Closed Living Clockwork (Tati)

[Konrad Venger]

Sedon knew by simple guesswork that Hansel wasn't a man who was often flirted with, even innocently. In fact, change that "often" to "ever", and it would probably be more accurate. Not unless it was a whore looking to really stretch her range, some unprofitable night. His scars, his stare, his very demeanor... and all that before the sour bastard even opened his mouth.

So he wasn't surprised when the man just stared blankly for a few ticks, still holding the dripping organ, and did what most men do when they don't get the joke.

They take the words literally.

"Is drought." He said, as if he'd been asked a direct question. "Few animal. Bad hunt. Not many animal, so man not give you heart." He shrugged, snorting as if amazed the woman would be thinking about her sodding love life at a time like this. "And not make for offer, if take back."

"Aye, and speaking of which..."

Sedon was tact itself as he relieved the woman of her valve-filled object of study. And that's just what she did, as Konrad expected. She truly was amazed with it, like some scholar that's searched and searched and finally found a buried treasure in a forgotten field. She poked and prodded, twisted and turned, even held it above her head so it dripped on her tanned face.

Didn't even flinch. Bloody odd.

"Now!" He almost marked the words, snapping himself out of his reverie and standing up with a grunt. Old damn bones. "Last part needs big thing."

The boy cocked his head to one side. "What big thing?"

Konrad pointed over his shoulder, at the noise of shuffling men behind him.

"That thing."

Asher cooed like a boy given a new pony as he saw the two Drykas heaving out the long, double-handled saw. Konrad would have guessed it was made for cutting up tree trunks, but it was a lot easier than axes and saws and swords when it came to carcasses, too. Went through bone like twigs. He leaned forward and-

"Ow!"

The boy rubbed the back of his head and turned to see Konrad pointing at the rope around the pig's back legs.

"You, me, mother, pull pig up high-" he pointed to the wooden frame surrounding the pig, and mimed yanking on the rope until the pig was upright and vertical "-then tie up, and saw goes in top and they-"

Sedon winced as a sound like bricks being violated came out of Hansel's mouth; a hideous, wet grinding sound that went with his motions of sawing. But Asher was, as has been stated, a child. And a boy. And considering his mother, it was only logical that his response was a starr-eyed, "Wow!"

"Weird little turd."

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Come," he nodded to Tati as well, silently directing her to the rope along with her scampering son. "Start to pull."

[Tati]

Tati was hardly listening as the walahk replied to her light hearted jest, far more interested in the organ itself. Asher seemed just as baffled by the joke, and he nodded slowly as Hansel answered his mother, the young boy doing his best to ignore her strange ways and to not look at the bloody heart directly, lest he heave. Sedon stood suddenly and spoke, snapping Tati's attention back to the happenings around her. Slightly disappointed she hadn't had more time with her prize, Tati dropped it into one of the buckets, her face longing as she pushed herself to her feet with a heavy sigh. She wasn't as eager to watch the pig be cut in half, all that was left of the animal was bones and flesh, none of the organs that interested her would be involved in this step. Even so, she would do what she could to help.

She joined man and boy on the rope, taking it in hand and wrapping her fingers securely around its length before she set her feet shoulder width apart, lending some stability to her stance. Asher had darted around impatiently, beating them both to it, bouncing with excitement at the chance to prove how tough and grown up he was. Tati was a tad more shy in her own movements, as with all Drykas, she was strong, far stronger than city dwelling women, but even so, she could hardly be counted amongst the more athletic of her people. She had spent a hefty portion of her life learning and studying over scrolls and patients, instead of hunting and fighting like others. Still, she was determined to pull her weight, so to speak, and she put all of her strength into it as Hansel started pulling.

To be fair she'd say she was of a decent help, as they slowly heaved the pig off of the ground, Asher at the end of the rope and doing his best, his face screwed up and red. They took small, shuffling steps backwards as the pig rose, and Tati grunted and growled as she pulled, fueled for the most part by pure determination. As unenthusiastic as she had previously been, the job was almost enjoyable, as Tati's muscles ached and strained she smiled, enjoying the purely physical work, as she was so rarely able to. The pig was finally pulled up and off of the ground entirely, and Tati braced and waited as it was tied off, breathing coming quicker now.

Stepping back, she rubbed at her rope raw palms, and grinned as Asher raced back around the pig to watch the saw work. Tati wandered back over to the buckets. Crouching next to them, she glanced around to Hansel, elbow deep in bowels as she spoke. "Don't you find it interesting?" She wondered aloud, hands closing around an organ the size of an apple and tugging it out. A glossy kidney was gripped in her fist when she finally freed it, and Tati smiled down at it, admiring its unique shape. "To think that we rely on so many parts to work perfectly, and that the smallest malfunction of even just one could end us. It's sobering in the least."

[Konrad Venger]

He'd been among the Horse Lords long enough not to be surprised that the woman could pull her weight. Of course, women back home were tough, but in their own way. The ability to endure strife, hunger, abuse, loss... that was what marked Sunberth women. Their implacability in the face of the sheer horror of where they lived. By Drykas women, Konrad was learning, were strong in a much more practical sense.

