apocalypsehowcomm | (log) march catch-all

[Crowley isn't especially eager to go out exploring on behalf of the ADI, not after he got trapped in a bloody sand dune the last time, and had the shit kicked out of him the time before that, but he grits his teeth and agrees to it despite himself. He's put up with worse for Hell, and they didn't even pay him.

So here he is, at the trailhead, hands shoved into his pockets and looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere but where he is right now. He almost feels bad for the woman they've paired him up with.]

Ready to get this over with?

[ Oh, she's ready. She's wearing clothes suitable for what amounts to a hike in chilly weather, and she'd got her spear safely strapped in the netting that wraps around her torso. ]

Yes. Ready.

[ She spares maybe a second or two to look him over before she heads off in the direction of the assignment. She is absolutely assuming he will follow, and since she's in job mode, she's even less likely to start a conversation right off the bat than usual. ]

[At least one of them has their shit together; his idea of preparation was putting on a slightly more sturdy pair of boots than usual and like, a coat. He's still getting used to remembering to be practical, it's never been an issue until recently.]

After y— oh, alright, we're already going.

[It's a good assumption that he'll follow, since he jogs for a few seconds to catch up before falling into step beside her.

He does, at least, have his wits about him, keeping an eye on the forest around them.]

Please tell me you actually know how to use that thing.

[Meaning the spear. It looks like she's comfortable with it, but who knows.]

[ His footsteps take a moment to start up, but there they are, quicker than usual until he's at her side. At least he's being vigilant too. They'll spot trouble easily between the two of them.

His question is almost an affront. ]

I know. [ In a tone that someone fluent in English would have begun with "Of course" and ended with an exasperated eyeroll. ] I am warrior in my tribe. You not worry. I protect you.

[ He doesn't seem weak, really, but... well. She will grant that it's hard to tell sometimes. ]

You can fight?

[It isn't hard to guess that English isn't her first language, and he has to wonder what sort of time she's from, if she's using words like tribe.]

Ehhhh. [That's not really an answer, but he takes a second to work out how to explain in better, more accurate detail.] I can, I suppose. Not sure how good at it I am, s'been a while since I've picked up a proper weapon, but you don't need to babysit me.

[Did he happen to get the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of humans recently? Yes. But in his defense, there were a lot of them, and he really isn't a 'hand-to-hand combat' sort of person. He knows his way around a sword. And fangs. Neither of those are easily accessible, here.]

[ So... that's probably a no, he can't fight. So she says, in a firm and reassuring tone that somehow manages to not come off aggressive- ]

I protect you.

[ It's not an especially long trip to Dogtown, and is neither of their first time doing this Dogtown thing, so that helps get them on track faster. Keeping an eye out for weird things is normal here, Katrina supposes. It's a different thing from walking around in Bristol Cove like the predator she is. It helps that she's not alone, but there's always that thought in the back of her mind, about her people, the damage the humans are doing to the ocean, the way Tia came and preached wiping out humans— ]

What weapon you use before you stop fighting?

[ She is beginning to grasp the value of making small talk. ]

[It could be the kind of statement that would rankle at someone's pride, but Crowley is old enough not to care about that sort of nonsense. If anything, the reassurance of the point is almost sweet. He's not exactly used to people caring about his wellbeing.]

Much appreciated.

[He'll even be polite about it!

It's an easier part to respond to than the question, which takes him a second of hemming and hawing before he works out how to answer.]

A whole lot of 'em, if I'm being honest. Spears, swords, an axe or two, though I've never been big on those. I know my way around a bow and a gun, but my aim's a bit shite, haven't really got the eyes for it.

[His eyes... mostly work like human eyes, but some things are slightly trickier.]

[ Letting her win this time is a pretty solid way to go about it.

She listens as they approach the beginning of the path. How curious. That speaks to a breadth of skill. Katrina herself is a seasoned warrior, but she is limited to spears and unarmed combat, for now. ]

You were warrior, in home?

[None of these questions are particularly easy to answer, but he's doing his best, mainly because it might be relevant, if they do run into something dangerous. He's kind of an idiot sometimes, but he knows better than to lie about what he can and can't do in these kind of situations.]

When my bosses forced me to be. M'not especially fond of violence.

[Which is terrible for a demon, but he's not a demon here. Or at least, only Aziraphale knows that he is.]

[ Bosses? Forced him? So... not like sirens. Fair enough. ]

Warrior is choice, for my people. All can fight, but some are healer, some are builder.

[ And some are lost, some are found, some learn their people's rich history and culture... and she misses them, suddenly.

But she isn't so lost in thought that she doesn't immediately see the corpse lying alongside the path. She stops, hissing softly, and looks around for any signs of an ambush. ]

May be hunter nearby.

Must be nice.

[It's not especially bitter, just matter-of-fact. While he might have had some freedom in his day to day life, he's always been at Hell's beck and call, and if they told him to do something, he couldn't always lie his way out of it.

