savetheearth | I don't wanna leave, but it's my destiny

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I don't wanna leave, but it's my destiny

Who: Blaine

espigeonage
What: A walk in the forest to catch up with a cousin goes horribly wrong
Where: Around Füssen, Germany
When: 25th of November
Warnings: Shingeki spoilers for post-anime; disturbing imaginary, violent animal death.

The message, received fairly early in the day, was short and to the point: "I'm in Fussen and have the rest of the day off. Let's meet." After a bit of figuring out where exactly to meet, they agreed on walking around in the low mountains that directly border the flat lands on the German side of the border. Their conversation mostly is occupied with catching up with each other - Blaine is working of finding work outside of Locke, because it's getting risky staying there, she expects that her face will be leaked sometime soon, considering that a number of numbered knows who she is at this point. And moving out of a place where she knows her way around into a context where she doesn't have many connections, any connections are good. Even if they are as awkwardly close as a cousin.

But there is another reason to her visit as well, one closely connected to some people that have not-so-recently left the network...

Still, she'll take a while to get there. "I've thought of moving to Las Vegas, but the climate sucks." She shrugs - there are more reasons why Las Vegas isn't ideal, but this is the one that is the easiest to use. "While this area here has a similar one to Locke."

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It's chilly and humid up here, too warm for snow to stick but more than cold enough to wear the blue cloak-cape Gabriel gave him. Julien likes the mountains. It's beautiful out here! These trails got some traffic but he doesn't have to sluice off his feet all the time to keep oil and cigarette butts from working into his scales, which is another bonus. He has found that there are downsides to being barefoot everywhere.

He's not sure if Blaine is working up to something, but it's a nice cold day to meander around and this place is quiet and feels private, cars out of sight on a highway notwithstanding. "I lived in Arizona for a couple years, way back when. You're not wrong! I bet having a mountain and a lake that refuses to dry up does something to it, Vegas weather I mean. But it'll always be terribly hot in the summer. This is nice."

"And a fountain on the mountain. They want to start it by the end of this month, or something."

Another shrug, and she steps around a root, frowning at the rubble and mud that make up the path in these weather conditions. It's worn, used to many feet walking it, but right now there luckily are only them.

"Are you planning on staying here?"

He smiles at the rhyme. "Of course. And it'll be really overdone. It's Vegas, it's got to be as tacky as possible."

Julien leaves muddy dinosaur tracks in the wet earth, when he isn't standing on rocks and roots. "I guess I kind of am. Like, I do a lot of ducking back to Vegas since I've got so many friends there, but I like it here. People are nicer - some of them are even pretty Teutonic types."

"So, how is the getting laid part of being here going?" She laughs and slaps him on the back (well, actually she doesn't, it's more a light bat on his arm considering the awkwardness of height and shape difference). And then gets more serious again.

"...Have you had any echoes here yet?"

Julien raises his head and just smirks. It's promising but he's going slow, hanging out, a shy kiss here and there, the rising suspicion that someone is a furry. Blaine probably would not consider that too promising, but a nagging wistfulness about Isabela aside he's pretty pleased.

The smile fades. Can he tell her about it? Should he? She probably won't want to know. "Just a couple. One when I got here, one um... because of a network thing. Not Lazarus's bomb thing, surprisingly."

"Nothing that you got from this place?" Because if she's unlikely to get an echo here - it'd be ideal. But then she'll still have to talk about the other thing with him, just in case. If anyone, she comes the closest to trusting Julien (it's something along the lines of "I don't think you want to screw me over too badly").

"Not yet! It helps that I don't think the Apostle's ever seen anything like that space elevator." It's visible from stupidly far away. "I haven't heard if anyone's seen Vermini here. But I'm not really tracking the pulse of the network that closely these days, anyway."

"...I will move here as well, most likely. But -" She throws a sharp glance up and down the path, and then at Julien. "I remember that other form having taken over completely in my former life. It don't know why or how, but it happened. If it happens again - leading it out of the echo boundaries will be the easiest. I want you to make people try for it."

"Cool. Uh-" He blinks down at her, the inner eyelids staying closed and darkening his eyes. This is important to her, but it sounds bad. "I can try. What do you mean by 'taken over completely', though? All I really know about your giant form is what it looks like, and that some are bigger."

"They have little intelligence and like to eat humans, from what I can tell. ...And Alan wants to kill all of them." She snorts. "I'm not sure if that includes a death wish on his part."

Julien considers, thinking briefly of Lyall. "-So they're kind of like giant ugly werewolves that heal really quickly. And he's like a werewolf hunter. Where does the parachute gear come in?"

