08-05-2013, 07:57 PM
Rune shrugged indifferently while the empty beer can was wedged between the AK bottles. She stared at their logo for a second, wondering what the animal technically was. It kind of looked like a big deer? Or moose? Or maybe it was a caribou? She wasn't entirely sure what the difference between those last two was anyway.
She shoved herself up, threw the remaining three cans under one arm and hefted her duffel bag over the other all the while hanging on to her current drink. As Hood pushed past Aria, and Aria was in the door, Rune lingered a second or two behind. Then when she thought they wouldn't see, she chugged the last few gulps of PBR and placed the can with the little stash of recyclables. There was no point letting the high and mighty saintly killer Cuddles see her compliance. But if people could use the money....
She dropped her bag near the remaining cot and set the three beer cans atop careful to make sure they were secure. Dropped beer cans just made for bad karma later on. The kind that got beer sprayed all over your face. But that wasn't the whole of it. Instead, she was using the ruse as a means to pull out a stake sharpened from the wood of a Quillaja tree, a native to Chile with the handle carved with commands in Huilliche, the native speech of the Mapuche peoples. She slipped the stiletto of wood into one of the deep pockets along her thigh, well within easy reach Also called "soapbark," it was one of several specialized "tools" Rune hauled around on her travels. This one in particular had been blessed and marked with carvings by a Kalku, a medium of that ancient people with the mystic knowledge to manipulate wefuke.
Then she followed.
Ok. So it was kind of like the most remarkable safe house Rune had ever seen. Yah she'd met a few Hunters along the road. Yah they had all their ducks in a row, but this guy's ducks were like pterodactyls, and they weren't just in a row, they were synchronized swimming.
By the time the tour landed Hood a level down, Rune was wary once more. All the suspicion and curiosity of before had distilled down to an instinctive concern which simmered just under her surface. The way he moved, the way he ordered her about. It was all a little extra-corporeal. She had to wonder, Are you human? and she thought about that stake in her pocket.
Determined to find out, she dropped down into the hole right after him, landing solidly on her feet. She quietly checked out the locations of the emergency exit and the lay of the place. If she weren't so hell-bent on being suspicious, she'd be salivating over his armory. Call cynicism a curse of the job.
She glanced at Aria when he seemed to be done. "Thankfully, Wallets can be tracked." She said, and used a second while Hood was turned away to slip the stake, only a few inches long, not much longer than a pencil, in her hand with the point up the sleeve of her jacket. Enough that it was hidden by her palm, and she did the best she could to let her arm hang naturally.
She approached Hood, walking toward, then turning to walk around him. Her eyes were narrowed onto his while she talked as though trying to see past his exterior. Wefuke, the spirit born of ancient Chilean legend, project their energy away from that of the world, and were the same spirits which possessed her mother when Uncle Seth killed her. Yah, Rune knew about the specifics of her birth, she also knew it was those circumstances that had a hand in her .. abilities.
She'd always been able to smell wrongness, violence, and crime on the air. But the spirit world was something else. Uncle Seth had never heard of anyone who was both furia and something else, but Rune was apparently. Because of that she could see the ghosts, spirits and demons haunting about, but wefuke were special. It was like they were out of phase with substance itself, a direct disturbance in the world's natural order, whereas a ghost, well, they were natural.
"Cause," she said, taking in the flat, humorless gaze of this man's expression, unafraid to come within striking distance. "We're gonna use the signal from a Wallet to trace these Roogies back home 'n crash their lil' party."
She glanced over her shoulder at Aria, hoping the woman was catching on and wouldn't blow Rune's cover... or at least that she recognized the specialized weapon Rune was hiding. However, wefuke were an essence of the Americas, and Rune knew that side of the world best. It was entirely possible Aria had no idea what Rune was about to do. But she had to do it. She had to be sure Hood was on their side.
She figured she'd only get one shot at this. Hood liked his personal space after all, he may not let her back into it ever again if she was wrong; she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. If she was right, well, she and Aria were going to have to kill him, unfortunately for Cuddles.
