Muttonhawk

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The water was cool at Fendros' feet as he walked, and started to wade, into the river. He figured he would just scrub himself for a few minutes to get the grime off, but he found he needed to scrub harder to get most of the new smells off his body. Before getting as far as grazing his own skin, Fendros decided that the final scent was probably just a mix of himself and the river water. I hope slaughterfish haven't wandered into this water, Fendros thought as he cleansed himself. When he was nearly done his eyes wandered down the river. He stood and watched the light dance on the ripples that the wind made. Why did Hircine decide I was worth keeping alive? What is his charge in life that he needs some Dunmer vintner's son? Fendros sat down in the water with his head and shoulders still over the surface, They'll come looking for me in a couple of days. I don't know what I'm going to do. Under the protection of some savage lizard shaman, I suppose that's my life now... Fendros closed his eyes and felt the river water rise and fall on his skin. I never learned Daedric lore in detail, but maybe I can bargain with this 'Lord of the Hunt', Hircine. If I even get to speak with him. It might just be reserved for the alpha-lizard.

Fendros decided to hold onto that last thought. It was a direction to go at least. Some kind of ambition. He got up and walked out of the water, before finding a large rock to sit on and wait to dry off, "Meesei, how much do you know about Hircine? Why did he want you to find me?"

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Fendros couldn't help but smile a bit while everyone laughed. Everyone seemed friendly enough.

Janius was the next to speak. "I've only been a lycan for about two years. I'd lived in Bravil beforehand. Didn't like it at first, got turned under duress from Meesei." He lifted the spit from the fire and began to eat, "Once I got used to it, I realised that my new family was worth it." He began to eat. "Judging by your equipment over there, you use the sword and shield some. Maybe we could spar together, swap some advice." Fendros didn't return Janius' grin. He couldn't really know why Janius was so happy to be part of the pack.

After a pause, Fendros looked over at Runt, who was eating a boar shank with both hands, her knees close up to her chest. "What about you, Runt? What's your story?" Runt stopped eating and looked at Fendros for a moment, but returned to her food without a word. "She doesn't talk much." Ahnasha said, "She's been with us for about a year and a half. A talented girl, especially with medicine and poison." Fendros found this odd, but didn't express it. He asked Ahnasha further, "Does she have a proper name?" Ahnasha looked over to Runt, waiting for her to answer that question, when she apparently wouldn't, Ahnasha looked back to Fendros and opened her mouth to speak when Runt's small voice was heard. "Sabine." Ahnasha sighed, partly with annoyance, partly with pity, "She also does that as well."

"The name 'Runt' stuck before she decided to start talking," Lorag mentioned. After finishing his final mouthful, which he had reached long before Fendros had thought to keep track of the speed he was eating at, Lorag went over to Fendros' belongings and picked up his sword. Lorag inspected the sword and started walking away with it, Fendros shot up and followed him. "Wait, what are you doing?" Fendros asked with a concerned tone. "I'm going to clean and touch up your sword, what does it look like?" Lorag stopped and turned around, holding the flat of the sword across Fendros' eyeline, "I hate to see good steel like this go to waste. We have precious enough as it is." Lorag turned again and continued, waving a hand behind him to dismiss Fendros, "Don't worry about it, I'm a professional orc, you'll get it back better than new." Lorag stopped in his tracks to say one more thing, "And go wash yourself kid, you still stink of that feral you slew."

Defeated again, Fendros walked back to the campfire. "Meesei, if I may. This is probably a foolish question, but do you make use of soap and towels here? Lorag just notified me of the smell of the dead feral werewolf, that I only just recognised."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

At the mention of food, Fendros had to admit that he was feeling hungry. After picking a spot to lay down his belongings, he looked in the aforementioned bag of food. Fendros was surprised to find that the different meats had not been separated, hardly sanitary. He was too hungry to immediately care, though. He reached in and pulled out what appeared to be a venison leg with much of the meat already cut off, but still enough for a meal. Over the campfire, there was an unused spit that Fendros decided to use to cook the meat. At least he knew how to do this much. Occasionally cooking fowls over a campfire while hunting earned him at least some experience with spit-roasting.

