01

[seabeast]

[ action ]

The other animals had driven Queenie out of the stand of trees she had been hiding in for the last few months. They had been normal enough for the earlier part of the year, but the little black bugs had changed all that; sure, on their own, even Queenie could give them what for, but the infected birds and beasts by the ton had cost her sleepless night after sleepless night, until even her stubborn pride could see that this was a lost cause. She had retreated after a couple of days.

For the next few days, she had been stumbling through hairless walker territory, where at least the packs were easier to spot. Staying mostly out of sight, making sure all the little insects she ran across died a toothy, fanged death (it hurt, and she probably has scald marks in her mouth from the process, but it was necessary), she made her way to a group of buildings that seemed mostly abandoned, taking shelter in the driest, sturdiest waterspouts she could fit in. She was getting hungry and very, very tired.

But a week ago, she hadn't awakened to the sound of crows desperately trying to ram their way into the water spout. A few more hours of investigation had revealed that half of the animals she had shared the Dead Zone with were outright dead; nests abandoned, holes filled with bodies. Not a pretty sight.

Today is the eighth day of blessed peace; right now, she's sitting as pretty as a very bedraggled princess in a space between a rain gutter and a roof, where she'd found yet another abandoned bird's nest. She's making a meal of some birds' eggs and watching the abandoned roads, considering going back to her forest. There's something in this group of buildings that's making her nervous... As easy as food was to come by around here, she didn't want to stick around while that feeling made her fur stand on end.

[[ ooc: lyall will be coming by to pick her up, but if your character has been in the dead zone at all for the last week and a half, feel free to assume that they've seen her wandering around, especially since the vermini disappearance. ]]

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[shiromadoushi]

Bakura had the hood of his jacket up as often he did while walking, but some of the tufts of white hair still escaped in the breeze as he headed for the side of one of the abandoned buildings near the snake statue, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything he recognized.

There was a small baggie in his pocket as well, leftovers from lunch and a bit extra he'd picked up from a deli on the way over.

[seabeast]

Well, that was different. Queenie dives off the gutter via some conveniently stacked crates and pads her way towards the wandering kid. For an abandoned set of buildings, this area sure gets a lot of activity.

... Ugh. He's moving towards the weird thumping feeling. She can smell the food on the wind from where she's crouching between two buildings, but if he's going to go all the way up to that statue, forget it. She doesn't have to go anywhere she doesn't want to. Not even the siren call of hot food can make her.

[shiromadoushi]

He pauses by the statue before reaching down to pick up a rock and fling it with all his might at it, grinning as it hits the heart dead center. The virtual bird flipping over with, he heads over to his "base." Or rather the building his base was in. He wasn't going to lay claim to an entire building

....just the apartment on the 3rd floor~

[seabeast]

Romsca could appreciate a rousing act of defiance when she saw it, but she fails to see the point of it - the statue can't even get mad. Not that one can get into a proper brawl with a statue... but why pick a fight with something that can barely return the favor? The idea just doesn't sound interesting to her.

The food is on the move again. Now that they're clear of the statue, she's coming a bit closer, abandoning the tall grass and taking a few steps into the road to get closer. A few more moments and she'll be within nipping distance of his heels.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura paused, looking back just in time to see the ferret heading his way. "Aaa, there you are!" he smiled, pausing to crouch down, reaching into his pocket for the bag from the deli. "Hungry as always, I assume?"

[seabeast]

-- Hell's teeth! She puts the brakes on, almost flipping right over in her bid to stop and reverse. She wanted to see if she couldn't just nab the food and bail out, skipping all this pointless ceremony. Besides, stealing was fun.

Looks like she wasn't getting out of this, though. She shifts from paw to paw, clearly unwilling to go any closer and VERY unwilling to appear grateful for any gifts. She doesn't need your pity, white-hair! However, her paws won't let her leave, either... not when all that delicious food was basically being offered to her. Life's hard for a ferret with pride.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura couldn't help but laugh. "Don't trust me, huh? Don't blame you," he smiled, opening the bag and carefully pulling out a still warm piece of chicken breast. "Here!" he called, gently tossing it in a lazy arch in the air.

[seabeast]

That does get her attention! She'll nab it out of the air perfectly, depositing the meat on top of her paws and wolfing it down before any grit or dirt can get on it. Ooooh, that's so good...

She'll still be wary of the white-furred walker after eating it, but she'll come a little closer for convenience's sake. After all, she's not a perfect catch. Not that she minds a little dirt, but things are much tastier without the crunch of soil.

