A walk in the park

Cai Blom · 01-09-2012, 12:34 AM

It was a nice day out.
Cai Blom was spending it, at least thus far, chasing a squirrel in and around a tree. I was a tree with lots of low, easily climbed branches, and lots of high, only slightly harder to climb branches. Cai had still managed to fell out of the tree seven times, not that he was actually counting. All he knew was that this one stupid squirrel had managed to steal Cai's shiny new river rock, an otherwise worthless piece of granite. But it was Cais worthless rock, and no stupid squirrel was going to keep it from him.

Drakien Lusk · 01-09-2012, 12:48 AM

[html]ooc: Test-driving characters...Hover for translation.

Word Count: 202

It wasn't Drakien's kind of day. Perhaps that was simply because it was too early, perhaps it was because he'd been drinking Romani Moonshine last night...either could be the problem. With a slight groan, the male rolled off the nest of furs he'd made in the night and shook himself, shrugging his shirt back into place. There was some sort of commotion outside, and he rubbed a hand over his face before going to see what the problem was, looking just about as hungover as he felt.

Cai was chasing a squirrel. In, up, around the tree he went; Drakien got somewhat dizzy just looking at him, and had no idea why the male didn't just cut the less intelligent animal off at the pass. He might have gotten up and helped, at another time, as the squirrel was very clearly something his dear brother wanted very badly--or it had something he wanted badly--but at the moment Drakien couldn't be bothered, so he simply fished a bottle out of his bags and popped the cork, figuring the best cure to a hangover was more alcohol.

After another moment, he lifted the bottle and yelled, "Poluchitʹmalenʹkiĭ ublyudok, Cai!"[/html]

Cai Blom · 01-09-2012, 09:11 PM

Cai was gaining on the furry miscreant, inch by impossibly small inch, and was less than a foot away from the prize, when the sound of hung-over yelling surprised him. It was a bad time to be surprised, and Cai fell out of the tree for what would be the eighth time that day. Luckily after fall number five Cai had, in a moment of uncharacteristic foresight, laid softer pine boughs and needles plus leaves from other trees around the base of this one. Not so luckily, Cai's concentration had been broken in the middle of a rather forceful lunge and the poor canid went flying past the mildly more pleasant crash site directly below. There was a sharp whine of frustration, and Cai simply lay back and glared at the tree for a moment. He was trying to think of a reason to not simply go back to the river and find a new rock, but found his processes for finding such a reason sadly lacking. Instead he shot a pleading look at Drakien, hoping for some timely and hopefully squirrel free advice.

Drakien Lusk · 01-09-2012, 09:38 PM

[html]Word Count: 412

Drakien was just lifting the bottle to his maw when Cai reacted to his drunken yell, falling out of the tree--flying, more like, or doing a good impression of it. The man winced at the sight, and then set his bottle aside, rubbing his head and moving over to stand beside the slumped form of his brother. Cai shot him a pleading look, and Drakien rubbed at the back of his head again, feeling bad for ruining his concentration, now that he'd actually thought it through. The squirrel was chattering somewhere high above him, and Drakien lifted his head to look at it cross-eyed, frowning unhappily.

After a long moment of thought, Drakien nudged his brother with a foot and gestured for him to move over to their temporary campsite, out of the way. Then Drakien, large and bulky though he was, began carefully climbing the tree, testing each branch before he put his full weight on it. The squirrel watched him come, and just when he had it in reach, scampered up a few more branches. The process was repeated until the branches grew too thin to hold Drakien, and he would fall out of the tree if he went any farther. Then he stopped, and slumped in the tree, totally relaxed and unassuming.

The squirrel chattered some more, and then scampered down toward him curiously. Drakien remained un-moving until it landed on the branch just beside him, and then struck out, lightning quick, and snatched it up, falling out of the tree in the process--but also catching the squirrel, and its stolen goods. As he hit the ground with a groan and an audible thump, Drakien could feel his spine popping from the force of his fall. He rubbed a hand over his face, thinking he was far too hungover to entertain his more simple-minded brother now, but after looking over the squirrel still clutched in his fist, he realized it was dead, and had a rather sizable lump in its throat--choked to death. Shaking the furry monster as he made his way over to Cai, he finally managed to dislodge the stone--a rather shiny thing, no wonder it'd caught Cai's attention--and tossed it over to the other male.

