homeless_pard | A flight long in the running...

Entry tags:

jason au,
starter

A flight long in the running...

Who: Khem and a new world!
When: Start of canon smash here!
What: Terrified kitty arrives in the vague area of St. Louis.

Tired. She was so bone weary that had someone told her that she'd die but it would be in a bed, she might honestly accept that trade at this point. The pads of her feet were leaving red marks along the rough stone she scrambled and clawed haphazardly upward, ever upward, ever away, through so many terrains they all blurred together in a haze of color and snatched hunts.

She should have lost him. Should have, and there had been times over the past turns where she had almost believed him gone. Finally shaken from her trail and naught more than a shadow left in her mind to spur her onward. Any hunter would eventually give up on game when coursing it had run to long...

...surely?

Ah, but she'd little experience with hunters, those near the abbey were more farmers with the occasional lord's man, and even had they needed care it was likelier that they would seek tending from their own ladies. AN isolated abbey was not easy to seek out when ill.

Still, it had seemed logical that he'd stop. At the Wastes perhaps.

At the Falls.

At the turn of blasted scree to strange, new lands past where tales she knew ended...

...and yet here she was, his shadow practically nipping at her heels. She was flagging and he hadn't stopped. This hunt was soon to end, as any chased thing knew in time, escape simply wasn't going to happen. Mayhap it would kinder, cleaner, to miss a jump. To tumble and not reach for ledges as she went down.

Kinder...but she shrank from it none the less. A little further...

...a little further...

...until there was naught left but sheer walls and a deep, dark crack between. A cave, not a passage. No exit. A tomb for one hard worn girl who had thought, foolishly, that finding fur had granted her freedom. And so it was to end.

If he hounded her even here, his bootsteps harsh on the stones behind her, then she was determined he would know who he was to slay. Not some cat that had teased him, not some furred prize, but as a woman. If he was to slay her, let him slay a woman and be haunted by her face. An unkindness perhaps, but she was far past ability to feel for him.

To wonder if she could explain, or beg her safety somehow.

No, let him have a flickering pang of conscience as he did his fell deeds. And so as the mouth of the cave darkened she set her back to the stone, fingers rather than claws lifted to shade her face, skin covered in long, dark hair and gooseflesh that gave some semblance of proper depth to her too-thin frame.

Let him slay a woman.

And yet, as she watched the dull, metallic sheen of a dart gun rising, it wasn't pain she felt burn through her chest but warmth where her single item, the amber stone on a string about her neck graced to her by Gunnora, flickered like sunlight and the wall at her back faded to naught so that she was falling...

...falling...

...falling...

...there was a brief scream, she couldn't help it, as her shoulders struck beaten grass and tree roots, shock making the sound choke off as abruptly as it had started. A heartbeat, two, as she stared up at tangled tree limbs and dappled light she shouldn't be seeing then she was sitting up with a gasp, trying to espy the Hunter.

And he was not there. Somehow, somehow...he was not there, and she sat in a wood far younger than the one before the stones she'd climbed, hands and feet still bleeding harshly from the abuse she'd pounded into them over the many moons of travel. She was alone and she was...naked. The stone upon her breast cooling from it's earlier warmth. She'd give thanks somehow, later. For now she shivered back into fur in a blur of mist and achingly, carefully, hauled herself up into a tree to try to determine where she might be.

A how would take much longer no doubt, but...

...rest seemed a blessing, and she was still so very, very tired.

With luck there would be no fresh, strange beasts to contest her claiming the crook of a tree, there to watch, or likelier pass into blessed unconsciousness.

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"Ah...so it is that which the two lords involved must realize on their own and she may cause harm to their people with angry words in their ear?" she sighed. Such was the life of lesser lords and ladies, immensely, but...yes.

"Please do not do so! People are not build to survive such well, especially if it is often!"

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Or she doesn't even say anything and just stops banging them and starts banging everyone else..." His eyes widened. "Shit. You did not hear me say that. Seriously, it's comments like that that get me in trouble."

But, she at least seemed concerned? "I mean, it's rarely bad. And we're built a little sturdier than most 'people'."

That was blank, mildly horrified, staring yes. "She abuses the lords and others?" What awful creature was this woman?! Banging and beating was not conducive to a healthy holding in any regard!

"Sturdiness or no walls are not kind!"

"Well I'll do my best to keep from denting them while you're around," he teased.

It took a minute and he was biting back another laugh. "I mean, you could say that. But it has a...uh...different meaning in this situation." He gave her a pointed look, raising his eyebrows.

She met his look with a blank one of her own? No, it was not a term EVER used in sexual context in her knowledge so it was NOT what she would think of? Um? "And what meaning may it hold beyond abuses?" she asked, trying not to feel utterly moronic as it seemed obvious to him?

The blank look kind of tugged out some guilty feelings, and he dropped the knowing look. He wasn't used to people who were so...innocent, and she was already having to make some major life adjustments finding herself here. He didn't want to make her feel like an idiot on top of all of that.

