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+---- Thread: cut our teeth and make our bones right here (/showthread.php?tid=7764)
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-08-2022
Mmhm, mmhm, he's beginning to see how he might have fucked up here. Or rather, the tiny part of him that's still capable of rational thought is beginning to see that. The rest of him has one hell of a craving, and he's tottering on the edge of the docks as the siren promises to sate it. [say]Remi,[/say] he thinks, weakly and quietly, because if this doesn't happen now and he's in the water, his chances of survival absolutely plummet.
But there's nothing happening, there's no one coming. And while it's an awful idea because he absolutely can't take this thing on alone unless he pulls out all the stops (and that's guaranteed to get him in more trouble than he can handle)... well, he's full of awful ideas. Stuttering in a breath, Ronin flicks out the silver chain for it to coil around the siren's wrist, snagging tight, as if he might haul her out of the water.
Yeah, he doubts it too, don't worry.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-08-2022
The metal plonks forward. The heavy silver thuds against the wooden boards and though one loop manages to make it around the siren's wrist, this clever creature is so much more than just a pretty face; too bad Ronin isn't, though he'll make a lovely assortment of bones when she's done with him.
Reaching for the silver, her song turns to a piercing shriek. The loveliness falls away from her, leaving only fury and terror. This could have been so wonderful for you, the gnashing of her teeth seem to say, but now it will be painful. Where before there had been pleasure and sweet promises, now there was only discord and auditory violence wreaking havoc inside of the hunter's skull.
With her free hand the siren grabs for the chain, yanking back in the hopes the grip that Ronin has upon it will drag him down into the water.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-08-2022
And into the water he goes. For all of his skill and experience, a siren's song is a siren's song - especially when it loses its sheen and begins to bore its way into his skull until his brain melts. Both ears are bleeding by the time he hits the freezing surface, but he holds fast to the chain even as the cold steals his breath. If he's going to die here, he's going to take this thing down with him.
Yanking back on the silver, he hopes to drag the siren as close as possible, but it's a difficult endeavour as his clothes and gear and everything else try to weigh him down and drag him under. His ears ring and his head pounds, but his free hand is still floundering in the pocket of his coat, until he can draw out a slender, corked bottle.
You can't technically bottle lightning, but you probably don't know the same people Ronin does. 'People'. This will almost certainly kill him, but it beats drowning.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-08-2022
60..
One would think being in the water would muffle the calls of the siren, but instead, they're amplified. (58). Her laughter fills the spaces left by the air sucked out of Ronin's lungs, and though his movements encourage her closer (53), she does so gleefully.
Tangled around him like seaweed, his blood darkening the spaces between them, her claws slash away at his sweater, digging into the flesh beneath. (45). Her screams grow louder and louder as if she meant to flambe the hunter's brain with her song before feeding upon him (38. Though she knows not what it is Ronin is reaching for, she does know that the blood which will ooze from his wrists would make a pretty addition to the taste of his eyes. So, reaching forward, (25), she claws at the fabric of his pocket, shredding it easily. With numb fingers and his senses haywire, she leans in, (19), teeth removing a chunk of flesh from his shoulder. (12).
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-08-2022
If there's one thing to be thankful for, when it comes to the snow and the dreadful cold, it's that Ronin can barely feel his injuries. It's all just pressure, the way the claws thud against his wrist and the way teeth fasten against his shoulder. His fingers are all but useless, honestly, but he's already got hold of the bottle, so uh... fuck you and the horse you swam rode in on, eh siren?
Gritting his teeth as he struggles to flick the cork away from the top of the glass opening, it feels like it takes a century (in reality it is 48 seconds, how about that) before he gets it loose. But when he does? The entire surface of the water around them lights up, electricity dancing along the waterfront and spiking up into the air. And fuck, does it hurt. It hurts enough to seize Ronin's muscles and have him choking out those final 12 seconds without even considering it.
A final stream of bubbles leaves his lips, and he starts to try and breathe the filthy water instead.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-08-2022
It's too optimistic to say something like, later, Remi will roll his eyes at Ronin's antics, because that implies far too many things about who and what later will bring. For now, it goes like this.
Lightning flashes from the bottle, charring the siren's left side. Thankfully Ronin is spared the scent of burning flesh (both his and hers) not just because of his inability to breathe beneath the surface, but because of the blood that hangs heavily all around them. (8). She isn't dead though, and currently neither is he. (5). Claws dig into Ronin' shoulder once more, inviting beautiful tendrils of his blood to pulse around them. (4).
There's a brief push against Ronin's legs, almost like a current. (2)
Gods, drowning is a terrible way to go. (1)
-3...-6....-10
[say]wake the fuck UP[/say]
Should Ronin deign to wake up, he'll find his cheek on the wood of the docks, his silver chain sunk in the water, his shoulder badly broken, and a siren being torn to shreds by a wendigo who has torn out her larynx and discarded it nearby.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-08-2022
It's real fucking cold. That's Ronin's opinion, deep in his lizard brain, and if it didn't hurt so gods damned much, he'd be shivering violently. (Right, right, it's not the hypothermia setting in). Retching and rolling onto his - thankfully not broken - shoulder, he vomits up an alarming amount of the putrid waterfront. Add in the way his blood continues to soak the wood from his left shoulder and wrist and hoo, boy, it's a fun time all around.
