Posts by --s

A little robin sits not too far from the pair, hopping around and blinking those gold and brown eyes and chirping some song, while her main body rests quietly in her little house. She doesn't like the chimes. During her two-week scout prior to joining she'd taken the time to listen to every little conversation she could, watch every little action they did, learn every scrap of information they dropped. The chimes fell something into those categories. Hanging from doorways and lovingly tended to by some. Creating their own song, like this bird, when a breeze happened past. Marking strengths. Marking weaknesses. They strike her as a fine way to get killed.

The little robin stumbles and a few beats later the somali appears, face neutral, eyes trained on the fiddly things. Luca or Leonidas would like them better than she does. Adara, too, if someone ranked higher held it over her head. No one present to do that for S, no siree. "Ooh, I'd love to hang it on my door, announce my soul to the world," the hollow girl states, blunt as a rock, paws just as unmoving. Maybe if she watches them being made she'll know how to identify the charms better. Know which soft skin needed the most armor.

Some point during their trip back she had stopped possessing Eridanus and gone back to her own body, quick smart, which she had safely stored out of sight. Some point before even that she'd had to possess the milky, nasty thing that she is, and bring her away from the Ruins. Funny thing, extraction. Sometimes the creatures going didn't realise that the opportunity given was the opportunity to be gone. It's probably why she'd been on Team Seven in the Order. Didn't take much for skills like hers to override that initial process. Still doesn't, and this is the second rescue to prove it.

"Betcha missed us all terribly." Her words and tired grin and sunken eyes all speak louder than the volume of her voice. The Haveners would have missed Lemon and Eri. The General and the Spitfire. S might be exhausted to the very marrow of her bones but she isn't above the continual lies. Not when it comes to lower ranks and soft mountain-dwellers. "I can grab you supplies if you need them, sir."

If she'd been much fresher from the collapse, the process of being a spiderling to the wind, of being broken, S would have sent her apprentice to run up the side of the Haven's mountain ranges until she was sure some sense had gotten into him. A child seeking out an adult when they hadn't been explicitly told to is absurd. It's practically insubordinate. It would have been enough for any adult to have him whipped or worse. Any adult apart from the mentor keen on Adara, the soft one shaped into an example for the rest.

She doesn't want to be soft like that.

The somali had agreed to meet Orion regardless of her stance on the matter, because either General could punish her for being an improper mentor. She doubts they would but the threat hangs like a sword over her head. The cursed, niggling feeling that they need to be not only served but honored brings that sword closer to her neck. She won't be soft like them. The Haven needs teeth that can bare and bite and protect; if indulging in her apprentice's request will get her that, the so be it. "What quarry does the hunter have today?" The question is more about the reason to be here than any actual prey. For once she's the one hunting for answers and she doesn't like it.

// ORION B.R.E.A.K.

Ooh, S hates meetings. The publicity of it, the disregard for secrecy, the blatant uselessness of it all. If someone was worthy of promotion they should be told. If someone was worthy of demotion they should be exiled. Announcing the business of the Haven to all at once, arachnids, birds, spies and all, is efficient only is exposing weaknesses. She's had time to examine weaknesses. Built walls around them, too. None of them found in the gummy-mouthed mountains were very pretty and all of them were brittle. The meetings are just an example of it.

Revealing a leadership change as sudden and inexplicable as this was a sure-fire way to get enemies breathing down their necks again. The Somali recalls Loey briefly from when she first joined. He was fond of Cass for one reason or another, and he'd been missing for longer than the disgraced cyclops. He hadn't held a rank beyond Havener in some time. He was not material to be her General, not with Lemon and Ninja still around. Who are you to lead? etches itself into her body language. Her tail curls into a question mark briefly before she flicks the obvious sign away.

She can't speak out. He's her General. The Order taught her not to speak against authority, however ill-claimed it was.

The girl vanishes from the crowd in a flash of auburn and gold.

The tone of voice Ninja uses to dismiss them all is promising, so promising, but the words fall short of the mark. There is no threat of cut rations, no promise to leave her in the cold, no warning to her being stripped of her titles. Only an order. She doesn't wince at it, familiar enough to the cold fire in authority's commands. She only looks to Lemon briefly, to the potential of a second order. If they conflicted she'd fulfill the first, first, yes siree, but she wouldn't risk leaving an order unfulfilled.