Not even five minutes into cooking the venison, Lorag approached. "This looks about done!" He said, before grabbing a rag and taking the spit off the frame without Fendros' permission. Fendros stood up, "What do you think you're doing?!" He said, "That meat isn't cooked yet, and I picked it out for my-..." As if Fendros had said nothing, Lorag bit a chunk out of the venison and handed the spit back to him. "You're going to dry out the meat and ruin it if you cook it any longer." Lorag said between chewing, he swallowed and continued, "Sorry, it just smelled too good. Now are you going to eat it, or am I going to have to take this off your hands again before you learn to appreciate the meat we have."

Fendros was furious, "I-... argh! To you expect me to poison myself? The meat in the bag is mixed together. To eat it so raw is to condemn yourself to vomiting and worse! Have you got that through your thick skull?!" Throughout Fendros' rant, Lorag wore a grin that only grew wider over time. A couple of seconds after Fendros' last sentence, he couldn't help but burst out laughing, he then shook his head and spoke, "Heheh, you talk to me of having a thick skull! I'll let you off this time because you're new, and I'll bet you haven't been told yet. We're werewolves, boy; there are no diseases to us." He began to turn around, "Now eat up. I think it's time I had my own lunch."

Lorag pulled out what seemed to be a chunk of liver and an entire boar leg. When Fendros sat down again, he was amazed to see Lorag start to eat the liver raw. Surely not. He must be telling the truth. Fendros thought. Soon enough, the smell of food attracted Ahnasha, Janius, and even Runt. They all took turns taking out a few pieces of meat, and most of them ate it raw, save for Janius, who was employing the use of the spit that Fendros had just taken his venison off. Fendros was surprised just how communal the meal seemed. All of them had picked out small pieces of flesh or offal, but Lorag and Ahnasha had taken out large legs of meat and were slicing pieces off to hand to everyone. Fendros was offered some of their food, but he stayed chewing on his undercooked venison. It seemed that Lorag did have a good eye, as Fendros' food was probably at the tastiest it ever could have been in terms of cooking. It made him wonder why Lorag didn't cook his meat if he was so good at it.

"Fendros, that was your name, yes?" Janius addressed Fendros, not taking his eyes off his meal "How did you kill that werewolf that attacked you? It must have been quite the fight."

Fendros swallowed his mouthful, he was surprised that any of them would be interested, but then again, these people seemed to value different things to him. "I don't remember much." Fendros said, "It came out of nowhere, knocked me off my horse. I think it was more interested in eating my horse than me. There was no use running, so I shot it in the arm. Probably just annoyed it." Fendros pursed his lips as he felt a tingle down his shoulder again. "I tried to keep a tree between myself and it, it was relentless. I went for its neck while it lunged at me and it didn't make an effort to defend itself. My sword went right through its neck but its claw found me as well. I'm lucky to be alive."

"Hah, if you hadn't regenerated, you'd be dead meat by now, that's for sure. It sounds like that feral almost killed you and saved your life in the same instant!" Janius pointed out.

Fendros didn't immediately respond. He didn't really see how the irony formed outside of a circular argument, but that wasn't important. "How long have you all been werewolves, if I may ask?" Fendros asked them all.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I've been working the last couple of days, but I'll be more active today. Between this and nostalgia tripping with episodes of the Zoids anime.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Walking around and inspecting the area around the dead lycan yielded no immediate finds, save for a single rivet from Fendros' leather armour and a few threads from his clothing. Meesei's suggestion to take a trophy from the dead beast seemed inappropriate to him, savage even. He was about to shout out in denial of stooping to the level of an uncivilized brute, but short of clenching his fists, he just couldn't find the energy. Fendros instead took a breath and replied, "I think the memory was horrible enough to remember on my own." Thinking back to yesterday, Fendros touched his hand to the exposed, but mostly healed scars that the claws before him had rendered. Even past these scars, I'll be remembering this on my dying day. As the sun moved over a particular spot in the undergrowth, Fendros detected a bright glint in the corner of his eye. On the grass nearby, he found his sword, encrusted in dried blood. He approached it and picked it up. To his dismay, Fendros saw some faint lines of rust that had formed on the edge of where the blood was. He would have to clean it off and oil it, he hoped the pack had the necessities.

Fendros then followed Meesei's lead of his blood trail. It wasn't long before they found more scraps of torn leather and clothing. Under some dirt, Fendros found his shield, its handles in need of repair but otherwise intact. Nearby were his spilled lunch pouch that the local wildlife had fed upon, his bow, string broken, and his quiver, a few arrows had spilled out and the shoulder strap was torn like his shield's handle. Fendros' belt must have hung onto his body for longer, as they had to hike further along the blood trail to find it, but it still carried his knife, his scabbard, and his water skin. Tracking a little further only found more scraps of leather armour, but it was hardly worth keeping most of it.

