wilderlands | Last Minute Prep

I made a bag from one of the more holey cloaks left behind and patched one up for myself.

[She holds the bag up. It isn't as nicely sown as it would be from a machine or bought from a store, but it isn't that bad for something made in her spare time.]

I can help make at least a couple more so we have an easier time carrying things with us.

Edited (Oops) 2018-04-25 03:51 (UTC)

[If he looks kinda anxious, it's probably because he is. But he really doesn't want to just be a burden on the group because he doesn't know shit about hunting or camping or anything like that, so he's doing what he can to not sound completely like a useless kid here, standing up a little straighter and making an effort to actually look at the mirror properly. It's somehow just has hard as actually looking people in the eye.]

I'm not really experienced with anything...uh, outdoorsy, so...I'm not really sure what to do. But if there's anything I can do or help anyone with, I'll do my best.

[ chill u nerd ]

I don't think most of us are, honestly.

[ Not that he's speaking for himself in particular or anything.... ]

Help us carry stuff?

I can do that.

[Not amazingly well, with these noodly detective limbs and only like a week of very loosely definined "training" under his belt, but he'll do what he can. And the reassurance is both comforting and appreciated, dude.]

You keep using that word and nobody's said what it means.

[ Calories. He is talking about calories. ]

Which one?

Calories.

[ He's too medieval for this shit! ]

From the context, I'm guessing it probably has something to do with food.

It's a number assigned to different foods based on how much energy your body can make of it. Basically, you can think of calories as a way of measuring how filling the food is, and calorie intake as how many calories a certain person needs. It varies on age, size, how much exercise you get.

[ He's trying to help, honestly. ]

Someone made "starving or not starving" that complicated?

[ Wow, sounds like that must've been somebody who's never been starving. ]

Well, it does tie into other things, for nutrition- uhh, that's basically how to use food to be healthy. Like how you can't live off rabbit meat alone.

When you have that much choice about it, anyway.

You can starve off of eating rabbit by itself.

[A wild lesson, learned from a childhood that sometimes involved her grandmother being paid in fresh meat.]

I'm used to eating whatever I can get, because I'll starve a lot faster if I get choosy.

[ Beggars can't be choosers, and thieves...well, can only marginally be choosers, in his experience, if they want to stick with the targets of opportunity that have the lower chance of them being caught. ]

[For once, Dixon doesn't jump in and say anything, doesn't spout off at the nearest person with the first half-thought idea he can scrounge up, doesn't pick a fight. He just listens and watches.

The reality of what they're going to have to do is starting to get much clearer, and the low trill of anxiety thrumming around in his veins is turning into a near panic. Fighting Wheelers was easy in comparison; it only needed a few minutes of commitment, only needed tapping into a split-second reserve of energy and impulse.

This is a quest that's going to take weeks, maybe months. Fifty miles in the foreseeable future, God only knows how far before they save the Green, if they even manage that. It's going to be hard, and Dixon's greatest real skill so far in life has been avoiding difficult things like a stream working around stone. And whenever hard things couldn't be avoided, whenever people died or other things forced themselves into his world, he's cracked and tailspun and gone completely off the rails.

Fifty miles on foot. He knows he can't keep up. Everyone else knows it too, but that's almost secondary to his own sense of failure and of feeling trapped, like the whole universe pulled a stair out from under him and left him scrambling and coming up empty-handed. He's not just going to let everyone down; he already has. It's an inevitability bearing down on him like a train and he's tied to the tracks.

He puts the mirror down on the ground, glass side down, and sits in the grass with his head in his hands, shaking.]

Edited 2018-04-25 05:11 (UTC)

[Hiccup, walking around the perimeter temple to see if anybody left anything they might need for the trip ahead outside, comes across Dixon. He can admit he screwed up where Dixon was concerned. Mostly because all of Dixon's bluster had convinced Hiccup the man would react like a Viking. He'd forgotten that most Vikings he knew were pretty much used to him at his most sarcastic.

