form. She began scanning the misty plateau, then raised a brow toward the wight in the most walking way she could.

"Rule one: that -- " she pointed to his knife with its deadly silver sheen, "is not going to be any use here unless you happened to soak it in holy water before you jumped. Did you?" She didn't want for an answer. "Didn't think so. Stow it or lose it, dude. Not even silver will kill a dead wolf.

"Rule number two, if you're going to call me anything, call me Daisy. I don't call you 'Dead'...or not to your face.

"Rule number three, I am your only friend here, and that's a stretch. Now, you have an advantage. Chances are, anything we see on this side is going to be deader than you. Which means you've got a leg up. Down side is, of course, your cute little guns and knives won't work for shit. You gotta fight fire with fire...which here just means hand to hand. If you can get them under," she pointed at the water, "the current will do the rest."

"Rule number four -- and I am so fucking serious here -- do NOT let them get the jump on you. I'm going to be busy handling our god-wolf pal. I won't be able to save your ass if you go down." It was mostly a bluff. She didn't need him taking any chances that would cost them later. But she also couldn't afford to be the person who lost two of Veti's friends in her world.

She had been searching their pale surroundings as she spoke, pausing every few seconds to listen or watch for something the wight apparently couldn't see. She seemed to find it as she finished her list, a determined grimace falling over her features.

"Right," she said grimly, taking a deep breath and allowing the Scythe to become solid in her hands. "Any questions?" Again, no time to answer. "Hope not. I just sounded the alarm. We are about to make some very dangerous, very gross enemies."