→ it is a lovely thing that we have.

[lupa]

Who: GG and YOU. GET IN HERE.
What: Fun with a warwulf.
Where: Everywhere! Particularly Mafaton and in and around Flag Hill, but she really is exploring everywhere.
When: All week and more.
Notes: Specify when and where in the header. Feel free to meet her in human or wolf form, though be aware that she doesn't speak when wolfed; if she's on all fours, she'll be either in Mafaton or in a fairly rural, isolated area, particularly the forests and mountains around Flag Hill. The write up here is just a prompt or an infodump, don't feel you have to base anything on it. And feel for to PM me for more stuff. /jazzhands
Warnings: TBA.

The question is this: what to do first?

Food. Shelter. Medical attention. They repeat themselves over and over in her brain, a mantra of survival. Except the first two, at least, come easily; Lea's already landed herself an enormous stretch of land in Flag Hill, and food is...everywhere. There's prey- lots of it, too, none of it mutated by an apocalyptic blast or hardened by living life in a wasteland, not as thin and wiry as it was at home and not the subject of intense competition between her and any other starving predator.

Of course, while she enjoys the freedom to hunt, the things that happen in the forests around Flag Hill aren't exactly sweetness and light. It's easier as a wolf; she went deep into the woods in her human form once, and very quickly went out again.

Anyway, Baedal has restaurants.

Not that renourishing herself is as easy as that. She ends up throwing up a lot of what she eats, unable to stomach nearly as much as she wants to. Wolves are built to feast or famine, but humans aren't. Werewolves aren't. So: medical attention. The tricky part. Healthcare is free for newcomers- she needs some proof that she's a newcomer- she can get proof from the Valhalla Inn if she stays there and she doesn't want to- she can get proof from the Employment Office but they say they can't sign anything if she isn't working or looking for work- she says she's not well enough to work- they require a note from the doctor- that's not free.

Crisse. Out of the fire and into the bureaucracy. So it is, then, that GG spends a lot of her first week or so in Baedal shouting at people behind desks and eventually starts hanging around one of the werecreature support centres (yes, really). The people in there (it is blissfully dark and cool, though it does smell of frightened animals, which puts GG somewhat on edge) sigh and say things like yes, this happens a lot. Xenians tend to be in worse health than humans, she learns from pamphlets; the unemployment rate is higher amongst them. They are in general poorer, less represented, with a higher chance of being murdered, attacked...

GG puts the pamphlet down (on the floor, where some of them are placed for the ease of clients who find themselves most comfortable on four legs- it's strange, being somewhere that's made with you in mind) and leaves. The service put her in contact with a thankfully sane and capable xenian doctor happy to take charity cases; a blessing, though a charity case isn't what GG enjoys being, so she tries not to think about it and promises to pay once she has a job.

In the meantime, she explores. She familiarises herself with the city- nose first. It's not uncommon for her to close her eyes, all the better to build up the picture in her head; the warm smell of horses, cigarette smoke, mud, cement, cold blood, hot blood, human blood, vampires, a something else and a something else- she can't put names to them, but she knows them by scent. She goes out at night, mainly, though coming to Baedal left her rather jet-lagged, for want of a better word; in her world it had been night, in Baedal, day. She bears the sunlight occasionally. After all, the city, while not sleeping, is rather balanced in favour of those who prefer daylight- apart from Mafaton, where she wanders a lot, conscious of the fact that people here likely know what she is; one only needs a halfway decent sense of smell to know that she's a wolf playing human. Once or twice she shifts, leaves her clothes in one of the discreet changing rooms the were service provides with the dingy lockers operable without opposable thumbs, and gives up on the disguise. She's not sure taking to the streets as a wolf would be a good idea elsewhere, but no one in Mafaton bats an eyelid. ...Except when they do.