[shiromadoushi]

"Good compromise?" Bakura smiled, shifting to be sitting on the curb as the ferret ate. "Ready for another?"

[espigeonage]

Volunteering at Mister Strider's clinic had the perk that when things weren't busy, Julien could leave the building to stretch his legs. These days he felt that urge fairly often. The dead zone wasn't somewhere he'd want to be at night, but he knew by now that parts of it were okay in daylight.

There was a patch of green here, not so much a park as what was once quite a large flowerbed, now long overgrown by weeds and sporting a certain amount of trash. A few sparrows were hopping about in the weeds, picking at things. Julien slowed from a trot to watch them.

"Good to see you're not too troubled," he said softly. He liked birds.

[seabeast]

Queenie peeks from behind a large tire tread. This particular building got a lot of two-legged traffic, mostly from walkers who she recognized as particularly unwilling to let her partake in their food. Still, she always stopped by here to see if anyone's dropped anything interesting, particularly to eat.

This individual is a new face, though. She pokes her head further from her hide out, following his line of sight to the birds in the garden. Uh... They're just birds. Harmless ones, probably; they wouldn't need to be watched after all of the aggressive animals dropped dead without a good explanation. She looks back up at the walker. What in blazes was he looking at?

[espigeonage]

"Let's see..." He reaches into the pockets of his light jacket and sees numerous tiny heads cock at him. Slowly, he pulls part of a stale bagel out of one. "Aaah, you're hungry. Don't worry. Spring is here, and fat times are coming up."

Julien lets some crumbs fall and watches the sparrows pounce and chirp, and pretends they're speaking to him. "Now don't tell anyone... no, no, it's a secret to everybirdie you know, too."

[seabeast]

She can hear bits and pieces of his words from this distance... Is he talking to them? Birds are stupid. There isn't any way they can understand most landbound creatures, especially two-leggers like him. This is just plain silly.

... However, free food is another thing altogether. She'll just... casually... slip from her hiding spot and lope to a closer space, trying to get a better look at what he's feeding them. She's not making a particularly big deal out of staying hidden, but she's being cautious. Her experiences with young male walkers hasn't been exactly great. One wrong move and she's outta there.

[espigeonage]

The sparrows notice before Julien would have, and he turns his head to follow their beady-eyed gazes. "Hmm. You too, huh?" He sounds a bit less fond, but not unfriendly, and his casual stance doesn't change. Julien's not aware of it, but his own head is cocked, now.

[seabeast]

Yes, me too. Thankee. The flat response comes before she can remind herself that she can't actually vocalize that; what comes out is a fairly neutral trilling noise that she immediately shuts off. Ugh. It probably wouldn't have been a great idea to talk anyway, even if she could. Don't want to give him a reason to antagonize her.

She pads over slowly, doing her best not to scare off his chosen audience, and sniffs at the crumbs on the ground. Bread crumbs? Not exactly her preference, and she's actually full for once, so she won't deign to eat any. She'll scootch back away to give the birds and the walker some space, sitting down and beginning to groom herself, studiously ignoring them.

[espigeonage]

"Now that's a kookaburra sound, almost." Julien had never had much to do with...a ferret, right, not some kind of weasel? He had friends who kept rats, and those were well enough. He got on with them better than cats and dogs.

This one seemed quite bold, even if it had turned up its nose. He kept it in the corner of his eye, in case it turned out to be rabid or something, and tore up his chunk of bagel for the sparrows.

[seabeast]

There is a distinct lack of froth and rage as she licks and nibbles at her undercoat, shaking and fluffing out her fur when appropriate. She regards the young man with a beady eye... Not that she really has any more interest in him or his cadre of birds, seeing as how she already has food in bountiful supply, but she is starting to see the wisdom in hanging around walkers, if only because food in there world seems to be in bountiful supply.

She just watches this boy toss his food to the birds for the moment, her head tilted thoughtfully. She's never seen them hunt before, and all of their food just magically turn up in boxes or from shelves in stores... How does that all work?

[professorwolf]

It was nearly sunset when Lyall made it out to the Dead District to check on that statue. He'd had an odd afternoon, unexpected smells and indivdiuals interspursed with paper grading and the occasional network perusal, and it left him bemused and distracted as he walked through the streets towards the little square with that awful statue. Still, he needed to see if any of the scents around it had changed.

