DISCOUNT HERO ( molbok )

[Kite Ostling]

"Will you just hold him STILL for the sedat- AGH! For Christsake just..."

"Gett'da fak'nell OFF ME!"

"Juus get tha damm mashine calabrated! I saad get eh FIXEDH!"

Glass shattered on the tile floor, the light amber color of the sedative inside splashing over the random scattering of dark red blood. In the far corner of the room a spindly youngish man in white scrubs held a cloth to his broken nose, snarling into the intercom on the wall in a nasal voice. Directly opposite him in the room was a fairly massive line of thick glass boxes hooked up to equally massive machines. Each box, cage, whatever they were, could easily have held a man standing, arms spread. The machine furthest left and closest to the door was flashing lights, red, yellow, and the occasional blue, and let out an obnoxious trill of endless high-pitched beeps. The other two, the furthest right of which was already occupied, were running off the same main server and quietly flashed error messages.

More or less directly between the malfunctioning machines and the man on the phone were three more people, all of them in violent disagreement with one another. A tall woman built like an Amazon, complete with a braided blonde hair and shocking blue eyes, was dressed in black fatigues with UNIT's logo emblazoned on them in bold lettering. She was currently holding a shorter, considerably less attractive blonde in a vicious choke-hold from behind while he screamed obscenities at the even shorter, overweight man in a lab coat that stood facing them both.

Kite, the losing toss of the blondes and functional epicenter of the current situation, was pissed. Both wrists were caught behind his back in handcuffs and twisted in a way that made his elbows want to break out of socket, and the tight arm around his neck did not improve his attitude. Unfortunately, it had not yet shut him up either.

"Try'et again n'Ill shoveet so far up y'ass l'take surgery t'find!"

Shoe soles screeched on the tile, Kite's, as the officer twisted, deftly side-stepping the mule-kick that came at her knee, and slammed Kite against the Southern wall of the room. His particularly cutting comment involving the scientist's mother, a camel, and how both were therefor involved in his genetic makeup was cut short as his teeth were nearly banged through his tongue.

Miss Amazon wasn't much for words.

Across the room the skinny, wire-haired man finally released the button on the intercom with a vengeful look. Behind Kite the frantic beeping stopped, and the machines slowly started clicking back to green and blue lights. The portly scientist gave up trying to measure out another dose of sedative and lurched toward the machine, punching in a code with sweaty, shaking hands. Beady, cruel eyes jumped to where Kite was slowly being integrated into the wall, then he smiled to himself and finished the coordinates. With a chemical hiss, the door opened.

"Shove the freak in." There was a pause, wherein he considered the blotchy face of his broken-nosed coworker. "Cuffs and all."

With a well placed arm crank to drag him across the room, then a hard shove between the shoulder-blades, Kite was manhandled into the glass container. He bounced off the opposite wall chest first, then spun and booted at the door which had already sealed shut. All he got for the effort was a sore foot.

"THISSAIN'T RIGHT!" he screamed, leaning with a thud against the back wall of the glass. His heart was jackrabbiting dangerously in his chest, and with good reason. From his time in the labs, though only a week and a half, he had a pretty good idea what this machine was, and he'd narrowed it down to about two options. Either they were about to kill him, as had been threatened many, many times, or he was about to be put into the infamous dome. If he was honest with himself, which he never was, he wouldn't have been sure which one he would rather face.

The skinny man approached the machine next to him, and Kite watched as he checked the readout, geared up several levers, then flipped a small plastic cover and pushed his blood-smeared thumb down onto an important looking button. Around Kite, the machine thrummed to life. It was like someone was cranking up a bass stereo, the vibration louder and louder until it became, for a second, excruciating. The whole buildup took maybe ten seconds, but time stretched in Kite's adrenaline charged mind. Right at that sharp point of pain, everything stopped, and it was like holding his breath.

And then the world exploded into white.

It took him most of the fall to realize that he was falling, and by that time is was far too late to do anything about it. Not that he could have anyways. Fifteen feet through open air and then he struck down at on oblique angle on a wind-carved snowdrift, which was about as soft as loose dirt, in that it wasn't soft at all. The angle he hit stopped him from breaking anything, and threw him hard out onto the ice below without much of any loss of momentum. He struck hard on his side, right leg going numb in an instant, and slid a good ten feet more before bumping to a stop against the base of another behemoth crag of snow and ice. The breath had been knocked out of him at some point, he discovered as he tried to inhale and choked on the effort. Rather than struggle with it, he gave up and sprawled while feeling slowly returned to his leg, blue eyes crawling over his surroundings.

