Private Tales A hunter in the streets

[Rainer]

A long walk could cool the tempers. And while he felt guilty for having any form of temper, the error of his ways was quickly fading in the wake of recent suffering. And that suffering only continued to compound with each step through the mud, night lit by the arcs of blue across a cloud ridden sky.

He lost track of the mare after a few moments, finding that its pace was too much for him. Particularly given that his damp trousers moving at anything faster than a brisk jog would lead to severe chaffing. Hardly the sort of thing he'd want, especially if he needed to ride that horse come morning time.

After all, there was a still a coastal town afflicted by the occult.

He came around to a road cut from the hill side, tamped down but still fairly muddy. The edges were lined with rough hewn fencing that lead to a small home. Sandwiched one one side by open fields and on the other by a woods, delineated by a small tributary of the Cairou, it was a picturesque stone home in the clouded moonlight. And it was breathing out heat through the stone chimney in puffs of black smoke.

Looking to his side, he spied the detached barn. Seemingly composed of logs and mud, roofed in thatch, the horses seemed to be getting along just fine beneath the shelter. The Vedymin bristled as he made his way down the road. Finding his way to the door, he pressed a fist against the threshold and knocked three times.

 

[Wren]

"It's open," Wren called from her seat. Werewolves could have come knocking for all she was concerned, she was warm and comfy and she was not moving from that spot.

 

[Rainer]

Of course it was open.

He pressed on the handle and came in. Seeing what appeared to be a robe covered Vedymin, lounging in front of a fire with a full bottle of wine, he did the only thing that seemed to make sense.

He strode over, plopped in front of the fire cross-legged, and warmed his palms. They were pruned up and soft, delicate to the touch. He wasn't sure he needed a wine or a robe but the cold of the earth was still rummaging about in his marrow.

"That was a nice hole you dug..." He spoke, voice gnarled by the constant growling that pushed him from the shed across the orchard. Coughing and clearing his throat, he stretched out his fingers over the flame and leaned back. "Proper length...if a bit on the deep side."

 

[Wren]

She was properly reclined, feet up on a stool, posture slouched into the cushions of the chair, bottle resting in her lap and warming in the palm of her hand. She batted an eye open as he trudged across the wooden floorboards, watching him plop down in front of the fire. Hogging her warmth.

That's my fire Rainer. Get your own.

Perhaps the wine was talking. It was proving rather strong. Wren took another drink from the bottle, eyeing him as he spoke. If she weren't so damn comfortable she might've given him a sassy snapback. Presently she managed to sit herself up just a bit, leaning forward with a pointed, narrowed gaze that spoke volumes.

If he was fixing on making a complaint, he could shove it up his ass. The man was lucky she dug him a hole at all.

 

[Rainer]

Not even a complaint or retort. Rain was a bit surprised at that. Though, as he turned to see another bottle of wine on the counter, everything was starting to come into focus.

Leaning forward, he sat up on his knees and slid the armor back off. It was damp yet stiff from the cold and came off like a shell, rolling around on the floor before the fire. He caught it on a round about and set it up properly, like a half mannequin to the side of the fireplace. Standing up, he passed Wren as he removed his damp shirt and placed it hanging from the edge of the counter-top.

Grabbing the wine bottle on the counter, he rattled it to find nothing but air in the space between the glass. Sighing, he was sure there was never a moment he needed a drink more than now.

"Did you leave any to share?" He wasn't really sure if they were crashing at someones home or if it had been paid for, but he wasn't really bothered with asking. The finer details would sort themselves out sooner or later. Or not at all, preferably.

 

[Wren]

Wren could neither confirm nor deny the existence more more bottles hidden somewhere in the kitchen. The woman clutched the bottle in her hand close to her chest, lips curling upwards in a silent hiss through her fangs at him.

Mine.

 

[Rainer]

Rainers eyebrows lifted, uncertain of what exactly that meant. But he was getting the impression that sharing wasn't exactly the mood for the night. "Fine." He smiled through his teeth, clearly agitated as he pressed firmly into the counter. It was an orchard, he was sure he could find something.

