(no subject)

[hecu_marine]

At home it is busy as hell. Harvest season is under way in earnest, and there are any number of other tasks that need doing. Shephard's been seeing to his share of the work as well as to the training of his people, the better to make absolutely certain everyone else is safe enough to work and live in peace, but a man can only pursue his duty for so long at a stretch before he needs to go somewhere and let off some steam.

So if you're wondering why there's a fella who looks not unlike John Cusack in a high-and-tight out back lining up hay bales, it's because some asshole blew up most of the firing range a few weeks back and Shephard could really use some archery practice without everyone he knows at home making comments about his form.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't bother him yourself, mind. After the first couple of arrows fly he'll be in a much better mood for talking to people.

Comments

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Lesgle will not be making comments about his form! Lesgle, on one of his usual saunters, approaching the firing area at a safe and hellhound-free distance, makes a cheerfully admiring audience. Bravo!

When Shephard looks more interruptible, Lesgle lifts his hat and waves it in greeting. "Hallo there!"

[hecu_marine]

Shephard looks up and waves. "Hey there," he says, lowering his bow. "How's it goin'? Didn't see you there."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Oh, I haven't been here long! I didn't want to start chattering away at you while you were in the middle of shooting. How have you been?"

[hecu_marine]

"Been all right," says Shephard. "It's busy as shit back home. Left the dogs there'n came on over here so's I could git some practice in, maybe grab a couple beers or somethin' after. Met a friend of yours the last time I was here, by the way. Real intense lookin' kinda fella. Enjolras, think he said?"

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

Bossuet's face lights up and he laughs. "Yes. Yes, that would be Enjolras! How did you get on?"

[hecu_marine]

"Did all right," says Shephard, "even if he didn't exactly catch me at my best. I'm afraid he came upon me when I was workin' out the less pleasant pieces of my vocabulary over some shit that happened out here 'bout a month ago. He didn't seem to mind too much, though."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"Oh no--Enjolras may be severe in his own entertainments, but he's a vastly tolerant man. He would have to be, spending time with reprobates like me." Bossuet wonders briefly if Shephard's talked much with Grantaire: a conversation likely to give a distorted impression of Enjolras. "Was it the destruction of your range here? Or something else?" He'd noticed that, before.

[hecu_marine]

"The range," Shephard says. "It ain't my range, tell you the truth, I just use it. The place is free for anybody here to use. Looked like seein' the destruction didn't sit too well with your friend, though."

[tire_moi_mes_bottes]

"It was quite astonishing." Hmm. It's been a while; Laigle casts his mind back to the scene. "Yes," he says more soberly, "it was quite an astonishing display of destructive force. When you think of something like that in a farmer's field at home..."

But Shephard will know more about that than he does, really. Bossuet looks wry.

[will_scarlett]

Will's also tired of the harvest and glad to find Milliways instead of one of the outbuildings.

He strides out towards the back in his loose shirt that has chaff caught in it and his hair and everywhere. When he hears the thump of a bow and arrow, he goes towards the sound and smiles when he sees Adrian.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard's got good arrows with metal heads and commercially produced vanes and carefully machined nocks and all that. Those are not the ones he is using now; he's working with stone heads and feathers taken from Milliways birds. No sense wasting scarce resources, after all.

When the last one in this flight hits the target, he glances up towards the footfalls he heard earlier, and waves.

[will_scarlett]

He nods at her, "Ye're shootin' well today."

[hecu_marine]

"Thank you kindly," says Shephard. "Been a while since I got to do some plain ol' target shooting 'stead of chasing down a bullsquid. How've you been?"

[will_scarlett]

"Busy, tis 'arvest season an there always seems to be somethin' to do."

[hecu_marine]

"Don't I know it," says Shephard. "We're in it ourselves back home, least in my neck of the woods. Plus we got the fall'n winter crops to start putting in when we can. Me, I'm gonna be workin' on the meat more than planting."

[will_scarlett]

"Oh aye, we're doin' some 'untin' too, but mainly the crops for now. I miss 'untin'."

[hecu_marine]

"You ever get a chance to take a couple good shots at the deer here?"

[gredya]

Gredya spots him from a good ways off and watches until she has a sense of his working rhythm; she only moves closer when he's occupied with something other than actively shooting arrows. She'll get as close as she can before speaking. Just how alert is he?

[hecu_marine]

Before his transfer to HECU, Shephard was trained by the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School in Quantico, and before that, he spent a great deal of his free time between age six and age eighteen stalking the Preston County Woods. Either of those life experiences would drill in a certain amount of alertness, but then you have survival in a world heavily dominated by the creatures of Xen. You learn to notice what's around you, more particularly what's watching you, under circumstances like that.

It doesn't feel like what's watching him constitutes a threat, though, so he's going to wait until he's loosed a whole flight of ten arrows before lowering his bow and turning in the newcomer's direction.

[gredya]

Yes, she thought he looked smart. She nods when he looks her way and walks up, close enough to talk. "You hunt here? Or you fight?"

[hecu_marine]

"Hunt here sometimes. Fight at home, mostly," says Shephard. He slings the bow over his shoulder. "Yourself, ma'am?"

(He's Southern, and a Marine. All women are ma'am until proven otherwise.)

[gredya]

"I kill some big rabbits here once. But I am not here many times. When you hunt, is it same as rules inside? They say--no violence." Which is an absurd notion, but after hearing that they can lock you up in cells she's very disinclined to push the point.

[hecu_marine]

Huh. Odd kind of phrasing she's got, but this is Milliways. That doesn't mean much beyond English not being her native language, and a good possibility she's not originally human.

(Which is no big thing for Shephard; one of his best Milliways friends is a dragon who happens to take human form from time to time. It's just another fact to keep in mind.)

"They don't mind it none if you hunt the rabbits here, or the deer," Shephard says. "Reckon they ain't too upset if you hunt the bears, either, only I ain't never tried so I can't say for sure. If it c'n talk a human language it ain't okay to hunt, mostly."

Then he pauses, going back over her sentence. Eventually: "When you say rabbits, you mean those red sons of bitches that breathe fire, or you mean the regular brown kind? 'Cause I've killed a couple of them red fuckers and they taste like fuckin' ass."

[gredya]

"…Do you ask animals first if they can speak?" That's got to be an amusing sight. Excuse me, deer, but do you mind if I kill you?

At any rate, deer and rabbits are enough. She could probably feed her family here, if it came to that. "--The big rabbits. They spit poison? Maybe they breathe fire also." Shrug. "I ate them. I have had worse." She's not sure how to answer whether they tasted like ass, though.

[hecu_marine]

Shephard makes a rude noise. "Naw. If they're talkin' animals it's up to them to let folks 'round here know. All's I'm sayin' is, they do draw that particular line. They also got a couple things in the lake that're bigger'n the common run of fish, and you ain't supposed to kill those, but I reckon that ain't all that important to you so I ain't gonna worry about that too much."

"Huh. Sounds like the same rabbits. You got a stronger stomach than a lot of folks I know." He shakes his head. "Name's Shephard, by the way."