A hand rose to cover his brow, wiping down the entirety of his face as he looked form the paper, to Addelaide's features. With a heavily furrowed brow and a sigh that touched somewhere between curiosity and annoyance the Hunter persisted.
"Miss, I'm havin' no clue what yer on about. Tattoo? New start? Most I know'a'Miss Liddia is she was runnin' a perfume shop in Stormwind, run inta her a few days past'n'she was closin' up shop'n'movin' south with her father. Didn't seem too keen on the movin' bit, didn't rightly say a word 'bout her father. That who this is?"
One hand flicked the paper he held, striking the face of printed in ink.
"This bounty for her father, or not father, or whateverthehell we're callin' him? I'm a simple man, miss Addelaide. Be needin' simple explanation, not some roundabout gobbledyshit with ghosts'n'tales. What's he done, where's she at, and where am I supposed t'find th'bloke?"
Siren: If you could make anyone do anything, what would you make them do?
Dice Rolle: The Hunter, @tennesonrhames
It was a busy night at the tiny bar, the village having grown into a small town seemingly overnight. With the influx of travelers and soldiers with the Legion’s arrival, the tents had sprouted up and so the whiskey and food needed to grow with it. Settled in among the throngs of strangers and newcomers, Tenneson reclined with an easy curve to his lips. Sweat kissed his brow, and a line of bruises marked the inside of his palms. Though quickly fading they hinted at a day of hard work, the kind that could break a man’s back or leave it light as a feather knowing he’d done well.
Despite the raucous din of the tavern a voice managed to cut through, finding the Hunter’s ears as though they were right next to him. Golden eyes flecked with a tick of red darted up, the veiled appearance of the woman hidden between the others.“If’n I could get anyone t’do what I wanted?”He considered a moment, lips curling a bit back and forth as thoughts and answers danced about.“Probably be t’get Georgie t’bring over’a bottle’a’her special reserve, y’know, kind sh’keeps tucked aw-”
Whatever he was about to say was drowned as a wet, and decidedly dirty rag somehow expertly sailed through the air. His eyes trained over at the last second as one of the patrons ducked aside, the timing far too perfect not to have been anticipated. It flung droplets of water in lines across his face, just before it slapped him right in the middle of it with a wet flop.“Mistah Rhames ya be talkin’ t’shadows again? Folk gonna start thinkin’ ya lost ya marbles’n’tell me t’lock ya up’n one’o them padded rooms. N’don’t think I didn’a here ‘bout my bottle. Y’just got yerself cut off for a month, boyo.”
The good part about living on a mountain and being on the very outskirts of civilization, was that there were plenty of hours in the day to see to meaningless tasks that left one feeling accomplished. For example, Georgiana Thackery took it upon herself at least once a week to drag the ladder into the small inn and scale its wooden rails to dust the top shelf of liquor. Which, as it so happened, contained one of her very own bottles… and she didn’t even have to put it there. The young Tauren barkeep had developed a liking for the Gilnean barmaid’s honeyed whiskey, and so her rightful placed had been earned.
As she teetered on the top rung, the feather duster in her hand reached to the very edge of her capabilities, the picture was noticed. Then all thought of the top shelf was gone as both brows shot up in comical arches and the feather duster clattered to the floor, sending a fog of dirt across the freshly scrubbed bar. It was a good thing the place was empty and there were none to see her reaction as her mouth hung open for a moment.
“Ya gunna break m’neck one of these days Mistah Rhames….you an’ yer smirkin’ and yet swaggerin…. Hat tippin’…..”
The incoherent grumbling continued as HER bottle of whiskey was dragged off that top shelf and down to the filthy bar. Slightly above two fingers of amber liquid were poured into a glass she took from beneath, and in one swallow it was gone as her hand braced against the bar staring at the golden eyes that centered the picture.It was a good thing nobody saw the wide dimpled smile either.
“Make a girl need a double and then a good long run… to th’river….fer a bath… a cold one.....an’yer comin’wit’me..”
9♣️ - What is your muse’s proudest accomplishment?
Before the Worgen curse, he’d have said being a passable husband and having a son he was proud of. There wasn’t anything else in his life he took more pride in than watching Nicholas grow up and start to take after him. The fact he had a woman in his life, too, that could keep him straight and gave him as much gruff as he dished out made it all work as well.After, once he’d lost everything? He’d say his proudest accomplishment is living to breathe the next day, though he’s pretty proud he saved the stew that one time.
There was hardly a motion from the sizeable beast, save that her nose twitched to the scent of lilac. Eyes tinged in an amber setting opened and watched the woman approach, but all Duchess did was lift her head and study her. Until her tongue all but flopped out the side of her muzzle when Tenneson’s hand started scratching the top of her head.
“Don’t rightly know as yet. Only been here a day’r’so. Been freezin’ m’backside off up in High Mountain for a few months. S’real quiet but work’s not exactly in steady supply so...figured I’d take a gander back south. Way south, away from the damnable snow for a bit, but, eh? Leavin’ th’city?”