This, however, he recognizes. Having an immense task before you at not even knowing where to start, not even remotely feeling equal to it, is something he knows well.]

Considering how much you hate me, is convincing you that I think you can't do it in an attempt to get you to prove me wrong going to help, or should I try something else? It'd work on pretty much any Viking I know, aside from the ones who'd call me on it, but I'd rather not make things worse than they already are between us if it won't help you.

[Dixon's so lost in his own world that he nearly jumps out of his skin when Hiccup speaks. His eyes are red and his face is wan, and he starts to scramble to his feet and then just gives up and sits back down.]

You don't have to think I can't do it. I know I can't do it. [In all the times he's taken stock lately, he can't name a single thing he's succeeded at or accomplished across thirty-five years. They might exist, but his current precarious state has given him tunnel vision, has amplified the failures until they crowd out anything good from the picture.

He chews on one of his fingernails. His cuticles are bitten down and shredded.]

I don't hate you. But leave me alone.

Edited 2018-04-26 04:34 (UTC)

I'm going to be honest with you: I am terrible at leaving things be.

[It wasn't something he was particularly inclined to change, either, considering it was what caused him to meet Toothless. He just needed to temper that instinct with knowledge and wisdom.]

I think you actually can do it. Saying otherwise was really just going to be a lie to manipulate you into doing it to so you could stick it in my face.

[Hiccup takes a seat across from Dixon, crosslegged.]

Why do you think you can't?

Edited 2018-04-26 04:58 (UTC)

What are you, a fucking shrink? Do Vikings even have those?

[It doesn't come out as angry or committed as he would like. It wouldn't scare anyone off, much less someone who has just explicitly said they aren't about to be scared off. He can't know this, but in some ways he and Toothless are similar, creatures limping around with injuries they can't fix themselves.

For the last few weeks Dixon's been letting himself be caught from falling just by the kindness of people who have no reason to give it to him.]

Look at this whole group and then look back at me and tell me you don't understand why I can't do this.

You are not the least equipped to handle this. You're armed, you have actual clothes, and you have all your limbs. Not everyone on this team can say all of that, me included.

[True, Hiccup had a varied set of skills that more than made up for his missing foot, but it was the principle of the thing.]

The scale of what we may have to do is huge, Even the trip to find out what we have to do is going to be hard. I'm not looking forward to walking fifty miles on a peg-leg, even if we ignore the fact that we're going to be attacked by the undead. I'd probably be having just as much of a problem as you if I let myself think about how enormous the mess we've gotten ourselves into is.

Shit.

[Great, so he's been feeling sorry for himself in front of an amputee. Dixon could kick himself, dig deeper into that failure feeling because how dense and unobservant does one have to be to not notice someone's missing a leg? No wonder he was a terrible cop.

It's so hard to pull out a tailspin once you're in it, and he's had a few weeks to build momentum.]

I can't even get through the day anymore. Any day. A regular day. [It's almost a whimper. He's raw all the way down. He doesn't tell Hiccup that the day before he came here he had a gun in his arms and was preparing to shoot himself in the head on his mother's bed, but he wants to. Maybe it'd illustrate the point.]

I never done anything right in my life and now when I fuck it up, the stakes are high.

[Hiccup is silent. He's not equipped to handle this, and he's not sure what to say. He knows he needs to say something though,, and as long as he actually thinks through what he says he can't make things much worse than they already are.]

Then don't try to. Put it into terms you can deal with. Get through six hours. If you can get through those six hours, then you can get through the next six hours.

As for fucking things up? I doubt that you've ever managed to nearly get an entire town destroyed by a psychotic warlord, so you're already doing better than I am.

[It's a decent strategy, and the patience Hiccup's showing gets into Dixon's head why Hiccup's a chief where he's from. It's different than the way Dixon's own chief was - all the kindness there tough and leathered, though real - but the patience is the same.