"Go do."

He grunted the order at the two waiting Drykas, and sat on his haunches. He watched as the two of them manhandled the two-handed saw over the top of the pig. Swigged from his waterskin, but sparingly, as that hideous scraping sound started to saw through the air as much as bone and meat.

She was speaking again. Gods. Wasn't she tired?

"Not say I think lot about it," he said, reply as honest and his tone was noncommittal. He knew the boredom they had ahead of them. Once the pig was halved, they had to slice off every cut and steak and portion from it. Right down to the bones. It would be profitable work, keep them fed for days, but it would take bells and be bloody boring into the bargain. "Is just meat and bone. Thing make us work."

Konrad sat and ruminated on his answer. It was true, he didn't think much on the... mechanics, as it were, of humanity. But to say it out loud, he did frown at how silly it sounded. Of course it was an amazing thing to study, but where was the coin in it? Where was the benefit? Well, healing, obviously. But precious little else. In times like this, people wanted food and water and animal feed, not lectures on the differences between a kidney and a heart.

Speaking of which...

"Kidney." He waited until she turned and then nodded at the fleshy lump in her hand, ironically now resembling more a tumor than an essential organ. "I know. Look like man kidney."

She was sweating buckets and she had been helping, so he supposed she'd earned a drink. But he'd extended his hand only halfway before realizing just what she was caked in up to her elbows... and it was his bloody waterskin.

"Get clean," he said, nodding to the bucket of dirty water, all of it due to be boiled and strained later so they didn't throw away anything they could drink. "Then have water."

Beyond them, the saw made it's way through the ravaged and violated carcass. Konrad watched with dull, bored eyes as the Drykas sweated and the saw went two and fro, and fresh fonts of effluence soaked into the ground below the sow.

"Did you kill it?"

Gods, if it's not her it's him.

"Hmm?"

"The pig. Did you kill it?"

"No," Konrad answered, with even less enthusiasm. "Other man did. I kill... I help to kill man pig. Ah... boar."

Konrad grunted, wondering why he didn't just lie to the boy. Who was going to complain, anyway? Besides, an arrow in the neck and a kopis through the skull would have killed the old boar, anyway. Yacob and his dagger just... finished what he started.

"Ah, can I have some water?"

Konrad handed over the skin, but once Asher's little hands started to tug, he found a grip of steel still in place. He frowned, looked up, and saw a glare that could melt steel fixing him rigid.

"Not big. Need to make water last."

Only then did he let go.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Tati]

Tati cringed as the men started up their work, the saw tearing through flesh and grating against bone with a stomach turning grate. Noises were what really got her, the sound of someone retching, for example, would always make her feel as though she would be sick in return. Eye twitching and resisting the urge to block her ears with her fingers like a child, Tati turned her attention back her conversation with the walahk. "I think we'd all live better, longer lives if we really understood how our insides work." She countered, eye's sliding back to the organ in hand. Konrad spoke, and she nodded slowly, a thoughtful hum escaping her. "Pigs organs are very similar to ours. I've never seen a humanoid's kidney. Bowels I've seen, after Glassbeak attacks and such, a few other organs..." She sighed, and dropped the organ with a wet squelch. "They don't let us study human bodies. It's disrespectful apparently. They'd rather them go to Isinku.".

Tati huffed, shaking her head and cutting herself off before she could get any further into her rant, knowing full well that if she got started she'd have a hard time stopping again. It was something she was passionate about, she wanted to help people, to heal them, but it was nigh impossible when the Drykas knew so little of the physiological sciences. At Hansel's request, Tati crouched by the bucket and dipped her hands and forearms into the sun-warmed water. It was murky and carried a peculiar stink, but in all it wasn't nearly as offensive as the look and smell of pigs blood and organ slime. As she washed her brows drew together in confusion, only then realising what Hansel had said. "You've seen a human kidney? I thought you were a hunter?" She asked over her shoulder, watching as Asher took a careful sip from the water skin.

Rising, the mother wiped her hands off and joined the two, taking the waterskin from her son and taking an equally small sip, just enough to moisten her tongue and wet her throat. She handed it back carefully, well aware that the water skin was as good as gold, eye's still studying the man, full of interest and the urge to pick him apart, much as they had the pig.

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad had to admit, it was an evil thought. As he understood the concept, anyway. True evil, as far as a morally wraped individual like himself was concerned, was malice for the sake of malice alone. No contract, no commission, no do-or-die motivation: cruelty and pain simply for the joy of it.

The look in the eyes of victims; the way their screams rose and rose until it was an agony of the soul, not just the body; the way you could feel a spirit broken under your grasp, and most of all, the pleasure such a feeling conjured.

Konrad knew what that felt like, but it was... unprofessional. Those rare times he'd indulged in evil, it had been because he'd been pushed to it. Because death simply was not enough. Death was easy; Sunberth taught a man that. But pain? Horror? Those could last a lifetime.

