DID SOMEONE SAY STUPID AU O'CLOCK

[siegheulen]

[because who would make a better werewolf than Kai.]

Comments

this got long whoops

[kunstlich]

[ No one in the village bothers to tell Krista to take care when she sets off for her grandmother's house. It's not as if they don't notice -- bright red eyes and a crimson cloak would be eye-catching on anyone, let alone a child -- they just don't care.

Witch, they whisper behind her back, while she buys apples from the fruit seller. Witch.

Krista doesn't know if it's true or not. The other children in the village chanted it over and over and pushed her into the mud when the bird she'd been trying to raise had died and one of the bakers had refused to serve her for a week, claiming she'd cursed his last batch after he'd tried to overcharge her for food.

It'd be nice if she was. Magic would be nice. When she was younger, she'd spend hours running around with a stick stripped bare of leaves, pretending she was casting spells, but she hadn't done that in a while (not since one of the girls she'd played with had fallen ill and her mother had chased her screaming from the doctor's office when she came to visit).

No adult in the village would dream of letting any other child Krista's age travel the forest unattended, but they don't care about the witch. If the creatures in the forest find her, so be it.

Krista doesn't know she has to be careful as she follows the trail. All she knows is that if she follows this path for long enough, and if she doesn't drop the apples in the basket on her arm, she'll reach her grandmother's house.

No one ever bothered to warn her about the wolves. ]

[siegheulen]

[...is he smelling things? generally, you do not expect to get hit with a snoutful of apple when you're following the trail of a rabbit. other growables, maybe, if it'd been in the middle of stealing from someone's garden, but...

...but now he's well and truly lost that trail, and his mouth is watering. he hasn't had fruit in ages— too much of a hassle to grow his own trees, and he knows better than to try to nick any from the nearby villages. waaaay more trouble than it's worth, thank you very much. trading for them is right out, too, since nobody wants to swap goods with a scruffy stranger that popped out of the forest. apples in his woods is totally fair game, though, so he abandons the idea of trying to find that rabbit's trail again in favor of tracking down some less meaty prey.

it's a little bit disappointing to find a kid at the end of the trail, and those apples in her basket. not a complete loss, though. she's young, and apparently completely unafraid of being in the woods by herself— the combination means she might be naive enough to not know why she shouldn't trade with him. so why not try? fortune favors the bold, after all, and the worst that'll happen is she'll cry wolf and hopefully be ignored when she got home. and what human would believe a story about a werewolf asking for fruit and leaving the kid themselves unmolested?

that decided, he slips behind a tree to change and straighten his clothes, trying to look somewhat respectable before he pokes his head out from behind it and clears his throat]

[kunstlich]

[ The sudden sound in the middle of all the quiet is enough to make Krista jump -- but when she turns around to face the source, she doesn't look at all afraid. Just curious.

She blinks at him a few times, then furrows her brow. A stranger in the woods? Or at least she thinks he's a stranger -- she's never seen him in the village, anyway. Is he a traveller? Is he lost?

With none of the hesitation that a child would usually show while approaching a stranger, Krista pulls the hood of her cloak a little further over her eyes and walks over to him. She stays carefully on the trail, taking care not to tread any further than she needs to, to address him at a polite volume. ]

... who are you?

[siegheulen]

[fucking hell, she's adorable. who the hell let her out on her own like that?]

Name's Kai. What's yours?

[kunstlich]

[ for a moment, she shies away, pulling her hood down over her face again. Everyone in the village knows her name and she's scared that if he hears it, he'll stop being quite so polite.

But refusing to give her name would be rude. ]

... I'm Krista.

[siegheulen]

[oh no, she's shy. he drapes himself over one of the lower branches of the tree, relaxed and unthreatening— look, look, he's totally harmless.]

Nice to meet you, Krista.

Ah, so— you've got apples in there, yeah? Don't suppose you'd mind sharing?

[kunstlich]

Nice to meet you.

[ she parrots it back politely, with the air of someone who's had good manners drilled into them.

The mention of apples startles her though and she looks down into her basket before taking a hesitant, half-step back. ]

... They're for Grandma.

[siegheulen]

...Oh.

[bugger. but—]

Well, I wouldn't want to take anything from your granny, that'd be rude. Especially if they're all you're bringing her...?

[kunstlich]

[ she shakes her head. ]

... nothing else.

[ in her defence, she looks a little guilty about it.

but if he's asking about the apples, there must be a reason, right? ]

... are you hungry?

[siegheulen]

[he has the grace to look slightly guilty]

Not really, but I don't get a lot of fruit. Can't grow an apple tree in a garden, yeah?

Tell you what, d'you think your grandma would mind if I traded you for an apple or two? I may not have much fruit, but the garden means I've got more rabbit than I know what to do with. I wouldn't mind giving some to you.

