Defending The Homestead
Who: Coop and Jasper (and Tripper) When: Mid-Morning Where: Jasper's lean-to What: The dogs attack the camp
Coop had been taking Tripper a little ways away from camp to find an acceptable place for him to relieve himself when she heard them. Rather, Tripper heard them and tensed up immediately. From the quivering uncertainty, Coop half expected to see laughers rushing the far shore but no, not at all. The shapes were far more familiar, sleek bodies and bunching muscle spurring on their speedy way. Half a dozen or more furred, barking bodies snapped at each other's heels as they cavorted down the beach toward the camp. "Oh...oh shit, Tripper." She nudged his shoulder to break him out of his anxious freeze. "C'mon buddy!" She gathered up her long skirt and knotted it up between her legs and around her thighs. The result was a set of ridiculous looking puffy bloomers but she didn't much care at the moment. It allowed her to run across the sand without getting caught up in her long dress. "Hey!" she called as she reached the camp. "Everyone, there's dogs on the island!" And what's more, they weren't too far behind her.
Jasper had been sitting on a nice rock that had another nice rock that she could rest her leg on. It wasn't far from the lean-to, and Jasper was just relieved to get the hell out of there that even a few steps away was a Really Big Deal. With capital letters. The kids had brought her some of the randomest things she could possibly imagine. There was a tab from a bread bag, some blades of very broad grass, a mussel shell, all sorts of stuff. While she had no idea what to do with the tab or shell, she'd been teaching Ash and Corbin how to use the grass to make quacking sounds. Ashwin enjoyed the attempts at making the soundmaker, but Corbin was too little to do it or something, and was having a grand time just listening to the sounds alone.
She looked up when Coop, she thought it was Coop but she wasn't really sure of the woman's name, came running and calling, and Jasper suddenly thought how nice it would be if there was, say, a horn or or a bell or something that everyone would be able to hear. But at the words 'dogs', Ashwin looked very deeply concerned. Taking that as a hint, Jasper did her odd scuttling-crawling thing that wouldn't damage her leg even more, herding the kids into the lean-to where there was at least a very small measure of protection, taking a wickedly sharp couple of sticks with her. She'd learned a good lesson about the uses of sticks when they saved her life before. Jasper knew better than to not have them now.
Coop didn't make it in to camp very far ahead of the pack and Tripper was already rumbling a strange, anxious high pitched growl over his shoulder. The pack broke apart, cutting around the lean-tos and then diving into the midst of camp. Coop stumbled backward and toppled to the hard packed dirt, covering her face as one of the strange dogs snapped at her but missed by a mile. She heard the cook pot overturn and some dogs yelp as they were seared by the flames. When she lifted her head again, she caught sight of Jasper sitting guard at the front of the lean-to. "Are the kids in there?!" she called out over all of the confusion and noise.
"Yeah!" Jasper nodded gripping one of the what could be called mini-spears in her hand. Or a dagger-spear, maybe. Whatever it was, when one of the dogs got too close she managed to cut it across the dog's nose. It wasn't quite sharp enough to cut, but definitely sharp and hard enough to hurt, and the... well, it was close enough now that Jasper could see it wasn't quite a dog, but whatever it was yelped, and started growling.
Tripper growled right back at that dog. He sprung forward threateningly, his hackles standing up sharply as all of his teeth bared at the intruder. "Tripper!" Coop called, suddenly afraid that her dog could be seriously hurt. Quickly, she looked for a weapon of her own and only spotted a thick branch at the egde of the fire. She grasped it with both hands and plunged it in to the fire. Once the end was burning well, she yanked it out again and swung the flaming end at the dog. She missed, but the fire had the beast's attention.
Jasper snarled right back at the dog-thing, and when it rushed at her she gave it a vicious stab in the left hind leg. It twisted around on her, getting out of the way of real damage just barely, and bit her arm, but it was barely even a flesh wound - like the one she inflicted. It had stopped bleeding before she even noticed, basically. She slammed her fist against its muzzle, knocking it's head away. "FUCK OFF!"
Tripper lunged at the dog harassing Jasper, the two animals falling into a roll of snarled and fur and gnashing teeth. For all that Tripper was a lovepuppy who had never been in a fight in his short life, he outweighed the attacking pack dogs on an individual basis. A second alien mutt seemed ready to ignore Coop entirely and jump into the fray. She put a stop to that though by swinging her burning stick into the face of the second dog. The yelp it emitted broke up the two fighters as well. Tripper circled back around toward Coop, seemingly unhurt for his part in things.
"Thanks, random earth dog." Jasper was willing to give credit where credit was due, and that was to Tripper. "Trippy or whatever." She nodded to the hound. The stick that drew blood, Ro gripped it in her hand like a proper dagger now, and she watched the progress of the dogs wrecking destruction. She would've gone after them, but, yeah, her leg. She'd guard the babies instead.