Closed RP Lead-In

This RP is currently closed.
"Well, colour me impressed."

The accent made it hard to judge sincerity- though, given how Lament tended to carry himself, it would be safe to assume there was none.

"He did mention a special case. S'pose that answers the question of who he meant, don't it?"

Although, the way Obsidian had been speaking about it almost made it seem as though there was a connection there. As though, instead of being trapped, he had been embraced- befriended, perhaps. Clearly nothing genuine, given the way he was talking about them. Oh, my- had the wolf found a sheep whose skin would fit? Perhaps he was smarter than Lament had thought. Perhaps.

He walked over to the staircase as Cryptid sat with his leg, climbing up a few steps behind him and sitting down. Though it was probably a good thing he couldn't see him head-on, given what he was doing, getting as close as this allowed him to hear those subtle growls a lot more clearly than he would standing at the other side of the hall.

Cryptid was resetting his leg, it seemed; making sure it healed right, this time. So, that was how it worked- there wasn't some innate blueprint for how his body would heal, what shape it should be in when everything reset. It worked the same way as it did with regular humans, only much faster. What would happen if he engineered some of those breaks, then? If they were set up in such a way that, in order to re-break once healed, he'd have to cause himself some fatal injury? Or- fuck, if they healed enough, if there was enough extra tissue and bone and flesh in the way, could it be broken in such a way that it could never return to how it was before? Could Cryptid be permanently deformed? Fascinating- though Lament was no biologist. His interests tended to be more psychological.

He pulled out his pistol, cocked it, and pressed the barrel against the back of Cryptid's head.

"Coming to me riding a high- just like last time, eh? Don't let me rain on your parade, Cryptid. He's a hard man to tolerate- sitting through all that sanctimonious meta-revolutionary bullshit would be enough to make me kill myself long before I tell him to."

Lament laughed.

"Ah, have I said too much already?"

He shook his head, as if Cryptid could see.

"Everything that happened to Ivan, he did to himself. He had to- not a want, a need. It's easy when they're desperate."

He leaned forward, bringing their heads closer together.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
 
“If I was riding a high, you’d know.”

His voice, already low and rough, was tinged now with a growl of annoyance. Given Lament sat down behind him while he was resetting his leg, there hadn’t been anything Cryptid could do about it. A risk that came with the territory of being momentarily helpless. His shoulders tightened – if that were possible, given his position – as he heard Lament chamber a bullet, just the soft click of the weapon being cocked.

But, again, if Lament was going to try to kill him – well, he should’ve done it before Cryptid got to the point where he was holding the bone still to properly fuse. Even if it was slow, this time. Slow enough that he noticed, slow enough that he couldn’t reach around behind him and grab the stupid gun. Slow enough that he just had to grit his teeth and listen to the rustle of chains with each of Lament’s motions.

That was fine, though, because Lament finally wanted to talk. And what he talked about was Obsidian.

“And if I was desperate, you’d know. I don’t know what Obsidian implied, but I’m definitely not desperate enough to take his scraps. I’d expect a vulture like you to take ’em, though. Must be nice for you to have a predator willing to make the kill for you.”

Communication, without explicit confirmations. Mislead, and probably be misled, but he was showing a little bit of his hand at the same time. He’d looked into Lament, after all. He knew the rumors; and he knew Obsidian, possibly from the same. At the very least, he hoped, this could get Lament to stay chatty.
 
"Well, I'm sorry for implying otherwise." He said, "Cryptid? A scavenger? God forbid- an apex like that is well beyond the need for a pack, I really should know that by now. My sincerest apologies."

Lament seemed almost bored, by now- or, at the very least, unamused by the accusation.

Seemed.

Though intended as an insult, all Cryptid had managed to do was give the bastard ideas. It was nice to have a predator make the kill for him. That's why humans domesticated dogs, after all. Lament was a scavenger, and Cryptid was an apex predator- as if that was how the human world worked at all.

The binary was almost cute. Predator and prey, strong and weak, people who kill and people who die- no room for nuance, no room for exception. He likely thought there wasn't a need for any, given his strength. And Lament- well, he didn't kill, so he had to be a scavenger. Another type of animal, sorted neatly into the safe box, to be wholly dismissed until he showed personal effort--real power--then he might have the privilege of being moved to the other. There wasn't room in the natural world for what he really was.

That was what made this so easy.

"Oh, so you weren't desperate? You certainly had me fooled."

He kept the same arrogant tone.

"What would that look like then, hm? Ignoring your own safety? Going after innocents? Or- oh..."

Lament chuckled.

"Would you become a vulture yourself?"
 
Last edited:
Lament was buying into the act, which meant he did some baiting of his own. Cryptid actually barked a laugh at the implication he was an apex anything – he was a predator, but he hadn’t claimed that.

“I’m something more of an opportunist, most days. The ones that weaken the herd. Maybe not the wounded or sick, but the wounds and the sicknesses.” Fuck, that was – maybe a little too fucking poetic. His head felt fuzzy, and he realized the knee wasn’t going to set properly, maybe ever. Not until he did eat again.

Maybe he should lean into the poetic. He remembered the headspace he’d gotten into when Nat found him. It was deliberately misleading, and a little intimidating. He didn’t want to be extremely intimidating. Or maybe at all. He did have a gun to the back of his head, after all.

“I’m not an apex predator. Obsidian is. He eats the strong. That’s his prerogative. Me, I’m more…coyote.” He pronounced it in the Montana style, two syllables: KAI-oht. Not the way he originally said it, just a habit he picked up. “I adapt so I don’t get desperate. I trick, lie, and bait my way into everything I need from prey. It’s not all that bad. It means I don’t have to rely on other predators to keep me fed.”