Dixon does a lot of taxing patience. It's one of his special skills.

He tries to pull himself together. Stop unloading on this guy half his age.

He sighs. His eyes well up. It does put things in a little bit of perspective: all he's done is lose his job, phenomenally and violently violate the spirit of what his beloved and departed Chief wanted for him, get the hell beat out of him on a case he couldn't solve for nothing, and just generally circle the drain. It's not like he got Ebbing blown off the map.]

You didn't get it destroyed, did you?

Toothless and I managed to drive him and the dragon he was using to attack us off before he could do too much damage. A few homes got smashed, but we're used to rebuilding at this point. Dragons, lots of fire, wooden houses...you get the idea. We only made peace with ours about five years ago, so we've got a lot of practice at it.

[Unspoken is the other damage Drago had done, by killing Hiccup's father. This wasn't the right time or place for that particular conversation.]

It was a very close thing, though.

Edited 2018-04-30 16:16 (UTC)

Man, I've just about had it with fire. [It's kind of a joke, but it's very weak. His face may have been healed into just scar tissue but it's still a recent and painful memory.]

But at least that makes sense why you're here. I got no idea what business I have in the company of folks like you.

[Hiccup winces a bit.] I'll try to keep talking about it to a minimum then.

As for why you're here? Nobody really knows why any of us are here except the spirits that brought us. Maybe there's a reason for it now. Or maybe it's not a matter of right now, so much as it is what you'll be able to do in the future with the right push.

It's alright. No big deal.

[He huffs, then rests his mouth against the side of his hand, exhaling deep through his nose.

Six hours at a time. He unholsters his shield from his back.]

You mind throwing a punch at me? [The intoxicating side effects of the cursed shield are something he's trying to keep a little secret, but he could stand to take the edge off his nerves before they start the real work tomorrow.] There's some magic in this that's relaxing. I'll give you a hit on it too.

Calming? [Hiccup blinks. So many things about their entire time at the temple suddenly make sense.]

You mean that's how you've been getting drunk this entire time?

[It was a fair way to interpret how Dixon had been acting so far. Trying to start a fight with a dragon that hadn't been bothering anybody, aside from everything else, was usually done by the drunk. Or, minimally, the very hungover.]

[The look Dixon gives Hiccup is in equal measure defensive, embarrassed and outright ashamed. He had assumed he had been more covert about the whole thing, but Revan saw through him, and apparently Hiccup did, too. That whole feeling of wanting to sink into the Earth, of the absolutely inability to rise to the coming challenges, roars back to a fever pitch.]

I'm not getting drunk. You can't get drunk when you don't drink anything. [The fact that it totally feels the same as getting drunk and has seemingly entirely cured his detox symptoms doesn't mean anything.]

Relax, I'm not going to judge you for it. We're in a relatively safe spot. If that's what you need to cope right now, that's fine.

[Hiccup's expression takes on a much more serious cast. Dixon had never heard Hiccup's mother say the young chief had the soul of a dragon, but if he had he would probably be clear now why she had.]

I want to make something clear, though. If you overdo it on the road? I will absolutely be annoyed. I'm guessing it's unavoidable in a fight, but outside of that try to keep it to a minimum.

[It doesn't matter if Hiccup judges him; Dixon judges himself. The levels of detox he just went through are a wake-up call in that they've called to his attention how serious his dependence on alcohol is - they're not, however, an impetus to try and change the problem so much as manage it by trying to drink it away.

He doesn't know any other way to stay out of the spiral.]

Maybe I don't give a shit if you're annoyed. I never elected you boss. [He sulks. The goodwill Hiccup just got gets a little water splashed on it.] Now, you gonna punch me or not?

I just don't want you to see you get hurt if it could've been avoided, alright? This is me trying to keep everyone, including you, especially you in this case. as safe as I possibly can.

[It might've been more than a little blunt, but it had come from a place of caring. Even as randomly tossed together as the squad was, Hiccup didn't want to see the anyone in it come to harm if he could do anything about it.]

