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In and then Out of Milliways: Christine mentioned things dropped in a vent, and Spoon went to help. 'Cause that's what you do for friends. And that's why he's stumbling back into the bar with a really abashed looking Predator (insomuch as Predators can manage the expression) behind him making sure the door closes all the way. She's got most of a remarkably dead body with her.

Spoon is butt-ass naked and carting the head with him. He's also missing rather a lot of bones. Like the front third or so of his ribs, his entire lower jaw, and several fingers. All the soft flesh has grown back, at least?

...Face it, he looks like shite and Christine looks like a Predator, and the two of them are carrying a large, dead Xenomorph.

Anyone who can get past that might notice in a non-horrified and panicked and/or offended part of their brain that Spoon's got a reverse-acid-burn of scar-free flesh

((With, uh. Bonus fixed headlinkage.))

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Pride with how he dealt with it comes later. He'll talk about it when he can talk. Right now?

Right now he's closing his whole hand over Ace's hand, and forcing her fingers to his pulse, to feel that his heart is beating. When he's sure she's felt that he puts her hand over his heart, then his damaged hand over hers.

If she's meeting his eyes, he's meeting hers. It means 'I survived, and I came back to you'.

There are some days... not many, to be honest, but some, that she really wishes she were telepathic. But she isn't, so she can't demand answers there's no physical way for him to give. There's very little point in yelling at him (though she does squeak in distress when there's NO RIBS UNDER HER HAND WTF) because he can't exactly respond in kind, and Ace likes fair fights, unless it's Daleks.

So she goes with what she has left.

She slaps him, hard, across his cheek with her free hand, then moves off the couch onto the floor to sit next to her mate. He's an IDIOT, and she's furious at him, but he's her idiot.

Wells' mouth twitches a little, but he nods. "Y'know," he says, "I've seen what happens when humans act on faulty intelligence about the numbers of the enemy. It generally goes bloody poorly. Good to see someone takin' responsibility for it."

Contrary to popular opinion, Wells is perfectly capable of exhibiting civilised manners. It helps when the target is a completely unknown species that he's reasonably sure could remove one or more of his limbs without batting an eye.

"That thing was damned impressive, I'll give it that. What'd it do, that it took out that much of his, ah-" He indicates the general area of his own body that corresponds to the places where Spoon's got bits missing.

Thankfully, "faulty intelligence" translates into the proper context. The violence gets a sideways roll of her head as she expects some sort of response, but she decides she doesn't know what the crazy aliens are doing and lets Spoon handle it.

"You saw the way it was gutted further than a prey animal would be. That was so that it could be emptied of blood. The thwei is," there's a short roll of clicks for this one and a hand motion, and the translator has to speed up a bit, "molecular acid that eats through a claw's thickness of metal in an eyeblink.

"We have evolved with resistance to it. We meet them in close combat. I did not expect another species to do so. He bit its throat open."

Spoon accepts the slap, not rolling with it so that the full force of it hits him. That means 'You have every right to be mad at me'. He keeps his grip on the hand that she let him have, and sighs softly because he'd really, really, really like to be able to apologize better.

No, it means he's still playing daft. Sulkily she leans against him, giving him a look when the big... alien person mentions biting off the head of a critter with acidic blood.

So very daft.

But if it was acid...

She makes a face in horror. The skin had grown back. It's lucky she's already hit him, she'd have gone for an actual punch at this point.

"Christ Almighty," Wells says, looking to Spoon for a moment. "Didn't think he'd be willing to do that outside of full moon."

Of course, there was the sword-battle in Fionavar, but still... well, who can tell how these things go?

"All right. He'll be recovered in a day or two," Wells decides. "You two did damned well. Better than I could do under the circumstances, I reckon. Thank you for bringin' him back on his own two feet."

Headtilts are, apparently, universal. What are you talking about, Wells?

"He did it himself. All I did was work to remove the acid at the end of it. I could not get to the drone before it reached him, and he accepted the challenge.

"I do owe a recognition. That fight is a threshold few enough of us cross." Her head swings sharply to the side, showing the hooked scar on the corner of the jaw of her mask. "This is my Clan mark. I earned it four years ago in the kainde amedha chiva. A kainde amedha faced and killed is a kainde amedha faced and killed. Species does not matter. The Blooding is the Blooding."

Spoon gives Ace a look that is supposed to mean 'I had no idea it was acidic until I had my teeth in it!' and dips his head apologetically. Really. That was the first thing he did that did anything to it! Ow.

...Hold it, wait, what? He earned status somehow? What?

Make that two nominally human predator people staring at Christine in surprise. One with canine confusion, one with feline.

It's almost like a matched set. A matched set of crazy fuzzy whackos.

"Say what now?"