Turning, he flicked his finger and whispered beneath his breath. His pointer finger lit up in a bright glow that engulfed whatever cornered it occupied.

The walls of the kitchen were used for storing various items. On one side, it was closed cupboards that revealed earthen mugs, glassware, and a set of dusty goblets likely made out of pewter. For the finer occasions, he assumed. Moving on, the next had a long door that swung open into multiple vertical racks. Most were barren, though they did have the remnants of soil. The bottom row was occupied by rutabaga that was on the verge of rotting.

He closed that door and moved to the next area. Crosses of wood were stacked in the ever clear indication of an above-ground wine cellar. Rainer moved up and down each row methodically. Passing over each empty space, his movement became more and more jagged. As if he were desperate, well aware that if there was wine in the house, Wren would know where it was.

"I could probably sniff out some wine..." He said quietly. Even though the fruity tones of apple coming off of Wren would likely drown out any form of clue, he wasn't beyond bluffing.

 

[Wren]

She watched from her seat, waiting for the man to look back her way before taking a drink from her bottle. A slow, savory drink.

 

[Rainer]

He looked back across the counter. The lux went out as he curled his fist and glared.

 

[Wren]

An indulgent gulp. A lick of her lips. The bottle was feeling pretty light now.

Out of context someone might have thought she was trying to seduce the man, but two bottles in, two days out from her last feeding, and one day on absolute aggravation ... anyone's guess.

It was probably a trap.

 

[Rainer]

Two day in the stinking mud. Mud that didn't stink of earth and worms and debris. It stunk of aldehydes and alcohols, of the fresh tones of green apples and the pile of rotting red apples left over from the last batch. Of cider being brewed along the coast, of sauce being churned in nearby farmhouses. He had had days of it and just like now, it was simply out of reach.

Except it wasn't.

He stepped beyond the counter and, depending on how quick Wren's reflexes were, may have been too fast for her to notice. It was three steps before his hand was on the neck of the bottle. He wasn't intent on yanking it free of her hand but with a firm grip, she might find difficulty in taking another drink.

 

[Wren]

On a good day, in fighting form, those reflexes might've caught him. Wren was fast and strong, this he knew, but right now she was also verging on drunk. There was zero chance she would track his movements.

And this definitely wasn't a trap (she hadn't the acute coherence necessary to pull it off, presently) but she was clearly enjoying herself. The mirth was the clearest part of her glossy hazel stare which wavered slightly at the sudden return of that curious feeling the closeness of his self brought about.

A blink, a half-smirk, she eased back into the chairback and released the bottle into his grasp. There was barely two gulps left in it anyway.

 

[Rainer]

Two gulps was better than no gulps, which he happily consumed. Draining the remains of the jug, he took a deep breath as the bottle dropped to his side. Loosely gripped in his hand, he studied Wren for a moment. However long ago at the shed, she had been furious with him. Now? It seemed things had flopped to the opposite spectrum. She was enjoying herself. Enjoying her robe and the fire. Enjoying watching him flounder in the apparent wine desert this house was.

Drank up by a once angry passerine Vedymin.

"Farmhouse only come with two bottles...?" He asked, feigning innocence, as he lifted the empty bottle and set the rounded bottom against her leg. "Or should I keep looking?"

He had searched out the wine simply for the fact of it, feeling that it might have helped the hangover that was following the mud and the owl. But now that he had a taste for it, it was something of a hunger brought about by consumption.

 

[Wren]

Contentment eased into her like the warmth of the fire, suffusing cold limbs and melting away the balmy chill of an evening summer rain. Another bottle and the entire night would be gone for her, something she was beginning to find particularly appealing. If only she could remember where she hid them.

She knew with great certainty that she'd hidden them very well.

A cheshire grin stole across her lips, fangs glinting in the flicker of firelight up at the man.

"I'm. Not. Telling."