Empty was an understatement. He was on a veritable plain of glacial black and indigo ice riddled with harsh crags of snow. And it was snowing more, damn hard in fact; the sky above was a wash of a somehow dark, but blinding white. Night-time, then, but with a nearly full moon behind the clouds that lit up the frozen landscape with a cold ambiance. But none of the falling snow was touching down so much as screaming sideways as vicious, winter wind cut across the lake. The snow it carried and chewed away from the drifts cut Kite's line of vision down to no more than twenty feet, with rare glimpses that showed much more. As he watched, the wind would pick up and press his line of sight in nearly to his own feet, the sound a howling drone. Then, for a moment when the wind was low, he thought he heard actual howling, somewhere in the distance. He was going to need a plan.

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ooc; it was supposed to be shorter! XD Always carried away with the starterposts, I am

[Molly Wozencraft]

It was highly unusual that Molly didn’t freak out sooner. Waking up in a strange environment was enough of a trigger, and this particular environment was hostile to top it off. Meanwhile, the springbok anthro was sore and a bit nauseous, which could be just as much cause for concern, given she had no idea why she would feel that way. Yet somehow she felt too dazed to be very scared, at least at first.

Slowly she folded her legs beneath her, folded her arms around her, and sat up. Okay, it was a large, iced-over body of water, which probably meant retromorph territory, but that was all there was to glean. If there were any landmarks nearby, they were swallowed in an all-out blizzard. The most pressing matter was, of course, how obviously this was not the junkyard.

It didn’t take much to make a good guess as to how she’d wound up here. One would have to be one heck of a sleepwalker to pull something like this, and there was only one group of people who had the luxury of dropping others in random locations for kicks. Her insides turned as cold as her surroundings as it occurred to her than she couldn’t remember anything about it, not even when they’d come for her. By now, time was pulling her brain out of its fog, and the effect snowballed into near-panic as she considered the myriad things the Keepers might have done to her.

Molly was finally spurred to movement by a growing desire to just get hope as quickly as possible and have a total breakdown somewhere safe and warm. Her hindquarters went in the air first, tiny hooves pulled into position with agonizing slowness. Even after they stopped slipping around, the centaur stayed frozen, assuring herself she would make it to a standing position. After numerous tiny, experimental movements, she put her hands to the ice and heaved herself up.

She was standing for maybe a second before her feet went sideways, and Molly wound up on both her backs, toothpick limbs in the air like a cartoon possum.

The next two times she slipped were less spectacular, though she was rather shook up after barely stopping a faceplant. Fuming, she finally managed to get up and stay up, and felt rather trapped once there. The wind itself was almost enough to make her succumb to the footing again. This situation was not at all preferable. In fact, she suspected it was going to hurt more.

Molly’s goal was merely to make it off the solid water, and then she could worry about figuring out what direction to go. Maybe there would be trees to stifle the wind; other than looking down, she couldn’t see for more than seconds at a time before retreating behind a protective forearm again. Fine, then. Don’t worry about looking, don’t worry about where the heck you are, just worry about getting somewhere where you don’t have to creep along.

She was doing fine until a forehoof caught on something mid-step. The young Nakoma didn’t go down completely; one knee landed on the obstacle and she managed to balance thusly. She had a creeping suspicion as to what it was only a moment after striking it; she was fairly certain on second contact. It was hard to think of anything other than a body that sported that type of squishiness.

By some miracle she didn’t lose her balances as she reeled back. Unfortuantely that took some focus, enough that she was too distracted to stop a yelp from escaping. Stupid, stupid stupid, stupid. You did not scream in the middle of enemy territory. That was like, rule number one. Maybe one of various “rule number one”s.

She tried to visually confirm there was a person on the ice, but had no better luck than before. She couldn’t smell anything either...not that she was very good at distinguishing ring scents. Carna and Fallen were distinctive enough, but Fulsi and rouges smelled too much alike. It was just as tricky to try and distinguish whether someone was a ‘sir’ or a ‘ma’am,’ particularly since Molly gelt creepy trying to learn how to do that via olfactory means. And then there was the fact that she might need to use her nose to know whether or not the person was alive, for which she had nothing to go back on. Worse, she might not need prior experience to tell.

