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 Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 2:49 pm
It was a higher class tavern than Ilmarinen was used to. Not a single one of the windows was smashed and not a fight had broken out in the entire hour he'd been there. It was rather alarming, really. At some point in his life, Ilmarinen had become programmed to dodge and weave out of the way of fighters at distinct intervals. Without those intervals, his internal clock was off. There were even----and he carefully inspected his glass to confirm this----clean mugs.
There was a fire, but it was placed neatly in the fireplace. Where was the sense in that? There were even large comfy chairs situated around the fireplace. The posh kinds too, that weren't even unraveling at the edges. Guarding his pint like a dog over a bone, Ilmarinen sidled to an unoccupied chair and claimed it quickly; after an hour of singing and telling tales, he felt he was due a rest. Dimming twilight gloomed through the windows as best it could, but the snow was giving it some trouble.
At the very least, he felt he deserved to look around at the tavern a bit. He'd never seen so many dead animals in one place outside of a butcher's shop. Firelight danced off of glass eyes and glittered off of teeth polished up to shine. Ilmarinen tried not to look directly at them. He was alright with the idea of killing something to eat and survive, but just carving off bits of it and carting it back home for decoration just… well, there was just something wrong with it. Surely the forest spirits would be angry about this? Or maybe not. It wasn’t like nature was any kinder to itself. Nature didn’t care. It would take note of a falling bird, but only so the scavengers could eat it as it lay dying.
Tonight, though, philosophy wasn’t the topic of choice. Tonight, it was all about Wolves. Wisps and whispers floated past Ilmarinen. More disappearances. That was why the inns and taverns were packed to the windows; no one wanted to travel on cold nights anymore. No one wanted to travel at all. It didn’t particularly matter if the threat was truly Wolves or not. It only mattered that there was a threat. Maybe the snow was simply burying all the travelers.
But Ilmarinen wouldn’t have put a penny on that particular bet.
He leaned forward to listen to the other speakers. One gnarled man with a chest like a barrel and legs that could’ve been reconstructed from tree trunks was saying, “Can’t be wolves. Look at them heads up on the wall there. Are you seriously suggesting that some damn animal was able to outsmart people when we can do this to them?”
“You’re thinking that they’re just typical animals,” Ilmarinen butted in, with his usual consideration for etiquette, diplomacy, and other words longer than two syllables. “Seems to me that, if an animal can survive and keep itself hidden this long, it’s more intelligent than your average bear. Anyway, all the rumors say that human footprints were found.”
Which presented a rather haunting idea to Ilmarinen. Everyone knew that Guardians chose humans.
No one ever said that Wolves didn’t.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 8:15 pm
Some nights when Lord Ashworth stayed away on business, and those were plenty night indeed, his son - or rather, the man he called his son - would don the simple clothes of a traveler or a merchant and enter Palisade under the guise of a commoner, melding into the crowd as effortlessly as any man born to the rabble of the street and no more important than the next visitor or the one after. Dressed down as he was tonight, Edgar Ashworth struck nobody as a man of high birth, and indeed he wasn't. He had simply been raised in a world of glitz and glamour that no longer seemed to belong to him, and hadn't for several years now. The money and the heritage had all paled in importance the day he had discovered the truth of his birth - the b*****d son of some common man whose name he did not know. His entire life had been a sham.
Now, years later, the memory of that day still stung like an open wound, but he had learned to live around it; he had rebuilt his life upon more lies and fantasies that might never come true, but he had rebuilt it all the same. That was not to say, however, that he had escaped the encounter unscathed, and certain new hobbies he had developed - including the one he was indulging in now, dressing as a commoner to linger in common places - had become quite unwelcome with his tutors and servants back at Rosehill Manor. But it was not their place to bid him do otherwise.
Tonight, Edgar Ashworth sat clutching an emptied mug of ale tightly in his hands, gripping and regripping the cup with an inherently anxious, fidgety concentration. Beneath the table, he crossed and recrossed and finally uncrossed his legs, one heel jigging continuously up and down through it all. It was as if a part of him simply didn't want to be there, sitting in the packed tavern at a center-room table crowded with strangers. But then, perhaps, there was a part of Edgar that simply didn't want him to be anywhere, one that was simply waiting for the day of liberation of social confines. Even Edgar himself wasn't too sure.
The conversation around him continued at a dull roar, but every once in a while, he caught a snippet of the dialogue floating constantly to and fro. For a while he was content to listen, and it wasn't until the barrel-chested man brought up the idea of intelligence that the youth decided to join the discussion.