Now Fendros had his bearings, he knew the direction of home. He felt he had more control now, even if he wouldn't escape. "I think that's everything. I'm glad I was able to salvage this much." Fendros said, looking at the hilt of his sword and the Avarul crest etched onto it. At least this will remind me of home...

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Glad to hear that you're satisfied with the whole affair, Fendros thought bitterly. Up ahead, Fendros spotted a tree with four parallel scars scraped across its trunk. Judging by the amount of sap that had leaked out, it looked recent. "Over there," Fendros proclaimed, walking with a briskness toward the tree. When he reached it, he ran his fingers over the gashes. "This tree is familiar." He said. It definitely wasn't a dream.

Fendros looked at different areas of the ground around them. "I think I can smell my blood. Some kind of blood anyway." After a small amount of wandering, Fendros walked in a particular direction and brushed away a tree branch. Suddenly, a retched smell filled his nostrils on the wind. He scrunched up his nose and covered his nose and mouth with one hand. After swallowing back some bile and after the breeze slowed, Fendros removed his hand from his mouth. "I think something rotten is upwind." Past about one hundred metres of forest was a black shape in the grass, Fendros could just see the movement of flies around it. "There," Fendros pointed to the shape through the trees, "The creature that infected me."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Fendros rose and followed Meesei. "I've been taught to fight with a sword and shield, as well as shoot a bow. My family never really trusted the Cheydinhal guard to protect our vineyard, so we all had some way of defending ourselves and our property. I don't fight like those patrolling legionnaires however, all in heavy armour and formation. I move around a lot, light armour." Fendros touched his thumb to his chest at the end of his sentence, "Hunting was a... hobby of mine. But rarely did I hunt dangerous game." Fendros paused to think, "For what it's worth, I was also being educated to eventually manage my parent's winery, so I have been taught to negotiate pricing and sales, and vintage. That sort of thing." Fendros looked at Meesei properly, "Are we going to be expecting a fight?" He asked.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

My first lesson. Hopefully this is less futile than magic. Fendros thought. He got up, holding the blanket and taking it with him. He had to press one hand to his head and stay still for a moment after he got up. His blood loss had given him a splitting headache.

Remaining sullen and quiet, Fendros sat down, complied with Meesei and tried to work the leather into a loincloth under her instruction, keeping the blanket wrapped around him. Thankfully, the pattern was not particularly difficult to follow, but putting holes in the leather caused him to slip and cut himself accidentally on a couple of occasions, and some holes were difficult to place without cutting too close to the edge or so far into the hide that the hole would be torn to the edge. About halfway through the lesson, he noticed the eyes of some other pack members checking on him, he could hear some sniggering when he cut himself for the umpteenth time. Perhaps he wasn't made for needlework after all.

It took Fendros a couple of hours to make something serviceable, and it caused him no end of frustration, but it took his mind off home for a while. With some adjustments, Fendros finally finished something that fit him somewhat comfortably. He had a feeling that the days of wearing finely made silks and cottons afforded by his parents' business were all but over.

"Hmm, now I see why tailors get paid so much." Fendros said, looking between his new covering and his hands, which look like they had been ravaged by a housecat. He looked up at his mentor, "I think I would like to see if I can find my belongings now."

Part of Fendros was starting to accept his fate, but he mostly felt like a prisoner. There was a big part of him that wanted to fins his possessions so that he might get his bearings in the forest. To have a glimpse of escape. Rationally, he knew he could not simply run home without repercussions, but his hope didn't agree with that sentiment.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Goodnight!

Also, I give you full permission to godmod my NPCs as long as what they do makes sense.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Fendros looked up at Meesei with his forehead forward and blinked. I cannot tell whether to call them savages if it's logical an unavoidable for them to be lacking in clothing, he thought. "I'm sure I will eventually get used to it." Fendros muttered. It would not be too difficult for you, now, wouldn't it, miss lizard savage? Fendros looked forward and corner of his mouth that was facing away from Meesei twitched upwards for a moment. A small internal quip, however inappropriate, was relief from the grief that had exhausted him.

Taking a breath, Fendros pondered for a few seconds. "I have never learned to make clothing, let alone work leather," Fendros said "Now is as good a time as any I think."