Okay, this was a lot to worry about over something she still didn’t know for sure was human.

If it was indeed a fellow inmate, she hadn’t heard them respond to her flood of apologies. That didn’t really mean anything; with the wind like it was, she had probably drowned out any trace of their voice with her own. Quite possibly they were unable to hear her either. Cold air stung her lungs as she took a deep breath. “HELLO? ARE YOU ALIVE?” She was going to feel like an idiot if the answered, but she fervently hoped they would.

[Kite Ostling]

Anyone who had ever said dying of cold was peaceful could go suck eggs. Rotten ones. Kite was cold, more miserable than usual, and his leg still felt like it had a tractor-trailer parked on it. He'd only been on the ice for five or so minutes, and the wind had done nothing but pick up to ridiculous levels. It was probably impossible for him to prove that the asshole scientists were turning up the storm like some kind of pagan weather god, but he had some very strong suspicions. In retrospect he should have hit the skinny man harder and more while he'd had the chance, but he'd been distracted by the guards surprising manhandling abilities.

His arms were getting awful cold though, he noticed. Something should be done before they froze off or something stupid. And go freakin' where, the other side of the North Pole? he thought uncharitably. And then something hard landed on the middle of his abdomen, followed in quick succession with another something. "WHADDENTHA-" he yowled, but the wind swallowed his voice effortlessly as the weight jumped off him, and he stared for an alarmed moment at where it had been. He caught a flash of color through the snow, gold and green and totally useless. Not that Kite really needed to know what it was to know he did not want it on, near, or aware of him. Rough tread designed for the deep forests of North America gave his boots some grip as he jumped his feet up under him and backed off, his shoulder bumping the massive block of snow and ice he'd been nearly beneath.

The wind was tearing at his clothes and hair, whipping the exposed skin of his hands raw as they clenched into fists behind his back. The hood he'd had up was ripped back in an instant, and cold crawled down the back of his jacket. And then like someone had flipped a switch, the wind dropped just in time for him to be shreiked at by the... the..?

"HOLYSHI!" he barked out, eyes wide as saucers. In seconds he'd bolted back away from it again, putting a healthier ten feet or so between them, which in the break from the wind still felt uncomfortably close. It was a thing. Kind of human stapled onto some weird animal, like something out of a Greek myth, only indescribably more freakish in person. "Wotter HELL?! Y'mum done a llama n'hadjeh?!" Why was he trying to use words with the monster-freak exactly? There wasn't even anything to throw at it, he was so totally screwed. It probably wanted to eat him or kill him for fun, wasn't that what everyone said things did in here? But it had yelled something right, so it probably understood words. And could use distracting before it tried harder to eat and or kill him. So in a rush, he blurted, "WHY y'even wearin a shirt nee'ways?! T'whole damn world can see'yeh llamabits, idiot!"


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ooc; RUUUUUUUDE XD

[Molly Wozencraft]

The fight to stay up was doomed the moment the stranger shouted. One moment Mol was studying the pale white, straining for any small movement or sound, and the next there was an entire human in front of her yelping obscenities. It was too much to have thrown at you in the middle of concentrating. The anthro was too stunned to even scream. She did, however, back up so fast that she wound up standing on only her hind legs. It was no surprise that this sent her crashing to the ice yet again.

Molly was half expecting the man to be laughing as she flailed into a sitting position. When she dared to look up at him, however, she perked out of her ashamed cringe. He only looked terrified. She stared back with eyes wide as his, not sure what to think. Sure, everyone had told her that normal shapeshifters were often scared of anthros. But Molly had always imagined them too tough and intimidating to show it. Particularly when the anthro in question was tiny and fragile.

She found out soon enough what he really thought of her mutations. Cooler people would have used it against him; his ability to identify quadrupeds was far worse than the average human’s. For Molly, though, there was just the sting of him thinking she looked ridiculous enough to be half-llama.

As usual, the crushed feelings were tucked away in a pile of similar damages. She couldn’t show weakness right now. For whatever reason, this guy thought she might whoop him, and was quite possibly not the brightest glowstick in the pool. Now was the time to act like some wild woman of the woods who wanted his internal organs for dessert. With hands on her hips and a stern expression that almost hid her anxiety, she got to her feet. “…Yes. Yeah, that’s exactly what she did, cause we’re all that crazy. You don’t want to mess with that kind of crazy.” It could have come out as sarcasm with a hint of a very real threat behind it. It could have, if it didn’t sound like half-panicked blurting instead.

