79th page

[ladyistcrap]

Night blankets the villages south of the wall. While the pacifistic Gagarians are huddling around what may be the last bowls they'll ever smoke, the Hildnr are preparing to march and ride out in force come the dawn. Thankfully, you're far enough north that the nights are a hell of a lot longer than normal. Looks like you have about fourteen hours to kill.

You'll probably want to make a stop at the armory to get equipped, at some point, but there's also a fair amount of feasting happening where a bard is telling tales of the Hildnr's victorious history. The Blood Queen is in attendance, accepting oaths and blessing the warriors.

Of course, if what you'd rather do is train, the training yards are open, and there's a small barracks hall that's been outfittedwith clean furs and a roaring fire so you can rest before unleashing your bloodlust. Thoughtful!

Just don't forget: you still gotta find the blood champion, save the helpless stoner fratboys, and make it over that fuckhuge wall before lunchtime tomorrow.

Comments

[inenochian]

[ gently rolls sleeping-john onto his side (don't want you choking on your own puke, even if you do reek of demon blood, because i have learned mercy and tolerance) before following dean up the steps and out of the cellars. ]

[ whole lotta snow out here. ]

Not cause enough to rejoice, I know.

[sawedoff]

Sure the dude's feeling the pain enough as it is.

[if his gibberish is any indication. sleep it off man. he'll bust your balls for dabbling in the dark arts later]

[doesn't make a move to pull his jacket tighter or huddle or anything when they get into the cold but the way he goes kinda rigid is sign enough that it gets to him]

[ladyjohannaii]

N... Cas... Din...

[goddammit he asked you bitches questions. pushes himself to his knees and waits a minute for the world to stop spinning.]

Nn... Awgd.

[was he... really rude to a very pretty girl last night? was it still last night?]

[inenochian]

[ maybe he'll feel better once he eats some pickled pigs feet and vinegared beets. ]

[ at least the gagarians will mop up after him should he be sick. ]

I do regret not having any aspirin to offer him. [ you saved my life with that bottle of aspirin, dean. ]

[sawedoff]

[crossing arms is such a problem now that he has tits. it's like, where do you put arms, do they go over? or under? he has to cross and uncross his arms like three times before he finds a comfortable way to do it.]

He'll live. So what now? The princess wasn't in the castle.

[inenochian]

[ eye drawn by dean's weird arm-cross-comfort macarena. ]

[ is it really that difficult? ]

[ tries, hesitantly, to mirror the pose dean settled on. ]

Now we count on the others to create an adequate distraction to buy us enough time for a "Plan B." [ maybe i could dreamninja in and threaten the blood queen in her sleep. ]

[sawedoff]

Plan b would be, I don't know, finding the girl. It would help if we knew a damn thing about her.

[nope this one didn't stick either he's already uncrossing his arms, but that's also because he's frustrated and he gesticulates a lot when uppity]

[inenochian]

Well.

[ flaps arms down to her sides as well. doesn't gesticulate, just huffy-flapping. ]

We don't know anything, aside from her shoe size. We've done all we can without having more resources, Dean, so we need to have faith in the others to succeed in finding a missing link.

[sawedoff]

Fine, yeah. I'm getting kinda tired of people telling me to have faith lately.

[hands come to rest at his hips. he feels kind of jo doing it, so he tries to play it off like he's just going for the pockets.]

[inenochian]

Lately?...have you ever been receptive to someone telling you to have faith?

[ slight touch of that dry angelic sass. ]

[sawedoff]

Maybe I'd have some if god would ship down a blanket or something. I'd freeze them off if I had any.

[insert crude crotch gesturing]

[if he hadn't been constantly shuttlebused from one location to the next for the duration of his stay in the viking village he would have picked himself up some badass furs and gone cruella de vil in this bitch]

[inenochian]

[ follows the gesturing with gaze before abruptly looking away, at. at uh, shit, whatever happens to be handy. trees? an owl. ]

[ unbelts coat and shrugs out of it to hand it over to him. ]

[ through the marvels of angelic mojo, whatever clothes she'd had on the jimmy-shaped vessel under that coat are now a stereotypically appropriate dress. too bad it would look out of place in the hildnr camp. you tried star. ]

[sawedoff]

[holds..jacket? what is he supposed to. you want him to wear this?]

What do I look like, a high school cheerleader? You can keep the varsity jacket, champ.

[tosses it back to him and just tucks his arms in tighter against himself. too stubborn 2 live. eyes his getup]

That really what you're going with?

[inenochian]

[ what part of my "you tried" star can you not respect, dean. ]

[ holds coat and blinks at it for a second. what the hell is a varsity jacket. ]

Apologies if my "fashion sense" [ physical airquotes happening here ] isn't exactly "making it work."

[sawedoff]

[tilts head to look the outfit over. i mean, it doesn't look bad. for a lady. but it's too weird thinking about his buddy cas in those kind of terms]

You look like the chick in the beginning of a CSI episode that gets murdered before the credits.

[inenochian]

...Is that the television program with the detective who suffers from some form of photophobia?

[ might, might just get that reference. ]

[sawedoff]

Look at you, branching out from porn.

[good on you. doing that awkward bounce from foot to foot that you do to try to keep warm. can tell he's getting increasingly more antsy, he sucks at the waiting game]

Ok, this is gonna take too long. Let's at least go back to the village and see if we missed anything.

[inenochian]

[ it's not all that far of a walk, so dean probably would object to flying. ]

[ wraps folded coat around arms a few times and starts crunching through the dead quiet of nighttime snowscape. ]

There's something I've noticed about your speech previously, but it's more apparently now in these circumstances.

[ licks lips while thinking of how to phrase this. ]

[sawedoff]

These circumstances. You can say now that I'm a chick, dude, I'm not gonna go full-on PMS.

[slogging through snow in the direction of the village, hands tucked into excess sleeve and shoved deep in pockets. glances over shoulder at him because he's doing the lead-in comment that demands some form of attention]

[inenochian]

That's just it. That word. "Chick."

[ not making nearly as much of a mess in the drifts as dean is with his bulldog walk. ]

I've come to realize you only use it situationally. Specifically, the lower your respect for the woman or group of women in question, the more frequently you choose that term. But there's not animosity behind it.

[sawedoff]

Yeah?

[he doesn't see where cas is going with this the more you know about yourself moment, or if he does he doesn't seem to up for the topic. the look he gives him says as much]

[inenochian]

[ just going to blunder right into this, ready or not. ]

It's just...led me to question. If my vessel had been female from the start, how much differently you might have behaved. How much harder it might have been.

[sawedoff]

Yeah well you weren't a chick from the start so-

[snappy and defensive, good old dean. he's not too fond of the "what if" chats on the best of days, so cas blindsiding him with that is definitely unwelcome]

-so.. how much harder what?

[inenochian]

...To become your friend. [ instead of being written off as a Chick. ]

[sawedoff]

I have friends with boobs-

[SO MANY. oh my god so defensive. don't ask him to name them. what, it's like... charlie. and you could count hel if you're talking tumba. can you list them as a friend if you're banging them? is that like listing family as a reference on a resume?]

[slows to a stop as he starts to sort through the implications, turning to face him with the confused finger raise]

Wait, no. Hang up. Are you saying what I think you're saying?