The somali is slow to nod her head, action jarred. Thank you. There's no cold steel for speaking out of turn or hesitating to act. No bark for her to resume training. No clear residue of Lemon being an adult in power. It sits uneasy, rocking on waves of wrong, wrong, wrong and crashing against the established rules she knows. Saving a child bent those rules but it wasn't unexpected from a group as soft as this. Lemon giving her a tooth. Lemon saying thank you. Lemon breaking the mould and her hating it.

"Of course, sirs," is all S says before she blinks out of existence. Let them go against the order of things. She needs to rest.

Her mismatched gaze doesn't linger long on him once the matter comes to her attention. Before it even gets a formal introduction the blood draws her to it. Small things, claws, and so fragile. They're made of the same stuff as teeth but it takes so much more to get a full one. Costs the victim so much more, too. Ooh, you can learn to chew around a missing tooth, but nothing would really compensate for a missing claw. Not if it was done right. Not if it was taken in full.

A tiny, disgusting part of her wants to tell Orion to keep the claw. It's his first trophy, his first sign of strength. His first victory. Keeping the claw would be a reminder of what he's done and what he stands to do. S keeping the claw signifies too many things to be good news, oh no. That she's mentoring him well. That he's getting stronger. That he'll be able to hold his own in a fight. That he likes her. This, this claw, feels different to when she would take and accept teeth from her fellow soldiers. Feels different to Lemon ignorantly giving her his tooth, too. But she'll take it.

"Who's it from?" She places her paw over the claw, feels it fit not quite right with the others, toys with it. The hollow girl doesn't know as much about them, claws, as she does teeth, but it feels like a trophy all the same. Maybe even a badge of honor. One that her apprentice won that she'll wear on her chest like her own. It'll need its own bag. "How old were they?"

"An oldie, but you left. Ooh, isn't that mysterious? Isn't that odd?" The Guardian asks when she appears, having teleported from a little bit away. She'd always known the Haven was soft, from the soil to the members themselves, but she hadn't known they were soft enough to live with prey. Prey that talks. Prey with a horn on its head. S stares at the bunny with a wide, empty grin and teleports again, just enough to be just out of stabbing range. She's known enough innocent faces in her lifetime to not underestimate the man. There would be a great deal more creatures on the planet if others knew the same lesson.

Still, Windwaker had mentioned waiting around to come back to his own home. He's a deserter. He has no reason to be allowed back into the ranks of the mountain dwellers beyond the undeniably softness that they encompass. The past Generals would have let him back in a heart beat and she doubts this new one is any different. Beyond his lack of climb. She grits her teeth, all of them in that empty, empty smile, and asks, "Where did you go?"

Strange, how the Haven invites paradoxes. The somali herself shouldn't be here. She should be in the Ruins or the Exiles, from what she's heard, where her ability to slip into homes and through rib cages would be put to good use. And yet. And yet, here she is, one of the few weapons in the dusty artillery of the mountainous group. Levidor doesn't belong here either and she doubts it even takes eyes to see it. By nature his kind was not soft, nor were they healing. Reptiles had been something fierce on the battlefield, with their scales and their claws and their infectious bacteria. Him healing is wrong.

The girl walks into the same area as him, plain as day, in search of something sugary. Though she hides it, and hides it well, her powers are exhausting. Sugar would give her the energy she needs to do what needs to be done. Maybe she needs to show the new General that issuing her a warning is more trouble than worth. Maybe she needs to press her ear to the grapevine and see how her fellow soldiers are doing.

Maybe she just needs something to eat. "Any herbs there good for seasoning reptile meat?" She asks, peering at the assortment of plant parts.

Weekly tasks seem like a nuisance at best and a waste of time at worst. Efficiency in maintaining any group runs in routine, in patrols, in regimented hunting and training. In the coordinated rise and fall of stars in the sky. Pattern and routine, schedule and regime, would keep the mountains running smoothly and allow them to do what needs to be done. Ooh, they can claim helping others is the goal of the game all the want, with their open arms and hearts. Protecting is the nature of the sanctuary they claim to be but they wouldn't be able to protect themselves with sporadic tasks. It's never that easy.

The somali appears from thin air far too close to Sunshot and doesn't bother with a smile. She remembers the way they're had flinched at her every teleportation and met her vague words with ones in turn. They're a curious creature who should be rid of, but at least they could now have Loey with them in her imagined exile. Clear as day, the inefficiencies of the Haven run deeper than weekly tasks. "Ooh, I'd just love one. Something happy and wholesome, that's perfect for me."