He shrugged, a lot more calmly than he really felt. The tension in his shoulder could be blamed on the pain, maybe.

“But a starving animal is a starving animal. Can’t get picky when winter knocks. Still a coyote. Just adapting. But you can’t change an animal’s stripes. Packs... aren’t for me. I told Obsidian as much. He didn’t take it well, but a wolf wouldn’t understand. An alpha definitely wouldn’t. He’s used to control, and doesn’t like rogue elements. Like scavengers that aren’t really scavengers.”

Like you and me, he didn’t say, because Lament thought he really thought he was just a vulture. That’s what the rumors said. But Lament had experience with fresh blood. Todd had seen that firsthand.

“Desperation from me isn’t pretty. It’s whatever it takes, whatever’s necessary. I’m not proud of it, but I can admit to it. Desperation is simply survival.”

Desperation wasn’t any of those things – well, actually. Actually it wasn’t pretty. Desperation was a lot of the things Lament had listed, mostly preying on the– no. No, not the innocent. Desperation was the hunt. Preying on the entertaining, the added flavor of fear and chase and–

He swallowed, softly. He was calm now, genuinely calm, and he knew for a fact that with the right trigger, he could switch to the hunt. He was, actually, in the ideal situation right now; Lament wasn’t going to run, he was too proud. He wasn’t going to kill Todd, for whatever reason. Probably not interest, but something, maybe later use. And he certainly wasn’t afraid, under the scent of gasoline.
 
"That... Slate gentleman you killed," He said, "Was he a wound, or was he a sickness?"

Lament shook his head. The chains rattled. The gun stayed still.

"I'm sorry, kid- I don't believe any of that, not for a second. Sounds like the kind of shit you'd tell yourself so you can sleep at night- all for the good of the herd, eh? What a virtuous little sheepdog you are, Coyote. Give me a fucking break."

Then, the gun started to slip.

"Or- not a sheepdog, then. Not yet. More like a garden fox; you keep the rats away from the barn, so you're allowed to stay- but you'll maul the sheep once they get close, once they catch you hungry. It makes sense. The fox is a trickster, isn't it? A sly force of nature, working its way into wherever it needs; the archetypal, fairy-tale bullshitter. That's how you get away with it. You've convinced everyone you're not a threat, even yourself. You've got your nature under control- until, one night, one cold, destperate night, you don't. And it ain't pretty, like you said. It ain't pretty at all."

Slowly.

"Then the sheepdogs, the ones you claim to be, whose task you shadow, whose skin you wear, whose compassion for the herd you pretend to share- they'll come after you in droves, once they realise what you are."

Until, at last, it came to a stop once more.

"Because they will realise, Coyote."

By his jaw.

"Trust me, they will."

He pulled the gun away and sighed- wistful, almost. Genuine.

"Scavengers that aren't really scavengers, huh? Like folk who change their face so they're not caught with gore on it. S'pose you have it easier than me, what with all this shape-shiftin' business, but I reckon that just makes you more careless."

The accent was stronger, now. Put on. Alongside it was a lighter tone- innocent and conversational, not quite friendly, but getting close. His hand--his other hand--was in his pocket now, loosely gripping a remote. The speakers winked above them in their watchful silence.

"Anyway, good talk. A little one-sided, but I ain't one for personal topics."

Lament shook his head. The chains rattled. The gun stayed hidden.

"Reckon your chew toy's gonna wake up soon, anyway. Might wanna check on him- that wound looks pretty severe."

He laughed.

"Can't have another of my listeners dyin' under your watch, can we?"
 
Last edited:
Cryptid listened. He didn’t have much other choice, but even if he did, he’d still be listening. He listened to the soft rattle of chains, and the steady flow of Lament’s breathing. He listened to the way Lament recognized his bullshit, the call-out without expected response. He listened to the way he echoed Coyote.

Oddly, that caught his attention more than the rest of the metaphor. The way he didn’t seem to– to what? He had to know what a coyote was, because he recognized it as a canine. Was it part of the accent, pretending not to pronounce it in three syllables in his head? Or was it that shift of metaphor – back to fox, to something familiar to the general public? Because while the fox was the trickster of Aesop’s fables and other European stories, Coyote was the trickster of Native American lore. The figure that more non-Natives knew than anyone else. Todd only really knew the depth of the character from his teenage focus on the little scavengers: Coyote, the kind spirit with ulterior motives.

Coyote, the divine healer. Coyote, the malevolent trickster. Coyote, who would not stay dead when killed.

Unlike Todd.

He didn’t see the gun by his ear, with his mask blocking his periphery there, but he could feel it pointing down his jaw. The same jaw tightened as he remembered the taste of gunpowder. It would be suicide to pull that trigger now. Lament’s sigh told Cryptid that the vulture knew that, too. So instead he changed his tune, with a little warning about the tame dogs that could mean other heroes or the other gentlemen from Slate.

He considered talking again. He really did. But it was becoming clear to him that while his knee was functional again, it could take several days for it to heal enough to lose the limp, and a full meal to actually heal completely. Those could be one and the same, honestly. Just like last time, Lament was letting him go. Someday, relying on the psycho’s mercy was really going to bite him in the ass, if it hadn’t already. But he’d learned more from each meeting, and if Lament was really willing to let him off the hook with information – well, he wasn’t going to look the gift vulture in the mouth. He didn’t want to see the carrion caught on its beak.

Instead, he stood up, slowly. He swayed a little, checking the balance of his bad knee, and chose to favor the leg. Cryptid turned his head to one side, looking down at the other monster with Mal’s brown eye.

“Does your listener have a name this time?”
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top