ᴄᴀᴛʀᴀ ʀᴀɪɴʙᴏᴡꜰɪꜱᴛ-ᴍᴇᴏᴡᴍᴇᴏᴡ (hisses) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-05-02 11:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, she-ra: catra, ~plot: ancient vallo, ₴ inactive: neal cassidy |
WHO: Neal & Catra
WHAT: Teaming up to go hunting, and there's some mutual magic bitching
WHERE: Ancient Vallo - Viga-maðr's Island
WHEN: Today
WARNINGS: Some wildlife kill but nothing awful
STATUS: Complete
This was horseshit. Fucking magic, fucking Vallo - fucking everything. Catra could have shrieked at the top of her lungs and caused eardrums to explode from the pitch of her voice but this song and dance of being stranded on volatile territory wasn’t anything new. The air was thick with tension, and rightfully so considering a handful of foreign stragglers were suddenly plopped onto an occupied island without little warning and the reactions of the indigenous tribe they’d come across were steps away from outright hostility. They weren’t happy, no one was happy and they had to traipse a fine, shaky line to avoid getting on their bad side. Which was, like, fine. Fighting them would be stupid. They had home field advantage and starting up a scuffle with them would be a dick move anyway. Catra at least had the confidence that this mess would be resolved eventually but until then, they had to focus on the now and survival - and part of survival involved access to resources. Food, for one. There were more mouths to feed now - more than this tribe felt comfortable feeding. So in an attempt to play nice, to help provide and maybe unleash some pent energy, Catra volunteered for the hunt. Her heightened senses were an asset, and the weapons she had (teeth, claws) were extensions of her. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Thing was, this land was unknown and as much as she preferred to do this solo, venturing off on her own wasn’t the smartest decision. Backup couldn’t hurt as long as backup wasn’t annoying and could hold their own in the scenario they ran across the kind of meat on legs that was more predator than prey. Catra shuffled some dirt and sand with her bare feet and ever so nicely, kicked up a rock over to the nearest and probably the most capable candidate for this. “Hey,” she called over, leaning up against one of the gangly palm trees with crossed arms. There was a bonfire going, and some makeshift shelters had been made for rest and weather protection. Her hair was wild, mismatched eyes gleaming with that eerie feline shine as she assessed the chosen one for this. “I’m thinking of finding things to kill and make into a roast or several. Got anything important to do?” God, this really was bullshit. Neal wasn’t amused. But he too had been in a similar situation before - dumped onto an island of hostiles, basically left to try to find a way to not die; and it wasn’t as if he could really blame the Viga-maðr for their resentment, since he wasn’t naive enough to believe that all interlopers had been welcomed in Vallo, on that island, with open arms and a free apartment. Not throughout all of history. Neverland had been an island too, a mysterious ring of Hell isolated in an equally mysterious section of the known fairytale universe. Laden down with all sorts of nasties as well - bugs the size of bricks, snakes, large predatory beasts, his grandfather (he hadn’t known Pan was his grandfather at the time though) who could change everything on a dime. Walking along the marshy paths always led to some sort of danger - he’d been a teenager forced to survive on his own, and had managed in a cave for literally hundreds of years (time passed weirdly), drawings on the stone walls that represented various events in his life. Hands reaching out from a portal, the starboard and port symbols on Hook’s ship, London, the Darling family - probably a collection of trauma sketches more than anything else, but whatever. He’d survived then. He could survive now too. “Hey,” he looked up from where he’d been gathering brush and other branches to help keep the fire going. He was barefoot and his pant legs were rolled up, sleeves rolled up too - and while he wasn’t overly familiar with the lady who had spoken to him, she was the first who had in some time. And it also sounded like an offer to join for a hunt, which. Yeah, he was definitely in. “Nothing important right now,” he said. “Let’s go.” Neal made sure to grab the spear he’d MacGyvered from a thick branch, using a sharp rock to chisel a blade and create barbs - it had been one of his first priorities here, making something to defend himself with. “You’re Catra, right? I’m Neal.” Oh, good. Catra had a gut feeling that she’d selected a hunting buddy wisely. He already had a weapon of sorts to rely on, and while it wasn’t the most sophisticated thing it looked like it’d definitely hurt to get stabbed with it. Better than nothing. “What a weird time for formal introductions,” she sighed, more tired than anything but there was this rhythmic lash of her tail that could be read as fucking aggravated. “But, yeah. Catra. Considering