"Alan has a titan too. The one that fought the mother snake back in the beginning of the year.

And most of them are mere wolves, to stay with your picture, at least from what I remember. They don't have a human side. The gear is there to slay titans."

A pulse surprises him, freezes him in place for a couple of seconds. He blinks a few more times - it's tiny, it's okay. "'The mummy hunter becomes a mummy'. So... is it infectious or something?"

It's hard to imagine being bitten by a giant and surviving in any healthy form. "How do you even kill something like that, even kiting around?"

"There is a way, but you need specialized weapons and a specific technique for it." Dodging that question. Alan knows, most likely, and she can't do anything about that (and he's the single most dangerous person to her if in titan form, at least in that capacity). But she'd rather not tell anyone else, because who knows who'll hear? She doesn't trust Julien that far.

The other words make her blink in confusion, and she is about to say something about them, when something steps out of the bushes above them and she whirls around to look at it, because that did not sound like human steps.

Julien makes a face but doesn't call her on the evasion. "Right. Really, if it's infectious or whatever-"

There is a creature up over there like a large swan, but its face is wrong, and there are knobs like twisted untrimmed claws in its ragged wings. It spreads those and rouses its feathers to look larger and hisses forcefully. Somewhere beyond it something long-necked and doglike - its mate? - charges forwards with snarled trumpeting barks.

Julien feels his mouth go dry in a weird way - like the water in it slides away from his lips - with the pulse these creatures bring. There's a shifting in his throat, in his gut, lower down, and he blinks furiously, disoriented, suddenly afraid.

Blaine on the other hand snarls - she has no weapons on herself, but then she never has anything illegal on her and what she could carry around legally in this country is either unwieldly and obvious or things that she has no experience with. And besides, she thought that it was safe... And there is no way that she could fight this with just her human body. So there is only one option.

Steam rises, and a moment later there is something much larger next to Julian, as Blaine's titan charges forward to grab the weird creature and haul it up into the air. For a moment, there is a struggle, and then she swings her arm around, throwing it a few metres against a tree which it hits with an ugly cracking sound. And doesn't get up after.

Julien winces as she kills the first animal. The second one is too loyal or stupid to take the hint and run away but goes after her ankle-analogue. Maybe they were mates.

He doesn't like Blaine's titan form, didn't like it even when it was small enough to wear clothes and share a roof with him. It's just his habit not to show that, even when it towers and moves in a way that makes his stomachs(?!) turn.

It has changed now, too, nothing human left about her form - not that Blaine notices as she goes for the mate and tries to pull it off her leg, not caring that ripping it away means that it tears some of the skin of her ankle, making her stumble and fall on one knee. It will heal, and whatever this is, it is dangerous to her own human form (and just as dangerous to Julien).

For a moment, she simply holds the animal up in the air, and it is then that she notices the two younger Wolpertinger, obviously at least partly of the same race as the dead one and its mate. They were invisible while she was shorter, but now-

and then the vertigo of an echo sets in fully, and she falls on her second knee as well, dropping the animal. This-

He sees her gaze shift - ugh, she's creepy like this - but can't see the young. Twigs on the trees around them tremble when she drops to a crouch and kneels disoriented. He doesn't see why she'd do that, but a really unhappy feeling sweeps away his dismay at his own fresh changes.

The swandog falls hard but survives, snarling and whimper-shrieking in a way that seems suddenly rather pitiful, even with the toothy serrations in its beak flashing. For a moment it's making the only sound here.

Julien finds he's holding his wings very tightly against his body, his tail low enough to press against his legs. He makes himself shout. "Blaine?"

She simply stays as she is for a moment, steam rising from her ankle. Neither the swandog nor Julien seem to reach her ears, and when she stands, she turns towards neither - as if they aren't there at all. Instead, she stands and seems to ...sniff, though not with her nose. Searching.

Her head turns left, and right, as if she's trying to decide where to go, and then she heads back down the path.

"Hey!" He takes a step after her and halts as the Apostle's calm washes over him. Apparently a monster sighting hadn't been enough danger for it, he thinks sourly. The pieces line up in his head. How fortunate that she'd only just been talking about this.

She's a troll sometimes but this is too much. Werewolf mode. Trying to eat humans. Really hard to kill. He can't help here. Even if he gets her attention somehow - how? there's nothing big enough to really throw, even! - he wouldn't last ten seconds. He has to contact anyone who could help.

Quite calmly, Julien says, "You're such an asshole, Blaine," and starts to dial a number. The fallen swandog hoists itself painfully onto three legs, blood-flecked saliva frothing as it snarls at him.

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