Hope wasn’t lost yet. The springbok girl actually took one step forward, just to see if she could make him retreat. Alas, he spoke again. Molly’s cheeks were aflame, a particularly appropriate metaphor considering how her confident front was burnt up.

“Wh…I’m not just gonna…!” No. Just no. Why would he bring that up? People who’d known her basically since she’d gotten here skirted that subject at all cost. Molly was perfectly aware that certain parts of her weren’t as hidden as was preferable, especially since she didn’t have a nice, full tail like a horse. She’d tried finding something to wear back there; but there were few people who had an extra skirt or pair of shorts, and even fewer who felt like giving that stuff away. The few things that had been tried either flew up when she jumped, restricted her range of motion, or wouldn’t even go on her hindquarters.

She wanted to run. She wanted to speed off for Nakoma like a bullet….and then slow down sometime on the trip to get rid of the signs of crying before she arrived. If not for the ice, she would have escaped this unimaginable awkwardness without a second thought. But the best she could do was back away a little. Mol had developed a reluctance to turn around in front of this guy.

Why not just refuse to discuss this with a stranger weird enough to bring it up? In her current state she couldn’t think of a different subject to throw at him, but maybe she could get him to abandon the current one.

It took a couple more seconds to actually speak, instead of using meaningless syllables from a twitching jaw. “Why is that...even important right now? We’re in a snowstorm…” There wasn’t even a hint of trying to deride him now. Just honest, hopeless bewilderment.

[Kite Ostling]

It took him embarrassingly long to pick up on that she was completely full of it. In his defense he usually was scoping out blandly vanilla people from a comfortable slouch against some wall. Maybe his brain was freezing first, and he was finally turning into an idiot. He did feel way better watching the she-thing squirm around and turn red; at least these freaks were still vulnerable to the ancient, refined art of jerkdom. This was fortunate, since he wasn't exactly packing six-shooters on each hip to defend himself in here. If these things could be half llama, or whatever was sticking out where her butt should have been, then who knew what else there was?! He entertained the thought of himself messed up like that, head of a snake, or body, or no arms or legs. A grimace replaced his scowl as he felt sick and annoyingly violated by the thought. At least he was pretty sure the scientists would rather cut off their own arm at the wrist than have to deal with him in the labs again, nevermind for... however long doing that to someone must take.

He glared her up and down sourly to distract himself; she was making a sad attempt to chew him out for being an ass, though all it did was make him scowl harder, fingers tucked into the back of his jacket to try and warm them up. It wasn't working. "Whaddever, stilluks frik'n dum," he mumbled, the edge to his tongue lost as he stumbled over numb words. It would seem more important to her when she froze to death first. First, he thought uncomfortably, not last, if I can't get off this ice and make a fire or find a hotel or whatever the hell passes for shelter in here. It was obvious to him that there was some, somewhere, else everyone in here would be dead, and there would be nothing to experiment on or to draw the crowds. Still, the word 'cull' simmered unhappily in the back of his thoughts.

The thing might know where to find shelter. If she did, he'd best get it out of her before she was frozen solid and useless. More useless anyways, pantsless freak. "S'a city round'ere, right? I seens et n'teeve.. ve." The click of his teeth was unwelcome, and he rubbed his jaw on his shoulder to try and warm it, then prompted her again. "S'wheresit?!" He also kind of wanted to ask if there were stray dogs or something out here; he hadn't forgotten the distant howling during the break in the wind. And said wind was picking back up with a vengeance. It snapped and circled and screamed, though it stayed higher up for now, ten feet or so above the ice. Not that it improved the temperature down where they were. Kite scowled bloody murder and cold intimidation at the thing as he wished he had some way to pull his hood back up to help save his face, but with his arms behind his back there was no easy way. If he couldn't get information out of her quick, he was going to have to strike out blind across the ice.

[Molly Wozencraft]

It was getting harder to keep a neutral face. Which was stupid; he was judging her for something she wasn’t able to help. Like she hadn;t minded spending months strapped down enduring the pain of growing half a new body. That would have been a nice thing to shout at him. Instead she stayed quiet and miserable, feeling more of a renewed embarrassment for her anthropomorphism than a disgust for his callousness. Why did it always work that way?

