(no subject)

[hecu_marine]

Shephard made himself a little deal with Brimstone the other day: a whole bunch of teeth from various kills and carcasses in exchange for a right shiny wish. Not human teeth, you understand, and not the kind of wish that goes off the instant you accidentally say 'I wish you'd shut up and let me think', but still. Teeth for a wish.

Now, for some people this is the kind of thing that is instinctively avoided, in much the same way that a mouse instinctively avoids a swooping overhead shadow. Shephard's not one of those people. He is, however, the kind of man who knows the joke about the guy with the tiny piano player. He is also the kind of man who asks the goat-headed person selling him wishes in exchange for teeth how he goes about safely using said wishes, and verifying that he won't set his wish off by mistake if he doesn't actually follow the wish procedure. His life's got enough weird mythic shit in it that it's best to ask those questions.

Which is a long and roundabout way of saying that he's currently holed up at one of the Bar tables with a beer and a bunch of his houndeyes playing nearby as he scribbles practice wish-type statements on a notepad, frowns some, crosses out some, and scribbles some more. Feel free to interrupt him before he rips up the sheets of paper and makes confetti out of them yet again.

Comments

[ostro_goth]

"Greetings, Adrian Shephard!"

That is Teja, with a cat upon his shoulder that is eyeing the houndeyes with big yellow eyes round as saucers.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard glances up from his work and pushes the papers aside. "Hey there, Teja," he says. "Mrs. Wilson, Alfred, Bull, Fran, sit."

The houndeyes promptly do.

"How's it goin'?"

[ostro_goth]

"It is going well," Teja says. "Your commission of swords is ready now -- I must apologise for the time it took, but my forge-helper was not always at hand, and I have come to rely on him for effective work upon steel of that kind. I feel it turns out better when the fire is ever at the ready for the metal."

[hecu_marine]

"Fair 'nough," says Shephard. "Work's work, and you can't rush good work. I been stackin' up hides and such for you in the meantime. Ain't got any crimson ones, unfortunately, that's mating color and it ain't nowhere near that time of year for the bulls just now. Lot of good spotted skins, though."

[ostro_goth]

"That will make me a great number of pouches and sheath-coverings," Teja says. "If you wish for more swords in due time, you might save some of the red ones from that season."

[hecu_marine]

"Will do," Shephard promises. "Day's gonna come when I'm gonna need those, and I got no real issues with takin' more of those spitting bastards out of the population before they c'n git another generation goin'. Gimme a second and I'll go git the skins." He pauses, then adds, "Your friend there don't look too comfortable. Want me to git the pups out of here for his sake?"

[ostro_goth]

"That is Count," Teja says, side-eyeing the cat. "He has grown up here; he must deal with anything that comes up. Leave your pups where they are; Count can get use to them. We shall wait."

[hecu_marine]

"All righty. You guys, stay," Shephard says. "I'll be right back."

The houndeyes don't blink in unison when he heads up the stairs to where he's stored his hides, but they come pretty close.

[ostro_goth]

The little grey cat on Teja's shoulder staaaares a the four strange creatures, but does not jump down yet; Teja watches them with fascination. They are ugly!

But then, he ponders, what is it that made humans things the small, furry predators they like to share their homes with are actually sweet, despite big fangs and long sharp claws, and stinking meat-eater breath? Why should these be less endearing?

[hecu_marine]

One of the smaller ones takes the opportunity to rise up on its hind leg and get a better look at Teja and the cat. It only has the one hind leg, but two forelimbs; all of them have cloven hoofs, and there's what looks like a mouth between the two forelimbs. It does not, however, make a noise, either before or after dropping back down to all threes.

Which is just as well, because Shephard's come back with a bundle in hand. "Ain't been able to brain-tan these," he notes. "Earth critters've mostly got enough brains to preserve their own hides, but these fuckers ain't put together the same way. Had to use some other methods to pull it off. Reckon you'll be all right with the results anyways, I been makin' my own leather from my kills since I was old enough for rabbit."

[ostro_goth]

"Let me have a look at these," Teja says, sitting down.

Count the cat hops off his shoulder now and darts towards the foremost houndeye to take a quick sniff.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard nods and unfolds the skins. There's a good number of them, and each of them is taken from a beast perhaps the size of a small pony- a two-legged beast with yellow-green hide, mottled with black-rimmed red spots. One end tapers to a long, thick triangle- the tail, most likely, since there are eye-holes in the end with all the splotchy red tentacles. They were never what you would call attractive creatures, but the hides have been rendered into fairly strong, supple leather of about the same consistency as stingray skin.

The largest of the houndeyes merely blinks, which takes the form of a ring of pinkish membrane contracting over its wet-blackberry compound eye from all sides at once. It does tilt its front end a bit to peer more closely at the cat, though.

[ostro_goth]

Teja takes a thorough look at the skins. He very much appreciates another craftsman's work, and these are excellently tanned, supple and spectacular.

"They are excellent," Teja says. "I can combine the tentacle parts to make straps, even."

Waste not.