Golden eyes tipped down and studied the package in her hand. A lofted brow catered to his curiosity, but was swept away when he met her gaze again.
“As in...leavin’, or y’leavin’ leavin’, not comin’ back type leavin’?”
"What if" he hadn't been bitten in that cabin? What if he had shot the creature that killed his boy and it ended there?
"What the hell happened here?"
The two made their way through the husks of burnt out trees, and scorched earth that littered the ground. Their steps stirred ash and dirt, knocked over loose pebbles and decayed branches that had not completely burned through. Here and there bits of life had begun to slowly creep back in, but the closer they got to the source of the affliction, the less it showed. As though nature itself were afeared to return, and soon they found why.
"AH!"
With a startled cry the younger of the two boys, Marle, stumbled back and away, fumbling with a small pistol at his hip. It was drawn but the shot was wild and all it did was strike the dirt beside the mass. A bird scattered, raven by the sound of their argumentative cries. Disturbed from his perch, wings like slick oil buffeted against the wind and left the branch he'd used to crack and fall to the earth.
"WHAT THE HELL, MAR-What the..."
Both boys stared in shock as they realized what it was that startled them. A hulking mass of bones and burnt skin was hunched against one tree. Its head had fallen off at some point, and the misshapen skull of a wolf peered back at them from hollow sockets. There was a hole struck between its eyes, the bones shattered and broken in. As they took a step closer a worm the size of their thumb crawled out from that opening, and slowly curled across the dusty surface.
"Ewwwww....but...don't think I've ever seen one so close...cuz...y'know, it's dead. Come on."
Further on the traveled, a small hillock up ahead of them that they slowly ascended. Dirt and disturbed ash feathered out in the wake of each step until they crested the hill, and stopped short. Their breaths caught, their blood seized, and the hand on that pistol tightened.
"What...happened here?"
The older of the pair, Ander, took a step forward to navigate the rows of fallen bodies that circled the rim of a burnt out cottage. Each was riddle with holes, the bones shattered and cracked, fallen in heaps of decayed and charred fur. One bad step set a skull to crunch under one of their feet, and the sound carried like a harsh note on the quiet air. It gave them both reason to halt their steps. A look around, as though they might find something waiting to jump at them, found only twenty or so of the creatures. They had swarmed towards an open door that was now all but a shell of a doorway.
"Is this...Is this th'Rhames's place? Like papa told us 'bout?"
Closer and closer they crept towards the porch that now only held a few boards tied to the foundation. They didn't dare step foot onto the precarious landing, the boards were already rotted and brittle. But they could see inside well enough to count five more of the husks draped across a broken window, scattered along the floor, and one with its hand clutched against the edge of a table.
They circled around slowly, keeping a distance from the walls of the lone building before a creak caught their ears. Wind drifted in and sent a single oak tree atop the hill to sway, its branches bare of any leaf like all the rest. Some measure of courage guided their steps, and they could see the dirt on that hill was disturbed as well, but in a different way. Three mounds had been dug, and covered over side by side. Markers lay atop them, the names old and covered in dust that the boys slowly took to wiping away.
"Nathan...Elizabeth...Tenneson, yeah it is th'Rhames's place. I didn't think it was real...but...I mean just lookit all them dead Worgen..."
A few steps back gave them distance to look at the three markers laid together, and a small chill crept up their spines.
"Papa said...they tried t'warn people, but they never listened. Papa listened though...s'why he made that cellar we hid in before...beastmen came. He tried t'get em to come to town, t'fight, but they never left home...didn't want t'leave their boy, he said...Wonder who left th'bottles, though."
Against each one, covered by a bit of fallen dirt and dust, was a bottle of amber liquid laid within. The corks were old and dried, but the glass seemed in good shape. There wasn't a marker on them, no label to call the whiskey for what it was, but both boys knew better not to touch them. Instead, they just slowly backed away, nearly tripping over another of the fallen beasts as a Raven cawed overhead. It swept through the air, and made a lazy path above the trees, heading back for the city of Gilneas.
"Let's get home...I don't like this place so much..."
That sounds dirtier than it’s meant to...I think. Anywho, enjoy some galleries for a few of the boys. Going to be doing more tomorrow before work.
https://aenlandrin.tumblr.com/post/159658383013
http://denlandis.tumblr.com/post/159658110146
http://tennesonrhames.tumblr.com/post/159658771612
“Georgie, whiskey’n’sleep...not necessarily in that order, but probably in that order.”With a heft of the man’s shoulders, bare under the midday sun he hefted a saddle up onto the railing. It was a temporary rest as he took a brush and started the laborious task of smoothing out Duchess’ mess of fur. By the end of it the man was a mess of sweat and covered in more fur than if he’d shifted to his beastial form, and yet his travelling companion looked as right as rain and preened slightly with a quiet chattering from her muzzle.“Yer hopeless, mutt.”