Mol just stood with drooping ears and a gaze that avoided landing on him for very long. He took care of the awkward silence, which would have been better if she had caught more that something more than something about the city. The tiny girl stared at him with knit brows, half afraid to ask him to repeat himself. Why did he slur so much? It was like he wanted to spend the least amount of energy making the right sounds, and leave out as many of them as he could. Where did he come from, that people talked like that.

Actually, never mind that, because he really, really wanted to get to the ruins. “Right! Uh I…I don’t know from here, but i-i-if we get off the ice I can maybe find something familiar and figure out how to get back. Sound good?” Somehow she managed a reassuring smile, at odds with the terror showing in her eyes and voice and posture and really anything that wasn’t her mouth.

Good lord, she felt constantly on the verge of being strangled by this guy. The ensuing sense of urgency made it all the more irritating that she had to creep along to get any traction. She wondered if he would kill her if she crashed again.

To further her general sense of worry, she’d noticed something while he was screaming at her. This guy also seemed to think something was up with the way he was talking, like his tongue wasn’t working the way it should. Molly contemplated as she wobbled across the ice, and suddenly made the connection that it was very cold and cold made people numb and oh god please no. “I, um…are you…okay? You’re talking…really weird…it’s h-hard to understand when you’re mumbling like that and running everything together…” What was she going to do if he just passed out on the ice? She could barely get herself to the shore.

At least then he would stop wilting her with his terrible eyes.

o.o.c.- Mol noooooooooooo D8

[Kite Ostling]

Her answer to his demands somehow was the least reassuring thing he'd heard all day, and he was counting her bull answer to his snark about the llama thing. They just had to hike off the ice in no particular direction and hope she could read the freakin' twigs or something and tell them which way to go in what, the forest? It had to be a bunch of nothing out there if she wasn't more affirmative in saying she could get them to the city. And she wanted reassurance from him that he was going to go along with her masterful plan. He didn't give her anything more than a painfully flat look.

And then, save him, she was asking if he was okay. His skeptical look turned into one more at home handling criminally insane mental patients, and half his mouth hitched up in a sneer. So what if his lips were blue, the effect was still solid. "Maybe s'just 'ow I talk," he grated, and it was only partially a lie. His jaw was so frozen it was harder than usual to speak. On top of that the cold kept making his teeth chatter, which kept making him almost bite his tongue. It was enormously frustrating.

Whatever. So their plan was just to get off the ice, as fast and with as little effort as possible. The wind was varying some, but had been consistent in coming from one direction more than others so far. Easier to walk with it to their backs than waste time and potentially be pushed into walking circles into or along it. "C'mon then, afore t'wind gesslow 'gain," he grumbled, and creaked into motion. No way was he going to walk directly in front where he couldn't keep an eye on the freak, so he had to wait for her pace. His right leg dragged a bit, but he could walk on it. Faster than the whatsit and it's hooves on the ice, anyhow. He was so not going to drag it. Or help it. Or touch it. It could have weird germs from being in an isolated environment, ready to attack his immune system while it was compromised by cold.

Eugh.

Best to just keep trying to drag useful information out of it, he supposed. And if he kept talking he'd know he wasn't frozen quite yet, so he twisted as he walked to side-eye the thing, voice raised to be heard. "I 'erd s'gang warfare n'ere, tha'true?"

[Molly Wozencraft]

There wasn’t any yelling in response to her inquiry. Molly dared to glance over at him, which crushed her small ray of hope even before he spoke a moment later. “Right! Right, I’m sorry, I di…I just w-wanted to make sure you weren’t getting hypothermia or something. I didn’t mean to make fun of y-your…erm, accent.” Great. Not only had she slipped further onto his bad side, but now Molly would be too afraid to ask him to repeat himself next time she didn't understand what he was saying. And Molly felt as though that need would arise more than once.

By now she just felt like keeping her mouth shut. If only that would protect her; by the looks of things, she might be able to tick him off without to much as a breath. Despite his obvious attempts to accomodate, the anthro girl was only barely keeping up with him as she scrabbled across the ice.

Maybe the awkward silence would survive the trip. Maybe when they got to shore, she would just point in the direction of the city and then hightail it. Maybe she’d just point in any old direction and figure out the right one once she was already gone. Maybe doing something like that would bother her for only half her life instead of the whole thing.

Nope. Crap.