"Ah, right," says Wells. Then he leans forward to see the scar, brow furrowing a little. "Bit like the tattoo I got to commemorate my first real campaign in the desert, I think," he says, "only with more importance?"

He rolls up his sleeve to show the 'desert rat' tattoo on his upper arm just above his vaccination scar. "Only that was for fighting my own species, 'cos there's only been us on Earth so far as I know. That-" he gestures towards Spoon, indicating the places where there used to be scars. "-means a whole fucking lot more. Well done."

Not like the Iraqis could've melted him without resorting to Sarin or VX, after all.

This clicking is not translated, because it's the yautja for "uhhh?" She's never had to tell anyone this before.

"It is. . . Unblooded serve. Pack alphas," she actually just said "hunt leaders," but the translator's in the groove now, "take groups out. Unblooded wait behind and move the injured hunters from the way and carry the meat home."

Carrying Spoon's kill was different. He had his hands full with the head, and would have had to drag it, which is no way to treat a first kainde amedha kill.

"Unblooded do not hold land, compete for mates, carry the weapons of the clan, or hunt alone. Their names are not called at gatherings. They die and do not become fallen gods. They are not truly hunters. They are unknowns until they meet the Blooding, because we do not know whether they are true hunters or not.

"Kainde amedha are unchanging, our ancestral enemy; the thing we cannot see, the thing that is sometimes our predator when we go to make it our prey. To face one now is the same fight as meeting one a thousand years ago. They are our threshold. When the kainde amedha have come for you, you are Blooded, or you are not."

Okay, okay, okay. So. Spoon...just became a beta? By Christine's people as well as his own? That's cool, right?

Aside from, you know. The kitten who looks like she's going to kill all of them except possibly Sarge.

"Aaaah, all right," says Wells. "That... makes more sense. Congratulations, Spoon, you've had your rite of passage."

Trial of manhood, adulthood rites, bar mitzvah, whatever.

"I am Blooded, a hunter of my Clan. I witnessed. There was no hunt leader, only the hunt. It is up to me to recognise what he has done." A very long clicking growl that isn't translated. ". . . I do not know how. My mark was done with a piece from the back of my kill. It did not go through my skin because our hides resist their blood. His does not hold the scar at all."

Which is good, because he'd be kind of sad right now. But it is kinda a sticky wicket when it comes to marking him.

Spoon...is almost glad he's not the one who gets to explain silver. But he...well, he earned it, didn't he? Ace may be angry, but...he earned it. There's a faint whine at Sarge, because it's all he can really do.

"Spoon and me'll heal back from anything without a scar unless the weapon's made from silver," Wells says. "Those scars he's got now were all done with silver knives. It disrupts the way we heal enough to leave a mark, see."

He's not about to mention the part where it fucking hurts like hell, because Spoon did have a fair chunk of upper body melted.

She went through years of conditioning and an excruciatingly painful ritual-test beforehand so that her hunt leader could be sure she'd hold still while she had the mark melted into her face. There's not a lot of point in mentioning it.

Is she getting death glares from the female? Alien faces are hard to read. As long as there's no challenge, she has little interest.

"That would be my solution, then." There's a slow click. "We have legends of a Blooded human, once or twice. It is hard to know how to let them find their hunts, so I do not believe they have come with us before. But we can speak; I can know what prey is chosen. He has the right to hunt any of them, although he would have to find a pack alpha to hunt the kainde amedha again. He is of status to go, but I am not of status to take another looking for those."

Spoon's body-posture says SO NOT DOING THAT AGAIN WITHOUT ACE THERE KTHX!

Or maybe just Going to hold on tight, alright? Right. But not tight enough to collapse my lung again, that hurts.

Seriously not trying to argue the Blooding mark, though. He earned it.

Wells nods. "Fair enough," he says. "Although I think any further hunts're going to have to wait until everything's healed up no matter what the prey is."

Practicality, and fear of the Ace, and possibly even fear of the Wrath of Annie. But mostly practicality, that.

"Always. And I have to care for my trophies, be sure the Blooded hunter has the casings of his kill converted properly to armor, and be sure I have not," her gaze lowers enough to meet his eyes, then lifts, "been careless of the Hunt in other ways."

Spoon makes a wiggle, stopping at the look from Ace. Seriously, she's going to explode soon. It was supposed to mean I didn't smell anything else in there but, uh. Cuts off at didn't.

He'll just sit here and be all silent and still now, kthx.

Wells catches the canine and the shift in expression; he looks back to Christine. "A'right," he says. "I'll be here a while, I think. Is there anything else that's needed for the moment?"

Her head swings in a single sharp negation. The beads of her braids clatter against the sides of her mask. "Those were the things that had to be stated. The rest can wait."

Spoon dips his head at Christine, attempting to give both thank you and I'll talk to you later.

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