"YA budu gotovitʹ etu shtuku na zavtrak. Yesli vy ne khotite yego syrym?" He asked, almost as an after-thought, and held the dead, fluff-tailed thing out to his brother in question.[/html]

Cai Blom · 01-10-2012, 01:15 AM

[html]Cai grinned and snagged his piece of meaningless river gravel out of the air. Of course, something in the back of Cai's head told him it wasn't quite meaningless. It reminded him of some other river granite he'd had a chance to observe closely. It had almost exactly the same marbled patterns as the rocks that had nearly dashed his brains out half a lifetime ago. Those rocks were about as far back as Cai could clearly remember, and even then most of it wasn't interesting with Drakien, so only the last months had any real meaning for him. Not all that much had changed really, it just meant that there was a friendly face when otherwise none was present. It meant the world, when it was almost all the world held. But Cai wasn't thinking very hard about those things. He was admiring the pretty rock. He snapped out of te daze suddenly at his brother's question, and replied "Я могу пойти подышать свежим дрова!" A moment later, he stuffed the rock into a space on the ceremonial skull he wore on his chest, and started gathering up an armload of what had been intended as padding, but would now serve as kindling. [/html]

Drakien Lusk · 01-10-2012, 02:10 AM

[html]Word Count: 263

Drakien chuckled as Cai caught and admired the pretty marbling in the rock, and set about gathering firewood of his own, shaking his head as Cai's first thought was to dismantle his bed. Though Drakien prefurred to sleep on furs, and did so whenever able--he had a nice, large cloak, after all, and it wasn't all that hard to wrap himself up in it like a sausage--Cai seemed to prefer to build his bed nightly out of leaves and sticks. Perhaps it was the more animalistic aspects of his mind, perhaps--Drakien cut his thoughts off before they fully formed, but his eyes traveled to the scars openly displayed on the side of his brother's head, and then quickly away, back down to his task. He didn't like to think about where Cai might have gotten that wound, but it looked to have nearly broken open his skull. With a small shudder, Drakien shook his own head, and moved to begin setting up the kindling.

A moment later, with only a little fiddling and a spark of flint and steel, the pile of jumbled up sticks became a merrily blazing fire, and the squirrel, still furry and covered in "the good bits", was tossed into the flames. "Spasibo, Cai." He murmured quietly, and then pulled the squirrel off the fire, tossing back on and pulling it off a couple times before throwing it suddenly to his brother. He'd most likely not be partaking of this meal, so he merely sat back after that, turning his amber gaze to the smaller male.
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Cai Blom · 01-14-2012, 01:23 AM

[html]Cai caught the deliciously singed rodent and grinned from ear to ear. It was (mildly) cooked dead thing, and that was really the closest thing to gourmet the black and white wolf ever ate. The meat was crispy on the outside, bloody on the inside, and just the way squirrel ought to be cooked. It didn't last long under the onslaught of a beast hungry from scrabbling through a tree for an hour.

About two seconds after finishing the furry treat, Cai remembered his hung over brother still hadn't had any breakfast but booze. It probably wouldn't do to just keep filling up with more drink, even if it took the edge off. That meant somebody had to find food. That somebody probably couldn't afford to hunt and forage hung over. That meant food had to be found that could be killed or at least brought back back by a single person. Drakien would probably be sick if Cai brought berries back, they had already scrounged and eaten all the easily found mushrooms yesterday, and no rabbit was stupid enough to come within ten yards of something that already smelled like smoke and dead squirrel. That meant fishing was really the only option. That meant Cai was going to have to trot about a half a mile to the nearest rock shelf overlooking the stream, catch a bunch of squirming herring, bring the wiggly little morels back, clean them (fish bones were no fun to eat and the guts never tasted as good as they looked) and then hand over what little meat was actually produced from this venture. It beat chasing a sneaky little squirrel in and out of a tree any day, Cai had enough issues with his head without trying to break it even more. He looked over at Drakien and said " Я собираюсь пойти наловить рыбы. Вы хотите, сырые или приготовленные?
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Drakien Lusk · 01-14-2012, 02:02 AM

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OOC here! :: Word Count → 292

Drakien settled back on his furs, resting a hand over his eyes and listening to his brother devour the squirrel. The sounds made him somewhat sick, and he rolled over and pulled the cloak with him, wrapping himself up again so that his body completely disappeared, leaving only the long strands of his unbound mane and his erect ears remained sticking up out of the top of his bedroll. His paws stuck out of the bottom as well, twitching every now and then for no apparent reason. He was just beginning to settle back into a comfortably numbing slumber when Cai's voice roused him, and he groaned a little, twisting his head until he freed it from his blankets and managed to tilt it back to look at his brother with squinting eyes.