we’re already intruding on private property I’m thinking we can piss them off less by feeding ourselves.” Pushing herself off the trunk, she pointed a black claw towards the thick of the jungle. Her ears twitched forward. “There’s pockets of fresh water in this general direction, I think - I’m definitely at least hearing a waterfall.” Which was important, considering their immediate access to water was the goddamn ocean and salt water wasn’t going to do much in regards to proper hydration. “Watering holes tend to be neutral territory for animals, so I don’t know. We can give that a try, see what we find.” With Neal’s makeshift spear they could technically fish, too. They had options. Catra’s goal was to kind of find at least one major animal to kill so they could bring back one large corpse instead of several tiny ones. It seemed more productive. Not pissing off the Viga-maðr was definitely high priority - so was fresh water, because they’d all be dead in another day or so if there was no access to actual H20 that wasn’t tainted with salt, drying up all their organs. He wouldn’t rely on the native tribe sharing necessarily. “Sounds good,” Neal nodded - he assumed Catra had, well, catlike senses and could probably hear things he couldn’t. Cats were pretty predatory anyway, and he was in no mood to fuck around and just sit here doing scrimshaw - so right, seemed like they both chose well. He was thinking lemurs, monkeys, jungle animals like that - he didn’t know if they could take down a leopard or something, but like she said, guess they’d see. Maybe a wild boar - yeah, he’d hold out for a boar. That sounded really damn tasty, roasted over a spit. The thing about the jungle was that it was hot, sunshine and fresh air weaving together - the humidity was heavy too, like you were wrapped in a blanket you couldn’t shrug off. But he continued on, following Catra who was following the sound of water. “Tiptoeing around hostile natives sucks though, huh? This is a hell of a lot different than like, candy raining from the sky. Any idea how we even got here?” “Magic,” Catra groused because how the fuck else? Some days she could bite back her bias towards it. Adora was magic and it was a reality she learned to accept rather than fight now - it was part of her, and she was fine with accepting it as long as she didn’t embrace the whole martyrdom role because of it. Other days it was a thorn digging into her side, a reminder of what always made things go wrong. Today was one of those days. “It usually messes things up more than it fixes them.” Her, uh, exasperation about it looked like it was being channeled in with how she was using her claws to slice and dice branches and wild leaves out of their path. There wasn’t a clear, linear road for them to traverse so she was making one for them. It was a nice way to multi-task. “And considering -” A hiss, another tear of her claws that shredded some fauna obstructing their vision. “Not all of us have magic, we have to wait for the ones with those powers-to-be to come up with a solution.” Hopefully that’d be soon. When she told Adora she needed space she didn’t mean it like this. “It’s total bullshit. If I’m bitchy - don’t take it personally.” “I completely get it,” Neal empathized - boy, did he ever. “It’s why I ended up on an island like this when I was a kid. Shitty dark magic and parents who chose that over, you know, actually being a parent.” Basically, he wasn’t really a fan - and he could tell Catra wasn’t either, so it was nice to be out hunting with a kindred spirit. “Bitchiness not taken personally. Guess we’ve all gotta survive until the magical solution is found but that doesn’t mean we have to like it,” he continued, the trek toward water (and hopefully animals) beginning to bear figurative fruit - because he too heard the actual waterfall, a small one, but it was still a roar of beautiful poetry since he was thirsty. And sure enough, he noticed something drinking from the end where the water cascaded into a pool - he couldn’t tell what it was from here. Maybe some type of pig after all, scruffy, but not any creature like he’d seen in his world but that wasn’t surprising since Vallo was like one real-life D&D game. Shitty dark magic, shitty parents? Say it isn’t so. Well - Shadow Weaver technically wasn’t her mother but she had filled the role, horribly at that. Catra could relate. She was at least glad she wasn’t pissing on his parade with her grudge against magic too (considering non-magic users seemed to be the minority in Vallo). Several months ago she wouldn’t have given a crap if she came off too abrasive since she was notoriously skilled at not making friends, but she’d gotten better. Mostly. “Aw, you get me,” she smirked, one of those kitten fangs pointing out - it was kinda cute in a I can rip your throat out with my teeth sort of way. But her attention shifted once she caught up with what Neal was noticing, and that was when Catra deliberately slowed to a stop. It - looked like some kind of pig? The shape was familiar. Her posture