Return of the Emblem Chapter Ten: Converging Destinies

[Ether]

"Dreams, huh?" Faatina wondered to herself as the topic came up.

"Well, Bisho- no, thas not... Rook! Rook, right, Rook... I think?" She managed, her slurs become a tad more obvious as she stumbled over her words. Letting that pass, she finally decided on something that didn't sound completely stupid... hopefully.

"It's kinda silly, but my dream is to do, well... everything. In Sanctuary there was a lot of stuff I wasn't allowed to do because I was a woman... so I want to experience everything the world has to offer~" She managed after a short while.

[Parrhesia]

Rook balanced the fact that Faatina was moderately attractive and probably hinting at sex with the ethicality that she was utterly smashed, and reluctantly what passed for his moral code won out. "Glad to hear it," said Rook, reassuringly. "You should sleep. And drink water. A lot of water. This the first time you been drunk?"

[Snowy_One]

"<What the ****?>" asked Robin as she noticed Rook bringing back a bear, somehow managing to carry the heavy animal over his shoulder. "<How the hell did he manage to take down a bear without putting himself at... Oh... Oh wow. How stupid.>" she said with a groan before getting up and walking away from the campfire. The idiot had probably stumbled on a bear while drunk or while the bear was sleeping or something and fought it, gotten lucky, and took it down. "Well, you got lucky and took down a bear. Congrats on escaping with your head intact. This should solve our food problems for about a day, more-so if we can salt the meat so it will keep."

---

"I know that but... Aw, whatever. It was just a friendly wager. If you don't want to, that's great. I wish you could teach me alchemy though. Mmmm... Anyways, I'd really like to sit down and work with you later. With luck my books can offer stuff to help you out and if not, well, we can still have fun reading them!"

[Ether]

"People keep trying to forcefeed me water... I'll drink some, just stop jamming canteens down my throat already..." Faatina grumbled, before shrugging her own distaste off.

"Yeah, it is actually... hehe, I didn't know the guy was selling booze, so I guess I sorta got suckered." She noted with a sheepish smile. "Oh well, it happens. I don't get why everyone's so worried..."

[Parrhesia]

"<Go away and play with your cunt some more, you ugly, insignificant little girl.> You were saying, Faatina? Oh. Well, it's alright once the hangover passes. That's why the water helps... stops the morning from hurting as much."

[Ether]

"Okay, that makes sense I guess. I'll drink some after we get this where we need to get it." Faatina replied, choosing to ignore the back and forth in Skotian for the time being.

[Parrhesia]

Rook nodded, and dropped the bear carcass near the fire, inspecting it briefly. He'd never seen a bear before, but descriptions from the poachers he dealt with back in the fur trade meant he'd seen their pelts, and this was definitely one of them. That meant it was a damn impressive kill. Damn, I'm good at this.

As for preparing it, Rook was less certain. He contemplated asking Faatina to skin it, then decided that handing a small knife to a drunk girl was less than optimal, so he asked her to fetch Nadya and began dressing the kill himself. It was tough work, but it felt rewarding.

[Click This]

"Ah, yeah, I can hunt. I've been doing it since I was a child." As she was saying this, Mao stared at the giant bear that had just been brought in. She nodded a bit, making a 'not bad' face. "Doesn't look like we'll get any sort competition today, Looks like we're sorted."

And fresh meat beat beef jerky any day.

[Snowy_One]

Robin simply kept quite and backed off, knowing full well Rook wouldn't even bother to say anything of value to her.

[Ether]

Going along with Rook's request, Faatina walked over to Nadya.

"Rook wants your help with his catch, Nadya~" She noted to the other woman, before sitting down by the fire and finally drinking some water.

[Phoenix]

Campfire

Rook returned with what might have very well been a bear from the looks of things. Marella was with him and they were soon joined by Faatina. Shadrak figured they were just eager to help get the thing over to the campfire so they could begin preparing it. He wasn't sure about eating bear but of everyone present he really had no excuse ... not after some of the things Chie had forced him to consume during ... darker times. Hopefully bear meat would go well with the quail, but Shadrak doubted it, if only because Robin, the hunter who had retrieved the quail meat, was now in another argument with Rook, the bear conqueror. This would not end well.

"You sure the guy wasn't competing with Miss Quail? I mean who the hell expected someone to come back with a BEAR?" Colin spoke up.

"No one. Now shut up, please. Pretty much everything you say is annoying."

