Log | Late November through December Catch-all | OTA

[edalyn]

Who: Eda Clawthorne and YOU
When: Late Nov - Throughout Dec
Where: ADI, Gloucester outskirts, Bonnie’s
Summary: Moving to Bonnie’s Flophouse (and settling in there), sparring, survival training, exploration.
Warnings: Injured animal/pet + blood mentions (and minor self harm in the context of needing blood for potions purposes) in the second Hunter thread


Nesting 2.0 Late Nov - mid Dec

a) let's decorate it with things of our own
Late November sees the ADI’s resident witches, Eda and Raine, moving to Bonnie’s Flophouse. Fortunately this isn’t all that difficult, given how close the place is. There’s not an exhausting amount to move in the way of possessions, but there are definitely some.

In a trait that might be more befitting of a magpie than an owl, Eda likes things. In her over six months here, she’s been accumulating shiny objects, potted plants, books, little gadgets, and a lot of art to hang on her walls. Along with a few more unique pieces of décor, not all of which will necessarily fit in one bedroom. Hope you like taxidermy jackalopes and clocks that look like they’re made of teeth. Both are in the shared living space now. The jackalope is also a lamp. You’re welcome.

Eda doesn’t appear to be a terrible housemate, but she does wander in and out at strange hours, sometimes via windows. And there are starting to be a lot of feathers around. There might be one in your last load of laundry.

At least… she’s not a terrible housemate at first. After a few days she starts to seem increasingly sleep deprived and on edge.

b) |Closed to Raine| we'll be faced with highs and lows
Eda’s doing her best. She really is. But the not sleeping is starting to become obvious, and probably not a good time for anyone around her. One morning she corners her roommate, clearly out of sorts and holding a mug of what might actually be coffee for once.

“Look, we need to talk about the–” she waves a clawed hand vaguely, “rooming situation. I gave it a go, but I can’t do this.”

c) I know somewhere down the road / we can make this a place to call home
It’s the day after her conversation with Raine, and about a week and a half into staying in the Flophouse that Eda disassembles one of the beds in their room and stuffs all the pieces into the attic.

Beyond asking Bonnie what to do with the unused furniture, Eda doesn’t bother to explain anything about what she’s doing. People are free to make whatever assumptions they want about the witches not needing both of them.

She also doesn’t bother to explain anything ahead of time when she starts dragging sticks and branches into the house. She’ll be at this for at least a couple of days–apparently she needs a lot of them.

Survival of the Fittest Dec 1 - 31

a)
Anyone want to practice their monster fighting skills? There’s a harpy happy to indulge. Possibly happy to challenge you just because you walked by. Eda needs to blow off some steam, and sparring in the new gym is technically an ADI-sanctioned way to do that.

Those who take her up on the challenge–or watch for a while, will find that she’s definitely not the most amazing fighter here, but she certainly knows how to hold her own and it doesn’t hurt that she’s seven-plus feet of wiry muscle, claws, and talons.

She knows she could use the practice herself, given that she’s still getting used to both the body and the lack of using magic in her fights. Not that she’s admitting that, to most people at least. No, mostly she’s just daring people to try their luck.

She had actual training, once upon a time, but for the last few decades her practice has been the kind of fighting that’s more about evading capture or staying alive than it is about form. Then again, survival training is the theme, so that might not be the worst thing.

b)
Eda is offering tips on outdoor skills, sometimes in the area set up for it officially–but especially for anyone who wants to follow her into the local wooded areas. Whether this part is specifically sanctioned by the ADI is anyone’s guess, but she sure is offering it.

Her advice ranges from surprisingly useful to somewhat baffling to outright unhelpful.

When it comes to topics like tracking things, and to navigating in the woods without getting hopelessly lost, Eda knows what she’s doing. She can show you how to set a snare trap in a pinch, too.

On the other hand, she has a lot of tips about getting in touch with the land via approaches like sniffing moss or eating snow. She thinks it’s your loss if you want to pass up this wisdom.

Her comments about what mushrooms are edible (to witches), meanwhile, should be avoided at all cost by anyone who is not a witch.

c) - Exploration
Eda will be taking a few trips into Dogtown now that it’s open, and she’s willing to admit it’s safer to go in pairs. She’ll be teaming up with people who are interested, provided she thinks they’d have her back and also aren’t likely to get themselves killed.

If we have exploration planned, feel free to throw me a starter or ask for one!


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Comments

[edalyn]

"Yeah? Tell me how that works out for you. I'm willing to bet my ways are better." Is she actually proposing some kind of entirely pointless wager? Possibly.

While she does think there's some wisdom in her approaches, she's also just not the type to back down from an argument. Whether or not there's even a quantifiable way to prove who's right.

[friendsfordinner]

"Want to have a wager then?" he grins. "We both take a look at the weather using our methods, we decide on what we think's going to happen in a few hours or so, we wait and see who wins."

[edalyn]

"Well, I'm not one to turn down a wager," Eda admits, like she wasn't the one implying the suggestion herself. Either way it's true and occasionally a problem, though to be fair most of her pointless wagers are with her dog eight year old son.

It's also likely she's already planning to cheat one way or another.

[friendsfordinner]

And Hickey's a bundle of unearned confidence. He looks up at Eda with a little smirk on his face.

"So. What do you want to bet?"

[edalyn]

"Mmm... good question. Got anything more interesting than money in mind?" She can spare it, there are a few perks to having a steady job even if she hates in on principle, but it really is the least interesting option.

She leans back against a tree as she thinks, idly kicking at the nearest pile of snow on the ground.

[friendsfordinner]

"We could always just keep it simple. One favor, to be cashed in whenever, winner's choice."

