bringinghopewithme: (eyeroll)
Bunnymund ([personal profile] bringinghopewithme) wrote in [community profile] piper902020-10-09 03:19 pm

[Video] [Locked to New Hires only] [TW for Punishment in the linked log.]

Stacia, Armstrong, I need to see both of you in person. On the double. Five minutes ago. Anyone else with a real good sense of smell, you come see me too.

[On the camera, underneath his oak tree in the garden, Bunny has a little bit of that dead-eyed stare that comes from being reminded how thoroughly shackled they all are to the most banal form of evil. Mostly, this is just businesslike, direct. Calmly urgent, after his furious meltdown in the Executive wing got him nowhere good.]

Everyone else: Sam and Dan and I tracked what attacked Tenten and Setsuna into the Executive wing. I smelled it there recently before the suits caught us and kicked us out.

[There's no real reason to bring up their Punishment. It happened, it hurt, he hates that he dragged Dan and Sam into it, but they all knew it was likely to happen. And if anything they learned can help prevent any further damage to the kids, it'll have absolutely been worth it.]

I couldn't identify the species, but it's supernatural, and old. Older than me. Some variety of predator. Given we tracked it into areas we're not allowed to go, and it spent a lot of time wandering around there all leisurely, it either looks enough like a suit that they gave it a pass, or it can walk through walls. If I had money, I'd put it on walking through walls. I'm not ruling out both, though.

But don't worry. Jorgmund's bringing in - [he scoffs, and rolls his eyes hugely] dogs to finish tracking it.

I'm still racking my brains to see if any memory of what it could be falls out, but if any of that rings any bells for all you, I'm all ears.
credit_not_blame: (Wolf)

[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-10-09 07:15 am (UTC)(link)
My sense of smell is about as good as any other human's in this shape.

[This is important though, so she only sighs a little as she backs up a step or two and crouches down.]

Keep an eye out for any full-fledged Jorg employees for me.

[Stacia shifts, but not to Crinos. This time, she goes all the way to Lupus. She's small for a wolf, just like she's small for a human, but a wolf is still a wolf, not a dog.

She sits up politely, so that Bunny can present her far more sensitive nose with the bit of blanket.
]
credit_not_blame: (Default)

[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-10-09 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[Stacia snuffles the cloth, trying not to touch it, trying to memorize what it smells like for later, and wishing desperately that she'd spent more time learning about non-magical tracking instead of relying entirely on Gifts taught to her by spirits. She spends a lot of time wishing that these days.

When she thinks she's managed to press it into the soft meat of her brain, she sits back and returns to the shape of a human girl to talk; crawling back into the jumpsuit she'd wiggled out of when she'd turned into a wolf. She offers Bunny a smile, trying to project her sincerity.
]

I'm as much wolf as I am human, and wolves are pack animals. We can do the things we do, have done the things we've done, because we don't do them alone. I'll call if I smell it, and I'll only chase it if I think someone's being hurt. And even then, I'll call first.

[There, that's reassuring, right? Totally makes up for the fight they are almost certainly about to have.]

May I ask some questions, Bunny?
credit_not_blame: (Default)

[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-10-10 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
[Poor Bunny. Stacia likes being thought of as a child, someone to be protected and coddled. That status had been ripped away from her too soon, she shouldn't have had to become a warrior at fifteen because she'd been scared and angry and betrayed. Her world shouldn't have been so broken as to have to ask that of her. But it was and it had, and as much as she loves the opportunity to wrap herself in the soft blanket of Bunny's guardianship, people have died. Worse, two girls her age had been tortured. She needs to be able to do what she was born to do, and she wants him to understand why.

Even if it breaks both their hearts.]


Remember how you asked if I was Faoladh back when we first met? I said sort of, that my family wasn't Irish. The thing is, the name we're called by ourselves and by other shifters is 'Garou', and we have a purpose. We have a duty to the one who created us. We're warriors of Gaia. Her teeth and claws.

[This part isn't really her questions, just the context for the questions she'll be asking.]
credit_not_blame: (Default)

[personal profile] credit_not_blame 2020-11-08 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
[Stacia makes a face.]

In her defense, she didn't really ask -- it's a role we're born to, and the world is really messed up. In an ideal one, we wouldn't have to fight until we were adults, but that's not the world I live in.

[She sighs.]

Gaia is actually a...I don't really have the vocabulary for it, but the difference between us and her is so vast that we can't really understand her. Too much meat and mortality and all that fun stuff, I guess. So we deal with various other spirits as intermediaries, and they teach us things and we pay for it in tasks or other actions. The one I deal with most frequently is Goat. [This actually gets a faint smile out of her; she's quite fond of Goat and she misses the scrubby bastard.] What my pack's Goat asks of us is mostly down to an attitude and a particular approach to life than anything task-related. But we're at risk of running up against one of the guidelines here, so I want to loop you in: if I fail, I have to try again, but I have to try again a different way.

[She raises her gaze to make eye-contact with Bunny, hoping to impart how serious she is here.]

I want to work with the group, because that's the best way to handle a situation like this. But if I'm flat out told "no, you can't, stay away", I'm going to have to find an alternative out of spiritual obligation, and I really don't want to find an alternative. [She spreads her hands before her.] I'm not asking you to invite me on hunting trips or anything like that, just don't shut me down completely.