She's not out of apocalypse mode just by virtue of washing her clothes and taking a bath, of seeing doctors and fussing about bureaucracy. When presented with food she still catches herself thinking how much of this can I save for later, how much of this should I ration out to the people depending on me- she's still wary of buying things (you can buy things here) because what if she has to move suddenly? She can't weigh herself down. But she tries. She still looks like a soldier- straight back, long stride, unflinching glare, unsmiling mouth, practical clothes, a kind of regimented shabbiness that speaks of a woman who has bigger things on her mind. She has never been party of an army- but apocalypse survival is a kind of fight all of its very own.

Perhaps it's wrong to be so unnerved by a city that works- well, that nearly works, she corrects, thinking about that pamphlets again. There's almost a desire to pronounce it too complicated, too difficult, too alien and stay indoors, or stick to the compound and the forest- but that would feel like giving in.

Comments

mafaton;

[rhinemaid]

Not everyone in Mafaton is as understanding about fellow monstrosities when they're werewolves; to some, they're a more tolerated form of other xenian, a step up from the usual 'slightly more challenging food', 'not food and therefore uninteresting' and 'not food but useful' - but then there are those whose close association with the wolf is more along the lines of 'long-standing blood feud', and in their town they tend to be inclined to do more than bat an eyelid.

It's just an accident of timing that GG appears to be following Ilde at just the right moment as she digs in her purse for her keys, headed towards Ivan's building. They're accustomed to her, here; used to seeing her hanging off his elbow, coming and going from his apartment, peering around him in Gutters. The man watching GG so closely knows to wait, for instance, until he's in Ilde's line of sight to speak.

“Get another dog, did you.”

--she pauses.

The implication is not difficult to grasp. She can feel what the other woman is, in a strange way (in a familiar way, almost, but she ignores that for the moment), and xenian social politics are not exactly something to which she's oblivious. (Still, it crosses her mind that she remembers telling Mitchell, you are the horror movie kind of vampire--)

It's an impulse decision. It's probably a terrible idea. It's making herself involved in a dispute that she has absolutely no part of.

It's Ilde saying, “Yes, something like that,” and holding the door to the building open so the wolf can precede her inside. Fuck only knows what she's going to do if she can't take the hint in that form.

mafaton;

[lupa]

GG goes very, very still, pulling back somewhat to stare at the vampire. She can understand human speech like this even if she's not equipped to respond, but the body language is more instantly decipherable to her; the way in which the man stands sends all kinds of alarms off. And suggests all kinds of challenges, too.

At that moment, she'd really rather not crawl off to safety with her tail between her legs- but that's the wolf talking. Thank God that she's fed enough, relaxed enough, to talk herself down. She even stops herself growling, though she can't help but let her lip curl up, baring her teeth for just a second.

She slips through the offered open door (vampire and fae and blood and freshwater, scents intermingling and many-layered) conscious of the fact that she doesn't want to let the man threatening her out of her sight but also knowing that this is pretty bad and she's being offered a way out which hopefully won't end in bloodshed.

...though whoever this woman is, smelling as she does of the Gross Tar and nothing human, she's fae. GG's familiar with the scent. So, really- who knows?

[rhinemaid]

It's not unwise to be careful of faeries bearing gifts and favours. A lot of people will tell you that, and even in the case of this faerie they probably wouldn't be entirely wrong. Straightforward, she is not.

Ilde smiles at him as the door closes-- then leans against it, hand at the collar of her coat, and scrutinizes her unplanned companion. Ivan will probably have an opinion about her using his apartment as a sanctuary for a strange werewolf - and knowing him it'll probably involve the phrase 'SPCA' because he's a prick - but he's not home right now and this is more interesting than what she had planned today, anyway, so that's a problem for later. Anyway, there are worse people she could be getting to know better. Hal, for one.

“You should come upstairs,” she says, unbuttoning her coat, since GG seemed to grasp the first exchanges. “He might linger. We can see from the window when he fucks off.”

It's always a little incongruous when Ilde cusses with her precise and princessy diction, but if she had to offer an opinion, she'd probably think the fact she's talking to a wolf is really the strange part of this.