"Ryba ...?" He muttered, not comprehending for a moment, before he realized what Cai meant and groaned. "Net, net, net, net." He shook his head, tucking it back into the blankets and grumbling to himself. "YA vysoko tsenyumyslʹ , brat, no ya ne goloden." He added, and then laid there for a moment more, before he sighed and wormed his way out again, rolling over to look up at the sky. The sun was slowly rising, belying the fact that it was later in the morning than he'd thought--how long had Cai been chasing that damn squirrel, anyway?--and he sighed again before getting up, shaking off the hangover like it was nothing--or at least pretending to. "My dolzhny, veroyatno, golovu , v lyubom sluchae. YA nadyeyusʹ, chto vy ne yeliloshadyeĭ na nochʹ." He eyed Cai, and then looked about for Breixo and the other, trying to remember where he'd left them. Goddess, but he hoped they hadn't run off...

Cai Blom · 01-21-2012, 01:19 AM

[html]Cai looked away before smiling a little at his brothers insistence. The hunger must not have been much of an issue, or the stomachache was worse then Drakien was letting on, for there were scarce few reasons he would pass up a free meal. The answer to that problem was to simply cook the fish in the fire at the next camp, and if the booze-hound hadn't eaten yet, the smell would entice him. Of course, Cai still had to go catch some fish for that to be a possibility. If he ran to the river, he could probably get enough herring to fill one of the pouches on the pack horse and run it back before camp could be broken down by a single hung over Gypsy, even if it was a scant camp. Even if Drakien finished putting everything away a few minutes before Cai got back, he would probably wait and the headache subside a bit and let his brother catch up before traveling.

Cai actually did smile before replying to the chide, Я не ел лошадей. Но я хочу, что рыба в любом случае, так что я должен вернуться в течение нескольких минут. With that, all there was left to do was grab the pouch off the large placid grey and get a move on. The only problem was the pack horse and its companion were conspicuous in their absence. They had probably wandered off to a slightly better grazing field, again. That meant now there were two problems that a sober wolf was better for, but the horses at least could still be managed by Drakien so long as nothing went terribly wrong. Cai simply sighed and grabbed a spare pouch from the campsite, it wouldn't hold as much but it would have to do.
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Drakien Lusk · 01-21-2012, 03:01 AM

[html]Word Count :: 463

Cai seemed insistent on the fish, so Drakien shrugged and began breaking down camp as he set off, folding up his own furs and wrapping what leftover alcohol he had in his blankets. After finding the horses nowhere in sight, he scratched his head and let out a short sigh before tipping it back and howling. It was a long, low sound, one that echoed shortly and then cut off, but it should work for the purposes of bringing Breixo, at least, as it was a signal the Romani had been sure to train all their horses in so that they could wander as far as they liked--within a few miles, at least. As he broke down the rest of camp, putting out the fire and bundling everything onto the end of a large stick, rather like the classic picture of a runaway. He regretted then that he had no vardos, but having only Breixo of his own to pull such a carriage, Drakien supposed he could wait. One-horse vardos were notoriously small, and even with a large Vanner stallion like the palomino coming over the rise, he wouldn't get much space.

Breixo came up shortly afterward, and luckily enough someone--Drakien couldn't remember who, as he'd been drunk off his ass for most of the night--had tied the grey to his own pierced stallion, allowing them both to wander despite Cai's horse not being trained. At least, not trained to the extent that Breixo was; Drakien patted the stallion gently on the neck, getting a snort and having to dodge a bite in return, and loaded up the bags hanging off his sides. He wore nothing more than a blanket other than that, the bags strung together with a piece of worn rope so that they hung rather like saddlebags despite this not being their purpose.

After collecting what little Cai had and glancing around for the lad, Drakien scratched his head and sighed, heaving himself up onto Breixo's back and leaning against his neck. "Nu lăsaţi fără Cai. Sunt prea mahmur să se ocupe de atitudinea astazi." He ordered the Gypsy Vanner in Romane, expecting the horse to understand him better in that than in Russian. It was not to be, however, as the moment he'd finished speaking Breixo began an anxious trot, dragging the gray along with him by the rope tied around their necks. He didn't know if that meant the horse understood him and was taking the chance to act out, but with a grim snarl Drakien took a handful of mane and began attempting to control his steed.

He would be fine, as long as he didn't get thrown from the saddle. He didn't think his poor head could take that.[/html]

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