His voice cut through her musings,civil for once, which made her feel silly for flinching. Mol’s long ears perked, straining to interpret mangled speech in a rising wind. “Gang wa…oh! Well there’s the rings, and the retro groups, they aren’t quite gangs but…yeah. They do fight sometimes. Carna and Fa…er…two of them been having a scuffle lately, apparently one killed the other’s leader. I think everybody tries to avoid fighting though. Sometimes they team up, even.” His comment earlier should have tipper her off, but Mol had just now realized that the stranger had probably never been in here before.

Helpful chatter was gushing out of her before Mol could stop to think that she kind of didn’t like this guy. “Think you’ll join up with one? I mean you dun have to, they won’t chase you down and pressgang you into it, but it makes things a lot easier…I dunno, I could explain them better to you?” Surely he wouldn’t snap at her for that.

[Kite Ostling]

It was entirely way too weird watching her ears, the animal ones, moving around atop her head. It made it skin crawl. But he was reluctant to look away while she was talking, watching her mouth while she talked was the only reason he could make out what on earth she was saying when the wind howled. And for once, he was actually interested in what she was going to say.

Rings. Right. They could call it whatever they want, it was still gangs killing each other, as though UNIT wasn't doing enough of that already. And he missed the second word she aborted mid sentence, but he definitely caught the name Carna. As in carnivore, carnivorous, carnation. Probably not the last one. Still, meat-eating. Charming. He bet he was going to be so popular with these shapeshifters and retrowhatevers, Who knew, maybe furface was one of them, taking home takeout. Joke was on her then, there wasn't anything worth eating on him.

And did he want to join up? Hell no, he griped in his head as he skirted a massive hull of ice that had pushed up out of the lake. But what he wanted and what he had to do were, as usual, entirely different things. He knew how to camp and he knew how to hunt, but he had the tools for neither, and was presently handcuffed. He might not even survive the night at this rate, the scientists hadn't fed in days, and the hunger that had been biting before, burned as his body tried to pull calories for heat. "Luksslikeet," he grumbled, and the wind was annoying low enough for her to hear him. At least the way the ice was breaking up and high was a good sign that they were approaching a side, instead of walking inward from an edge.

"Why, y'recruitin?" Like he wanted to hang around her for the rest of his probably short and painful life. Not. "Ye onna them Carna r'wut, then? What'sa sort by, race? Religin? Economic status?" he drawled the last bit with what might have been a bad attempt at humor, though his face was it's usual level of miserable. With the way his week was going, the gang that accepted copy-paper white North-Americans with a noteable lack of gods-fearance would be either non existant, or miles and miles away. In fact, the scientist he'd hit in the face had probably made sure of it, the jackass.

[Molly Wozencraft]

“They don’t really sort by anything. I mean unless you look like this.” She gestured to her centaur-like features. “Only one of the big rings accepts anthros, so we just made our own.” Yep, anthros only. So you’re not invited.

“I guess everybody’s got a sort of a….an ideology? Like Fallen tries not to fight with people, Carna is like…apparently they’re violent and psycho. And then Fulsi is just…um…I dunno what they’re really about? Some people say stay away from them, some people say they ain’t bad.” And she still didn’t know, despite the fact that they were some within the District all the time. She hadn’t met any yet, and was trying not to make judgments until she had, despite the plentiful and colorful opinions flying around. In hindsight, she maybe should have mentioned those negative stereotypes. If this guy joined up with that particular pack, it was quite possible she’d run into him again. More so than the others, anyway.

Come to think of it, there were more important things that she should probably make him aware of. “And uh…there’s also retros. Retromorphs. They’re like, backwards shifters, they’re animals and they turn into people, you know? They kinda stick outside the city and don’t like the people shifters very much, I don’t think. Which…is really bad, cause I’m pretty sure we’re in their territories right now.”

The bank was getting close. Hard to be optimistic over that; it marked a tiny amount of progress and a huge increase in potential dangers. For all they knew, the inhabitants were just waiting for them to get onto solid land so they could have a big old disembowelment party. Mol realized she’d stopped moving, and was loathe to start up again. “Uh…hang on just a sec, lemme see if I can figure out what direction we need to go in.” With her forearm against her forehead, she squinted up above the nearby trees. It was hard to tell where the mountains actually were, as opposed to where she was just seeing what she was hoping to see. Maybe the wind would die down here in a second. And maybe it would take her terror with it. “So…how fast you able to run, if we gotta?”

