24th step: Quiet

[favorthebold]

[The feed switches on to a shadowy scene, a small room lit by a strong, crackling fire in a central pit. Saul is crouched close to the fire, poking at some fish that are spitted and roasting over it. He's telling a story, so it sounds: his voice is low, yet rich, calling back old memories.]

- by the time we pulled him out, he was as cold and stiff as the ice around us, and very much dead. As dead as you've ever seen a man. Not a scrape on him, of course, just cold, and gray, so gold and gray that his skin cracked if you pressed it too hard. I thought they'd leave him there, why go to the trouble and drag a heavy body back to camp? But the Northern savages, their ways are different from anyone else's. Hunger makes them less than human, or it makes them more.

Their Guardian gave him last rites - but not like you'd give a man. He thanked his soul like they thank the seals they hunt. And I still didn't guess. I was very young... well. You probably do guess, don't you?

Yes. They did have meat that night, even though that man got no seal. They call it compensation, the Northmen. They are like no other men on earth.

[He pulls a fish from the fire, and hands the spit to his companion on the other side of the firepit - Carmen.

He gives her a faint smile along with it, maybe even an apologetic one.]

Not most my appetizing tale, I'm afraid.

[The feed continues to run, cheerfully oblivious.]


((OOC: Coordinated with Jackie <3. in ur city romancin ur villainz.)

Comments

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Pull the dead from the rubble, treat them like there's still something left in their corpses, eat them.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Well, you eat what you must. But I left their special brand of meat to the Northerners, myself.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

It didn't taste good enough?

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, dome, I didn't touch it. They may be less or more than men, but I am not.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Too bad. I was a little curious.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Well, I cannot blame you, if you are as you claim not human.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Ah, well. It would be pretty strange for a human to do many things I do.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

I've found that this place stretches my definition of human near thin.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Does it?

The lack of variety is ever so dull for me.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Have you met doma Unohana?

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Not as of yet, but it seems I've been invited to her home by a woman no longer present.

But a place for the ill is no place for me.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not the ill that you're after, dome, it's she who mends them. Further from human you'll hardly find.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

...She's strong?

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

The strongest. And I include even myself in this count.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

I'll have to speak with her.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Oh, it might be that you should.

And are you strong, dome?

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

[Just have a very, very big smile.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Hah. I like the look of that.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Do you?

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - a man should know his strength, and those who do, are often eager to display it.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

That is what it's for, is it not?

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

Oh, to be sure. I see where this talk is going, I think.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

It would be wonderful if you do. It would mean I don't have to find you and bully you into it. That would ruin the fun.

[favorthebold.livejournal.com]

I should hope that this is not mere 'fun' to you, dome. It's a gamble I make, seeing if you are worth my while.

[umbrellapirate.livejournal.com]

Gambling's a bad habit, you know.