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Thread: The Calm

  1. #41
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    "It's about as close as I'll probably ever get to be," Fook shrugged. "It's been a long time since I was home. I've... tried to bring back what that felt like, here. It's not the same, but I'll take what I can get."

    Deft, practiced fingers resumed his weeding, moving with the same grace and fluidity with which Loki had witnessed him handle field-stripping blasters and capture equipment. "I wasn't always a bounty hunter, after all. But even before that, I learned something important in this galaxy: Everyone is huge, and they'll pick on you for being smaller than them. So, you come up with something else to get their attention, so their mind doesn't even go there. Also, it's kinda fun, and the ladies love it."

  2. #42
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    "I see."

    Loki did not see. In truth, there was very little of the explanation that made any sense to him at all, but perhaps that was because his focus was elsewhere. He turned from Fook and resumed the mundane task, ripping at stringy weeds with his grey-dusted fingertips. Clods of dirt broke loose, scattered, and soon a small pile was beginning to mount up beside him as the reality of Li Ho Fook's deception seeped into his skin.

    It was an eerie feeling, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, to think the person he had been travelling with, in whom he had confided and trusted, was a fabrication. The Grandmaster, as he had been called, was but a fiction invented, as far as he could tell, to divert attention away from the fact that he was, in fact, a small bear. It was on The Grandmaster's invitation that he had arrived, albeit suspiciously, at this secret world, only to find himself in the company of a complete stranger. He did not like that, at all.

    A tightness gripped at his chest; it spread, like ice water, to his fingers and toes. And, as still as stone, he took a long steady breath. Then another.

    "Where is the ship?"

  3. #43
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    "It's put away, for now," was all the answer Fook offered. "We won't need it until it's time to leave."

    Nearly finished with his row already, the wah looked up, while still squatting beside the row of tubers. "And what about Igo Flax? Where's he, these days?"

  4. #44
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    "You make it sound like Igo Flax is someone else. We both know pretence is not a skill I possess. Igo Flax is a necessary lie for people with an interest in official records. Nothing more."

    Loki abandoned his task, preferring to face his strange Wah companion, instead. There was nothing of The Grandmaster's posturing, not in his body language nor his tone of voice; he was fully at ease with his surroundings. It was unnerving. He could not explain it.

    "I am right here. You know who I am, though I cannot say the same of you. And you have me at a disadvantage."

    His gaze edged beyond Fook, to the line of trees in the distance. A gentle breeze stirred the leaves into a soft lapping sway.

    "Why are we here?"

    His words cracked like dry wood, but he barely heard them over the pounding of his heart and the sound of the voice telling him to run, run, run.

  5. #45
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    "We're here," the wah replied, easing up to a stand and clapping his paws together to shed dust. "Because you want to be a bounty hunter, and I don't know why. Together we're going to figure that out. Also, you need to relax. All this go go go? It's not healthy. Down-time. Important lesson."

    Only then did his head turn to meet Loki's gaze, a small bit of white fur in the place of his eyebrow raising. "Or would you prefer if I kept calling you L-Dawg, and sayin' shit was mad whack, yo?"

  6. #46
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    At Fook's response, Loki was poised, with every muscle in his body coiled tense. What he imagine was going to be a sudden violent spring of reflexes turned out to be a painfully slow release, as the tension bled from his muscles, he rose, inch by inch, until he was standing upright. His eyes never once left Fook, even as he spoke of relaxing and down-time. Everything was as they had discussed, back on the ship. He ought to find reassurance in his words, and yet...

    "No..." Loki uttered. The sound of Fook's strange but familiar lingo washed over him like ice water, and dredged him from his swamp of ill thoughts. He considered anew, as the misshapen fragments of Li Ho Fook came together in surreal juxtaposition before him. Then, in response to the question, blank caution became creased with the lines of a familiar grimace.

    "No. Absolutely not."

    He wandered past Fook, towards the edge of the garden, where he could further appreciate the view.

    "It will be a mercy to not have to decrypt ridiculous street lingo every time you open your mouth. It is a small wonder anyone understands you at all, honestly." He glanced back, over his shoulder, "You really talk like that to distract from the fact that you're small? Does it work?"

  7. #47
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    "I'm not small," the wah replied. "I'm average height, maybe a bit above it. It's you all who are huge. But, yeah, it works. Show up with enough swagger, enough confidence, people take you seriously in ways they wouldn't otherwise. And the words I use? Puts them on the back foot, makes them take the defensive, as they feel dumb that they don't understand what I'm saying. If it didn't work, I wouldn't keep doing it."

    A bit of a smile crept up his muzzle. "Well, that's not entirely true, it's also pretty fun."

    The view Loki looked out across was one of a gentle decline of land, with a few small trees, before it fell away, dropping down to a curved beach beyond. Ocean waves washed up upon the shore in regular intervals at mid-tide, and while it was no tropical paradise, the sea breeze suggested that the water would not be icy cold, either. A few red objects floated in the water at regular intervals, while more were piled on the shore, mixed in with what appeared to be a jumble of broken crates, lying next to a small wooden boat lashed to a post, far up the sand.

    "That's lunch," Fook announced. "Crab pots and fish traps. I've got some food here from offworld, but mostly things I can't grow here and keep an eye on. Other than that, we're eating from the land, so I hope you're a decent hunter, too. But no blasters, no rifles, no tech. This place is all about yourself, and what you can do, not what tech can do for you."

  8. #48
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    While Fook spoke, Loki braced himself against the low stone wall and closed his eyes. The pleasant coastal breeze grazed his face, turning the cold sheen of sweat into pinpricks of ice. He took another deep breath; strength was slowly returning to him. And when he opened his eyes, again, he set his gaze upon the assortment of shapes bobbing on the water. Crab pots; he'd never seen them before. Nor had he ever seen crabs before, for that matter. In fact, having never lived near an ocean, he scarcely knew what a crab was. Some kind of sea-dwelling creature, he assumed.

    "I have fished, before, but only in rivers and streams. I have hunted, too." He gave Fook a look, "Blaster rifles. The native fwits of Maridun are fast and aggressive, it was better to take them out at range. The Mastiff phalone, however, that required real stopping power."

    His thoughts had already started to drift off to better days, roaming the rolling plains with the afternoon sun beating down upon his neck, a long-necked rifle in his arms, and his brother at his side. So clearly he recalled the throaty chitter of the large mastiff that took shade in the grove to the south. The rifle was readied with a whine of a fresh power cell, and they vanished into the long grass.

    How different was the scenery that unfurled below. Another deep breath. The sea air hit him like a stimulant.

    "If we are to catch fish with sticks and stones, I may need instruction."

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