changed, and now she was essentially prowling about on all fours - fluid movements that carefully kept her from stepping on something that would crunch under her weight. That’d be too noisy, though the sound of the waterfall might be enough to drown out a hushed conversation. “Maybe this tribe will let us have some hooch drinks so we can bitch about bad magic while skinning this thing. It’s meaty.” And now that she saw it move, Catra noticed the tusks. Oh boy. Very similar to a warthog. Enough to definitely feed them and offer some up to the tribe - maybe they could use that short pelt for something? They seemed like the type to use every aspect of an animal. “Hooch drinks sound amazing right now,” Neal groaned in an undertone, keeping it quiet so they didn’t scare off this source of meaty meat. “I’ll take that. I’ll even take the tribe not killing us in our sleep.” Like he’d gotten even the tiniest bit of winks before - nope. Not happening. His original plan was to stay awake until he absolutely had to crash, then find a cave someplace as he tended to do - but hooch, roasted boar, and bitching about magic sounded like a much better plan to him. So he would do whatever he could to make that happen. The next couple of steps for this adventure involved getting off the island somehow so he could find Ella, and Henry and Regina, but one thing at a time. One hand gripped the spear tightly. “I can get a good enough throw in to stun it,” he offered. “Make sure it doesn’t get away?” Because this weapon wouldn’t be enough to take out a t h i c c boar in one hit; teamwork was the goal. With that, he angled and threw - as hard as he could, to make sure the sharp pointy end stuck. And it did, whizzing through the air and making contact with the now squealing animal. Damn. Catra had to hand it to him - that aim was flawless. But she allowed herself barely a second to appreciate his skill because she had to act quickly, and those reflexes of hers were ready to act. She bursted out of their hiding spot, petite body leaping through the air with teeth and claws exposed and out. Her landing was precise - she was literally on the goddamn thing - but the scuffle wasn’t graceful in the least. With it being a literal wild animal it didn’t back down without a fight, and her claws managed to anchor themselves deep into its skin. Despite the bucking, the squealing, the jabs and scrapes she earned from those tusks, Catra dragged those razor-sharp extensions of herself around it’s throat. There was a curtain of blood coming out of where she slashed across its jugular, and she had a vice grip on it as life began to literally drain from its writhing body. “Theeeeere you go,” Catra hissed. It gave a one last good jerk of itself - enough for her grip to go slack, and she may have started to hang off it, and then it also may have half-collapsed (with a spear sticking out of it still) on top of her. It made another weak noise as it twitched. “Oh, fuck - gross. Come get it off me! I think it’s dead? Or dying.” That was - that was definitely something. The parts of Gilligan’s Island that no one ever showed on sitcom television - having to kill your own food, where it was so fresh it tried to run away in the midst of an epic battle. Color Neal impressed as well, because Catra was not giving up - she dug her claws in, literally and figuratively, and he stayed back but yet kind of hovered in case she needed an assist. But no. It was definitely dead now. All the blood that had gushed like a fountain from its throat was proof of that - not a clean kill, but who needed clean? “Nice job,” he complimented, stepping forward to grasp the spear and pull it free from the flesh of the pretty large pig. Then he helped heave it off of Catra, giving her room to move away and not have a dead animal on top of her. “Gonna be fun to get this back to the others and skin it, but think of all the bacon.” Mmm - maybe they could do some fishing too, that wouldn’t hurt. A full-on feast. “Nice throw,” she threw back at him, letting out a grunt as she suddenly felt more air hit her lungs - cool, the dead animal was squishing her - and took Neal by the helping hand. Catra was also kind of a mess, smattered in blood that stained her clothes and skin. Made her blend in with that savage vibe that this island had reaaaal well. First she dipped her hands into the waterfall, cleaning off the excess ugh to make it all bearable. Nothing too crazy, she was sure she was going to keep getting dirty around here. “It’s gonna take both of us to carry that thing back,” Catra sighed. Having Adora around would be super fucking neat right now - She-Ra muscles could be put to use, and maybe she’d hate this entire situation a lot less if she was present. “Got any creative way in mind on how we can transport it?” Worst case scenario it’d just be brute strength with a couple breaks in between. She was fit enough to have the stamina for it, anyway. Not that she was looking forward to it, though. “Let’s see - “ Neal also thought that, between the two of them, they could