"Oh, animals can be plenty smart enough," he said, a little ponderously as he thought of Dardanos waiting patiently outside. The buck had always preferred the night; darkness did not scare him, nor the cold and the winter snows piling up side. No matter how cold the temperatures dropped, the Guardian was always warm, with pale eyes glowing like a fire burning full roar. "Given half a chance, they'll surprise you." And for certain, they were not talking about average animals here tonight. If a Guardian could be as intelligent as they were, why not a wolf? It had been many a year since Edgar had stopped not believing in magic, and he didn't doubt that magic had touched the Wolves as it had touched the Guardians.
"If there's footprints, that means they can be controlled," he added. A beast under the control of man was a beast that Edgar feared less than one acting with such savagery of its own accord. And yet, there was something still quite eerie about this talk. The unknown was ever a source of concern.
Wolves, Don, he thought to Dardanos. Creepers in the night. But darkness did not scare the buck for he was like fire, and as he so often liked to show his Chosen, all the dark wanted was a little light.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 5:39 pm
Barrel-Arms was clearly not used to having anyone interrupt his conversations and now it had happened twice in a row. Twice.
Ilmarinen considered, rather uncharitably, that that was probably the highest number Barrel-Arms could possibly count to. For the first time, he was almost grateful that this wasn't the sort of place where people started fighting at the drop of a hat. Not getting up to avoid being hit meant he got to keep his chair. And he had some debating backup. "Exactly. It's like squirrels and bird-feeders. You always hear about the cleverdick squirrels managing to get around any number of baffles to get at food. And people are basically just walking meatsacks. And it's been a hard winter. Maybe that's why the Wolves have come back."
It was better to think of them as normal wolves. Possibly. Hopefully. Normal wolves would learn to avoid humans again, eventually. If enough of them were shot, they'd run off, right?
But... it was strange that entire villages were apparently disappearing... wasn't it? The musician glanced towards the man who brought up controlling wolves, wondering if he wasn't the only one with a mind so nasty as to wonder if Wolves were like the Guardians. "You think that they're being directed by people? Why would someone want to destroy villages?"
Assuming, of course, that those rumors were true. Considering the harshness of the winter, it was just as possible that the people had just abandoned villages and then died in the frost. Or... something. People did all sorts of fool things in the country.
The alternative was worse. At least animals being nasty was just animals being hungry. Being directed by people meant that special brand of terror that was oh-so-human.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 11:49 pm
"Why does anyone want to destroy another man's hard work they slaved over?" A feminine voice piped in quietly, not bothering to raise her voice too much. If someone didn't hear her, then they didn't need to pay attention period. She'd been standing off to the side, idly leaning against a table's edge and listening to the men as the talk had progressed into something worth paying extra attention to.
Stepping forward, Nori eyed all the folk gathered around thus far. "How do we even know that a human was with them and not just tramping around, leaving imprints because they - like some of us - are overly curious about recent... rumors?"
Not that she didn't think the same. That there were humans somehow connected to the... Wolves. Or so the rumor was. But damn if she was going to take an opportunity to voice some of her... concerns. Some of the things she'd wondered about while trying to play Devil's Advocate with her own theories. Frowning, Nori crossed her arms and pondered what she, herself, had seen while traveling close to the Wardwood. She had yet to venture anywhere near the 'sightings' or the villages destroyed. But Old Castle had been glum as of late. A thick cloud of grim fear beginning to encase it. Even Nightlark was uneasy at home, and that was saying something for the huffy buck!
Said buck roamed about outside while Jackyl sat perched on Nori's shoulder in a eerily silent manner that made it difficult to tell if he was alive or just... stuffed.
"Has anyone here actually seen these signs themselves?" Nori asked curiously.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:43 am
There were any number of theories that they could have come up with to explain the rumors of the Wolves. Even just sitting in the tavern fidgeting with an empty mug, Edgar could think of several, and each less settling than the last. Then again, his imagination did have a tendency to veer toward the morbid, especially when it was dark and cold out. Just like a magician's tricks, these disappearances must have a simpler explanation, but Edgar preferred not to ground himself too much in reality; after all, he of all people should know that real magic was afoot.
His gaze wandered when a woman's voice sounded, and he stared for a moment at the black rook perched atop her shoulder. Edgar wasn't sure he liked the way those beady eyes seemed to stare through him when he met its gaze. It was almost like it knew something and wasn't sharing it.
"I don't suppose we know anything," he said finally, tearing his gaze from the bird and fixing it pointedly on the mug in his hands, his fingers tracing the rim with that same fitful energy. "All we've heard are rumors, after all." Edgar had never ventured far enough north to encounter anything like the stories that had come blowing south like the hard winter winds, and much as the dreamer in him wished to go hunting for adventure, the rest of him knew it was wise to stay put.
He turned to the singer with a small shrug, reluctant to put too much weight on his own unresearched conjectures. "It's possible," he answered. "They say... that Guardians bond with people. Similar magic could be at work with the Wolves." He glanced with barely-concealed unease about him for reactions to his mention of Guardians. There was still a part of him that was unwilling to share the existence of Dardanos with too many, for fear that somebody might try to come between himself and the buck that he had grown to rely on. You never knew, after all, what sorts you were surrounded by.
