→ 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

[rhinemaid]

“Just a second.” She's in the process of dialling a number on her CiD - voice function, something she habitually only uses when leaving messages. It doesn't matter, if they aren't actually having a conversation--

“Hello; I averted a catastrophe in front of your building, so don't be surprised if your apartment smells like werewolf when you get home.” Watching GG by the sofa, not quite on it, there's a voice in her head that sounds alarmingly like her boyfriend making a crack about dogs on the furniture, which prompts her to add-- “If your objections contain the phrase 'SPCA', not only do I not care, I'm definitely not fucking you. Text me.”

--best girlfriend ever.

When she picks up the thread of previous conversation again, she does it seamlessly as if that interruption never happened, or at least as if it never really interrupted anything, switching back and forth between trains of thought like they're all running concurrently. “You know scents. It's like that. But different.”

Helpful.

[lupa]

GG narrows her eyes at the first part of that message- and then actually snickers at 'SPCA' and Ilde's associated threat. It's very quiet, barely a breath, but it's definitely there.

She actually does know what Ilde means, too; it's probably how she'd describe her sense of smell and ability to differentiate people by it, amongst other things. You know, you just know, it's like seeing things but different- like colours, but different.

"I get it," she says. "So, uh-" She drums her fingers awkwardly on her arm, casts a look around, evidently not exactly relaxed and not exactly sure what to say. "Who's your vampire?"

Yep; chances are, Ivan will forever be Ilde's vampire in GG's head from now on.

[rhinemaid]

“Ivan. He's-- not.” From their world. She's inclined to think, from GG's initial reaction, that it is theirs, even if it isn't rightly hers any more; she ignores the sickly sweet-rotting feeling of relief, because it feels cruel and she isn't sure to whom. Everyone, probably.

(There is a conversation that she needs to have with Sonja and she-- doesn't want to, because it doesn't fit the narrative that she tells herself of them in her head, there's not supposed to be Sonja's path and Ilde's path, they are not supposed to be separate, it is-- not now.)

“There's a few of us. And from the other one.”

[lupa]

Not her vampire? That's probably not what she means. She decides not to worry too much about it; she's already come to the conclusion that conversations with Ilde are naturally hard to follow.

"The other- oh." Not something she wants to think about. She's having trouble keeping every new bit of information straight in her head, if she's honest. Fortunately, she's good at dealing with these things...in some capacity. Though right now, honestly, she wants some kind of emergency. When she's left to rest and sort things out in her head, she just goes around in circles. She needs something to do.

"Yeah. I haven't met anyone from- the other yet. But there are people I know here." Though she'll stay. clammed up with regard to their actual identities- for no reason but habitual suspicion, a desire to control. 

"I'm new." She glances over her shoulder, in the direction of the window. "I guess I have things to figure out in terms of...etiquette."

[rhinemaid]

“Mafaton was the epicenter of an attack on the city recently,” she says, dropping her CiD back in her bag and resting against the back of the sofa, lazily - her voice is pitched slightly too loud, but that's probably just a side-effect of the fact she can't really hear it. “Cruorvores were targeted before that. I don't think it's a good time to take a leisurely stroll through vampire territory as an outsider.”

Having business there is one thing, and it's not as though there's no one outside Mafaton who ever has a reason to come and go, and it's certainly not as though only vampires live there (the goretax speaks to that), but soon after a mess the city is still rebuilding from, and with the way some vampires just don't like werewolves-- Ilde's tone isn't critical, just matter of fact. It's a complicated time to be anyone.

“They're touchy sometimes,” she adds, an affectionately dismissive summary; she's never taken vampires, en masse, quite so seriously as they'd probably prefer her to. (Or as Ivan would prefer her to, given her questionable self-preservation instinct.) “Not everybody. Some.”

[lupa]

"Yeah? I'll be more careful. I thought it would be...safer, actually, than running around on four legs elsewhere. The ones I knew were more- they had other things on their mind." And she's used to being in some kind of position of authority, too. It's written not in her face, but in her posture.

"Thank you. I don't think I said. For the information, as well as, uh-" She flashes her teeth. "Keeping anyone from ending up as dinner."

She doesn't specify who- although she knows very well that regardless of who would actually have won in a fight, hurting a vampire on vampire territory wouldn't have gone well for her.

[rhinemaid]

“I think most of the time, it might be,” she says, thoughtfully; Mafaton tends to be quiet during the day, and it tends to be safe for the people inside it as a general rule. “Things just changed, recently.” The atmosphere is different in the wake of the siege, and attitudes that were more understanding beforehand aren't quite so generous any more. Maybe it'll relax, or maybe it'll get worse-- she's not going to put money either way, just at the moment.

“Anyway, I hate having to walk through blood when I've bought new shoes.”

...yes, that's why she did it, surely.

[lupa]

GG has to laugh again, the same half-voiced huff, not looking at Ilde. "Yeah, that's fair," she murmurs. "But from the sound of it you picked the wrong area for avoiding blood."