 

[Rainer]

A feint smile formed on his lips. The night had not exactly gotten off on the right foot. He had awoken in a shallow grave, unearthed himself to the rain and lightning, and was afforded a rather abrupt cold shoulder to their reunion, followed by a mildly frustrating trudge through the damp orchards. He had expected for this night to tarry on, lukewarm if not approaching chilly.

However, it seemed his expectations were not correct.

"Uh-huh..." He released the empty bottle into her lap, hand moving to the lapel of her robe. Just near the collar, just near where he had touched her before. Where the lux had spread and where the warmth had lived. A sense of communion, thriving in a place where he had never expected it.

"I suppose there isn't another robe around either. Or did you hide that as well?" Two days. With a pang in his stomach, his sight constricted as his gaze moved from her eyes down to her neck. Down to the slow and relaxed thump of her artery, far less pronounced than the war drum she presented back at the tool shed. "Is sobriety to be my punishment?"

 

[Wren]

Fingers wrapped loosely around the neck of the bottle now resting in her lap, smile folding into something less toothy and more pernicious. She'd briefly considered tossing the second robe out into the rain, had even had her hand on it to do so, but that wily bottle of apple wine had distracted her from the follow-through.

Alas, he'd be comfortable, dry, warm, but yes - Wren hummed a sound of wry amusement - he'd be sober.

Her other hand lifted to lightly clasp at those fingers at her shoulder, that very same scintillating sensation from the hot springs in Elbion. "Hm," the wine had seemingly folded her sass in half, a heavy gaze of hazel too lazy to find his face on its own forced her to tip her head back against the headrest of the chair. It studied him for a moment in silence, all salt, pepper, and dirt, "in the bedroom."

 

[Rainer]

In the bedroom...

He moved to step away, nearly pulling his hand away from hers. But he recalled this sleepy gaze, this sass and the way sleep quickly followed.

"If I go grab that robe..." He paused, uncertain she wasn't sending him on a fools errand. "From the bedroom. Are you going to be awake when I get back?"

 

[Wren]

A twist of mirth to her lips, eyes narrowing just slightly, "Maybe."

 

[Rainer]

He smirked to her response. A response that perfectly framed the evening. Maybe. Finally pulling his hand away, he jammed both hands into his pocket and nodded. "Well then I imagine...maybe...I'll carry you to bed again."

He was still sore about the wine but it wasn't the end of the world. Taverns came and went, demijohns would always follow. Disappearing behind the chair, he navigated his way through the farmhouse. It wasn't a particularly large abode and for that, he was grateful. He wasn't exactly adroit at navigating when he didn't have a map at hand.

Returning a few moments later, he had left relatively all articles of clothing back in the bedroom and was donned in a blue felt robe. Cinched at the middle, he made his way around her chair and sat back down on the floor. Evidently the owner of the farmhouse was a singular entity or found no other need for furniture beyond the single chair. Sprawling out, he braced himself on his palms against the wooden floor, and stretched his feet out towards the fire.

He sighed in the silence of the crackling fire.

 

[Wren]

She was still awake and for the unlife of her she didn't know why. Fatigue had settled pretty cozily in her bones, almost as cozily as she in her chair, but it left her feeling heavy instead of exhausted. She should have felt exhausted. Mostly, she just felt ruminative.

Gold-flecked earthy tones followed Rainer's figure as it reappeared before her, watching him recline on the floor with an immutable gaze. A more-sober Wren would have commenced picking apart all the things about him that caused them strife and readied for the first conversational strike.

But all she really wanted to know was, "Why didn't you tell me."

 

[Rainer]

The question, admittedly, surprised him. He had expected that this conversation would happen in the morning, riding the horses back on the path North. Towards the coast. And now, just like then, he imagined he wouldn't have an answer that made her happy.

"It's not an easy subject..." He admitted without looking at her. He had no difficulty with honesty but being forthcoming never came easy. He hadn't started his new life as a hunter. He had fashioned many trades and the first that came about was a grave keeper. His realization of being buried was something born of trial and error, born of going in and out of crypts. The sickness sometimes came immediately and it sometimes took months and as far as he could tell, it had to do with exposure to the sun.