So what followed was, in some small way, evil. But it was also fun.

"I seen men open before," he said as he took his water back, tone light and airy, a man discussing the weather. "Saw things that come out from home. From knife. From sword. Remember what they look like."

He drew his finger across his stomach, that sweet spot just below the navel. Two inches, maybe three, with a good blade, and a man's guts would spill from such a gash like water from a broken bucket. He smiled. That was what clinched the moment. Mocking and remembering both, eyes glinting above a ravaged face.

"Not forget what guts look like. Liver. Spleen. Kidneys." He took a good long swig, eyeing the woman and her reaction over the worn leather. "Not thing you forget. Not after many time you see."

"Hansel? You done buggering about?"

Sedon didn't catch the words, but he could tell enough without them. The way the man smiled, like some tactless adult teasing a child with tales of horror. The smile he gave, that drank in revulsion and chuckled at it. He didn't see that side in the walahk often, which surprised him, given what he looked like and clearly had been before he came to Endrykas. But when he did, he never wanted to see it again.

It begged questions he didn't want answered.

"What to do?"

Sedon flipped a butcher's knife up in the air, heavy blade spinning from one hand to another with light, easy grace. Javelin, bow, these were things he'd learned as a Drykas. But that knife? He'd been a butcher and a cook almost as long, and used it far longer. He caught the blade and jerked it towards the two halves, now swinging gently from separate ropes.

"Need to cut it up. You're on the job, too."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." He spoke with a sigh, sadist vanishing and replaced by a tired workman lurching to his feet. "I am coming."

Tati watched as the walahk with the ruined face went back to work, cutting up his half with slow, careful precision. There didn't seem to be any real method to his cuts: he started under the snout (well, half of it) and worked his way down, that was all. Chunks of meat came off with gristly fat clinging to them, and each one was tossed into a bucket. Thunk... thunk... thunk... over and over, filling it up gradually. Now and then another Pridesun would pick it up, replace it, and carry it over to Sedon.

Whistling while he worked. Salting each cut after inspecting it. After a few chimes and a dozen or more cuts preserved for future meals, he seemed to notice the woman and her child. He smiled, warm and avuncular, the opposite of the thing that had so delighted in shocking them.

"Feel free to take one. Each. For you and your boy." Konrad muttered something that earned him a short, sharp look. "Ignore him. You helped, and we can spare the meat today."

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Tati]

"Hm." Tati paused, head tilting thoughtfully, her eye's darting across Hansel's face attentively. A shame he's not a more open man. She thought to herself, her gaze slowly sliding away and settling on her hands thoughtfully. A shame his Pavi is so poor. I could learn plenty from him if only he was willing to share his knowledge with me. Eye's straying to the pig, now swinging gently in two halves, Tati tried to picture a man in it's place, his organs still intact and where they belonged. Perhaps even working still, his lungs pink, his heart pumping, the perfect model for Tati to pick and prod at.

Tati feel into quiet thought, her gaze falling unfocused onto the bucket of innards. She wondered if she'd be able to remember anything of note when they would return to the pavilion that afternoon. If she'd known that their day would start as it had, she would have brought with her paper and charcoal to record her thoughts, and perhaps even attempt sketch of the organs, rather than rely on memory to do so later. Asher was standing close by Hansel and Sedon, his attention flickering back and forth between the two with an expression of great concentration and interest as he watched the butchering and treating. For once, his questions were few and far between as he was far more concerned with committing the men's actions to memory, no doubt in order to impress his uncles with the new found knowledge later.

Her ponderous thoughts were interrupted as Sedon took notice of her once more, and Tati jumped slightly as her attention was pulled back to the present. She paused at his words, and for a moment, thought about refusing. She wasn't one to take without offering something in return, and she had nothing to give.
"Thank you." She said finally, a soft, appreciative smile making it's way across her face as she took a small share, folding it away in a scrap of wax paper found at the bottom of her bag. "Please, if you're pavilion is ever in need of a healer, come and see me. I live with the Flametree pavilion, amongst the Opal clan." She said finally, her voice full of sincerity as she cast her gaze across Sedon, Yacob, and even Hansel. Asher echoed his thanks, his face bright and eager at the thought of pig for dinner.

[Ashka Windrunner]

Shiny New Grades !

Konrad Venger

 

Skills

• Butchering +5
• Intimidation +1
• Leadership +1
• Rhetoric +1
• Socialization +3

 

Lores

• Konrad: Doesn't like children
• Yacob: Irritatingly reasonable
• Asher: Fearless & funny
• Tati: Oddly fascinated by the hog's insides
• Butchering: Skinning and gutting a boar

Tati

As your living expenses for Summer haven't been paid and you have not been online for over a month, your grades are withheld. Once you fix your ledger, PM me and I will release your grades.


If you have any questions don't hesitate to PM me, and remember to edit your request in the Grading queue.

- Thanks to Aladari Coolwater for the boxcode