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04th Anomaly . spam
[ Stephen never quite relaxes. Even though he's in his element, even though it gives him a thrill every time breathing in the thick, pure air. Even as he finds himself smiling at the sun trickling down through the leaves. He can't quite stop expecting a monster to break the spell.
Find him:
At night, he makes campfire. Flickering light and shifting shadow. Follow the sight of the flames, the smell of wood smoke and cooking fish and meat. He will be close by his pack, rifle within easy reach, curled up in a hollow or against a log.
During the day: fishing. Careful hunting, making sure the shots he takes are to animals, not the little sentient bears or people from the Barge. (Try not to get in the way of a bullet, please, everyone.)
He pushes out and explores the forest.
Wades in the streams.
Swims in the pools, not particularly worried about nakedness. (This is probably the only time the rifle ends up away from his hands.)
Once, early on, he finds he's being followed by a group of creatures like little bears rustling the leaves around him. He calls out hello, and they burst out of their cover, brandishing spears. He raises his hands, slowly. - Help him? ]
Find him:
At night, he makes campfire. Flickering light and shifting shadow. Follow the sight of the flames, the smell of wood smoke and cooking fish and meat. He will be close by his pack, rifle within easy reach, curled up in a hollow or against a log.
During the day: fishing. Careful hunting, making sure the shots he takes are to animals, not the little sentient bears or people from the Barge. (Try not to get in the way of a bullet, please, everyone.)
He pushes out and explores the forest.
Wades in the streams.
Swims in the pools, not particularly worried about nakedness. (This is probably the only time the rifle ends up away from his hands.)
Once, early on, he finds he's being followed by a group of creatures like little bears rustling the leaves around him. He calls out hello, and they burst out of their cover, brandishing spears. He raises his hands, slowly. - Help him? ]
no subject
Bow slung across her back, Allison moves cautiously towards the guy with the rifle, coming from the side. She doesn't want to scare his target if he's not aiming for hers, and she doesn't want to get shot, since she's just finishing her own death toll...but she doesn't want to lose her own prey, either.
Nearing his side, she makes sure she's in his peripheral vision, rustling just enough leaves to alert him to her presence...and only then recognizes the guy she talked to just after she woke up in the infirmary. He looks a lot like the man who killed her, but less...hard. There's a color in his cheeks, a spark in his eyes that Zane doesn't have, so the momentary leap of her heart calms relatively quickly when she notes the differences.
Extending a hand, she touches his shoulder, and when she has his attention, uses hand signals to ask what he's hunting.]
no subject
They kept stock still whenever there was any motion, and then - instead of having wings that were folded and unfolded, somehow the leaflike appendages would fan inward until they made up a wing, and the creature would fly away. He only learned that when he nearly stepped on one.
He'd been half-hunting them, half just following them. He figured the more he followed them, the more he understood their patterns, the closer he would be to finding a big fat one. He's started calling them shrub-turkeys in his head.
He senses her approach, makes some room for her next to him, on the smooth earth where there won't be much noise. The way she moves is impressive - not something he would have expected from the girl on the broadcast. He automatically upgrades her to someone who knows a thing or two about tracking, in his mind, and so treats her like he would have treated any other professional.
He shoots her a smile, a wait-till-you-see-this smile, and indicates her towards one of the shrub-turkeys, standing utterly still. It's like a trick picture; it looks like a plant right up until you see the beak and then, suddenly, it's a bird, right there, swaying gently in the wind. ]
no subject
Then one of them shakes its head. One of the bushes.
Suddenly, she sees it all over: numerous birds, all of them with beaks and twig-like legs in muted earthtones. It's the perfect camouflage, and as Allison finally catches on, her mouth drops open and curls in a smile.
This beats the hell out of alien rabbit.
Turning to him, she beams, then with that same careful, noiseless movement, removes her recurve bow from across her back. She gestures with it, silently asking if he minds her joining the hunt.]
no subject
He's been picking out a target. He can get one shot before they all take off, or she can. Best plan is to take them both at once.
Quietly, he raises the rifle to his shoulder. Though there's scope on it; he aims more with the feel of it in his hands, the vector of the barrel, the wind. He glances to her to see if she's had the same thought, about simultaneity. A couple now, some patience, and a few more later would make a good meal for tonight.
He indicates: she should take the right side, and he should take the left. That way, they don't pick the same target. ]
no subject
Scanning the right side of the flock, she picks out three potential targets. All were healthy looking, and if she can time her shots right, there's no reason she can't land all of them, maybe one more if she were lucky, before they scatter.
Sighting her first choice, Allison draws an arrow from her quiver and deftly lines up her shot. Glancing over, she notes he's done the same, rifle at the ready.