[Kite Ostling]

And that was a little more info on the gangs, three main ones apparently. And whatever one she came from, which he and his non-deformed ass clearly wasn't invited to. To be fair, he probably wouldn't invite himself either; self-awareness was an unfortunate trait for Kite. He was so not interested in Carna, even if the reputation was grievously overstated it had to have founding somewhere, and he wasn't sure the protection it might offer would counter the aggression it would probably earn from all the others. Fulsi sounded more his type, and Fallen sounded like shark-bait. Though again, reason stood that if Fallen was still around it couldn't be quite as pacifist as it sounded. Hopefully. He seriously doubted his long-term abilities to coexist with hippies. He was set to interrogate her further on those two when she picked up talking again, and the information she shared made his stomach drop as he strongly recalled scenes from bad horror movies.

Kite wanted to believe she was mistaken about where they were, but how many giant lakes could there be in this place? He wondered grimly at it as he tried to climb over an area where the ice had splintered and sheared upward, making the footing treacherous. It didn't help that his eyelashes kept trying to freeze shut, a harsh coating of ice around his eyes hurt even though most of his face was long since numb. At first he didn't realize she'd stopped, focused on his feet as he was. But when he did he turned to look at her there she was, eyeing the trees like they might be recognizable. To him, they just looked like shelter if they could get past the drifts at the edge of the lake.

"'Ow much s'not very much? L'barkin n'screamin a'us r'what?" Kite didn't usually ask questions he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to, so he took it as a sign of desperation. And she wanted to know how fast he could run? Arms twisted behind his back, leg dragging, frozen so thoroughly that his movements were sluggish and weak. He could barely walk. "S'bout a'close t'runnin as m'like t'get, n'beleive me, m'feelin motivated."

His mind tumbled for a suitable plan, or something to contribute that might make this fiasco seem less hellish. A solid destination would be a start, even if it was the lesser of his two choices presently. "If we'can, shoul try f'Fallen. Less like t'kill either o'us n'sight, right? Me bein new n'you bein that." As much as her appearance unsettled him, Kite was starting to realize the scale of this place, and how indescribably crucial she was to his chances for surviving the immediate future. It also occurred to him that he might want to forge something of a rapport with her, if only to increase the chances of her helping him in a crisis rather than happily leaving him for dead. Manipulative, and against his better policies for dealing with strangers he wasn't interested in selling to or sleeping with. "S'yegotter name t'go with t'rest o'yeh?" It sounded about as natural as a six-headed sheep. And a touch forced, which it was. His jaw and neck were stiff with cold, lips purple headed toward blue. The wind-shade of the near trees was looking mighty inviting, potential deathtrap or no.

[Molly Wozencraft]

“I don’t…actually know, but it could be more like…like running us down and slaughtering us.” At least he wasn’t flying into a panic. Molly had enough trouble dealing with that personally; she had no idea how to help others with it. Still, he admitted to not being in the best shape. Maybe it was the cold, maybe the keepers had messed him up, or maybe “Well, we’ll…we’ll probably be okay! I mean, what are the chances they’ll be out chasing intruders on a night like this, right?” The corners of her mouth struggled to stay lifted.

She tried not to hear disgust in his labeling her as ‘that.’ “That…actually that would work good. And it’s the closest one, so you don’t gotta go far.” It was about the fastest she could have hoped to be rid of this guy. Just dump him in the desert, and then it would take no time to get up to the District. The weather was enough to trump her reservations about warp-speeding around.

His shift from ‘snappish’ to ‘disinterest’ was encouraging, but it didn’t prepare her for him to suddenly ask a question that was in no way relevant to surviving the night. In fact, asking her name almost could count as trying to be nice, or at least acknowledging her personhood. Maybe. “Uh…Molly.” It didn’t make any sense, but she didn’t want to tell him any more than she had to, so she left her last name off. “What’s yours?”

Snow started to pile up more and more, and eventually she felt the ground change. With all four feet on solid ground, Molly gathered herself and went flying, landing waist-deep in snow more than halfway up the bank. One small jump more and she swished into the foliage.

Instantly the wind died down, and Molly was no longer being layered with snow every second. Bracing her legs she shook herself, so vigorously that her ears slapped her face. But it was the animalistic nature of the movement that made her stop and check that the guy hadn’t seen her.