"Heheheh," Gabbie giggled. Of all the people to come back with that ...

Dauntless head

Arietta's first encounter with the dragon head was nothing surprising, at least not to Raquel. "It's the dragon head," she gave the first part of her answer. "He shows up in my dreams every now and then and teaches me things about my emblem piece. Recently he's been manifesting in the real world and now he's offering to train us all in our sleep. That's really all there is to tell at the moment."

"Secrets optional? ... that sounds like it might be interesting," the dragon replied to Gar.

"Wait, what kind of secrets?!" Raquel interjected. She was a little distressed. "What are you willing to tell Gar that you're not willing to tell me?"

"A dragon can have its secrets, no? What if I had immense feelings for you, Discovery? I'm far too shy to be forward about such things."

"I ... w-what?"

"It would be so awkward, I know ..." the dragon followed up with a frown as Raquel stood there confused.

"What would the children look like ...?" Reign quietly mused.

"W-w-wha ... what ...? Okay we're getting WAY off track here. Why won't you tell me anything while you seem to be willing to share with Gar ... just because he asked? I asked like ... five or six times."

"The timing feels right." She had no idea what that meant and new no clarification was coming so began to consider leaving it at that.

Edited March 11, 2013 by Phoenix

[Ether]

"So a bloody fuckload of bullshit... Boss, the fuck are you thinking with this girl...?" Arietta cursed, mourning the loss of what had remained of her sense of normalcy.

"Alright, so let's say we're not all under some crazy fucking hallucination or some other bullshit, the hell do we train in our dreams anyway? Last I checked y'don't gain muscle by bloody sleepin... maybe you mages can pull some sort of crazy sleep training but how in the hell does dozing off make me bash heads in any better?" The bodyguard asked, skeptical as to why she was even bothering to do so.

'This girl is fucking strange... what does Boss see in her?'

[ReformBlade]

All was going well for Mushirah by the campfire as she resumed sitting near it and drawing occasionally, but this didn't last too long before what appeared to be a monster was dragged towards the fire. Holy wooow! Is that what they call a 'bear'? "Never seen one in person before... Was that thing as ferocious as it looks?" she asked, a little awe in her voice as she got a closer look at the thing. her next thought was wondering how it'd taste. But then she registered that there was more bickering going on but she tried to put a lid on her anger towards it at the moment. After all, last time she butted in she got some negative attention and didn't feel very pleased with herself about it, which, all things considered, was a pretty decent getaway for speaking her mind.

"I dunno what's going on over there but i find a dead carcass being dragged in and cut up a little more interesting, dont'cha think?" The egg was pretty inconvenient but Aneda was going to be a good mother for the next however many hours she needed to be. "But over there I think it's... Shit, I dunno, I think it's some sort of dragon thing? I dunno, maybe it's that dragon head dude... Man, I miss Fyodor..." She reminisced after mentioning dragons. Random, but she still missed him pretty badly.

Edited March 11, 2013 by ReformBlade

[Parrhesia]

"Dunno," said Rook, directing most of his attention to skinning the beast. "Bled a lot, though."

[Phoenix]

Dauntless Head

"... it was supposed to be about teamwork. Coordination and stuff like that," Raquel attempted to clarify.

"I'm flexible, though. It can be about something else if you prefer," the dragon chimed in.

"No, teamwork training is fine; we're going with that," she said with some firmness in her voice.

[Snike]

"Well, we could do worse than bear meat. Good hunting," Axel said, to the Skotian man who had most likely bagged the bear. With nothing else of note to say, for the moment, he fell back into silence.

***

"This whole evening's just been one awkward moment after another," Blake quietly noted after the dragon head dodged one of Raquel's questions by creating another one of said awkward moments. Then, one of the Weyland guards interjected and stated her skepticism about the scenario, which was understandable, to which Raquel clarified that the training was teamwork building as opposed to physically making people stronger.

"You don't need to participate, given that we do need a night watch regardless," Blake said, to the female guard, before turning back to Raquel and thus, the dragon head. "Right, since we will be doing the list I guess we should make a list of who's participating. I still need to talk to you and Veronika about that theory before we do this training session, but that can hold off until we get this organized."

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

"I like interesting things," Gar replied. Though dragon on girl action isn't, yuck. Gar kept his face controlled as he thought about that. "So this is all sorts of spiffy to me." One of those other new girls certainly wasn't though. Foul-mouthed brat. "Hm, yeah teamwork, that sounds right necessary for the rest of you."

