(no subject)

[gredya]

So getting a sheep was quicker than getting a gun, but in some ways more annoying. But that's in the past. Now, Karel's here with a sheep, am unharmed but very unhappy sheep at the end of a rope tether, and a bundle wrapped up in a big striped cloth that some here might recognize as an American flag.

He and his sheep wait outside, of course. For Shephard in particular, but he doesn't mind chatting with anyone else he knows.

((Warnings on the links, I guess for, uh, unarmed robbery and the intimidation of gentle mythological creatures?))

Comments

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan eyes his sheep.

"...it's behaving better than the chickens", he says eventually.

If it tried to run, after all, it could probably take Karel off his feet.

[gredya]

Karel's pretty wiry for (what looks like) a thirteen-year-old.

He nods at the sheep. "Yeah. She doesn't like me but she's tired now. You know about sheep?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"Some. Enough to keep them fed and know when they're sick. Do you?"

[gredya]

Shrug. "They eat grass, people eat them, I know that. This is for someone else."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan grins. "Another trade? What will he give you for this?"

[gredya]

"Teaching. Teaching. How to use a gun, you know?"

[athelstanthescribe]

He only sort of knows what a gun is, but nods wisely.

"For better hunting?"

[gredya]

Karel smiles. "Yeah. Better hunting." Sure.

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan eyes him.

"...and... defence...?"

He really hopes Karel isn't going to go and be proactive about things.

[gredya]

"Yeah. That too. Defence. And hunting."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Does your mother know?" he asks carefully.

[gredya]

"Yeah." Karel nods. "She knows. --You have a farm?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"We did", he answers. "It's gone now, burned and all the animals dead. But my master killed the Earl and took his place, for what he did."

[hecu_marine]

Shephard's been busy at home. Bullsquid isn't really edible for humans unless it's been put through a treatment process involving its own venom- well, okay, it can be eaten by humans but it's really something a losing proposition without the treatment- ANYWAY THE POINT is that Shephard, for all that he washed up after, smells like the innards of an alien predatory creature that spits acidic venom and has yellow-grey blood and both tentacles and hooves. Whatever that smells like.

It's a toss-up whether the sheep or the flag bundle catches his eye first.

[gredya]

Whatever Shephard smells like, it's weird. Karel blinks and wrinkles his face. "You are fighting some of those monster things? --Look, I have the sheep. A girl sheep. Two years." He has no idea if it's a kind that makes especially good wool, but--hey, look at it, it's furry, right? It's a sheep.

[hecu_marine]

"Prepping 'em for eating," says Shephard. "I killed 'em about a week ago. Fuckers're easier to digest if we gut 'em and hang 'em a while, like pheasants."

(Not really. Pheasant has to hang a lot longer than bullsquid has to sit in its venom. But it's a simpler analogy than Greenland shark, which is nasty enough to turn even Shephard's stomach.)

"Well, now, so you do. Let's have a look at her," he then says, and crouches down to get a better look at the ewe. "Two years is good, from what I recollect. Healthy, yeah?"

[gredya]

"I don't hang pheasants." Shrug. "Yeah, healthy. The farmer picked her. Said she was good. She's tired now, maybe. We had to walk here."

The ewe is an unhappy ewe, clearly stressed by whatever adventures she's had with the Wyr, but she seems well-built and unhurt. She's of no particular Earth breed--the product of generations of small-scale farming.

[hecu_marine]

"Reckon you don't cook 'em, either," says Shephard. "Makes a difference... anyway, I ain't all that familiar with sheep, just goats, but she looks all right."

Mrs. Wilson back in Rowlesburg did, after all, name her chief milk goat Leatherneck. It's only fair to take an interest in something like that.

"Let's see 'bout putting her up somewheres out of the way so's she doesn't shit all over the floor." he nods towards the flag bundle. "I'mma guess you got a gun in there?"

Somehow it doesn't seem surprising.

[gredya]

"Yeah." He grins, more enthusiastic about this than about the qualities of sheep. "I think it is a riff-le. I looked in a book with pictures."

[hecu_marine]

"All righty, then," says Shephard. "I'll go take this lady out'n git her set up in the stable or somethin'. Then I'll come back'n we c'n see 'bout gittin' you familiar with whatever it is you got yourself."

It's not his business how the kid got the thing. People do things in their own worlds, that's all.

[gredya]

"Yeah. She can rest in a barn." He'd help but probably the sooner the sheep is away from the Wyr, the happier she'll be. "I'll go to the firing place?"

[hecu_marine]

"Yeah. We gon' go over the parts of the rifle before I let you shoot it, though, fair warning. My uncles made me learn all that before they let me pick it up and fire, I do it to everyone."

[gredya]

Nod-nod. "That's good. I don't know the words. I want to know all that."

Whatever it is he got himself turns out to be--well, probably pretty old-fashioned by Shephard's time, but possibly also fairly recognizable as the sort of thing you'd keep around on a Virginia farm for hunting deer and occasional coyotes.

[hecu_marine]

"All righty," Shephard says when he returns from housing the sheep. "Let's, uh. Let's just... look, you take the gun a second, I got to fold up that flag proper before I do anything else, m'kay?"

(He'll explain if he has to. He's been a Marine since he graduated from high school. There may not be a Federal government or a recognizable Constitution any more, but this is an American flag even if it's not from his world, and when you are a Marine there are rules.)

[gredya]

Sure, no problem. Karel passes over the big piece of cloth, holding onto his rifle, watching with amiable curiosity. "It's a flag?"