Word of the day  OLFACTION - 11/22/22

Milite prompt [606/1,200] Act as a guard at an event or while accompanying a Salsolan or Salsolan party beyond the pack’s borders. Be vigilant and aware of your surroundings. If traveling, make sure you and your fellow Salsolan(s) are safe and don’t make yourselves an easy target while on the move or when setting up camp somewhere.

OOC: Set in Searsport on the 3rd of November after this thread. Mind is fronting. Egregore, Lev & Rosemary are travelling to Fort Preble. Rosemary and Egregore will have returned to Salsola proper by the 14th.

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Too much had happened, but such was par for the course. Mind had resigned himself to his inability to stay in the loop, and if he were completely honest with himself, he was not interested enough to anyway. Soul and Blood had brought the three of them into this sticky situation by sponsoring Lev into Salsola. Not that he cared. He chose instead to focus on his current mission: guarding Rosemary Winsor and Lev Prizmov during their trip to Fort Preble. As much as he would have loved to force his brother to hoof it up there on his own, he would have risked Lev's life doing so. Outsiders had proven on a majority of occasions to be dangerous.

Rosemary preferred an escort as well, so it would seem; she had expressed her interest in finding safety in numbers whilst travelling to the Salsolan outpost. This made more logical sense to Mind when one took into account that Egregore was a combatant involved in the Shield now. It went without saying that it was preferable to travel with a guard than without one. He did not know the exact reasons for her visit to Fort Preble, for she had been vague, as was her right. Egregore did not need to know, and Mind was not nosy like Soul was. Her business was hers, the only thing that concerned him at current was to keep her and his supposed brother safe... much to his chagrin.

Lev behaved with much anxiety, choosing to give Egregore a wider berth whenever possible. He was either on the other side of Rosemary and leaving her in the middle of the two of them, or awkwardly trailing behind. This left Egregore feeling exasperated. He needed to focus on his olfaction and keep his eyes on the landscape for any approaching threats, he did not need to be distracted by potential brothers sneaking off.

"Quit going behind me and stay where I can see you, Lev," Egregore snapped. "I can't protect you from a potential attack when you're out of my line of sight."

Lev shuffled begrudgingly forward, arms crossed and eyes trained downwards on the earth. He purposefully avoided eye contact with his brother. Whether it was out of fear or pettiness, Mind did not know. And again, he could not bring himself to be invested in the matter either way. Shaking his head, he came to a stop. The structure he stopped before was quite the dilapidated building, a feature of the Mack Point Rail Yard. It was on the smaller side, but it provided ample space for the three of them and shelter to rest in overnight.

"What do you think of this for setting up camp for the night, Confidant Rosemary?" he asked.

Egregore had pointedly asked her this question, completely ignoring the other Confidant in their presence. Lev scoffed, but ultimately gave no retort. It was not worth more conflict, and he did not want to fight with Egregore in front of someone else again.

"We could perhaps secure some sort of cover over the roof to prevent heat from escaping from the holes, and start a fire in the center of the room, yes?"

It had been sunnier that day. However, the evening had crept up on them much like a silent specter. The sun had fallen behind the horizon from its daily climb, leaving them with the relatively frigid nightly temperature. They should not have too much trouble keeping warm tonight, Egregore rationalized, but the scattered precipitation had piled frozen snow beneath their paws already. Colder days laid ahead of them as well.

“Uh,” Rosemary blew warmth into her cold knuckles, and then brought her gaze around from Lev to the building. The rail yard hadn't changed too much in a years' time; when she'd been there with a different pair of brothers, their only option had been the husk of one of the upturned train cars. It had been sufficient for holding their disheveled lot for a few days, but eventually the smell of rust and other dangers had driven them on.

Something about the hunch of the brick building made her uneasy, though it was nothing compared to the uneasiness of third-wheeling a pair engaged in a quiet feud; considering it that way, the structure seemed stable. If anyone was going to get hurt, it wasn’t going to be by a caved-in house.

“Yeah, I think that would work,” she chirped, eager to draw the irritable Egregore’s attention away from his sulking brother. An experienced sibling of three, she knew better than to get in the middle of a quarrel she didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she wanted to let the tension go on unchecked. “I didn’t bring anything to cover it up, though. You think that roof’s stable enough to mess with?” She went ahead to examine the shack, figuring that they weren’t going to find answers by speculating from afar. She glanced over her shoulder to see if either Prizmov followed before ducking inside.

There hadn’t been too much wind that day, but the space was drafty all the same; she thought it might be better to cover the door and windows and get a fire going quickly, even if the space wasn’t maximally secured. Coming around to the center, she found a lump of ash, charred wood, and other remnants of camp. Someone else had apparently had the same idea, but by the smell of the bundle of dead grass they’d used for kindling, it was at least a moon or two ago.

“There’s some wood scrap in here,” she called. “And a lot of dead bugs! Ooh—this guy’s got way too many legs. Hey, Egregore, come here and check this out.”

(—) | NPCs:
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