Any of his tools and tricks that once lived in his left pocket are similarly lost to the water, given that this part of his coat is completely shredded now, and he'll be upset about it later. For now it's just blood and snow and his heart galloping in his chest. He supposes he's lucky it didn't short out completely from the lightning, only he doesn't feel at all lucky right now, to be frank.
Whatever Remi is doing with the siren is none of his business and beyond his jurisdiction; those two monsters can have it out as far as he's concerned.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-08-2022
[SAY]how much of her do you need[/say] Remi wants to know. With his back to Ronin he looks like some partially-finished museum piece come to life, only someone has gotten the proportions horribly wrong. In fact, it looks like they've clumped together far too many incompatible animals and covered it all with far too little skin.
Where Ronin's lizard brain is worried about the cold, Remi's human brain -- you know, the one which makes him so interesting to the likes of Isla and Suuuuusan -- is trying it's gods-damned best to keep things in focus. Only, for the same reason most men have a hell of a time managing the pull-out method, he's very nearly at the tipping point where Ronin will become food instead of a friend, especially covered in blood as he is.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-08-2022
I'm dying, what kind of fucking question is that, is what Ronin would like to scream into Remi's head, except his thoughts are all curious static and strange, dancing shapes that seem to form out of the falling snow. When he does succeed in stringing a thought together, it's some weird mingling of [say]don't care[/say] and [say]vocal chords[/say], because why be vague when you can also be massively specific at the same time?
Doesn't really matter, he supposes. Trying now to roll onto his knees, his left arm and shoulder a completely useless hunk of flesh that doesn't want to respond, Ronin totters and ends up hunched over in the shittiest child's pose any yoga instructor has ever seen. [say]She dead yet,[/say] he wonders. Or am I?
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
How convenient that the siren's vocal cords were the first thing that the wendigo removed from her. As Ronin lay dying or wishing he was, Remi finished off the poor creature who, without her abilities, was rendered hardly any more powerful than a flounder. Quickly the area around Remi is covered in fish guts and flayed skin, and though nearly all of the wendigo's rib cage is visible, somehow the food disappears down his throat just the same.
Gorging himself until the prospect of eating his friend is a far, far away hum in the back of his mind, Remi shifts, slumps, and draws his knees up to his chest. Rendered a bloody mess, he peels his eyes open, dazedly looking at Ronin. [say]"Sorry for the timing.."[/say] He offers, far too casually for how his timing had been received. [say]"I figured we would only get one shot at her, so I had to make sure she really had her hooks in you."[/say] And by the smell of blood covering Ronin, she literally had.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
Friend? Now let's not get ahead of ourselves. Said friend can't see the viscera and gore produced by the wendigo sating himself, luckily enough - Ronin is too busy trying to decide if he's still drowning, if he's electrocuted himself to the point of no return, or if he's just bleeding out. The last one is a near certainty, granted, but he'd like to know about the others all the same.
Are you? is what he'd have snarked if he didn't think he'd vomit if he opens his mouth. Or possibly why?, or maybe I can't really hear you, can you speak up? Alas, all he manages, really, is a thick, [say]"have to... go..."[/say] because obviously what has happened here is going to draw attention. And really, the sooner he peels his ass off these docks and gets back to the complex, the better.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
Distantly, Remi nods. They did have to go, only...gods he couldn't risk it. Not with that much blood pouring from Ronin. [say]"The chain.."[/say] The wendigo pleads, or maybe he just points it out. [say]'I can carry you, but...'[/say] He trails off, assuming that Ronin understands just what an irresistible snack he's become.
Rising slowly, the wendigo grabs the siren's corpse, heaving her towards the waterside and tossing her in. She'd sink eventually, and if not...well. Wendigos were extremely rare in this particular part of the world, so unless someone in the undercity blabbed, there'd be no tying this sort of violence back to him.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Ronin - 12-09-2022
[say]"Nah,"[/say] Ronin says. He'd have snapped it, but he doesn't have nearly the energy or the coordination right now to make decisions on tone. Not that he has much of a chance of getting on his feet and getting back to Undertown by himself, whether or not he wants Remi's help in the matter. Still, he gives it that good old college try (the irony, because as if he went to college), and he manages to totter to his feet and grasp hold of the side of a tarp covering cargo.
[say]"Chain's gone,"[/say] he slurs, his good hand batting around at his ruined coat and sodden clothes beneath it, just to double check it really isn't present. [say]"S'fine. Can walk."[/say] How far, you ask? And how quickly? Stay tuned to find out, because Ronin is painstakingly beginning to shuffle back the way they came, a hand clamped around his bad arm as if to keep the broken shoulder properly in place.
RE: cut our teeth and make our bones right here - Remi - 12-09-2022
Naked and just as bloody as Ronin, Remi's eyes widen to hear that the chain is gone. It isn't though, it's just down in the water. A better monster than he was could just...go and grab it. It wasn't as though he couldn't endure the burn in his hands, only...well. As we've said a number of times, this isn't a feel-good Hallmark special, and Remi isn't a better monster.
[say]"Ronin."[/say] Remi hisses, not daring to take a step closer. His eyes dart back and forth, as his lips form silently around ideas that immediately fall away, before he flinches into stillness. Cocking his head, he inhales. [say]"They're coming."[/say] He whispers, able to hear the sounds of electrical static and boots shuffling on concrete. It was likely just the dock-guards coming to see what all the fuss had been about.
[say]"You have to go into the water. You have to get the chain, and then I can get us out of here."[/say]