(At some point it might occur to her to introduce herself.)

[lupa]

GG gives her a distinctly non-lupine grin. Wolves don't smile, or they don't smile when they're happy, at least. It's not exactly pleasant, seeing a human(ish) smile on a wolf's face, but she is trying.

It doesn't totally express 'hi, I can either be a wolf incapable of speech, a half-wolf monster or a naked woman, which is most appropriate for this conversation?' either, which is a shame, because it's a question GG would like answered- although not before she works out what, precisely, she did to the vampire, and how she can avoid doing it in future.

It would be a shame to lose Mafaton, after all; she likes it. But she also understands the concept of territory, especially like this. Which is why she allows Ilde to go first on the stairs, lowering her body slightly, automatically, in a show of deference. She's not sure Ilde lives here (to translate from wolf-brain, which is a confusing jumble of information from all her senses resulting in the general idea of vampire territory which is suddenly something which seems like a bad idea) but she's clearly here a lot, whereas GG is a stranger.

On a less animalistic level, of course, the gesture's also a mix of 'thank you' and 'don't feed me to your vampire friends'.

[rhinemaid]

The slightly bizarre smile is oddly reassuring, which probably says something about her.

Still, something about being actually followed by a wolf is slightly unsettling, deference aside; she can feel her there but she can't hear her and it makes her feel momentarily blind, unsafe. She isn't helpless (and she isn't unarmed), but she's acutely conscious of her own weaknesses, 'lack of impulse control' chief among them.

--but it's fine. It's fine, and she lets them into the apartment - a singular vampire's territory, as opposed to the vampire-controlled canton at large, but Ilde's perfume lingers in it and some of the more personalizing touches are more her hand than his. She doesn't live here, can't live here, but she splits enough of her time that it's almost-but-not-quite semantics. When she crosses to the window, hiding herself behind a glamour of clear glass and empty space, the irate gentleman is (as anticipated) still outside the building. It's not completely unusual; he has reasons to be there, which is why he knows her comings and goings in the first place, that she has on occasion had reason to bring a dog here.

An actual dog, not a werewolf.

“They tend not to like outsiders here, very much. Sometimes less than others, I guess.” It's almost absent, but from habit she looks towards GG as she says it; that'd be very useful if GG could currently talk or if Ilde were at all able to read the responses of a wolf, which she isn't. “Um-- I don't know how it works, for you, but if you could possibly have two less feet, that might make things easier.”

She's an odd little thing, but politely well-meaning. At least right now.

[lupa]

GG whines uncertainly, stretching and then, making her decision, shifts- into nothing wholly human and nothing wholly lupine. The process is physical- all straining muscles and lengthening limbs, not flashes of magic or illusion. She stays crouched close to the ground.

It's not a reassuring look, but she explains; "--I'm afraid there is a, a clothing issue if you want me to look more human."

Warning for Ilde's sake, not hers; she's given up on modesty at this point. Of course, whether or not the lip movements of a talking wolf-woman are close enough to human for her to read is rather an important question.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde looks briefly puzzled - it's hard to make out what the words are, beyond 'something something clothing', when GG's facial structure is still a little different to something she can easily read - but she has enough practise with other people's modesty concerns that she guesses at the content.

“I can take mine off as well, if it'd make you more comfortable--?”

--but she's never actually been very good at relating to the concept enough to realize that if GG were having personal modesty issues, this would probably not help.

After a beat, “I'm mostly deaf. I can't read your lips that way.”

[lupa]

"Oh-"

In that case-- GG stretches and twists again, fur recedes into skin and she shakes herself like a dog getting out of water, acclimatising to the new shape. She stands up, not particularly bothered by her lack of clothes. There comes a point where it's just broadly irrelevant.

"Sorry about that," she says. "It's fine. I'm okay with it. I was mentioning it for your benefit. Some people like it better when strangers wear clothes."