There was nothing to worry about; she had to creep back to the wood’s edge to see him. Soon it became apparent that the bank was not so quickly traversed on human feet. A couple of times Mol almost went back down, only to decide that the guy would probably arrive soon, and back and forth until it was too late to be much help, but still an awkward length of time to just stand and watch. Meanwhile the wind whistled in the needles above, branches crackled, fabricating the rallying calls or nearby footfalls of Nilda. Or tricking her into dismissing actual signs of their approach. Her ears were ever swiveling, and her head kept darting to either side. If she made it through tonight without getting eaten, she still might not be sane.

With a hesitant smile, Molly backed out of his way. In the driving wind, it had been hard to get a good look at him. She’d thought nothing of his arms being tucked in close to his body. But now, in the shelter of the trees, it wasn’t hard to notice that his arms were in fact held behind his back. With brows knit, she shifted to look behind him, and caught a glint of metal. “Oh! Oh my god, you should have told me you were handcuffed! We…uh…” she straightened at looked at him, shoulders slumping. “Actually, I have no idea what to do about that.” She sounded for all the world like she should be held guilty for that.

[Kite Ostling]

It seemed the consensus was for Fallen, whatever the hell that might actually be. Fallen angels? He took a lunatic moment to imagine an encampment of emo-goth shape-shifting teenagers wearing band tee-shirts and corsets. The image hurt almost more than the cold, which was a pleasant numbness now. Maybe he'd luck out and it would be a crew of ripped lumberjack viking-enthusiasts who actually knew what in the world they were doing. Like how to dress for cold, for one; Molly's attire was shockingly inappropriate for the cold. Did they want her to die!? Even if there was no thread she'd be easy enough to wrap in a cloak with a sash holding it around her middle, like the horse blankets he'd seen on his neighbors animals as a kid. Even he was under-dressed, though at least the heavy sheepskin lining of his coat was keeping his torso warm. The Scientists probably would have taken that off him before dropping him in if they hadn't left the handcuffs on. Even better, she'd actually given him her name instead of a four-letter word.

"M'names Kite," he offered in response, though it felt thick in his mouth. And then she was off without another word, huge bounding strides that carried her to the edge of the forest in no-time-freakin-flat. Aghast, he gawked after her as she vanished into the trees. So much for his guide! He would have kicked himself it he could have felt it; as it was he didn't even have the energy to swear after her. What could he do? There was nothing for it but to keep going, abandoned or not. Angrily, he realized it was the smartest thing she'd done since meeting him, with the possible exception of if she'd had the mind to kill him and take his shirts and coat. But he was starting to accept that she didn't have the stomach for that kind of thing any more than he did, for all that he mouthed off.

The struggle through the snowbank was tedious, and probably would have been totally helpless if he hadn't grown up playing in the stuff all winter. He kicked in a path with his knees and stomped areas flat enough to support him. If nothing else the work warmed him back up, and he could feel his hands and legs again by the time he busted through to the other side. When he looked up, he was surprised to see Molly there again, watching him with a strange expression. He hadn't even bothered to check if she would come back, and her reappearance was enough to almost startle him onto his ass. Drawing up what energy he had left, Kite trudged over to her, the ankle-deep snow beyond the drift a cake-walk in comparison. In the respite of the trees, she seemed to notice his situation in full for the first time. He couldn't blame her, they were lucky to see their own feet out on the ice. She quickly realized the same thing he had though; there wasn't any easy way to get them off. So he answered her with a flat look and a stiff, uncomfortable shrug.

"Uh. Thanks. F'waitin." He didn't quite meet her eyes, but hey, it was the first show of gratitude he'd expressed. The time spent thinking he was alone again had reminded him what was really what in this situation; and she held most of the cards, if not the personality to wield them properly. She seemed to have the misfortune of being a Nice Person, it had taken him ages to get through the drift and here she still was. He started walking before he could freeze solid again, but his attention stayed toward Molly. "Them retrothins, t'wouldn't happenter b'dogs roundere? 'Erd howlin when I w'out n'the ice, n'maybe a minute ago, n'the drift. Ain't n'reason f'animals t'be out n'this n'less t'trackin somthin." There was no way for them to track the two of them over the ice, but what if they were on the trail of an elk or deer? Or returning from a hunt? He did NOT want to meet a bunch of cranky-ass wolf things with a deer-girl as his only companion.