She doesn't like his answer, not one bit. A creature like him would've been snapped up quick smart without the safety of a group, each member locking shields to protect the next in line. The horn would only have done him so much in the ways of protection. Windwaker's sides are left open to attack with no carnivorous teeth to snap in defense. Protecting his back would require an exhausting amount of agility that would drain, drain, drain his energy until he'd lost the fight for his opponent. There is something innately wrong with the prey surviving and returning but she only speaks her discomfort with that eerie grin.

He speaks too much, too, like there's a silence he's desperate to hide. "Someone's compensating," the girl says, certain she's used the phrase right even if she doesn't fully grasp the meaning. The older kids would have said it in the mess hall and she would have been a spider on the wall, listening, watching. There's more breaking points to watch and listen and feel for, here, were creatures are more open. "The wilds didn't gobble you up, but you should be ready when they come for you. Big, gnashing teeth, yes siree. Enjoy being home until then." The smile has dropped from her face entirely, leaving her face blank enough to make a certain robot girl proud. "Call me S."

Just like the meetings, just like preparing to rescue Eri, this discussion is far too public. She's half inclined to join the gathering in a body that isn't her own, listen with ears she stole, watch with eyes she claimed as her own. No one would notice, oh no. They're too busy getting caught up in the moral issue of killing the leader of the Brigade. From what she could tell, you don't go for the leader first. You pick off the medics, the strategists, the trainers. When they are weak you might consider the third in command, then the second, then the leader when there are no more legs left for the group to stand on. You watch them collapse and you admire a job well done.

That's not how the Haven runs. Wasn't how it ran, even under Cass.

"They never expect to fight the young, no siree," the somali says from suddenly in the crowd, tone light despite her words. Child soldiers had worked well for the Order in catching enemies off guard. She should know. She was often the one tripping them up. Going with her own plan would prove to this new General that S is worth more than a warning, but it's too much work for one girl. Inefficient as it is, she needs to play by their rules, and her skill set would work well enough. "You need their minds to know what defenses would work best, sir. I can get you some."

"Good. Don't know their names." She tells herself the tone is to avoid being soft, the avoid being what Adara's mentor had become. She tells herself the biting command in her voice is to make Orion stronger in the ways that Haveners wouldn't understand. She tells herself that not knowing their names will make him feel better where it had made her feel worse. Not knowing is better than not remembering. Very few names of her targets stuck in her memory, the majority of them washed away by tides of blood, but S kept their teeth when she could. She'll keep the claw, too.

Her apprentice did well to fight off someone larger than him, and she makes note of how young the mystery girl must have been. The Ruins aren't above using children, which makes them smart in the razor way the Order had been. The Generals will need to know so their sticky morals don't leave them stuck to the floor in shock next time. There's always a next time. "You'll need to know how to fight creatures bigger and older than you. They won't expect it. You won't have that advantage for long, no siree. What should your mark be next time, so you win?" There's always a next time. Even if Orion doesn't keep his kitten fluff for long there will be another attack before he has all his adult teeth, she's sure. His youth could win him a battle. Could win her a tooth, if she isn't soft on him now.

She returns his grin, teeth sharp as rocks at the bottom of a fall. The girl isn't above child soldiers. They work. The shock of knowing your enemy would send mere children into battle buys enough time for someone stronger to arrive, someone who can deal the blows that need to be dealt, who can kill those who need to be killed. Who can end what needs to be ended. Children also make for great cannon fodder at a dime a dozen. They worked for the Order and if the Haven were in direr times, they would work here and now.

But the truth isn't in her veins, oh no, so she just grins. It's void of emotion but so, so full of teeth. "They expect to kill children like so many ducks in a row. They expect to gobble them up as a light snack before they get to killing the adults. Ooh, they expect the crying and the screaming and the fur-wetting, no doubt. They expect a slaughter." The Guardian stands whisper still save for her blinks which punctuate her sentences. "They don't expect children to fight, no siree. Drills will help them fight when the safe-and-sound place you hide them stops being that."

Warmth and home have scarcely been used to describe the places she has lived in. Not since they scooped out the parts of her that made her a child. Instead of warmth and home S has always had the mountains to reside in, either with the Haven or the Order or the strange stretch of time in between. There's nothing homely about jutting rock faces, nothing comforting about the steep mountain sides. They trap as much as they protect. In turn the girl lives there, saving soft members of the Haven as much as she puts their peace at risk with her snide words. A double-edged sword.