The spicy little scent of ferret was unexpected, though, and he paused, looking around with narrowed eyes. He wasn't entirely sure what that scent belonged to, but if it was unexpected, he was suspicious. Investigators who smelled like sheep and asked dangerous quesstions had him on edge.

[seabeast]

-- This was dangerous. There was still plenty enough ferret instinct left in her to spot his sudden change in stance from patrolling to hunting. (??? Hunting? Two leggers didn't need to hunt, all of their food came from buildings and boxes and tiny metal barrels.)

Queenie quietly puts the egg she had been eating back into the nest, backing away along the gutter and crouching down. As long as he doesn't look up, she should be all right, but the lightness of her fur did nothing to mask her, even in the gathering darkness. Ferret musk is strong, though, and the one safe way up to the gutter, the crates she climbed to get there, are right next to the fellow now hunting for her. She's basically trapped up there with her own personal scent beacon.

[professorwolf]

Too bad for her, he's at least relatively observant. A quick look around, and the spot of pale on the roof there quickly catches his attention. Probably to Queenie's surprise, the tension goes out of him. Lyall isn't particularly worried about a small animal, after all.

"Didn't think we had wild ferrets out here...." Lyall watches her from under the brim of his hat. "Are you someone's pet?"


((eta: wanna meet Aragorn for Tuesday? Lyall needs to visit him, and would be happy to bring her along >.> ))

[seabeast]

She reflexively ducks down even farther. Not that there was much she could do at this point, but she had to try... Oh well. At least the fight seemed to leave him, and his immediate reaction wasn't to try to catch her. That's a solid plus.

With her mind distracted, she immediately reacts to his question with a headshake in the negative before she can stop herself. Bad idea, bad idea! There is absolutely no reason to let on that she can understand these creatures, especially when she knows that would make her an anomaly, and then a target from there. It's best not to risk it.

She immediately starts grooming herself, hoping that a show of being easily distracted will throw him off.

[[ sounds grand to me! just let me know when he's about to join the turn order :) ]]

[professorwolf]

((oh, it'll be a new thread! :) I'll link you do it when I got it up, tomorrow sometime))

Actually, it just makes him smile. The headshake at the moment doesn't register as an actual answer, lucky for her, but considering she doesn't look particularly nervous at the one-sided conversation, he's going to assume she is. He drops slowly to one knee and swings his laptop bag off his shoulder, fishing around inside for his snacks.

Jerky, today, because it just... sounded good, and it was the only thing that sounded good that would keep. He opened the packet and pulled out a strip.

"Hungry, little guy-- er. Girl?" The scent is rather female... ish. He thinks. He's still learning this stuff.

[seabeast]

[[ OK, sounds dandy! thanks a bunch! i'll be waiting! ]]

... Well, two-leg food always tasted a lot better than grasshoppers, to say the least. Whatever he had in his hand was dark and hard to make out, but it was too small to be immediately dangerous. Still... she narrows her eyes and inches her way back towards the edge of the gutter, trying to gauge this beast and his offering. She doesn't exactly know why these creatures seemed to be so generous with their food, but so far, no one's gone as far as to feed her poison or anything. Yet.

She's interested, and she doesn't exactly gauge his sudden change in his reference to her as more than simple politeness, but she's still a bit wary. She'll just stare, the pause lengthening as she tries to make up her mind about him.

[professorwolf]

Though he's better with cats and sheep, Lyall still thinks he can at least get her to come down. He sets the piece of jerky down and scoots back a couple waddled steps. "There you go. Now I can't grab you if you come down. Perfectly safe."

The talk is mostly to amuse himself and get her accustomed to his voice, though the smell of the jerky still in its package is tempting enough to cut it off for a minute as he has a bite, himself. "Can't believe I'm actually eating this stuff," he mutters to himself. He'd never been a fan of jerky before.

[seabeast]

Utter lies!! She makes a small grunting sound. Of course he can grab her if she comes down, all he has to do is take a few steps forward! Or... She sets her head on her paws, thinking. Well, it's not as though he actually knows she can understand him, and he could have easily laughed like a villain and explained his entire nefarious plan to her, assuming she'd be none the wiser. It wasn't a perfect reason to trust him, but at the very least, she would know to leave the moment he started getting fishy.

The sight of him eating another one of those things at least convinces her that the food itself is safe. She backs up and hops down to a nearby crate, slinking her way down each box until she makes it down to the ground, then slowly approaches the dark thing, her nose sniffing hard at it while he eyes kept track of the tall two-legged beast.