by Yana » Fri Dec 09, 2016 5:19 am
"...And when I see these fools actin' fresh homie, it just makes me wanna click, clack-"
Pow. The thunder of the Shopkeeper crushed the forest calm, scattering the birds to the tune of Yung Tri's hard-hitting beats. The bone-jarring push of the shotgun shoved awake the nooks of her brain that hadn't been rocked by the sounds of fake gunfire and police sirens. Instinctively and immediately, the hooded girl racked the pump - a hot red shell popped out of the chamber with a satisfying chatter, but in the moment it took for the leaden smoke to clear the man had already crumpled into a limp sack of blood. Her woven basket plunked to the ground, and an especially shiny red apple rolled into the dirt.
Annaliese Graele's lips tilted into a thin slant of disappointment. She could already see the bruise. This man...
She leaned over to check his fate. The ragged gap in his belly was enough to pass a sports ball through, so dead or not, he was done for now. With an exasperated hmph, the rosy-cheeked teenager swept the Shopkeeper underneath her cloak, bit her cheek and stepped over to her rogue fruit. Reaching for the apple, a bloodied hand seized her ankle, drawing a curious look. His face was pained and dirty, stained with gore and laminate chips from his now-ruined body armour, but worse - so was his hand, and her boot was already dirty. Annoyance flashed through her with immediacy, and she absentmindedly shook off his grip to recover her fruit.
"And now watch me do it again homie, boom-bop-p-"
Polishing off the dirt, she dug into her waist pouch and tapped off her music player. She sighed, smoothing out the last bit of adrenaline that had her heart racing. Her ears curled and twitched beneath her hood.
"Ugh, you just had to bruise on this one, idiot! My Mom worked really hard to pick these...! What in the world is wrong with you?" Annaliese groaned, frowning. Her voice rang with exasperation contrary to the violence of the mess she'd just found herself in. Shifting her teeth from her cheek to her lip, she returned it to the basket and fidgeted with the blanket until it was prim and secure. It was only then the blonde-haired girl whisked around to face the quivering man in the dirt. Arms folded, she bent over and stared down at him with a chastising glint.
"You run at me like that, what did you think would happen, you turkey? You're lucky I didn't blow your friggin' head off, seriously." she said. Sighing, she gave him a once-over and tucked her hair behind her human ear, shifting to her knees to get a better look on him.
"Lucky my Dad will chew me out if he finds another dead guy in the forest, too..." she muttered, plucking two triangular sticker-laden earphones from beneath her hood as she picked at his pockets for some kind of identification. She'd known as she saw him walking down the trail he was a soldier or paramilitary of some kind, but she wasn't ready to get concerned until she knew he was one of the Overlord's men, or... maybe a rebel from that Resistance thing. Either way, Passerna was close enough that she didn't need to think about rolling him down the ravine just yet. She slapped away his still wandering hand.
"You know the two most painful places to get shot are your belly and your kneecap? Quit moving... who are you, anyway?" she questioned, hovering her cool hands over the gritty, inside-out mess that distorted his abdomen. The armour was strong, she guessed - the laminate and fibres ate most of the force, but the alloy pellets still cut through and cut deep and he'd probably bleed out by about nine o'clock if he didn't see a doctor and maybe one of her Life Sigils. The hooded girl had her trepidations, though: She'd skipped her last class on Sigil theory, and the guy might get up and lunge at her again.
"Mm, I need a hand with this..." she said. The girl perked her head up to scan the treeline - the birds and the bees had already poked their heads back out. Structuring her fingers against her mouth, she whistled.
No noise came from her lips, though.
This was one way to open a Monday, eh?
It was an irony of Patria that for its legacy as an ever-mutating frontier world where love and money lived fast and died hard, not much seemed to change these days. The past couple of weeks hadn't been any different, really; Passerna's crowds milled, classes were in session, the exotic herbs tasted just as good and brain-dead guys - sometimes drunk, sometimes high, sometimes just stupid - still wandered off into the forest looking to blow off a stiffy. Not three minutes ago, there she was walking down her usual trail when she saw this creeper tootling down the path. Being that this trail went nowhere in the opposite direction unless you knew the hidden routes, she'd made a habit of keeping her attention on the Shopkeeper whenever she met someone here, especially after the sixth time it'd ended in a shotgun blast. Here could be number seven if she just pulled the trigger again.