[Eail]

Luka had been amazed when Faatina joined in on his playing with her singing, and while he couldn't understand the words it seemed pretty obvious that they belonged to the song. Once he'd finished playing he was going to praise the Rexian woman for her singing but she'd already vanished again. For a while he'd just sat there playing around with the violin, a few soft notes here and there but nothing really distracting. By the time it seemed like she'd come back Luka wanted to talk to her. "Would you like to sing while I play again? I'm sure there's another song we both know! Or well, maybe someone else might want to?" Taking a peak at his new friend Mao with a questioning look

[Click This]

"Eh? Eh Me? Oh, yes. I'm fantastic at singing, that is, if you count breaking windows as glass jumping for joy."

It was true. Mao was a talking person, not a singing person. She'd only tried a few times, but the results were not glorious at all. "I mean, I know a few songs, but you want the forest to maintain its peace, you wouldn't have me sing," she added.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Click This

[Phoenix]

Dauntless Head

"Okay, well we might as well move onto that then," Raquel replied to Blake, wanting to know what this theory of his was all about once and for all. Gar's latest comment almost slipped by Raquel, but not quite. "Wait ... are you saying the rest of us aren't as good with teamwork as you, or just not good in general?" He seems like the solo type, but I'm not sure I can actually argue either interpretation of what he said. Sure, we've won every battle so far, but our old instructors would have chalked it up to brutality, not good teamwork.

"Either way, I have some new ideas and will happily help you train~"

[-Cynthia-]

Connor

"I have some beginner books on alchemy you could read that I'm not using. It's getting kinda late tonight, but if you're going be traveling with us for a while there should be a number of chances to watch me work," Connor said to Tia.

Nadya

Nadya walked over towards Rook at Faatina's request, curious to see what the catch was.

"Ya caught a bear? Pretty impressive, haulin' one in all by yourself. I only prepared bear once mind ya, they're pretty dangerous for not being terribly tasty," she remarked, taking out her skinning knife and working on the half of the bear Rook wasn't skinning currently.

Veronika

"Dream training does seem silly, but it's some kind of magic user thing," Veronika replied to Arietta's concerns, shrugging. I don't know what the hell to do in there myself, but I probably should try and help Raquel...if it's dangerous in there?

[Script]

A Man Called Gar

Gar was actually implying that he really didn't need teamwork and that it was necessary for them. But with Raquel's answer he felt like he could have some good old jackass fun. He opened his cloak up and pointed his thumb at his own chest in as approximate a location to where Raquel got her arrow wounds as he could. "I suppose if I say arrow that might make things clear." He said with a cocky slight grin. He moved his other arm and showed the slit in his clothes--wait why had it taken him until now to remember this? He was even with a seamstress ugh! But uh, that aside, he revealed the slit in his clothes from the arrow that nicked him.

[Snike]

Blake winced at Gar's mention of the arrows. That was entirely his fault for not being there to protect Raquel, less so the fault of the team. Though, Gar did have a point about the whole group needing teamwork. This dream training, if it was legitimate, would be helpful.

But enough of that, for now. He had to deal with explaining his theory, soon.

"...Right, well, again, this has to do with the meeting tomorrow," Blake said, looking towards the campfire, where some sort of animal- a bear, perhaps- was being skinned. "So I'd rather talk out of earshot of the fire."

[Ether]

"Ahn~ Maybe a bit later... thy really want me drinking water, hehe~" Faatina replied to the less-endowed of their pink haired girls, before taking another drink of water.

************

"Teamwork, huh? Can't say I know anything about 'ow well you guys are with that." Arietta replied, taking a note that the skinny fellow with the knives was even more bloody cocky than she was... a feat to be certain.

"Well, I s'pose it's a chance to see how much of a bloody mess y'all seem to be before heads start flyin'"

[Phoenix]

Dauntless Head

Raquel almost felt the arrow in her chest when Gar referred to it and winced quite noticeably. That is something that bothers me a lot. I know there are two sides though. Me being on the front line is an inherent risk, but we're still no good at protecting each other. I mean that archer got off multiple shots at me before anyone even noticed him. I should have died that night ... Before she realized it, her hand was over the arrow's impact point, resting there naturally. As she looked down at it she sighed. "Okay, let's go. Veronika, Blake wants you to hear his theory too."

"Can I listen in as well?" asked the dragon. Not surprising in the least.

"I really don't know how to stop you either way ..." Raquel replied.

And the dragon smiled innocently.