milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

When Dodger finds Milliways today, she knows exactly what she wants, and heads straight to the bar. She asks the bar to borrow a fishing rod and a well-stocked tackle box, which the bar provides. Bar also provides a warm coat, and a woolly hat, which Dodger doesn't quite understand. With a shrug, she takes it all toward the back door. And then it makes sense.

There's snow. Actual snow. Dodger's never seen snow in her life, but here it is in front of her, covering every inch of the grounds outside. She quickly puts the fishing rod and tackle box down onto a nearby table and puts on the coat and hat before venturing outside. Her canvas shoes are immediately soaked through, but she's on a mission. She heads down to the lake, and finds an area where the snow is thinnest, and gets to work, trying to remember what Mark had showed her before. Spinner, weight, bobber. And then she tries to cast off, and gets the hook caught on the hood of her jacket. It takes some time to untangle everything, and then she tries again. It's awkward and ungainly, and the lure goes high into the air and splashes down about ten feet in front of her. With a sigh, she reels in and tries again.

[ooc: Mark may pop in and out of threads.]

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There's a large man sitting not too far away, perched on a rock looking out over the water. He takes a puff from his cigar and laughs softly.

"Ain't gonna catch any fish that way, Frail."

Dodger jumps at the sudden voice, and looks over to find she's being watched. That's... okay.

"My friend made it look easy."

It's not easy. Dodger pouts as she reels it all the way in and tries to hold everything like she was shown. This time, she manages to get the line out father, but it also goes way out to the right and lands in some rocks.

He figures her friend must know what they're doing. Dodger, clearly, doesn't.

"You even know what fish are in this lake?"

Mark catches actual sharks. Dodger is nowhere near that level.

"Nope," she says, reeling in slowly so she doesn't get snagged on anything. "I'm still trying to figure out how to make it go where I want. All I caught yesterday was a sailboat."

That was embarrassing.

There aren't too many sharks to be had in Northern Canada, but he bets he could take one down, even without a rod and reel.

He shrugs. "Worth more than a fish, unless you're fishing cause you have to."

"Well, I'm getting kind of sick of seagull." The way Dodger says this, it doesn't really sound like a joke. And she is standing out here in the snow in torn canvas shoes, trying to learn how to use a fishing rod.

She manages to get her lure back without getting it caught on anything, and tries again. It goes back into the rocks.

He remembers those days, back when he had to fight for every scrap of food not just to feed himself but his brother, too. Whether or not they ever had seagull is lost to too many memories.

"Hold the line tighter and don't release so early."

"Huh?"

She gets her lure reeled back in and looks at the rod. Mark was more of a teach by showing person, and didn't explain much of what he was doing. She tries to remember how he had his fingers, and tries to cast off again. It still doesn't go very far, but she manages to stay out of the rocks this time.

"Hey, look at that!" She smiles to herself as she reels back in to try again. "Do you fish a lot?"

He waits for her to get ready again, finishing off his cigar in the process, and offers her a slight nod when she does better.

"When I want to."

Which means, yes. More than the average person, at any rate.

"We just moved onto a boat, so I should probably learn whether I want to or not."

But she does want to learn, or she wouldn't be out here in the snow trying to figure it out. She tries again, getting a little better at getting the lure to go in front of her and not out somewhere weird, but it still doesn't go very far. About twenty feet this time.

"That's how I caught sailboat."

Boats are not his cup of tea. Water, in general, he dislikes unless it can be scenery.

"Why'd you do something stupid like that?"

"Hellhounds can't swim. And it's not good to stay in one place for too long. It starts to smell too much like people, so we moved onto a boat down at the docks."

She reels in and casts off again, but it still doesn't go very far.

"What am I doing wrong? I want it to go way out there." She points out in front of her, to demonstrate just how far away she wants the lure to go.

"Hellhounds, huh?" Sounds like there's a story there but he'll leave it for now, since fishing is actually something he's interested in. He can do this without letting the rage get to him.

"It's in the wrist. Can show you a hundred times and you still might not get it. It just clicks." He produces a bottle of brandy from inside his jacket and pops the top off with a clawed thumb. "You're still releasing too early."

"Yeah, they're pretty nasty. You ever seen one."

She listens to his advice as she reels in, and tries again. This time, she tries to release later. She releases too late, and plunges the whole thing into the water. It's so stupid she has to laugh.

"Not like that."

She doesn't have to be told how wrong that was.

"Can't say I have."

An eyebrow rises at how bad that last cast was, though he says nothing. She's smart enough to know it sucked.

It definitely sucked. This time, she tries to find the middle ground between that, and what she's been doing. Her distance just about doubles - not terribly far out, but not sitting in the muddy banks either.

"Is there any kind of special trick, or do you just do it until your arms fall off?" she asks.

She's determined to figure this out. Even if her toes are getting numb.

He takes a long swig of brandy and nods, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"'Til your arms fall off. Just gotta practice."

Dodger takes a deep breath to get herself prepared for the task at hand.

"All right," she agrees. She's going to practise. For as long as it takes.

She tries again, but the result is about the same. Maybe in another decade, she'll be able to make it look as easy as the boys do.

"What's it like where you're from?"

The question seems to surprise him and after a moment he shrugs again.

"Right now it looks a lot like this." Snow, trees, a lake. "But colder. No hellhounds."

That he knows of but hell, with the way shit's gone lately it wouldn't take him aback if there were.

Dodger looks around as she reels in her line again. "I've actually never seen snow before," she says. "I mean, I've seen it on TV and stuff, but it's not something we really get in LA."

She wiggles her toes in her shoes and tries to get some feeling back in them.

He scoffs. California. Nice forests in the north but the rest of it is completely useless along with everyone in it.

"Better than dying of heatstroke or whatever."

"Yeah, that gets pretty bad," Dodger agrees. "I've almost done that a few times when I couldn't find water. But living next to the ocean helps."

She can't tell if she's getting better at this.

"Is it always cold where you are? Or are you just, like, really far north? Or south."

"North," he replies with no intention of narrowing it down any further. "Not anywhere near LA."

That's fine. Dodger doesn't even try to get him to narrow it down.

"So you get seasons at least," Dodger guesses. "We just have 'hot' and 'on fire.'"

Her lure is consistently staying out of the rocks with each cast, but she's still having trouble getting it to go very far out.

He just shakes his head. She'll have to keep practicing.

"Yeah. Maybe not all four, but some."

She shows no sign of giving up anytime soon. Unless her feet get much colder. Then she might call it quits for now.

"Are any of them 'on fire'?" she asks.

"Nope. We got snow, slush and mud."

"Lucky."

Those things all sound like they'd at least mean more rain, which would be nice.

"I'm gonna learn how to hunt pretty soon too. Do you do anything like that?"

He chuckles at that.

"Frail, it's what I do."

Something deep inside tells Dodger she should probably be more careful. But there are rules here, and people are friendly and tend to follow them, so she ignores it.

"Oh, yeah? What do you hunt?"

Probably not seagulls. Which is what she'd be hunting, mostly.

He grins.

"People, mostly."

Oooookay.

"What, like a bounty hunter?"

She feels like it's not like a bounty hunter.

It isn't.

"No, like an assassin."

Yep. Okay. Dodger quickly reels in her line and bends down to close the tackle box.

"I have to go do some stuff," she says awkwardly, suddenly wishing she'd brought her bat out here with her. She feels incredibly defenceless without it.

She doesn't wait for any further response, before picking up the tackle box and high-tailing it back to the bar.

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