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Post by Campion on Oct 15, 2017 6:43:00 GMT
Ginger faintly smiled, looking down at the ground, then up to the sky as she and Kez worked on getting to know each other. She’d never actually mentored someone before, but she had always wanted to. Ginger had her own mentor as a kid, and believed it was vital that a mentor and apprentice have a close relationship so that they get the most out of the experience. Though it was always tedious to her to wait out the hotter parts of the day, this wasn’t so bad.
She held her hand out to the young pup, waiting for him to approach her. It licked at Kez’s hand as she pet it, then looked over at Ginger and took a step, sniffing the air, then took another step hesitantly sniffing the air again. Eventually the hyena licked her held out hand and she smiled, gently mirroring what Kez had done and pet him between his ears.
It was odd in her mind, that people were able to remember what he’d done a while back. “Yeah, he killed a guy. A hound, specifically. Was trying to get away cause they were gunna cut his hands off for stealing some food. And well. Guess they’re still upset about it. He sticks out so much too, so it’s easy to pick him out from a crowd.” The guy was crazy reckless, like Kez had said. But that was part of his charm, and part of the reason she liked him so much. In a way, Ginger was reckless too, just in a different way.
“Ha! Him, listen to me? That’s rich. Even I can’t get through to him, kid. I guess that’s part of his charm. He does whatever he wants, however he wants, but isn’t willing to put the people he cares about in danger for those things. But don’t worry, he’ll still get a stern talking to later.”
The sound of heavy foot steps caught her attention. Ginger’s head shot up and immediately her body tensed, but it was Crawk with a very dead gazelle hanging out of his jaws, holding half the body in his bloody mouth, its legs dragging along the ground. Campion ran up to the beast with a grin, patting him on the shoulder and giving him positive reinforcement for the kill. Crawk dropped the gazelle, then took a few steps into the shade, panting, before lying onto the ground and resting.
Campion looked over the carcass, then looked at Ginger and Kez. “Looks like he ate his fill and brought us something to eat. Not sure if he listened to me, or thinks that we’re incapable of getting food ourselves. Or both.”
Laughing, Ginger looked over at Kez. “We can still do some hunting for small animals once it cools down even if we got a good hunk of food. But for now, let’s help him skin some of that and get a fresh bite to eat, even if it did come from an overgrown hyena.” Hell, she wasn’t even sure how Crawk managed to get a Gazelle. They were incredibly fast, and though Crawk had a lot of raw strength, Ginger had seen how wargs hunted in the Savanna. They’d have to be lucky to get one as a group, much less just one of them.
“Why don’t you get a fire going, Kez? Our one-armed bunny needs help.”
“Um, excuse you?”
“I mean if you want to try starting a fire with one arm, please, be my guess. But I’d rather eat some of that now before tomorrow morning.”
“Okay, but I’m tellin’ ya now, it’s more entertaining to watch Kez try to start a fire.”
Ginger arched an eyebrow and looked at the girl. “Well now, I think you have to start the fire. I wouldn’t let him get away with all that smack talk, if I were you.” It was nice how she could be so familiar around the girl. She fit in perfectly.
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Post by Keziah on Oct 24, 2017 7:04:19 GMT
Keziah listened to the story of how Campion had found himself, eventually, one arm down and a whole lot the worse for wear. She was frowning - typical damn Hounds. Stealing earned you a bullshit punishment, losing a hand, but rich folk could do any damn thing they wanted as long as they could pay the bribes.
"Yeah, he's too damn tall and those ears might as well be arrows pointing the way to him," she muttered. He'd been dumb, going back to the City, but maybe he'd thought it had been long enough. The Hounds had long memories, it seemed, and he'd paid a heavy price for that fact.
"At least he should know not to go back there again any time soon. He needs to try and keep his other arm, guy can only lose so many limbs and keep goin'."
She stood when Crawk got back, wandering over to inspect what was left of the kill. Nie wasn't far behind the warg, slinking in with fresh blood around her mouth. She'd eaten whatever she caught, but Keziah was just happy she'd hunted successfully - presumably on the ground, too, rather than her preferred hunting method of catching small birds on the wing. She ran a hand over the feathered dragon's smooth coat as Nie flopped onto her side, hot and panting but looking pleased with herself, and after untangling her mane with her fingers Keziah left the dragon to cool down.