[kunstlich]

... A rabbit?

[ For a moment, Krista pictures a tiny gray thing, all fur and big eyes before she realizes that he's offering meat, not an actually living thing.

Her lips purse in distaste. ]

... I can't carry that.

[siegheulen]

[biting back a whine. all he wants is an apple is he just doomed to live a fruitless life. is that it.]

...I could? Carry it, I mean...?

[fuck, he could not have sounded any more pathetically hopeful if he had whimpered. GOOD JOB.]

[kunstlich]

... you could?

[ she looks surprised by the offer and blinks at him for a moment.

Then she beams. ]

That would be okay! Grandma would get mad if I got dirty, but I'll be okay if you carry it.

[ even as she says this, she's reaching into her basket and pulling out the shiniest, most ridiculously red apple imaginable and holding it out to him. ]

One now and one when we get there? Is that okay?

[kunstlich]

[ Krista very nearly doesn't make it.

Her grandma is, to say the least, unimpressed with her story of meeting a kind stranger in the woods and Krista finds herself on the receiving end of an endless lecture of how dangerous it is to talk to people who live in the woods, especially while she's alone.

They still have the rabbit in a stew that night and Krista is expected to make her way back to town alone the next morning she notes with a little bitterness.

But her grandmother keeps her so long in the morning, fussing over her and making sure to drill in the lesson that the sun is already beginning to crawl up in the sky by the time Krista sets out. And it's high in the sky by the time she gets back to the village.

Her shopping is done in a rush and on an impulse, she spends perhaps a little more than she should -- she sets off towards the forest path a touch too close to noon for her liking with an utterly ridiculous haul of bread and fruit.

When she finally reaches their agreed meeting point, she knows she's shockingly late and there's a hot blush of shame to her cheeks as she comes to a stop. She's panting for breath and looking around nervously, a little afraid that the stranger might have have given her up for a lost cause. ]

[siegheulen]

[ there certainly isn't any sign of him at first. the woods are quiet, save for the occasional rustle of brush and the twittering of birds.

—and then there's a crash as Kai sits up out of a particular thicket, far enough from the path to be just barely within eyesight ]

—hey, Krista! If that's lunch, I found desert~

[ which he had, technically... a few weeks back. she doesn't need to know that he was catching a late breakfast of berries because he'd been hanging around to make sure she got back from her gran's house okay. ]

I FINALLY GET TO USE THIS JOURNAL FOR PSL THINGS

[kunstlerisch]

[ as the seconds tick by and Krista waits for him to appear, her heart sinks in her chest and she becomes more and more certain that he isn't here. It's her own fault for being late, for not running faster, for being stupid enough to think she'd found a friend. Her eyes sting and she doesn't bother wiping them.

Until she hears the crash of foliage and jumps, whipping around to see where it came from -- and when she hears his voice, she hastily wipes her eyes and beams at him, holding the bundle in her arms aloft. ]

Y--yes, I brought dinner! There's bread and fruit -- it's all fresh from this morning.

[siegheulen]

[ bread *_* fresh bread. ohhh man. clambering to his feet and picking his way out of the brush ]

Hey, nice! I have some venison in a basket... somewhere around here, shoot. Hang on—

[ why did he leave it in the middle of brambles. because he's an idiot and forgot he probably wouldn't be able to put his fur back on to get it out, that's why. grumbling as he extracts it ]

[kunstlerisch]

Venison?

[ it takes her a moment to reconcile the word with whatever actual food it's supposed to be -- but then she remembers her grandmother bemoaning the meat in the village and complaining about a lack of just that and her face lights up. ]

That's fancy meat! Isn't it? I've never had it before!

[siegheulen]

Fancy— jeez, what kind of crappy hunters do you guys even have? It's just deer.

[kunstlerisch]

It's a lot of money, though! So it's fancy! Right?

[ meat is pretty expensive (for her) as it is, so yes, she's going to equate that with it being 'fancy' ]

Where did you buy it?

[siegheulen]

I didn't. I caught the critter it came from myself, same way I got you your rabbit.

[kunstlerisch]

[ that makes her eyes practically light up with interest ]

Ah! You're a hunter!

Is that why you live in the woods? Because you hunt things?

[siegheulen]

Little bit of that, little bit I hunt things because I live in the woods.

[kunstlerisch]

[ still sounding so impressed ]

What other kinds of meat do you have? Do you hunt lots of things?

[siegheulen]

Pretty much anything that'll hold still long enough, yeah. Rock doves, rabbit, sometimes squirrels...

[ ...the occasional rat or raccoon... look, he's not picky, and smaller prey is way easier than bigger without a pack to help take it down. ]