"Sex," he said gently. "It's slang for sex."

"...ah." She perhaps understood why he could not, or should not, be clear in such but..."she is such as trades her favors lightly and often?" She asked it carefully, not assuming the woman was a, ah, paid woman but...

...mayhap the lords in question preferred a degree of skill rather rather than the stability of being wed?

"There's a lot more to it than just that, I'm just..." He laughed. "Probably just bitter than I'm not on the list of regulars."

He joked. Right? Mostly joking...

"But again," he urged seriously, "it's a topic that gets a lot of people on edge, so let's just keep it between us, hmm?"

"...ah." He yearned for others. Specifically a woman who claimed many and might cause instability. Of course, a kind lord was merely that, kind, not open to such as she. It was because she was tired that she had even briefly thought otherwise. "It is not such as I would be known to speak of," she admitted quietly.

She smiled at her, not knowing the thoughts now dampening her mood. "Thanks." He might not know her thoughts, but he noticed a slight shift in her manner. "Hey, I'm already feeling better. Let's figure out something to eat. What would you eat if someone brought you anything you wanted right now?"

She leaned against the wall on one side of the bed and huffed a small, very small laugh, "bread. I have not had honest bread in turns now. Fresh foods that are not meat..." There was honest yearning in that tone! Hard to eat a turnip as a cat on the run after all, much less anything else!

He thought for a moment. "I mean, bread we can do. And something vegetarian? Or something that's not just meat?"

There was a small local place that did the sort of home-cooking style comfort food; he didn't know if they had any vegetarian options, but it would probably be more familiar to her palate than some of the local chain restaurants.

"Not just, or not all meat, I have had naught but," she chuckled softly. Likely she was going to critique the bread though. And the cooking. And practically dissect it yes.

How could she not?

"Well this place nearby, it's a small place but should still be open for an order. They have stuff like pot roast, chicken and dumplings, and they have this really good paprikash dish there, too. And they usually have some steamed veggies, mashed potatoes..."

He grinned. "Is there anything you don't like? We can order a few things and you can pick what you like."

"I do not know what paprikash is lord?" she admitted quietly. "Lest it is made of...peppers?" That might result in the name?

'We ate most of chook and loper in the abbey, with forest deer rarely added in trade from the village nearby? And grew all manner of vegetable."

He blinked. "Fair enough. I have no idea what chook and loper are. But deer isn't that usual unless you're out catching it yourself." He smiled wolfishly. "But yeah, paprikash is like a red pepper sauce? But not super spicy."

"Hmmm, chook is...yard hens and cocks? Lay eggs?" she mused, not really knowing how else to describe the feathery hellions. "Lopers are grass runners, fast, larger hind legs than front, burrow..."

He laughed out loud. "Ok, yeah. Chickens. I mean, hens and cocks, too, I guess. Most people just say chicken when talking about food. And we usually say rooster instead of cock because...slang again."

His smile widened. "And rabbits. You can find those in fancy restaurants, but they're easy enough to catch when you're hunting alone."

"People here mostly eat chicken, beef, pork, or seafood if they're eating meat. It's cheaper and more common than wild game."

She blinked, a bit floored by the idea that cows were more common than rabbits..."lands keep cattle over hutches?!" That was...idiotic really.

Truly.

Such a strange world. "Chooks and lopers are common in my homelands, kept easily, alongside goats."

"I don't think it was always like that. Our country has a lot of space for cattle, so yeah, beef is pretty big here. Goats not so much as a long time ago, or in some of the poorer countries around the world."

He shrugged. "You read about what people used to eat, you realize we're pretty spoiled now. Anything you want, any time of year. If it's not in season here, we trade with a region where it is in season. Any fruit, any vegetable, whenever you want."

"...that seems rather wasteful," she admitted softly, blinking. "Is there a law against keeping smaller things?" Mayhap if she ended up isolated with her own small cottage she could keep what she was used to?

Add in the fact that lopers and chooks tended to be a singular investment and trade that renewed themselves easily, well...it just made sense to her yes. No, Jason probably wasn't going to manage to totally sway her to a sybaritic lifestyle.

He made a face. "Not in the city, I don't think. But if you move into the suburbs or more rural areas it shouldn't be a problem. You'd just need the land."

He paused for a moment, a slight smile on his lips. "Aren't you worried about eating them on the full moon, though?"

"...ah," so what she knew could not be had near here. That was something to think on wasn't it?

"And why, lord, would that be an issue? If I were not capable of self control I'd not have made it far..."

He could sense her disappointment. "Not saying you couldn't get a place, but...I mean, you look at what we drove past. Building and concrete. Not really conducive to farm animals."

He paused, remembering the clear-eyed leopard craving words into the dirt. "You...you don't black out or anything when you shift, do you? You stay the same in your head?"

"It wouldst be strange to depend on others in even so simple a thing as ingredients constantly," she admitted. Very strange.

Ah. "There is instinct, that I may move body proper as I do on two legs, but I am myself regardless?"

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