She takes a deep breath- not actually having remembered to introduce herself either. "He's still out there." She doesn't have to look.

[rhinemaid]

“They're useful. And pretty.” --and that's about all, Ilde is a river-creature, and clothing is just not something she really needs. She drops her coat down on one of the oversized sofas, sitting down to undo her shoes, and adds, “He'll be out there a while. Longer if that was supposed to be more than posturing.”

Hard to say; it might just have been a warning, which is nothing out of the ordinary.

Then--

“I'm Ilde. You're from my world, I think.” It's oddly placid, reserved; her world or the other one like it, and either of those options are...complicated, differently. But she's been getting good at discerning one magical signature from the other, and she'd met werecreatures before Baedal. She remembers how it felt, understands it better now with practise.

[caoineadh]

Clio's schedule is very different from GG's, in that it involves a lot less going outside. Partly because she's still recovering physically and partly because she's fucking terrified of outside, right now.

Instead, she stays at the Eshtazin compound and keeps herself busy. Today, whatever day it is (she hasn't bothered trying to keep track, it's all too confusing right now), she has decided to bake a cake. Except for how it's not actually a day, but rather 2am in the morning, thanks to nightmares combined with having slept almost all the way through her first few days in the city. Lea is - asleep, probably, and GG left a while ago so when Clio had woken up, restless and scared, going into the kitchen and starting to make a sponge cake had just sort of happened.

Almost two hours later, she's perched on a stool in the kitchen - which now smells like sugar, fresh baked cake and strawberries - carefully icing the cake.

[lupa]

"That smells delicious," GG says, starting to speak before she actually comes into the room. She got in a little earlier and took a shower, washing off the mud and sweat from her time in the forest; when she comes into the kitchen, her hair is wet, and she has a towel around her shoulders to protect her clothes.

She yawns, resting her forearms on the counter to watch Clio icing. "Two AM and I'm tired. I don't know what's wrong with my body clock." She flashes her teeth jokingly. She's aware that most people aren't nocturnal.

She's very aware that Clio is Not Okay, but mentioning it seems like a bad idea. She'll just watch, carefully, and try to help without pushing her way in.

[caoineadh]

"Let's hope it tastes as good," Not that either of them will be eating much of it. Coming off starvation into carbs and sugar is a very bad idea, although they've had a few days to start eating normally again, so Clio thinks they can both have a little slice of cake.

GG gets a smile, as easy as always, the only thing off about it is the exhaustion around the edges and the fact she's still too skinny, too pale, "And I'm not. Maybe we switched?"

Staying up this late would've been a bad idea back at the estate, since Clio had to get up at the crack of dawn to make sure everyone was ready for the day. But her schedule at the Numen facility was determined by the scientists there, with very little pattern to it. That seems to be lingering a little.

[lupa]

GG is used to being awake at night- for one thing, wolves are nocturnal, and heat gets to her, and for another it's always just been practical. Since the apocalypse, at least. In life before the end of the world her tendency to stay up late and sleep in wasb't particularly helpful, especially not when it came to school and work.

"Could be. So what's the occasion?" she asks. She's wondering if this is a coping mechanism, honestly. (A delicious coping mechanism- though they probably shouldn't indulge too much).

[caoineadh]

There's a hum from Clio as she puts down the little ziplock bag - Lea did not have any piping bags, so she'd cut the corner off a ziplock bag: improvisation is a skill - and picks up the strawberries she's carefully cut up, placing them around the edges of the cake. When she answers, her eyes stay on the task at hand and her voice is steady.

"Every time I wake up, I expect to be back in the facility; it's unsettling," Which is putting it lightly, considering she wakes up panicked with a scream ready, "Mark and I used to bake together sometimes, before everything. I thought it might help me relax."

GG should be familiar with the name. Clio would've mentioned him before, back at the estate, one of the people she was dating before the world broke.

[lupa]

She nearly says something, opening her mouth, when Clio says that she keeps expecting to be back at the facility- then shuts up and lets her carry on.