[edalyn]

"One favour... with a couple ground rules. I'm not hurting anyone I like and I'm not breaking the ADI's rules without a damn good reason." Especially not in front of them, but even then she's trying to behave. As much as it hurts her to follow anyone's rules, just on principle.

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey nods. Those seem sensible to him. Granted, he's perfectly fine with breaking ADI's rules to begin with, but if Eda wants to be a little suck-up who follows the rules, that's fine by him.

"Those terms are acceptable. And I'll even let you go first. Tell me what the weather's going to be later today."

[edalyn]

"Hmm..." Eda makes a show of squinting up at the clouds for a moment, then licks a finger and holds it up to check the wind direction.

After that she reaches up to scrape a ball of snow from a pile sitting on a branch, and does in fact eat it.

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey looks up at the sky, taking a squint at the clouds as well. He crosses his arms over his chest, looking at the sky...and turns back to look at Eda right as she eats snow.

"Christ, that's disgusting."

[edalyn]

"What happened to it being just water?" Eda asks, with a little snicker.

"I don't know why you people are so easy to gross out, but I'm guessing you're gonna pass on sniffing moss." Even if identifying it by smell is absolutely an important skill. According to her.

[friendsfordinner]

"Just water that's been on the ground," he points out, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Some animal's probably stepped in it already."

[edalyn]

"No, it's water that was up there," Eda points out the branch she scooped it off which is... probably a lot cleaner than the ground, at least. It's hard to tell if she cares, she might just be arguing for argument sake. "Although if you think about it all water's been on the ground at some point."

"But thanks for reminding me it's good for tracks." That's something else actually useful.

[friendsfordinner]

"Yeah, but water directly from the sky's got a lot smaller chance of animals stepping or pissing in it," Hickey retorts. He'll drink sky water, thank you very much, but not water that's got squirrel piss in it. He's got standards.

[edalyn]

"You people are so squeamish." To be fair, it's entirely possible that so are witches, at least compared to Eda. But she's the only witch in this conversation, so he doesn't need to know that.

...Then again she supposes he knew Hunter. But that's less funny to think about.

[friendsfordinner]

"Mate, I'm living in a world where I can afford to be picky," Hickey grins. "I'm taking it."

He's joking, he's trying to keep things light, he's got a light tone in his voice, but he's deadly serious about that. Having been in a survival situation before, having literally eaten whatever he could get his hands on to stay alive, be it leather, dog, fellow crewmate, he's not letting himself get in a situation like that ever again.

As long as he's got the option to eat fresh fruit and drink filtered water every day? He's fucking taking it.

[edalyn]

"Can't argue with that, I guess." To be fair, she even kind of gets it. Even by her own standards, there've been enough times that she was too on the run or two broke to be as picky as she would have liked.

On the other hand, it's fun to gross people out. And she still doesn't think snow is high on the list of things that should do that. "You might as well get something out of this place." Well, she knows he's getting a few things. But she won't mention his powers directly at the moment.

[friendsfordinner]

"Oh, I'm getting plenty out of it." And based on his grin, he knows exactly what he's getting out of it. And he knows that Eda knows. He's getting a roof over his head, a variety of food options, and supernatural powers.

"I'm taking full advantage of this place."

[edalyn]

"Trust me, I remember," Eda agrees, giving him a sidelong glance. She has to admit, it's interesting that he's the only example she knows personally of a regular human getting new powers.

"Still enjoying it here, then?" She has to wonder if he'll end up with regrets, but then again it's Hickey and he really doesn't seem the type.

[friendsfordinner]

"Obviously," Hickey says, like Eda just asked him a stupid question. There's a pause before he continues, voice serious as he talks.

"You've got to understand. My life before arriving here? Absolute shit. I spent three years wondering if I'd have anything to eat the next day. Yeah there are plenty of things here that want to kill me. But I had that back home and survived that as well. But a roof over my head? A steady source of food? Fresh fucking water? I love it here. I'm never going back. And I'll do whatever it takes to make sure I never go back."

Even if it's throwing his lot in with these fear entities in the hopes that whatever bullshit ADI uses to vanish people (because he thinks of course ADI uses some bullshit to vanish people) won't take on him.

[edalyn]

Eda's been varying degrees of broke, on the run, or both a lot over the years--and she still has to admit that sounds awful. It's enough that her tone gets a bit more serious, too. "Trust me, I get not wanting to go back," she says.

"I just don't want things getting that bad here. Or worse." She's already from a world that might be at worse. She's getting pretty attached to the idea of protecting this one. Even if she's not sold on the ADI, either.

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey looks over at Eda. There's absolute seriousness in his face as he points out, "It couldn't get worse than back home."

That, he is absolutely certain about. There's nothing in his mind that could be worse than what happened to him back in the Arctic.

[edalyn]

[Eda can't help raising an eyebrow, given that one of these options includes... various apocalypses. Though she sounds more curious than instantly dismissive.]

I know you said you ran into a monster... [And the setting in his dream mostly just seemed cold. Albeit very unpleasantly cold. She wonders how much more there was to it, though she won't press the issue.]

[friendsfordinner]

The monster wasn't the problem, [ Hickey points out. He pauses then continues with, ]

Or at least, it wasn't the main problem. The main problem was the lack of food. And what food we did have was killing us.

heck sorry for the format change, I was very sleepy

[edalyn]

"Was that the whole world, where you were from?" Eda asks.

She understands feeling like your own situation can't get worse, and she isn't about to argue someone's right to feel like that. She hasn't got any reason to think he's wrong about it.

But the stakes here--if the ADI are telling the truth--are the world. Everyone. So while that's a big 'if' to circle back to, it's not one she takes lightly.