Suddenly, she let the stake fall to her grip and swung, not needing to stab or kill, just make enough contact to scratch him. A single scratch to a body possessed by wefuke, and the sizzle from the wound would give it away.
From there, well, hopefully Aria had her back.
She shoved herself up, threw the remaining three cans under one arm and hefted her duffel bag over the other all the while hanging on to her current drink. As Hood pushed past Aria, and Aria was in the door, Rune lingered a second or two behind. Then when she thought they wouldn't see, she chugged the last few gulps of PBR and placed the can with the little stash of recyclables. There was no point letting the high and mighty saintly killer Cuddles see her compliance. But if people could use the money....
She dropped her bag near the remaining cot and set the three beer cans atop careful to make sure they were secure. Dropped beer cans just made for bad karma later on. The kind that got beer sprayed all over your face. But that wasn't the whole of it. Instead, she was using the ruse as a means to pull out a stake sharpened from the wood of a Quillaja tree, a native to Chile with the handle carved with commands in Huilliche, the native speech of the Mapuche peoples. She slipped the stiletto of wood into one of the deep pockets along her thigh, well within easy reach Also called "soapbark," it was one of several specialized "tools" Rune hauled around on her travels. This one in particular had been blessed and marked with carvings by a Kalku, a medium of that ancient people with the mystic knowledge to manipulate wefuke.
Then she followed.
Ok. So it was kind of like the most remarkable safe house Rune had ever seen. Yah she'd met a few Hunters along the road. Yah they had all their ducks in a row, but this guy's ducks were like pterodactyls, and they weren't just in a row, they were synchronized swimming.
By the time the tour landed Hood a level down, Rune was wary once more. All the suspicion and curiosity of before had distilled down to an instinctive concern which simmered just under her surface. The way he moved, the way he ordered her about. It was all a little extra-corporeal. She had to wonder, Are you human? and she thought about that stake in her pocket.
Determined to find out, she dropped down into the hole right after him, landing solidly on her feet. She quietly checked out the locations of the emergency exit and the lay of the place. If she weren't so hell-bent on being suspicious, she'd be salivating over his armory. Call cynicism a curse of the job.
She glanced at Aria when he seemed to be done. "Thankfully, Wallets can be tracked." She said, and used a second while Hood was turned away to slip the stake, only a few inches long, not much longer than a pencil, in her hand with the point up the sleeve of her jacket. Enough that it was hidden by her palm, and she did the best she could to let her arm hang naturally.
She approached Hood, walking toward, then turning to walk around him. Her eyes were narrowed onto his while she talked as though trying to see past his exterior. Wefuke, the spirit born of ancient Chilean legend, project their energy away from that of the world, and were the same spirits which possessed her mother when Uncle Seth killed her. Yah, Rune knew about the specifics of her birth, she also knew it was those circumstances that had a hand in her .. abilities.
She'd always been able to smell wrongness, violence, and crime on the air. But the spirit world was something else. Uncle Seth had never heard of anyone who was both furia and something else, but Rune was apparently. Because of that she could see the ghosts, spirits and demons haunting about, but wefuke were special. It was like they were out of phase with substance itself, a direct disturbance in the world's natural order, whereas a ghost, well, they were natural.
"Cause," she said, taking in the flat, humorless gaze of this man's expression, unafraid to come within striking distance. "We're gonna use the signal from a Wallet to trace these Roogies back home 'n crash their lil' party."
She glanced over her shoulder at Aria, hoping the woman was catching on and wouldn't blow Rune's cover... or at least that she recognized the specialized weapon Rune was hiding. However, wefuke were an essence of the Americas, and Rune knew that side of the world best. It was entirely possible Aria had no idea what Rune was about to do. But she had to do it. She had to be sure Hood was on their side.
She figured she'd only get one shot at this. Hood liked his personal space after all, he may not let her back into it ever again if she was wrong; she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. If she was right, well, she and Aria were going to have to kill him, unfortunately for Cuddles.
Suddenly, she let the stake fall to her grip and swung, not needing to stab or kill, just make enough contact to scratch him. A single scratch to a body possessed by wefuke, and the sizzle from the wound would give it away.
From there, well, hopefully Aria had her back.