And, like I said, if it's what you need to cope right now? That's fine. I'll throw the punch.

[True to his word. Hiccup does actually haul back and throw the punch.]

Well, that makes one of us. [Dixon brings the shield up to bloc Hiccup's blow and the shield - and Dixon - take on a pearly, dim, shimmering glow. Dixon's expression says more about the change than the magic, though. There's an expression of relief that crosses his face, of tension slacking and a sad sort of resignation. He stays seated on the ground, closes his eyes to let the hit run through his blood.

He's adjusted to the magic a little - now instead of getting completely wasted off one collision with the shield, it's just like taking maybe two shots of whiskey. Enough to give a buzz, not enough to incapacitate, at least for a bit.

He holds the shield out to Hiccup.] You can have one too. Swear, it feels fine.

I shouldn't. [Hiccup gets to his feet, dusting himself off as he does so.]

No offense, but there's still a lot of work I have to do before we go. Plus I'm going to need to fly a patrol in a bit. Drunkenness and dragon-riding doesn't really mix well.

[The reminder that there's work to do, that Dixon's already opting out, just makes him wince, but the magic takes the edge off the beatdown he's giving himself.]

Alright. You go do that. [He finally gets to his feet. His eyes are still welled up.] I'll get some rest. I need it.

[He really just needs a minute to compose himself without actively crying in front of others, but he doesn't have to actually say that.]

Impulse and I finished most of the shoes. They're not great, mostly because of a lack of proper material, but they'll work until we get where we're going.

There's enough smoked meat and fish to go around. Which is good because we're gonna need it.

Also Toothless is okay with acting as a pack animal, provided everyone carries their fair share.

I made some bags, too. They aren't great 'cuz I made most of them before I knew there was stuff you could sew with.

[ He holds up the end of what looks like a threadbare pant leg loosely stuffed with something. If this is a "bag" it can only be called that in the loosest of senses, it is nowhere near as nice as Anita's. ]

They're pretty much just pant legs I tied the ends off of, but they carry vegetables okay, and so long as you don't stuff them too full, you can tie the ends together and carry them over your shoulder.

Wouldn't recommend carrying peaches with us unless we're going to eat them quick or dry them somehow. They bruise easy and rot fast.

Edited 2018-04-26 01:54 (UTC)

Those bags aren't too bad. [She is trying for some positive reinforcement even though, yeah. The important thing is, he tried.]

We could try drying some fruit by the fire overnight. I'm not sure how well it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

Thanks. [ For once even he could tell she was just humoring him and being nice because, yeah, these were pretty bad. But he appreciated it none the less. ] Yours came out a lot better though, could you teach me how you made it?

And that would be cool, I'm up for a little trial and error fruit drying. Closest thing I've ever done to making dried fruit was candied orange peels.

I can try? [Because loa have mercy, she's not sure how well Bart's patience is going to hold up against sewing something.]

We'll give the fruit a shot. Worst case scenario, we can't take it with us anyways.

I can fly. So it's entirely possible I could carry things ahead and create caches or waypoints. I'm reluctant to carry people, but supplies? I could probably manage that.

Woah, dragon teammates now with talk box and karate chop action. Suh-weet.

So, compadraco, I have always wanted to know - why are other people not cool, but stuff gets a free ride?

[ He has no idea what some of those words mean. ]

It's for the good of the group. And for me. But I'm not a mount.

[ Probably for the best. Still, Robbie will assume that he's hip to it. ]

Yeah, but they're things. If helping people who can't make the climb is so beneath you, how come the inanimate objects rank higher than other life forms?

[ Robbie Baldwin: not a fan of people or dragons who consider themselves above helping others. ]

[ He's offering to help in his own way. Don't look a gift-dragon in the mouth. ]

If you prefer, I could carry nothing.

Last Minute Prep

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[suicide mentions]

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