"Shut up, jerk! Nie can breathe fire now anyway, but you can take that back. I'm gonna start the damn fire." Ginger wasn't wrong; easily needled, the challenge was enough for the girl to rifle through her pack for flint. Stalking around huffily, she collected some twigs and dry grass and piled it roughly, too impatient to form the tidy stack Campion had shown her. Then, tongue sticking out slightly and a determined frown on her face, she sat cross-legged and tried to mimic the hand movements that the Daemon seemed to conjure so easily to make sparks. It took a long few minutes of determined effort but, eventually, sparks flared and caught in the dry grass, smoke curling into the air. Keziah dropped the flint and started at it.
"Oh shit. I did it!"
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Post by Campion on Oct 25, 2017 7:01:56 GMT
Honestly, Ginger wasn’t too sure whether or not Campion would be smart enough to not go back to The City. Hell, she was a bit surprised to learn that he’d gone at all, with how much he absolutely loathed it. Spirit seemed like such a better option, but then again she didn’t have the full story.
Ginger got up as well and went over to the carcass, standing close next to Campion. So much of the meat was badly torn and jagged from Crawk’s mouth and what he’d already eaten, but it was still something. Maybe, just maybe, the bunny daemon’s damn hunger could be sated.
The banter between Kez and Campion was entertaining, enough to make Ginger laugh. They defiantly had some sort of sibling relationship. Ginger was mostly just glad he hadn’t been completely alone all this time, even if the two of them met more recently. People change when they’re alone, but that was most people. Campion was very…different, one could say.
Ginger knelt down and started cutting away at the pelt, working on the meat that had not been in direct contact with Crawk’s mouth. Campion worked at pulling out the left over inner organs as she did that, finding it a little more difficult than he thought with just one arm.
The exclamation that came from Keziah gave two different reactions. Ginger gave Campion a knowing look that said, ‘Now who is more entertaining to watch start a fire?’, while Campion ignored Ginger and gave his idiotic looking, massive grin to Kez.
“Well it’s about time, kid! Nicely done.” He reached over with his very, very bloody hand and purposely gave her a hefty and congratulative pat on the back with full intention of getting blood on her.
“Campion….” Though Ginger was forcing a frown, she was holding back laughter.
“Yes, doll?”
“You’re petty as hell, you know that?”
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Just cause she beat you at your own game doesn't mean you should cake her with nasty animal blood."
“True. But since you seem to like me so much and I'm petty, what does that make you?”
Ginger ignored him and finished cutting up a nice slab of meat from the back of the animal. She shouted, “Catch!” at Keziah and threw the fresh flesh at her. “Go ahead and start heating up the food. I'll finish getting some more slabs of good meat off for us.”
Campion nodded, still smiling but not as widely. “Yeah. Nie and the others can have the rest if they want.” He was sure Nie could understand him, so he briefly made eye contact with her before standing up and moving the pile of guts he had off to the edge of the shade. They sooner they were done with the carcass too, the better and less likely other predators would come around.
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Post by Keziah on Apr 6, 2018 23:03:15 GMT
Mesmerised by the fire she had finally managed to create, Keziah initially grinned at Campion's congratulatory slap on the back before it clicked, about two seconds later, that it had been sticky. Twisting around, she viewed the bloody handprint on her shoulder and back - and it covered like half her back because she was small and the hand Campion had left was unreasonably enormous - silently for a moment before promptly lobbing a rock she scooped off the ground at his head as hard as she could. Which wasn't that hard, all things considered, but she still hoped it would hurt if it connected with his stupid skull.
"Urgh! There's not enough water to bathe in, you jerk." She wiped away what she could, wrinkling her nose, but her top was nicely stained and would probably smell soon enough. Asshole!
She was still grumbling as she fished the cooking equipment she carried out of her pack. It was a battered, simple set-up - a single fry pan and a pot, but nothing to hold it over the fire so you had to do that by hand or jerry something up with whatever you could find in the savannah. Plotting revenge, she sat cross-legged, feeding wood to the fire as it grew and got hotter, before she started to fry the meat. The gazelle Crawk had managed to get wasn't all that old - for once, the meat was reasonably tender, and might actually not taste like leather, so she was careful not to overcook it before standing up and offering the first piece to Ginger. After cooking her own share, she pointedly set the fry pan down, leaving Campion to cook his own.
Nie didn't stir when Campion said her name, and Keziah figured she was too sated to bother with the leftover antelope. She'd never once seen Crawk leave so much as an errant hoof behind though, so it would go to a good home. She sat leaning against the sleeping dragon to eat, Nie's slow breathing in sleep punctuated with deep, rumbly growling that was near-silent but felt like soft vibrations against her back. As expected, the meat tasted great - she'd been hungry - and she ate quickly, using her fingers. Utensils would have been a waste of space and weight to carry, especially for a street rat who had rarely eaten off a plate in the last five years.
