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Wilford's been busy with a a new assignment, which has kept him from the bar for the last few days. When he comes in today to eat his lunch and go over his notes, he can't help but notice that there isn't a dog jumping all over him, begging to be fed. Nor does the dog appear out of nowhere to look at him pitifully while he eats.

In fact, the dog doesn't seem to be anywhere in the bar. Wilford waits until he finishes his lunch before going outside to make sure Buster hasn't got himself stuck in another tree or paddled out into the lake and got lost, but there's no sign of him outside either.

When Wilford comes back inside, he notices the state of the dog bed the kids set up. Or, rather, he notices what's in the bed: a piece of baseball bat. If Buster went somewhere without his bat, it would only be because someone didn't think to grab it when they snatched him away.

Wilford doesn't know where to find the person who very recently made all sorts of threats about doing just that, but he knows someone who might know where to find him. And it's a very angry Wilford that storms back to the infirmary.

[ooc: dog plot. Catch Wilford at any point during this post.]

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Teja isn't in the infirmary, though -- he is outside, working in his forge.

When the infirmary (inevitably) gets him nowhere, Wilford storms outside to have a cigarette and find something to kick. This is a brand new kind of angry, because nobody's actually been ballsy enough to straight up steal from him before.

This is also the moment his lighter decides that it wants to be out of fluid, which really doesn't help things much.

"Motherfucker!" he shouts, hurling the lighter against the wall. He'd kind of hoped it would explode, but it doesn't. It just bounces off and lands in the grass, which makes him even more angry.

Teja sticks his head out of the forge door. He has never liked swearing much, preferring terrible deeds to terrible words, and would hate to have to explain that expression to little Egill.

The only reason Wilford doesn't notice Teja sooner, is because he's too busy throwing a fit.

"You!" he shouts when he finally notices him. "What gives you the goddamn right?"

"The answer would be, every time, because I swore my oath to Security," Teja says, "but I do not, in this case, know the right to what I should have claimed now."

"You know goddamn well what you did," Wilford says. "So I'm only going to say this once. Give me my fucking dog back."

He keeps his fists clenched tightly at his sides. There's a gun in his inventory, which would be his usual way of dealing with these kinds of arguments. But ever-changing rules aside, he knows that shooting Teja to get his dog back won't work, if Teja can't be expected to respawn and comply.

Teja respawns, being dead, but Wilford can't know that.

"I didn't take your dog," he says, mildly. "When I went to Gotland, it was only to take Bodhi and Myrrh."

Wilford laughs, but it's not a happy one. "So, you tell me to my face that you're going to take my dog, my dog suddenly goes missing, and you didn't do it?"

Yeah. Wilford doesn't believe that for a second.

"Yes."

"Bull. Fucking. Shit."

He has never in his life had to resist doing something so hard.

"You do not wish to walk that way," Teja says, quietly.

"Give me my fucking dog back."

He says it slowly, like he's trying not to shout.

"I do not have your dog," Teja says, "neither 'fucking', nor chaste."

"Make me believe you," Wilford says.

"I am Teja, son of Tagila, last king of the Ostrogoths in Italy," Teja says. "It is inadvisable to not believe what I say. You may disagree, but you should know I speak the truth."

"Good for you. Give me my dog."

One's name doesn't exactly count as proof of anything where Wilford's from. Except maybe guilt in some cases.

"Are you stupid?" Teja says. "I don't have him, and I am telling you so. You are walking on thin ice here."

"Not as stupid as the asshole who stole my dog."

Just one shot. Right in Teja's face. It's all Wilford wants right now.

But he resists, because it would still get him nowhere.

"I want the dog back here by tomorrow," he says.

He turns away from Teja and heads back inside, slamming the door open with no thought that someone might be hiding on the other side of it.

So Guppy had kind of been standing there making sure Teja didn't get shot.

If he'd only maintained his position for another twenty seconds, he'd have seen Wilford coming back. But as it was, he'd just let the door drop back in order to decide whether or not to go and get backup for Teja.

Which is why the door smacks straight into his forehead, knocking him out.

When Teja sees that, he comes running up the hill to the bar, and kneels down to make sure Guppy is still alive.

"Guppy?"

He touches Guppy's shoulder and shakes him, gently."

Guppy stirs and puts his hand on his head. He opens his eyes and sees a ghostly figure... wait, it's just Teja.

"He didn't shoot you did he?"

"No," Teja says. "He merely cursed, and wildly accused me of taking his pitiable dog. I do wish I had; as it stands, the poor animal has probably managed to drown itself in a puddle, all by itself."

"It probably got eaten by... by a thing. He shouldn't have left it unsupervised."

Edited 2017-05-08 22:10 (UTC)

"A thing?" Teja says. "Do you mean a demonic ran it, or a werewolf? And indeed, that is what we told him -- taking him to Gotland was only the threat to back it up."

Edited 2017-05-10 10:02 (UTC)

Guppy sits up.

"Yeah, a were...rabbit." he says. "Why am I on the floor?"