"How do you tell someone you care about that every...six months or so..." He turned to look at Wren. "That they need to be buried for several days. Or they'll die." He shook his head, chuckling and gazing back towards the fire. "I thought I had at least a couple more months. I was working up to it."

 

[Wren]

"Mmf," the sound preceded a muffled pitch of laughter, one of disbelief, of soggy frustration, of deeply seeded fear. For a split second the vision of him writhing on the ground, dying before her eyes, came in such clarity that it caught her breath in her lungs. The sickening feeling of his body weight hanging limp over her shoulder and the savage wrench of her heart with every slice of spade through earth.

Her stomach turned and for a moment she thought she was going to be ill. Wren grimaced into the back of her hand, eyes pinching shut to will away the memory as it played without success.

She made a sound of stubborn disgust, pushing herself up from her chair. Wine. More wine would fix this. Bare knees came just near eye level where he sat on the floor, a mis-matched pair of legs bare below the end of her robe. The scars of the right shown to dance within the flicker of the fire. Fingers of the same side wisped across the man's forehead and over his scalp as she stalked off into the kitchen area, "You just tell them."

Her steps wandered listlessly at first as she pressed the images of him in the grave from her mind and searched for those of her hiding places. There were at least two more bottles and one of them ... eyes panned around and then upwards to the rafters. One of them sat in open view on a crossbeam, she had to stretch onto her tip-toes to reach it.

 

[Rainer]

She was right and for the moment his sobriety remained, he mentally traced over the cultures and practices of the Vedymin for any other tidbits of information. The sort of thing that might come up that she did not already know.

Admittedly, he might have gotten distracted by fingers wandering across his scalp.

"I suspect consumption of Vedymin blood...by another Vedymin, will cancel out the effects of any ill consequences of blood consumption. But I've never had the opportunity to confirm it." He stood up, lagging behind her as she moved into the kitchen. "I have a map of a segment of tunnels beneath Alliria from my time as a cleaner. I wasn't always a hunter as I am now." He padded into the kitchen, opposite side of the counter, and watched intently as she moved around to the cache of wine.

"I have several spells I haven't shown you, including one you could use for defense called Heliotrope. I don't know how long we can go without feeding but my record is seven days. There was a blood lust, I killed three humans before I overcame it and..." He stopped and thought a bit more.

"I ate an owl before you found me at the shed. That's why I didn't say anything when you entered..." He paused again. "I was worried if I opened my mouth, all that would come out was a 'hoot.'"

 

[Wren]

The bottle leaned into her fingertips and dropped into her grasp from its perch, glass weighty with promise and cool to the touch. Wren made next for the bottle opener still out on the counter top by the butcher's block. Two bottles had made her movements sluggish and graceless - not that she'd moved with an exceptional amount of grace before. Her elvish aunt had called her a bungling human during her training, but her father had called her aunt a snobbish cunt, so at the end of the day she hadn't been too upset.

A resounding pop filled the kitchen, an apple-scented mist spitting from the bottle throat.

Wren was perhaps a bit too distracted for this conversation, throwing back the bottle for a deep drink and coming up for air only in time for the word 'hoot' to leave Rainer's lips. She snorted, the back of her hand pressed at her lips again to keep from losing her gulp. It also hid a smirk.

"You ate an owl?" muffled by her hand, her eyes squinted in humor, "Uh, that's fowl."

 

[Rainer]

"Mhm." He uttered as he stepped past her and her additional pun, stifling a smirk. Rummaging through the original cupboard, he pulled out two small goblets with square handles. It wasn't finery by any means, but it would do. Unless she was intent on continuing to punish him.

"I ate a mouse as well..." He stated confidently as he placed both mugs down in front of her and leaned against the counter next to her. "It's hardly the worst I've eaten to get by."

Apparently he was in an honest mood.