"Hey Ginger..how's you learn how to do all this? Y'know, shoot, fight, hunt. Were you born out here?"
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Post by Campion on Apr 15, 2018 8:32:52 GMT
Laughing, Campion blocked the rock from making impact on his head buy using his hand and it bounced off of that instead. “I think it adds character!” he jested, failing miserably at keeping himself together from the whole ordeal. “Besides, we ain’t ever been that clean.” He KNEW that she wouldn’t let him get away with the gesture though, and that was confirmed by leaving him to cook his own food. Now his laughter had stopped, but Campion wasn’t done. Like Ginger had said, he was petty as fuck. He would NOT let Kez win this! So he grabbed a slab of raw gazelle, bit into it and tore off a chunk, eating it raw. He didn’t have to worry about getting sick from it like a human, and it was hardly his favorite way to eat meat, but it would do. This way, he would not have to admit defeat by making his own food.
Ginger thanked Kez for the food and gobbled it down quickly. She was a bit more hungry that she’d thought. She watched as Crawk and Kali moved to eat the rest of the corpse, the dog waiting for the massive giant to start eating first before joining in. At least everyone would have a full belly for the day. “As I said, babe. You are the most petty man I know.” With a devious smile, she nudged Keziah. “Don’t let him eating it raw deceive you. He doesn’t like raw meat that much, so he still loses either way.”
Campion frowned, licking the blood off his fingers. “Wait? How do I lose this?! And isn’t she just as petty as me by not cooking me some food?”
Ginger sighed. “I swear. You’re more like a child than a grown ass man. I don’t think you’ve aged a day since we were kids.”
“Okay but like…answer the question.”
“You’re on a whole different level of petty, Campion. You lose. End of story.”
Campion grumbled to himself and Kali took this as a sign to run up to him and lick him in the face. Obviously annoyed, the daemon tried to push her away, but the dog would not have it as her tail waged back and forth fiercely.
Ginger laughed and looked over to Keziah as she asked about Ginger’s past. Some of Ginger’s wild, red hair had obscured her eyesight, so she tucked it behind her ear before answering. “Practice. Easier said than done, but it was all self-taught. Unlike Campion, I wasn’t born a daemon. I used to be human when I was very young. Always lived on the streets as far back as I can remember. Got turned around the time Campion and I met. We tried to live as street rats, but Campion got his ass caught and locked away one day, so we had to bust him out. Formed a mercenary group with our shifter pals, which eventually turned more into a bandit raiding gang once we left The City. And from there we just had to teach ourselves. The Savanna is a harsh place. A few of our friends didn’t make it, but we did. And honing those skills took years. Were we not daemons, we probably would have starved and died as humans or shifters.”
Though hard, that had been a good time in her life. Campion and her were stuck together like glue. Oh how she missed being kids.
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Post by Keziah on Nov 25, 2018 6:59:40 GMT
Irritably, Keziah shot him a baleful glare.
"Doesn't mean we gotta actively go out of our way to get even filthier. I prefer not to smell like carrion, actually." She watched him tear into the meat raw, arching one brow, not at all convinced he'd have chosen to eat it that way. When Ginger confirmed it for her she gave a small, self-congratulatory grin.
"My actions were completely justified. I'm gonna have flies following me around all of tomorrow thanks to you," she added. Flies followed them around all the time - there were loads out in the grasslands in this heat - but he'd for sure gone and made it worse. At least Nie liked to amused herself by shooting little darts of flame at them and barbecuing them right out of the air.
"You used to be human?" Keziah's intrigue was palpable, but she didn't know if it was considered rude to outright ask someone how they ended up being turned into a Daemon. Maybe it was a sensitive topic amongst the Turned, for all she knew. Campion had raised the idea of Kez turning once or twice but she liked being a Human - the idea of turning into something different entirely kind of freaked her out. Still, it was without a doubt an intriguing thing to learn about someone.
"I don't wanna do it as tough as you, living out here full time and all. And I got Nie, and the doofus looking out for me when he's not being a jerk-" another long-suffering glare went Campion's way then "-but do you reckon I can learn? Without turning into a Daemon, that is." She admired Ginger (and, though she would never admit it right now, Campion) for doing what they needed to do to survive, and turning into veritable badasses in the process even if Campion seemed to constantly be in trouble. And she was sick of being just a street rat - barely scraping by each winter, only lucky not to be murdered in her sleep. She wanted more, and something in her called to hunting. She wasn't sure why, or what for that matter, but it felt right. Something about her magic, perhaps.