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 2:02 pm
"And another county heard from," Ilmarinen said sardonically as another speaker jumped into the fray. A woman about his age and with a very strange fashion sense. Perhaps she thought that the dead(?) rook on her shoulder gave her an edge or something. Or maybe she was taking her fashion cues from places like The World Turned Upside Down and decided to apply the whole 'dead animal heads' to a logical extreme: just put dead animals on clothing! That made sense!
Or... was it breathing? Ilmarinen tried to stay very quiet (always a struggle for him) and simply watch for a moment until he was pretty certain he saw it breathe. That made him feel better, in a strange way. When people started pinning dead things to their clothes, he felt too far removed from his own world to be comfortable. Only rich folks did fool things like pin dead animals to themselves.
"Oh, of course. Because the natural reaction to a bunch of dead bodies is to immediately start tramping all over them. The footprints can't just be bystanders. Because..." he stopped there, primarily because there wasn't a logical reason why they couldn't be from the investigators of the crime, rather than the commiters. Well, except for the very bardic reasoning of, 'it makes for a better story'.
ANYWAY, he changed the topic. Quite coincidentally and completely unrelated to his inability to come up with logical reasons, of course.
"No," he only very grudgingly admitted. "I haven't seen anything personally. But I don't like leaving the city much, except to go to the forest. Could be that the Wolves just haven't attacked anyone nearby. Yet. That's just tactics. Attack smaller targets and work your way up. Cut off food supplies and all that."
But... he realized, as the other man spoke... that was a very human reasoning. Wolves probably couldn't reason to that degree. "Could be large dogs and a person. That's what my Dad says."
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2013 7:41 am
"Hoping for the best hardly prepares you for the worst," Edgar intoned, not meaning to sound morbid but finding no other way about it. If the rumors were true and Wolves roamed Sunderland afresh, then pretending they were working on their own, random accord could prove fatal if their actions were in fact masterminded by much more capable humans. "These rumors are quite serious. I would hate to be caught unawares if it came down to a fight."
Edgar had read some about the Wolves of old, though the literature on them was limited. The centuries that had passed since the last sighting had turned much of the old knowledge on them into speculation, and some books even seemed to be based on old folk songs and children's rhymes. It was as difficult to sift through the material for trustworthy sources as it was to find the material in the first place.
But Edgar had been hunting for it. Dardanos' existence was more than enough to convince him that the Wolves were back, and the chilling thought had reminded him that he ought to know as much about the enemy as he could.
"It would have to be a bloody big dog," he said. "And a vicious one at that. It would be difficult to make a dog that angry." It was a possibility, and possibly the most simple explanation for it all, but Edgar wasn't sure he wanted to know what lengths one would have to go to in order to turn a domesticated creature into a beast of such ferocity. And why bother? A man with a dog were mere mortals and untouched by magic; sooner or later, such a ruse would fail and nothing followed failure but death.
Do you suppose they do have humans, Don? If they do, it is not the Wolves we must fear, but the ones controlling them. But humans die more easily than Wolves.
But no, the buck was answering, they couldn't be. Humans could not do what these ones had done.
There is evil in the world.
But not enough.
"Or perhaps it is not human," Edgar found himself saying aloud. "Perhaps it is something else entirely."
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 12:01 am
After having done a bit of work for the day, Shane decided to take some time to unwind. He wasn't really one for drinks, but taverns served their own purpose for him. It was a decent place to get some more information and even find more work. Not that there wasn't a shortage of things to do with all the recent hubbub. Besides, he could probably grab himself a meal, which was something he could use right about now.
Coming into the building, he gave a quick scan of the surroundings. The place wasn't at all very run down, and seemed fairly nice as a whole. Hm. That may mean the price of things were a little higher than usual, but he did have coin on him at least. There was little sense in him walking out now, so he continued on in and grabbed himself a table to sit at.
It wasn't long since he had entered that he could hear talk of wolves going on about. The beasts were certainly a popular topic nowadays. Go figure that he'd come back after six years away from Sunderland to this sort of nonsense. Someone was clearly taking control of the way the people in the region believed in the old legends. To what purpose, he was uncertain. For now he said nothing to add to the conversation, being content to keep to himself in the meantime. However, he couldn't help but scoff as one of the men in the room mused that the guy with the canines or supposed lupines wasn't even human to begin with.
To Shane, he didn't even know why the wolves were as big of a threat as they were made out to be. There was a huge forest practically untouched by man. Surely there was plenty of prey in those woods, that they wouldn't need to wander out towards civilization to cause people grief.
But people were inclined to believe whatever.
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