"...Cute," she muses, sounding affectionately and wryly dubious (they've long since established how different they are in this area- GG's exes were largely what she fondly terms tough bastards who wouldn't have been caught dead baking), before adding, more seriously; "Did it work?"

[caoineadh]

"You should try it sometime," It's hard to tell whether she means baking, or dating someone who bakes. Not that dating would really be something either of them are considering, Clio thinks. Jumping into a relationship is not something either of them do lightly.

The question gets the consideration it deserves, and she doesn't answer until all the strawberries are placed on the cake, "I think so. It's good to be able to do something with my hands."

[lupa]

"Yeah," GG muses thoughtfully. "I know what you mean. Staying still and doing nothing is- I don't know. I think I forgot how to relax properly somewhere." Somewhere in the apocalypse. Lying down, taking it easy- all things GG can't do for fear of being taken by surprise. Or for fear of thinking too much about the situation she's in.

She nods at the cake-- "That looks like a good solution. I'm better at savoury stuff, but if you ever want a hand with beating eggs..."

There's a wry note in her voice, but it fades into a genuine smile, though her eyes are still distinctly searching, watching her closely.

mog hill;

[incaptivity]

Hal is having a good day.

It's taken quite a while to get to that point, after his tumultuous evening at the swap meet. He'd been teetering on the edge then, but he'd pulled back, and not just back but turned in on himself, holed up in his room at the Inn with a chair against the door until he started to feel stable again. He'd started with to-do lists next, simple tasks like obtaining the necessary means for survival, followed by the materials to carry out his usual routines—paper, pencil, needle, thread, make-shift weights, access to a radio and books. What money he'd been given at the Inn had been carefully allotted for these necessities, and what he couldn't afford, he had omitted from his schedule. It wasn't perfect—he'd written Baby Massage & Stimulating Story Time on his rota at twelve without thinking and had to stop and find a fresh pad of paper and start all over again—but the process of adapting his usual routines to a new context kept him busy, and that was, after all, the whole point. A few days on this schedule, going through the same motions again and again, and he'd finally started to settle.

And so today he is setting foot outside the Inn for what is quite possibly the first time since the party. It isn't actually a deviation from his routine—at six thirty on his rota, it says Five Laps Around the Inn, only he'd been doing said laps in the courtyards and halls to avoid contact with anyone unexpected. But today he feels like maybe the extra precaution is unnecessary. Today he feels almost safe.

Catching scent of a— is that a werewolf? A something decidedly inedible, in any case, comes as a pleasant surprise. Finally an easing, however brief, of the ceaseless pounding hunger in the back of his mind. He slows as he approaches, trying to pinpoint exactly who is giving off that scent, and his eyes land on her when he does.

"Hello." Don't mind him. Just your friendly neighborhood vampire out for a jog.

[lupa]

GG is here to ask favours. She doesn't like the Valhalla, but it's a location where a lot happens and easily accessible to boot; leaving a stash of plain, inexpensive clothing here just seems sensible. (It's amazing the brainwaves that hit you when you have to choose between walking through a nice neighbourhood either naked or four-legged). She had at first worried that she'd need them when she was too...lupine, like around the full moon when it's harder for her to think as a human, worried that she'd forget where they are, but there's a solution to that; they're wrapped up around cloves, the smell so strong (to GG particularly) that it's almost overpowering. Sometimes, tracking is easier than remembering.

So that's what she has in the duffel bag over her shoulder, one hand on her hip and the other at her mouth, lower lip between her fingers as she stares up thoughtfully at the Valhalla Inn, mildly surprised to find that she really does dread going in there again after what happened last time.

With the...nearly snapping her friend's neck thing.

She's just trying to work out this particular sneak attack of instinctive, irrational dislike when she smells Hal approaching (she'd been aware of a vampire of some sort in the area, but not given it much thought- this is Baedal, after all) but doesn't look round- until he starts to slow. Oh, dear. That's bad, too, because some vampires here don't like werewolves much, as she recently learnt upon making the mistake of assuming Mafaton was friendly to all xenians.