Strike as one, equal chance to hit their targets before the rest of the birds run.
She nods, silently agreeing to follow his lead, then refocuses on the bird she's chosen to taste her first arrow.]
no subject
He holds up a hand. Five fingers. Then four. Then three. Then he places the hand on the barrel, finishing the count silently.
He shoots true, and in the flurry of wings, he moves to reload. He is calm, he doesn't fumble, and a handful of seconds later he lifts the gun to his eye, aims, and shoots again. His target falls, and he lets himself smirk a little. It was a good shot: if the bullet was smaller, it would've gone through the eye, even at that range. ]
no subject
When she counts one in her head alongside him, she looses her arrow.
The rifle shots barely register, she's so focused on her target. The first turkey goes down. The rest are swift, but not quite as fast as a werewolf on the move. She notches another arrow in a single, graceful movement, tracking her second target as it scatters.
It falls.
She takes a third down the same way, and lines up a shot for a fourth, weighing whether or not she actually needs the additional kill at the same time.
She thinks of her impromptu hunting partner, and looses the arrow.
Not bothering for a fifth, Allison glances at him, the coolness of the killer instinct fading as she smiles, speaking for the first time.]
Good shooting.
no subject
Excellent, on your part. How long have you been practicing?
[ He moves forward, to collect the game. It'll be a bit harder, given the camouflaged colors, but he thinks they'll manage. ]
no subject
I was nationally ranked as a kid, then I gave it up professionally...I didn't go for the Olympics or anything. I...sort of hunt actively? But the stuff I go after is a hell of a lot faster than these things.
[She gestures with the shrub turkey she's just picked up, having spotted the gleam of its beak with an eye trained by stalking things hiding in plain sight...like kanimas in the form of her best friend's first love, or a dark fox hiding in her best friend's skin.]
no subject
Neither did I. Despite parental encouragement. [ Go for the Olympics, that is. He feels confident that he could have.
He picks up the first he got, and the head's been taken clean off. He really shouldn't have been hunting these with a rifle. He'll have to borrow some of hers, so he can take a look at the beak and the brain. ]
no subject
[And it wasn't like they'd driven her to pick a sport, per se...more a weapon. Everything they'd urged her towards was combat adaptable...the gymnastics, track meets in grade school, even the firearms lessons she got in the name of safety were always laced with offers to teach her how to shoot when she got older.
Archery had been her only real say in the matter, and looking back, she was fairly sure it was merely a means to an end...a stepping stone. That, and a crossbow with a bolt dipped in wolfsbane could always do the job...
She shakes it off, moving to peer at another dead turkey. This one was another of Stephen's: the head was still attached, but most of it was gone. She gathers it up all the same, moving on to another felled bird she spots a few feet away, calling out over her shoulder so they could still converse.]
How hard did your folks push you?
no subject
Upward mobility.
[ He doesn't really blame them for it. They both wanted to be better off than their parents were, and the social circles they ran in had certain demands. Stephen's athletic talent made up for some of their own personal drawbacks. And Stephen never complained. He liked the challenges.
The problem happened when he was more interested in saving the world than being rich and famous.
He gets one of hers. Head and beak intact, and he takes a moment to pull it open and look at the mouth. Soft tongue, clublike. No surprises there. He ducks to the ground, where there's some fecal matter, and he dabs a bit on his finger, smells it. Squishes it between his fingers to pick out seeds. They've been eating the large green berry he's seen around, he realizes. And a lot of it. Maybe a few other fruits and grains, but this is the main source of their diet. When he cut one open, it left streaks of green on his hands. Must explain the coloring, too. ]
I went to school instead.
Now, I chase dinosaurs, in secret, for the government. [ This part is said with a little bit of a sigh, as he gets back to his feet. He's never liked the secrecy. It's a relief to just tell people, here, but these people aren't the ones who need to know. ]
no subject
And now, looking back on Alan Argent's memories, Allison can no longer muster the same respect she once had for her mother. Knowing how she would have been treated if she were born a boy...at least her father still tried. Her mother...
...wait, did he say dinosaurs?!?
Looking up sharply from a third bird she gathers up, Allison's eyes go wide and her jaw drops.]
Hang on, do you mean...like, animal life that's directly related, like sharks and some of those weird...bats or something? Or do you mean actual Three Horns Never Play With Long Necks, T-Rexes and...wooly mammoths and...actual dinosaurs?!?
no subject
The one mammoth was hairless, actually. And I've never met a T-rex.
But yes, real dinosaurs.
Though the closest life that's related in modern times - that's birds. Sharks were just around, more or less the same, for a great deal of natural history.