He pauses as soon as Katrina does, following her gaze to the body and sighing. There's always something, but he still crouches down to get a better look, keeping some distance for now.]

I can't see much in the way of a mess around the body, I don't reckon they were killed here.

If not kill here, then is trap.

[ She grabs her spear. She may not immediately fall into a fighting stance, but she's there mentally, ready to go at a moment's notice. ]

Crowley.

[ She glances at him, intending to tell him to be careful, when she notices. It's sudden and clear, like the first time she met Helen. The body belongs to someone with siren blood. Full siren blood. Her eyes go wide. ]

Body is siren.

[ Now she hisses more sharply, her grip tensing on her spear. Is someone hunting her kind specifically? Oh, they're in for a shock. She'll get them before they even see her coming. ]

[A trap, or not entirely real; the things here play all sorts of tricks, though not real doesn't necessarily mean not dangerous.

He looks up when she says his name, taking a few seconds to parse through what she means. A siren, presumably not the kind they stick on emergency vehicles, which leaves the kind that lures sailors to their death.

He knows better than to assume all stories are true, but he is going to assume that means Katrina is likely also a siren, or knows of them because she's something else not-human.]

Did you know them? Surely someone would've said something, if one of us went missing.

[Unless there are sirens native to this world, but that seems unlikely.]

I not know them.

[ She knows every member of her tribe. This is not one of them. If their eyes were open, she could at least hazard a guess as to where they're from. ]

Not work in ADI. This is stranger. I not find siren in ocean here.

[ There's a hint of distress in her voice, and in her frown. Did someone from her world get kidnapped, just to prove to her it's possible? Is this... is it the Extiction, making themself known? Is this a threat to her? To ADI? ]

What we do? Say to ADI?

[ They should bury them, but it would have to be on land. Katrina can't just go feeding the Extinction to perform an underwater burial, and the body is in human form anyway... ]

[Crowley is not, by nature, an especially gentle person. But he spent the last six years playing nanny to a child, and no matter how much he'd like to think of himself as cool and scary demon, some things become habit.

Like being able to tell when someone is distressed, and automatically thinking about how to fix it.]

We can say whatever you'd like to say. If you'd rather they not know, I won't tell 'em anything.

[He means it, too. They might have been sent out here with a purpose, but if this is one of Katrina's people, there might be customs that the ADI wouldn't respect.]

But if there's no sirens here, and we've not heard about anyone going missing, this might not be completely real. Those Entities they've told us about can trick you into seeing things differently from how they really are.

[He has to believe that's what the snow was. The whole situation was too weird, and over too suddenly, for it to be anything else.]

[ The Entities. That's right. The very things they're trying to stop. Of course the Entities would want to throw them off. Crowley may not be a warrior, but he's calm where she is upset. He's a good ally.

Katrina relaxes a little, lowering her spear as she thinks it over. ]

If body is real, I must bury.

[ Movement in the corner of her eye makes her look to the side, but it's just a squirrel. She can't help but be on edge, though. ]

If not real, we tell ADI. Entities are making trap.

[The advantage to being composed of about 90% anxiety is that he's very good at looking calmer than he feels.]

Alright, suppose we'd best find out if it's real.

[First things first, he digs his phone out of his pocket to start taking pictures. If they do end up reporting this to the ADI, it'll likely be of use to have some shots of the body and surrounding area.]

You keep an eye on things, since you're the one with the spear.

Yes.

[ She turns away from the body, her back facing Crowley's back. There's more tension in her stance than usual, on edge as she is, but she can count on Crowley to be smart about this.

She hopes. The physically weaker ones usually make up for it with strength of mind. ]

No sign of hunter.

[ Just to reassure him, and herself. She shouldn't get into any fights right now, not until she's calmer. ]

That's a relief.

[Always nice not to get stabbed in the back, especially considering the sort of things he's sure are lurking in the forest.

He's not feeling all that eager about this, but he figures Katrina seems more than capable of handling herself if it comes to it, so he mentally braces himself, tucks the phone away, and steps off the path towards the body.]

Still not sure how they got here, the ground's clear around the body.

[If he's going to stick his neck out here, he might as well keep Katrina updated on what he's looking at, as well as to reassure her that he hasn't been sucked into the ground or anything.]

Let's see if we can figure out what killed 'em.

[When he looks back at this moment, he'll realize how stupid it was to touch the damn corpse, but he's so desensitized to death that it barely occurs to him in the moment.

The corpse turning to ash under his fingertips earns a startled grunt, and comes next is even worse. A memory slammed into him, fear and desperation, hands tangled in a net, water all around, and then the sudden, sharp pain of a spear being driven down through his clavicle into his chest.

There's blood in his mouth, in the water, and in the memory he struggles to free himself from the net, a last ditch attempt to get away to safety. But there's no escape, and no safety, only the tightening ropes of the net as something awful begins to drag him to the surface.