Count the cat gets bolder -- during the Allpocalypse, he fought the smaller monsters! -- and approaches the houndeye, touching is foot with one paw, then sliding right by it, the way cats will. It's not exactly polite feline behaviour, but how is the poor houndeye to know?

[electro_kinetic]

"Throwin' a party, Marine?"

The question, and the hat that had been on Noriko's head get tossed down with equal ease, as the aforementioned girl leans over Adrian's shoulder, hands clasped behind her back. She's a bit more cleaned up than people usually see her in the bar, but such is what comes from doing job interviews and getting pulled in unexpectedly. She's good at navigating the houndeye pups in those skyscraper heels, hasn't stepped on one yet. "'Cause I see a lot of confetti on that table."

[hecu_marine]

"Not yet," says Shephard, putting down his pen and looking up. "Tryin' to work out how to phrase somethin' before I out and say it. You got any kind of track record with makin' wishes?"

After a moment he remembers to add, "Hey there."

[electro_kinetic]

"Not a good one," she says honestly. "A couple of years back some of us made this deal with someone called the Kingmaker. Didn't go well for anyone in it."

Then again, part of the deal was stealing a bioweapon, which in Nori's opinion they should have known better than to attempt. And then everything went to hell when they backed out of the deal. "Hey, yourself. What's the goal?"

[hecu_marine]

Shephard grunts. "Ms. Vance gave me command of a fuckin' nuclear powered icebreaker vessel," he says. "Borealis ain't a warship, but she's all the navy we got just now. I didn't never reckon I was gonna end up in command of fuckin' anything, let alone a goddamn nuclear ship with its own fuckin' AI and a whole fuckin' portal generator, so I got about as much training for the job as I figure you would for takin' out a man's appendix."

He gestures at his piles of papers.

"Ran into a fella here who said he'd trade me- I bring him teeth, he'd give me wishes. He said critter teeth'd be just fine, long as they were in good condition'n shit. I racked up a fair few kills these past couple months, so I brought him a shitload of teeth'n now I'm tryin' to figure out just how I want to say 'gimme what I need to know if I'm gonna be the second fuckin' youngest naval captain in American fuckin' history' without fuckin' myself or nobody else over."

[electro_kinetic]

Nori blinks for a while at that. "Yeah, marine, you're gonna need a lot of help for that," she says.

"I'd suggest not being too broad. The more specific you get, the less chance of fucking anyone else over you have," she continues, albeit cautiously. It feels to her like that whole wish setup is making a disturbingly close parallel to the old Roadrunner cartoons, a la the Acme dynamite kit. "Which fella did you talk to about this teeth-for-wishes setup?"

[hecu_marine]

Shephard nods. "I figure if I wish for it in books it's less likely to fuck things up too bad," he says. "Askin' for somethin' to show up straight in your head's just askin' for trouble, but sayin' I want the kinds of books they give the little shits at Annapolis who're gonna go into command if they don't git washed out to sea first, that ain't such a big thing."

"Fella sellin' the wishes ain't human. Name's Brimstone. Got some kind of goat or sheep head action goin' on, but he don't strike me as bein' what you'd call evil or nothin'. Looks more like them statues you see in old temples in Egypt'n shit."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, and what about all that stuff you don't learn from books?" she asks, setting her chin on one folded hand.

"I wouldn't be that sure," she says. "But then the only people I know with different heads have different bodied to go with them. You're sure he's not out to screw you over?"

[hecu_marine]

"I still got to work for that," Shephard says. "I got someone here workin' on that with me. I reckon that kind of knowledge ain't safe to wish for. You got to work for that shit."

He shrugs. "Pretty sure. Seemed like an all right kind of fella when I met him. Didn't promise me nothin' fancy, neither, just explained the kind of shit he had to offer. He ain't got the kind of wish where you c'n ask for anything in the world'n git it, like it was some kinda story 'bout a genie or shit. It's all got limits'n prices'n such, and if I wish for somethin' that's more than the wish he gave me for those teeth c'n provide, ain't nothin' at all gonna happen."

[electro_kinetic]

"Well," she says. "It seems safe enough if it's not like a genie deal. But it's still gonna be pretty hard to get your bearings being navy again." Or, you know, instead of Marine.

[hecu_marine]

"Yeah, well, won't be the first time I've had shit kicked out from under me'n dropped on top of me," Shephard says. "Least I'll be able to train my folks up on board. Borealis ain't got weapons, so all's she c'n do in a fight is run like fuck or git close enough for the Marines I already got to shoot back or board the other asshole's ship. Mostly what we use her for these days is findin' seed repositories'n other survivor communities anyways, and she's got that portal system of hers, so it ain't like we're at sea all that long any given trip."

[electro_kinetic]

"You sound like you've thought this through already."

[hecu_marine]

"Been usin' Borealis a while now," says Shephard. "I was thinkin' 'bout what we'd need to do with her before I got command. And I been thinkin' 'bout how to train up my people long before the boat was in the picture. Someone's got to rebuild our defenses proper."