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Post by Campion on Nov 25, 2018 22:29:46 GMT
Campion, taking Keziah’s carrion comment to his advantaged, added, “I mean…you could have fooled me.” He was kidding of course, grinning with the retort. Their time together had made them like this, like bickering siblings who could never not keep their comments to their selves. He could almost hear Ginger’s eye roll. She was going to kill him, he was almost sure of it.
“Hey though! Think of it this way. Besides me, all those little flies mean that something likes you. It’s like you have a bunch of fans!” Campion hadn’t thought about the flies, but she was right. He had mad that worse for her, and the flies were annoying as all hell. That was a win for him. For now though, as much as he was not a fan, he continued to work on his raw meat with Kali sitting right up against him, begging for a piece herself even with there still being a whole.
Listening in on their conversation though, he couldn’t help but to interject again. “Oh boy she sure was. And lemme tell you, she was a mess."
Ginger, not willing to let Campion get away with all of his comments, responded quickly. “Oh don’t give yourself too much credit. After all, look at you now.” She gestured to his missing arm. “I might have been a mess at some point dear, but I grew out of that. What’s your explanation?”
“Touché”
Speaking with Keziah again, she tore off a chunk of her cooked food and threw it into her mouth. “Sure was. You actually remind me of myself when I was one.” It’d been a long time since she had to speak about when she was human, but there was some actual comfort in it. Though Ginger did not miss being one, she treated her time as one to being an essential time of learning and enduring in her life. “Campion and another one of our companions were the strongest in our group since they were already daemons. I had no desire to turn for a long time, and boy did the two of them practically begged me too.”
“I think you give yourself too much credit.”
Ginger laughed. “Campion says he didn’t, but I’m fairly curtained he fancied me as far back as then too. But I refused. I did not enjoy being human per-say, but I figured if I could take the more difficult way and survive as one of them rather than take the easy way out, I could do anything.” Well, perhaps not anything. But she was sure Keziah knew what she meant. “When I finally did agree to being turned, I had the option between a rat daemon or a rabbit daemon. Can you guess whose feelings were destroyed a little when I chose rat?” She looked over at Campion and winked as he huffed and pretended he couldn’t hear them. Leaning in close to Kez, she whispered, “I had no desire to have big ass bunny ears like him. He stands out like a sore thumb.”
Campion did not look up from his food when he heard Kez call him out, but he did raise a hand up at her in acknowledgement of hearing her. He was content to not interrupt them for the time being though. They seemed to be having a bit more of a heart to heart and he was positive his harassing could wait till later.
Ginger, both amused and somewhat moved by Keziah’s determination grinned. “Like I said, I learned to survive as a human first, then a daemon later. I’m sure Campion has bugged you a few times about being one, though he’s quite biased.” Again, she leaned in close to whisper. “Pretty sure he just doesn’t want to feel so alone being a rabbit daemon.” As she leaned back to her original position, she winked at Kez. “But in all seriousness, it’s possible. It will take longer. You are all skin and bones, no offense. I can’t imagine what you looked like when Campion picked you up.” It sounded like they have traveled for quite a while. “But it’s doable. The doofus,” she smiled at saying the words herself, “Is limited now with what he can teach you with only one arm and all that. But I can certainly teach you. If you can do a fraction of what a daemon can as a human without any magic, then you’ll do good off on your own. And don’t let Campion talk you out of being human. He has no idea what it’s like to be human, and I’ve been both. Both are very different experiences. You do you.” Ginger did prefer being a daemon herself, but she fully understood the value and pride that came with being a human.
Finishing up her meal, the daemoness looked up in the sky. The hottest time of the day had finally passed. Though the sun was still blazing, her and Campion’s tolerance was better than many daemon’s when it came to the sun. They could travel out for a bit on their own before needing to find cover again. “Let’s go ahead and start packing up so we can move on. CAMPION!”
Startled, Campion dropped the small bits of food he had left and jumped to his feet. “UH er, yes?”
“Help Keziah start packing up. I’m going to go ahead and do a little scouting before we head out. Make sure there aren’t any nasty predators hanging around and that junk.” Ginger stood up and offered a hand to help Kez up, then grabbed her bow and headed out into the tall grass of the Savanna.
Campion, who was already in the process of putting out the fire, commented, “You heard the lady. Lets get this messed mostly cleaned up. Always best to not leave enough trace of us behind so no other nasty bandits in the area think of followin’ us and getting’ the better of us.”
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