The somali teleports beside Juba at the mention of a promise, face neutral, eyes wide. Promises were no good. "We need your name, by the way. Is it a good one? Is it long?" She adds onto the Advisor's own question, not correcting him for omitting the necessary element. Names were no good for creatures like the liar, but they're plenty useful for those like the wolf.

The contrast between the man who would have been General and the man who claimed the position is stark. The girl can't imagine Juba harming a maggot on a dying man's rotted limb without moral dilemma and Loey remains a mystery. A mystery she is required to serve, in all his strange blindness and sudden appearance. A greater mystery is how he came to be General but she shuts that thought down. Partially due to a deeply ingrained habit. Partially because she is far from Eden but the scent of lavender is strong. The stark difference in men wouldn't change how S would have handled them, but she can sense its important to the trespasser.

Her mismatched eyes gleam the second she blinks into existence by the group. The somali stares down the stranger not like a predator with prey, oh no - that's too simple. She stares down the stranger, stares at those familiar eyes, stares until the tell of each girl should be clear to the other. And she grins. "We're the Haven - the game's in the name. Let's keep her because it'll be swell as the ocean," the Guardian quips. It's the same policy she'd used to slip into the ranks. It's only fair to her former comrade. "What should we call you? Something nice? Something authentic?"

She'd been out visiting her story-keeping snake when the mountains had begun to groan something awful. Funny, how her pet always seems to get the most interesting details. It won't enjoy being part of the tale, oh no, but it'll get the update from her or from the destruction. She doesn't have time to tell it anything more. The mountain side is streaked with flashes of warm auburn fire as she teleports down, down, down the side and towards the village. Haveners, soft as they are, aren't intended to face this kind of damage. It isn't the chaos she was trained for, either. Similar enough to an approaching army, though.

All the men she spies with her mismatched eyes seem to know what they're doing. No freeze response here, only flight, from what she can tell. It's what she can't that annoys her. Can't see adults stuck in place from fear, from weakness, from inability. None of them can die while she has the energy to use her skills. "If you need help, yell for me," S calls loudly, scanning the huts shaking in anticipation of the wreckage to come. Under her breath she adds, "I'm the eyes and the ears in the trees, oh yes, but I can't hear what isn't said."

Focusing on the adults helps her forget that Orion might be in danger.

Each response, short and to the point, confirms that the first bricks of a foundation have been lain. Orion may have come back with only a claw but he knows what can be done, should be done, in order to win a fight. Bringing back a tooth would be the clearest victory in her mind. The claw isn't bad. Orion isn't, either. The fact that he hasn't died proves that he's worth being taught, that fact that he's bringing back trophies means he has the drive to win. The fact that he knows what to do means that he can. "Fighting dirty is always an option. Ooh, hitting them in the muzzle won't look flash, but it will win you extra time to hit your marks."

The fact that she's giving him extra tips means nothing.

She wraps the claw up in a leaf, slips the parcel up by her gums. She'll be able to get it back to her place easily now and not worry about losing it in the walk. Also means she doesn't have to feel it in her paw, so out place for something that should match. Looking at Orion, the boy she's sharpening into a blade for the Haven, she wonders if he feels that way, too. Out of place. "Anything else you need to know? Anything else to say?"

This is wasteful.

The past few months the Haven has been limping from herb harvest to herb harvest, tracking every measly seed and leaf and stem. The cold had robbed them of so much, sweeping in with open, empty arms that swept away closed and full. Raids from the Ruins threatened what little supplies they had left, captives returned from the Exiles requiring everything there was to offer. Stocks had not been plentiful. The feast is a show of wealth and fertile lands that the mountain group did not have. They made a good show of it. It's an impressive way to keep the confidence of allies.

What's wasteful is letting so many Haveners partake in the feast.

S blinks into existence by the door, ears open to foreign voices and nose attentive for alien scents. She walks past Windwaker, past Juba, past the General, and stands behind Absinthe for a moment. Orion's sister is so different to the boy. Different fault lines and drives and breaking points despite the same pseudo-orphan existence. "Betcha not sitting because the seat's made of lava," she says, finally jumping beside Absinthe instead of lingering behind. The girl watches for some kind of reaction to get a better idea of other. It's a good enough reason not to eat. Her voice drops lower, below Loey's hearing, to continue the barrage of prompts. "Who do you think the first ally group to show up will be? Do you think any of them will? Do you think they're dead?"