(no subject)

[latino_menace]

Ramon turns to Random as they arrive, telling him there was something he had to take care of and he'd see him in a little while. Then he drags something wrapped in plastic along behind him, finally depositing it next to a table and leaving it. Anyone who looks closely may see that the thing inside is a very large black panther. Dead, obviously.

There is also a large briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. This is taken to the bar, where he unlocks it and proceeds to get out thick sheafs of bearer bonds, in large denominations. Mainly all around $20,000 or higher. It seems Ramon has been to a bank...they stack up to about half a foot high. He says, 'Mine and Random's bills please Bar, until I say otherwise.' Their tabs drop to zero and it'll be a hell of a long time before they approach the black again.

A couple of guns are pulled from the strappings inside the case and shoved into his waistband, then he turns and surveys the Bar. He's burnt deep brown and probably looks more relaxed than he ever has in this place - have at! He'll buy you a drink for sure.

Comments

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

"Hello, Ramon."

Hel moves far too quietly for someone her size,

"You got it?"

[latino_menace]

He almost jumps because he didn't hear her coming. 'Hi Hel. Yes I did.' He waves her over with him so he can show her. He's actually ridiculously proud of this, seeing as he killed it with a knife and not a gun. And it's pretty damn big as well - totally worth it though, even if it did bleed everywhere for ages.

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

"Good. It is very beautiful. Dangerous."

She looks it over, poking it with one hand because...well, its dead. People poke dead things. Even death goddesses.

"We should probably do the rest of it outside. Just...you know. It gets a little bloody."

[latino_menace]

He nods, and bends to start dragging it through the bar. Hey, it's heavy! And he learnt from experience that trying to move it without plastic was a bad idea. Amazing how much blood the things hold really.

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

Hel watches him for a moment, then giggles softly and picks the dead Jaguar up. Easily.

"Lead on, Ramon. We just need some space."

[latino_menace]

He grins at her a little bashfully, then smooths down his clothes and heads outside, holding the door to the lake open for her.

He wanders on down towards the water, choosing a place with a few trees around. Not that he cares if anyone witnesses this but still.

'Is here OK?' It's flat, grassy and a ways from the bar.

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

"This will do."

She finds a place to settle down,

"Alright. What you need to do is skin it, and cut out the form of some item of clothing...belt and vest are the easiest. Then you say, 'Hel, óðr fylgja', and I do the rest. You won't have to wear the item of clothing, but you should keep it safe. The rest of the Jaguar doesn't matter, but usually they burn them because its soul has become part of you."

[latino_menace]

He nods and pulls a knife from a sheath strapped to his calf. He has returned well armed. It takes a while to skin it because it's been a while since he's been hunting and he's trying to remember how to do this right - it comes back eventually though and the knife is certainly sharp enough to make short of work of it.

He stands and looks at the skin for a moment, figuring out the best way to cut a vest out of it. He goes for something pretty simple in the end, something he can get sewn together at a later date. The belt is easy enough.

And then it's done. He glances up at Hel, then down at his handiwork - and a grin starts to slide across his face. Nothing like a second thought even crosses his mind, he simply turns to the Goddess and says,

'Hel, óðr fylgja.'

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

She stands, and there is quite a bit of her to do so. At some point while he was skinning the Jaguar she pulled off her glove, and the crippled and dead hand is the one she uses to draw in the air.

Uruz for its raw creative power; a huge, fierce animal, impossible to domesticate; strength and speed; unpredictable power. It glows, brown and black, and the edges of it glint like fangs in the dark.

Thurisaz conflicts; troll, demon, giant; defense, protection, "a sharp and evil thing, from for those who fall among them", unstable. The shape of it twists inside itself, unwilling to conform. Catmanmancatmancatcatman.

Kaunaz is burning, danger to health; torch, fever, ulcer, abscess, mental or physical discomfort; regeneration through death. The rune illuminates the night almost as brightly as the sun.

Hagalaz the sudden destroyer; uncontrolled forces, inner and outer; hail of weapons; disruption, accident, upheaval in personal unconsciousness. It crashes into the other runes, at onces stripping pieces of them and binding them together.

The rune collection flares, the cat stretches within the Man as it explores the limits of its new home, but before it can take over him the dead hand of Hel moves again and

Mannaz joins the flaring runes to bring culture, memory, and intelligence; subsuming the cat to Ramon. Hel puts the glove back on and murmurs,

"Id est furor. Fylgja."

And it is done.

[latino_menace]

He watches what she's doing carefully. And at first it's with a kind of bemused curiousity as he doesn't really understand what he's seeing.

But the feeling is not to be denied. It takes him quite suddenly, a kind of...energy, that starts to pulse through him, hitting his nerve centre and making him light up all over. There's flashes of what it feels like when he's crazy with rage, a glimpse of what it would feel like to be a cat, fast and strong...he inhales sharply, eyes wide...

...and then it's done, and he's left buzzing, as though he's been injected with pure amounts of powerful drugs, his mind flooding his body with adrenaline.

'Jesus...'

He just stands for a while, adjusting to the feeling and marvelling at it.

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

She sits down again, looking tired. Even for her, this was a big deal.

"Do you want to give the body a pyre? I...figured out how to make it so that you can keep your mind. So you won't be in danger of attacking anyone you don't want to."

[latino_menace]

He blinks a little distractedly, not looking at her. 'Uhhh, yeah I'll build one. Burn it.' He shakes his head slightly and stares at the bloody carcass. 'You did? Thank you. That'll be useful - I wouldn't want to attack Random by accident. By the way, his native language is called Thari - so he can learn to bring me back. But I haven't told him about this yet so let me do that first, yes?'