The birds scattered, suddenly. Trees shook, and the bushes off the trail quivered. Anna stood upright, plucking a kerchief from her cloak and absentmindedly dabbing off the blood on her fingers. The shaking evolved into tremours, and they grew nearer and nearer - like an unseen train were barrelling toward the hooded girl and her would-be rapist. Somewhere, a grazing mammal and its doe sprung across the trail to safety.
An excited howl broke the tension.
With a great blast of leaves and shattered twigs, an enormous grey shape came rocketing out of the trees, skidding to a halt not a metre behind Anna shrouded by a plume of dust that had the girl pull up her cloak to shield her face from the whipping soil. The shaking vibrated to a halt and two predatory yellow eyes pierced the beige haze, staring over the hooded teenager with motives inscrutable. She coughed, waving away the dust, and turned to face the towering shape which panted loudly to the audible drip-drip-drip of saliva.
It snorted.
"Baby-boo!" Annaliese cried suddenly, skipping forward into the great furry mass of an... enormous wolf. A creature of silvery-grey fur, innocent yellow eyes and a lazy tongue that lolled sidelong from its mouth, the enormous beast towered over the blonde girl, great bushy tail waving happily. The canine must've been as big as a minivan - its feet were the size of car tires. Grinning ear to ear, the girl swung her arms around the wolf's neck, planting an enthusiastic kiss on its chin.
"Ooh, I'm so glad to see you, bebe! Good boy, come here! Thassa-good-bubby, yes!" she chattered, whisking her hands through the dog's chest fur and scritching its ears. The wolf whined happily, immediately craning its neck down to attack her cheek with its tongue.
"Euch, yes. Good boy, Grim. Mm, love you t-tu-pfft!" she snorted, drowned out by an onslaught of enthusiastic licking that drenched her from neck to ears as the wolf peeled off her hood to get at her own animal ears. She twitched, giggling uncontrollably.
"Sh-stop that, that tickles, God! Okay, oh-kay, eh-nuff! Sit down, boy!" she laughed, pinching the wolf's head and rapping its head with a knuckle. The dog relented... barely, and sat down as it was told, tail still wagging furiously. Annaliese coughed, immediately reaching for her kerchief. For an instant, she'd nearly forgotten what'd just happened. Such was the nature of Grim, her pet Patrian dire wolf of... oh, eight years now? Aunt Elen had never been keen on pets, and while her Mom was content throwing feed to the birds and the fishes the young Anna couldn't turn down the thin, whimpering wolf pup that'd ended up in the hollow of a muddy tree during a rainstorm one fateful evening. It was only supposed to be for one night, but her Mom and Dad cooked up a plan to tend to the pup at Dad's place so that Auntie wouldn't force nature to take its course.
It was a rare moment of weakness her aunt regretted to this very day. That reminded Anna - he was probably in for a punishment after tearing up the garden against last week and trying to mate with a fallen tree stump. But that could wait.
"Grim, buddy, I need your help, 'kay?" she said, patting his neck. The gigantic wolf's ears and eyes narrowed as he peered over her shoulder to the wounded man in the dirt. Grim growled, low and threatening - dogs, as the conventional wisdom went, were the best judge of character.
"Don't worry, don't worry, I capped him. But I can't blow this one's head off today, so I need you help me carry him to Passerna so we can drop him off with the cops, all righty? We'll say he tripped and dropped his gun." she said. If Grim had any neurons to debate his master's scheme, he didn't let them show - instead resuming his lazy tongue-lolling with an affirmative bark.
"Good boy! Here, help me pick him up. I'll throw him over your back." she said with an encouraging pat. Slipping her basket of apples onto one arm, she seized the downed man by the wrists. Grim laid down next to her, and she dragged him over with a struggle - Gods, he was heavy.
"All right, here's... how it's gonna work..." she said, ignoring the expected moans of pain as she doubled him over to sling him belly first onto Grim's furry back. The wolf eyed him angrily as Anna scooted his lower body over the dog's flank. The ride would be terrifically painful, but it would be quick enough for him to not bleed out. Satisfied enough, Anna signalled for the wolf to stand. Securely in place! Maybe the blood had a kind of adhesive effect.
"I drop you off at Passerna, since I'm going there anyway, and in exchange, I don't throw you in the darn river to repay my aunt's apples." she said, dusting her hands.
"Objections? Well, tough cookies - let's go." she said, barely giving him a second to collect his thoughts. Seizing a tuft of fur, Annaliese hoisted herself onto the dire wolf's back as if he were a horse and with a click of her heels the beast lunged off down the trail, leaving a torrent of dust in its wake.
To Passerna!
We can live forever if you've got the time.