The memory fades as quickly as it came, leaving Crowley kneeling on the ground, gasping for breath that he doesn't actually need.]

[ Things are fine until he startles. Katrina turns and approaches Crowley to see what's going on.

But there's nothing but ashes where the corpse was, and Crowley gasping for breath, kneeling. It happened so fast that she could almost say it never happened at all, except for the fact that the siren corpse is no more, and Crowley looks like he was hurt. ]

Crowley! What attack you?

[ She crouches by his side, still with one hand gripping her spear as she scans the woods between glances at him. ]

S'okay, m'okay.

[He waves a hand at her in the universal signal for I'm fine, I just need a second to catch my breath, because he doesn't want her to think there's something lurking nearby when he's fairly sure there isn't.

It's just another trick.

The next thing he does is touch his collarbone where he felt the spear pierce him, checking that there's not actually an injury there, relieved to find it doesn't hurt at all.

It's probably fortunate that he's used to having unpleasant things shoved right into his head. Makes for an easier recovery.]

I felt them die, must be some Entity bullshit. Felt like I was under the water, tangled up in a net until I got a stuck with a fishing spear.

[Not the most pleasant way to go, really.]

[ She takes his word for it, giving him a little more space as she stands again, scanning the shadows for threats.

When he describes what overcame him, what he witnessed, her heart beats faster, and her grip on the spear tightens. The corpse of a siren killed by fishermen.

She remembers the stories passed down from the survivors of the massacre in the waters off Bristol Cove, and for a moment, hatred floods her veins. Hatred for the humans who did this, hatred for all humans. She remembers Tia and her calm certainty as she told them her end goal: to kill the humans before they could kill everyone else.

Katrina hisses, and considers stabbing Crowley then and there. But that would just set ADI on her, and they could use her to find her home and wipe out her kind. ADI could easily kill Tia. They could catch Katie Dunn, after all. A siren is nothing.

Lowering her spear, she hisses again, and some of the tension leaves her frame. ]

If they in water, they have tail. This body not have tail.

[ So how... how?

She hisses again. ]

Human kill my people once. Many siren. Others born. We grow. But we stay in deep water, far from human. Then fishing boat catch one. A girl from tribe. Donna. Human army take her for test. For torture. Her sister go to save her. It take time. We save her, but she die by human shoot her. Accident. All fighting.

[ That was the night Ryn bested her in combat. The night Katrina lost her status as leader. It still stings, but it seems so irrelevant now. ]

This... This is trick of Entity. No siren in ocean here.

[ Katrina hisses. How dare they. ]

Edited 2022-04-08 00:51 (UTC)

[The thing is, he'd known as soon as he'd thought about opening his mouth that telling Katrina what happened might cause a fair bit of distress, likely anger, just based on her... everything.

But lying wouldn't really serve any purpose, and he's not so cruel that he'd deny her knowing what happened to one of her kin. Crowley has no love for other demons, but he knows how important community is, especially for the ones who aren't the status quo.

The best he can do is sit back on his heels and wait for her to work through whatever she needs to work through. If the situation weren't so unpleasant, he'd almost be amused by hearing someone hissing as much as he does (used to) when he's upset. Being amused would only make things worse, anyway, when she's recounting something fairly awful.]

It's likely a trick, yeah. Probably 'cause it's something you're scared of.

[They pluck fears from the source, it seems, and it makes perfect sense that Katrina is scared of more of her people dying.]

M'sorry about what happened to your friend. Humans aren't — well — they're kind of arseholes when it comes to things they're not used to.

[His word choice is deliberate, not including himself in the label of humans.]

[ It is, in fact, her greatest fear. Sirens are already in danger, what with pollution all but completely eliminating their ability to reproduce. Humans need only be patient, and they'll die out.

She will not allow that. Somehow, Katrina will find a way to stop that from happening, with or without Ryn, with or without ADI.

She only listens as Crowley talks, until he comes to the end. Humans. He does not count himself among them, or else he would have said "we".

Frowning, she watches him for a few seconds. ]

You not human. Only look human, like me.

[ It's a question and a statement. ]

[The question that's being asked likely isn't are you inhuman? It's what are you?

He told Donna he wasn't human, without going into the details, knowing that people can be rather unpleasant about the demon thing. Katrina likely has no reference for what it will mean, unless missionaries got into the ocean, too. But that seems unlikely.]

I'm a demon.

[That's not all he's planning to say, but now that he's less worried about her anger, he takes a second to get back to his feet, brushing off his clothes and hands.]

This body I've got is about the same to me as that shirt you're wearing is to you, and I've been around since before this planet even existed, never mind the humans walking about on it.

[In other circumstances, he might make a joke, but it doesn't feel appropriate with Katrina on edge and distressed about the dead siren.]

(log) march catch-all

🧜🏽‍♀️ katrina

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cw: violence/death

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refs to torture, experimentstion, massacre, shooting, death

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