handle carrying a decent-sized pig creature if they had to. But he had a better idea - and hopefully it would actually work out. “We’ll try this?” he suggested, reaching for some hanging vines - the ground wasn’t choked in vegetation, not like how the movies tended to portray jungles. Instead it was mostly just damp, unfortunately squishy, and a canopy overhead blocking out a lot of the sunlight depending on where you were. “I’ll tie these to its hooves and we can hang it from a sturdy branch and carry it back that way, if you notice any decent branches you can grab?” Catra was probably also better at scaling trees than he was - Neal was far too human and bulky for that shit. His days as a spry youth hopping from branch to branch, scurrying up to visit Tink in her quirky treehouse, were so completely over it wasn’t even funny. Ohhhh. Catra got what he was saying. “That’ll work,” she grinned toothily, canting her chin upward towards the canopy of trees. There were some good candidates up there - she’d test them. Her nose gave a little twitch, her butt did a wiggle as her tail swished about (a feline ready to pounce), and she used her clawed toes and fingers to climb up the nearest tree like a kitten chasing a red laser. It didn’t take long to find a suitable one. Some testing had to be done at first - it was something that could at least handle her weight, which was less than that bacon corpse - but she was able to cut it free. Her claws could cut through metal with enough force applied, this wasn’t difficult. “Watch your head!” she called out and down went a branch, thick enough to sustain the weight of their kill. Catra followed down shortly, landing on her feet in a crouched position. “A little bit of animal murder’s put me in a better mood already.” “Funny how that works, right? Just don’t tell any vegans,” Neal chuckled, a rough and scalded sort of sound. Though while Catra had been in the tree checking out branches, he at least went to use his hands to scoop up some water from the pool - to drink, to splash on his face and arms because he was hot as fuck (and not in the aesthetic sense - more like he was feeling the actual heat here in the heart of the jungle). Now he was all set and feeling a little better himself. So he got to work tying the dead creature, by the hooves, to the branch that dropped - didn’t take very long to get good knots (that he at least remembered from his days on the Jolly Roger - knot tying, sailing, navigating, all that pirate shit he thought he’d buried in the dregs of his memories but maybe it’d come in handy now). “Okay, here we go - get one end?” He waited until she was set and hoisted up the opposite end of the branch - it’d be a lot easier to carry the hanging wild boar this way. Plus he could still keep a hold on the spear just in case. He’d worry about saving the hide and dividing up the meat once they got back to their temporary campout. “Anything else we wanna do, or just bring this bad boy to get skinned?” he asked. It was a good swap of duties, because while Neal did his thing in trying the vines around hooves it gave Catra the chance to properly hydrate herself - ugh, fuck yeah pristine water. Well, mostly pristine. She was sure animals still shit in this but it was better than swallowing salty sea water full of whale sperm. Then came time to put those lean muscles of hers to use. She hoisted one end up, propping it over her shoulder for extra support with a tiny noise of resistance but overall, it was manageable. Bringing this back to the camp was hell of a lot easier than just carrying it awkwardly with their bare hands. Plus, the blood was draining with the way it was hung, so - that was a big help. “Let’s just get this back,” Catra decided, already making a face at this thing’s scent. “It’s going to be a whole fuckin’ process getting this thing ready to cook and I’m already starving. Let the tribe see us being productive strangers instead of us freeloading and maybe they’ll stop glaring at us.” “We can hope,” Neal agreed, after hoisting the other end of the branch on top of his shoulder with a light grunt. This pig-thing was a lot heavier than it looked, but hey, they could return looking victorious and any little bit helped at this point. Because the Viga-maðr were already one-thousand percent done with a bunch of random people being here, it seemed, and they all had to tread carefully. He started the trek back, back the way they came through the brush and the dirt and the trees - maybe he’d actually feel better about sleeping tonight as well. Because plotting some kind of escape wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t firing on all cylinders - not to mention he didn’t have a boat and wasn’t even sure where the main island was; he thought he saw it in the distance, but the geography was vastly unfamiliar. Best to get more information before simply diving into the sea. “Looking forward to that magic griping and hooch though.” And it was pleasant to meet someone new. Camaraderie through the shitty situations, always fun. |