He looks over at her and immediately crouches next to her. 'Jesus, are you alright?'

[banished-to.livejournal.com]

"I'm just tired."

She finds a smile for him, nodding,

"It takes a lot, to make a Bersarker able to shift. I'll probably take a nap in a bit."

And another nod,

"Of course. Just have him come to me and we can work on it, he and I together."

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

Gorlim watches the exchange with great interest from the rafters. When Ramon appears to have finished his business with the Bar, he swings down and lands soundlessly a few feet away. "What the hell are those?" he asks, nodding towards the guns. "And why do you have a large dead cat?"

[latino_menace]

Ramon grins at him. 'The cat? Is a surprise.' He follows the nod and pulls one of the guns from his waistband. 'This is a gun. You've never seen one before?'

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

He gives the item a guarded examination from a good distance away. "No. I know a gun is what killed Lee. I know they work from far away and give you no opportunity to fight back." Cautious. "I know they are more sure and deadly than a bow and arrow, though I do not understand why. That thing... does not look very dangerous, though."

[latino_menace]

Ramon grins at him and jerks his head towards the lake door. 'Want me to show you? You can have a go if you like - but I warn you, they are dangerous. You can't fool around with them or you'll end up shooting yourself.'

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

He thinks about it. He dislikes guns on general principal -- all he's ever heard of them makes them sound like a coward's solution to ending a fight -- but isn't it better to understand what you fear than to allow ignorance to rob you of any chance to overcome it?

So he nods. "Show me."

[latino_menace]

Ramon grins, then turns to the bar and orders some cans of things. And a flashlight. He picks them up and heads outside, walks a distance from the bar and sets a can on a rock, with the light next to it to show where it is. Crude way of target shooting at night.

Then he walks back a fair distance and waves Gorlim to him. 'This gun doesn't have a sight, you can shoot from further back with a pistol like this if you have one. Rifles are better for distance shooting, but this'll show you the idea.'

It's a powerful gun. He steps away from Gorlim, takes aim, and blows the can off the rock easily. Then jerks his head at him, 'C'mon, you'll see the damage. Then you can have a go.'

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

"It doesn't have a--?" The question half-formed is drowned out by the ROAR of the thing. Gorlim is clear twenty feet away in the blink of an eye, but he runs back over at Ramon's call to see what happened to the can.

"It screams! It hurts by making noise??" Scuttle pounce STARE.

[latino_menace]

Ramon is rather surprised by his reaction. It hadn't occured to him to warn him about the noise. 'Uhhh no. It hurts by blowing large holes in people's bodies.'

They walk over to the remains of the can. The entry hole is small but the exit is...well, the back of the can has just disappeared. 'Doctored ammunition. Shoot someone in the back of the head, they'll lose their face as well.'

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ramon? The point of bows and arrows and hiding in a tree? NOBODY CAN FIND YOU. Gorlim's startle mechanism reacts to a snapping twig. He's never heard anything like this.

He picks up the can, hisses when it turns out to be hot, and just pokes it around the ground with a stick. "And I am sure you've tried just that." He doesn't SAY it, but he'd kind of like to get his hands on something sentient and just... see what happens when you do that. Maybe some of those demon rabbits. Or a deer. But the brains are really good... pity to let 'em go to waste...

"This is not good for hunting. It would destroy the meat, tear apart good bits. This is only for hunting people, then." He fixes Ramon with a baffled stare. "How is it anyone in your world lives at all, with the bad guys able to get things like this? I mean YOU... Why did you not simply shoot the brains out of everybody?" That was Morgoth's approach. He doesn't LIKE it, but he thinks of wanton destruction as the mode of choice for up-and-coming tyrants.

[latino_menace]

'Tried it? Not something you really try at Gorlim, it just works.'

He's vaguely amused at the poking with a stick. 'Not really a case of hunting people either. Defence, sometimes. People come near and you don't know what their intentions are, it's nice to have one or two on my person. Or for when people are brought to me that I need to take care of.' He shrugs. It's normal, to him.

'If you want hunting rifles where the kill is clean, then there are lots of different kinds as well. And...' He laughs. '...even I dont want to kill everyone Gorlim - I'd have no customers, no colleagues. Reputation in tatters as being a psychopath. People where I'm from don't normally just randomly shoot others for no reason.'

Unless they're like him and happen to get in a bad mood one day or something.

[gorlim.livejournal.com]

He picks up the can, now cooled down, and gingerly touches the twisted metal. "So you only kill the ones who are not useful to you. That makes you smarter than Morgoth. Good job." Still, the idea of people having access to something this destructive is a little beyond his vast imagination. In his world, when someone made a weapon that had no purpose other than destruction, they got together a council and tossed it into a volcano. This is BAD SHIT.

....Which is not to say it doesn't potentially have its uses...

"Will you show me how to work it?" Ringbearer, meet Boromir.

[latino_menace]

Well, Ramon didn't say he didn't randomly shoot people for no reason. Just...people.

'Sure. It's easy.'

He places another can on the rock and walks back probably only about twenty yards. 'First thing to remember - do not point it at anyone's head. Especially mine. Don't wave it around. And this...' He shows a small lever on the side, currently pulled upwards. '...is the safety catch. If it's up like it is now, the gun wont shoot. Do NOT walk around with the safety catch off. If you leave a gun in your trousers like that, you're liable to blow your balls off.'

He shows Gorlim how to chamber a round, and then primes the hammer. 'This is it ready to fire. That's what you do - then you just aim and pull the trigger.' He uncocks the weapon, and puts the catch back on - then hands the gun to Gorlim. 'Go for it.'