She reads his body-language first, though, along with the fact that he doesn't smell of blood (vampires in general tend to- on their breath, tiny traces on their skin, red crescents beneath their nails). The former is reassuringly free from posturing or aggression. The latter is unnerving.

Well, why wouldn't it be? Why do people assume that a hungry vampire is safer than a fed one? It flies in the face of logic.

"Hi?" she says, dropping her other hand to her hip and presenting him with a sort of reserved friendliness just in case, her brows brought together, though it's an expression of confusion rather than annoyance. She has to wonder what he wants.

...Look, the concept of just saying hello isn't that practical in the apocalypse.

[incaptivity]

Having once been the kind of vampire who locked werewolves in cages and made them fight for sport, well, Hal is can think of a few reasons why she might not be overflowing with friendliness toward his kind. He's running low on sources of stability at the moment, however, and is therefore motivated to stay in her company as long as is feasible, rather like a cat following a patch of sun.

His cheerfulness, then, fades not a smidgen, apparently unflappable.

"Are you thinking of coming to stay?" At the Inn, that is. He nods to the bag.

[lupa]

"What? Ah. No. It's..." ...awkward, explaining this. "For emergencies."

She may as well be blunt- there's no way he could have missed her scent if vampires really are the perfect predators they like to paint themselves as. (She's just slightly defensive on that point, used to being the hunter in the vicinity- it's probably a territorial thing).

She changes the subject quickly, eyebrows quirking up as she takes him in from a more human perspective, looking at his clothes and face rather than watching him for signs that he's about to spring for her jugular. "What are you, the welcome wagon?" she inquires, one corner of her mouth turned very slightly upwards.

...the concept of 'friendly strangers' still being inherently baffling.

[incaptivity]

Ah, too bad. His expression is understanding, though; surreal as it is to just sort of being talking about it on the doorstep, he can imagine how awkward the post-transformation walk home would be for his own world's variety of werewolf, and it is a sensible place to keep a change of clothes.

"Just an interested resident," he responds to her question with a nod, almost perky. There's an awkward beat. "Sorry– if this is odd; I don't mean to be forward." Hal, no one has used forward like than in half century. "It's only that you're– you know, and the inn has been very human lately."

[lupa]

That actually makes her relax slightly. She can understand that. It's difficult to be around humans, sometimes, with what they did to Clio and everything else. The fact that she's eaten some is difficult, too; whenever she looks one in the face she wants to say look, I was starving, and they were all bastards, and you should still probably take a step away from me...

It's strange to think that six years ago she thought she was human, and now they're practically alien.

"Oh, yeah, I can smell," she says, the tension in her shoulders lessening slightly. "It's fine, I know what it's like. There are other parts of the city that are less human, you know- Mafaton's full of vampires."

[incaptivity]

"Mafaton also is full of readily-available human blood." Matter-of-factly, his chipper disposition easing into something a little more casual. Mafaton might be ideal for other vampires, but not for him. "I'm– on the wagon, as it were."

He'd used the term 'vegetarian' with Ivan, but, well, vegetarians don't spend every minute of every day with meat meat meat scrolling through the backs of their minds. Which is a little awkward to admit to someone he's just met. That seems to be the theme for this conversation.

[lupa]

"Oh," GG says, feeling like she should have caught that. "Well. Fair enough. Uh, wow. I didn't know that was-"

Oh Jesus, Gemma, if you say 'possible' here you should be banned from normal society. Insofar as this is normal.

"-common."

And now she's going through the earlier conversation again and realising exactly what he means when he says the Inn is very human, because very human means very edible, doesn't it? (This probably shouldn't inspire sympathy). "I'm GG," she says, a little abruptly, remembering her manners and making the deliberate attempt to be more friendly; he rather looks like he could need it.