She drums her fingers on the sofa and voices a stray thought which has evidently been preying on her; "You know, it's funny- being a wolf a lot of the time means clothes aren't that important? But I'm apparently still human enough to feel weird about the idea of hanging out naked on a stranger's couch." Hence why she's still standing. There's a slightly wry, self-deprecating grin on her face, and she's not entirely comfortable making wisecracks, Ilde being, effectively, an unknown. But she likes her, in an odd kind of way.

...And if it were Ilde's sofa, she'd probably be totally fine with it, she realises. Which just doesn't make sense.

[rhinemaid]

It's probably best that GG voices that thought, neatly preempting the incredibly unnecessary explanation that she just puts her clothes and shoes away first - wrecking something she likes is the most effective way to cockblock yourself, if you are Ivan, although she probably doesn't love her wardrobe more than her boyfriend (probably) - because there are things you don't need to know about someone you've just met, even if she is prone to slightly awkward frankness now and then.

(Nobody wonders what she's hiding if she doesn't seem to hide much of anything, is the theory. It has mixed results.)

Instead.

“We could always sit on the floor,” she offers, with a hint of humour that's underscored by the blithely earnest way that she delivers it - there are moments Ilde is almost a parody of herself, too much to be quite real temperamentally as well as-- everything else.

[lupa]

GG gives her an inscrutable look like she's trying to work out what to make of her, but something about Ilde's manner- something about how off she is- is weirdly reassuring to the animal in her head. Or the animal she is. Semantics. It's far removed from fussy human customs and the impulse to obey them which springs up in all sorts of strange and inscrutable ways.

She grins.

"We could, but if you're fine with it, then these, uh-" She pats the sofa with, well. Amusement. But not without admiration. "...mm. Kind of classy yoga retreat decor. I like it a lot."

She means this as a compliment.

So, she gives in. And sits down. And adds; "Is your boyfriend likely to try something about dogs on the furniture or have you got him scared?"

[rhinemaid]

“He thinks he's much funnier than he is,” Ilde says, with a vague gesture that loosely encapsulates 'because he's a prick'. It has occurred to her that he might actually be genuinely annoyed by it, but in that event...well, it'll be her problem, she's decided. Anyway, he could see the funny side. If nothing else, it's got to give him something to make really awful cracks about for weeks. That doesn't seem like a completely terrible trade-off. “Sonja has him scared, mostly.”

(There's something about the way she says her name.)

[lupa]

"Sonja," she repeats in a thoughtful murmur.

She's heard of her. Well she's heard of a Sonja who is very likely to have people scared. Lea has...warned her, somewhat- and having seen what Lea can do and therefore knowing what faqra in general are capable of, GG needs no more persuasion to be careful.

"Sonja Garin?"

But you can be curious and careful simultaneously, and GG likes knowing what's going on around her. Well, doesn't everyone? But loyalties and hierarchies are of particular interest to her. Her own loyalty is steadfast, unbreakable; she just wants to know where everyone else stands, and therefore what to think of them. She wonders if it's a pack mentality, wonders how much is wolf and how much isn't.

[rhinemaid]

It doesn't occur to Ilde to wonder or worry about why GG knows the Sonja she means - it just neatly confirms to her that GG is from her version of reality. Sonja is not exactly an unknown, any more, for some very interesting reasons.

“Sonja,” she confirms, peaceably. If Sonja Garin is an urban legend then Ilde is her storyteller, and there's something like a smile when she talks about her - not exactly a smile, but a warmth, a secret thing, like beckoning someone with a crooked finger and no, there is a smile, and (this is where the monsters are). Ilde loves Sonja the way faeries do, pretty and unsettling, loyalty-as-obsession, and that's what she builds her home and her steadiness around, here. That's where she stands.

“We've been here for about a year.”

[lupa]

There is something about the apocalypse and friendships.

--not that GG's loyalty to Lea is quite so co-dependent, but it is distinctly fire-forged, a relationship informed by the ending of the world; in such conditions, absolute loyalty and substitute family is just what's necessary. GG rebuilt herself after the image, a changed person, a different creature entirely, and Lea was always there, a part of the process of becoming the person she is now.

Which is to say that to an extent that doesn't strike her as too strange, and neither does Ilde's not-quite-human smile because for GG, not-quite-human isn't the same as not-quite-right. It would be stranger to smell fae and see Ilde mimicking humanity perfectly, like a discordant note.

"How?" she says, before she really thinks about it. "I mean- ugh, no, ignore me, that's me not being acclimatised yet." They've both gotten used to more. Haven't they? Well, they both must have done, because they've both survived the apocalypse. "You like it."

Not a question. Well, she does too, in a way that makes her feel guilty, because she had things to do at home.

[rhinemaid]

A shrug. “I died in New York.” --so it doesn't matter whether or not she likes it here (she does, she really does, even for all of its - many - flaws), because she hasn't got anywhere else to be any more. This is not how Sonja sees it, yet, and they need to talk about that, but...Ilde doesn't want to, not yet, and so it goes. So she talks around certain things, because it's easier to do that than to get into something she's not yet ready to express even in the privacy (relative, here) of her own mind.