Closed Living Clockwork (Tati)

[Konrad Venger]

8th Bell - 8th Day of Summer, 517AV - Pridesun Pavilion

It wasn't like skinning a deer, or a rabbit, that was for damn sure. Konrad had learned that with them, it was easy to tell where the fluff and fur and feathers ended, and the meat began. Once you got your fingers under the lid, as it were, you just had to pull back and keep slicing, parting fatty strands from muscle until it was... naked, he supposed was the right word.

Dressed. That's what Sedon called it.

"Zulrav's Dick," the tubby Drykas was sweating buckets even at this early hour, stepping away from the sheet where the bloodied hog lay. "You'd think it'd be easier, with them starving and all."

Konrad just grunted, and got on with his work. The kukri wasn't designed for work this slow, but it had a heavy blade and was designed for hacking and slashing. Well, what was skinning but slow slashing? The boar and the piglet from the day before had already been treated. Carcasses dragged onto the sheet, skinned, jointed, butchered, drained, rendered down so that everything including their very blood and guts was to be used.

The sow was biggest, so she waited until the morning. Under watchful guard.

Whole city is starving. Word got around we came home with so much, wouldn't take much for them to get restless.

It never came to that, but Konrad didn't like the idea of leaving the big beast just laying there. Neither did Yacob, who was the nominal leader of the Pridesuns, nowadays. Slender, stoic, industrious, he was busy making arrows outside his tent. Not Jonas' tent. But his own. Which told Konrad a lot.

"Pig not skin on own."

"Yeah yeah yeah, just give me a moment," Sedon puffed and blew like a whale, patting his forehead and his shrinking belly. One good thing to come from the season. "You need the practice, anyway."

"I remember you say this, when come to eat."

"Pfft. Miserable sod."

Konrad smiled at one corner of his mouth, and said nothing more. One hand was keeping the skin taut, ready to easily rip away when his kukri, in the other, sliced between furry flesh and the meat underneath... though he couldn't tell what that was, half the time. So he was erring on the side of caution. Which in this case, was "if it looks edible, keep it".

"One bell. Less maybe." He grunted after a few chimes, leaning back and rolling stiff shoulders. Half the sow was already exposing it's bare masculture to Syna, and the flies were beginning to notice. "Then we take guts and cut up. Others can..."

His words trailed off as he became aware of a watcher. Two of them. Appearing as if by magic, standing at the edge of the Pridesun's meager enclosure. A woman and a child, though they both seemed to wear the same childish expression of curiosity. Mother and son, if Konrad guessed right, though most of his mind was taken up by a far simpler thought. Namely-

"Who they?"

"Who are they," Sedon corrected with a groan. "You really need to practice more."

"Will put on list," came back the growled reply, and he jutted his sharp, hairy chin towards them. "Deal, yes?"

Sedon sighed, but nodded. He knew that Konrad didn't like being the man to talk to other pavilions. Not out of any shyness or social concerns, but simply because he wasn't a Drykas. Better to have an actual Pridesun make the greetings, ask the questions, ascertain the purpose. The walahk just sat back on his haunches, slurped from a waterskin (sparingly, mind), and waited for answers.

[Tati]

Summer was already shaping up to be a sweltering season, and the thought caused a thread of worry to writhe through Tati; a hot summer brought with it grass fires, and grass fires terrified the mother. She'd lost plenty of people to fires in the previous years, her husband most notable among them, and the mere thought of his loss caused her to watch her son like a hawk. She knew many saw it as overbearing, unnecessary, and she knew that a boy his age should be allowed to roam around the tent city and gain his own experiences, but she couldn't quite bear the thought of leaving him unsupervised during such a dangerous season.

A morning of foraging was what she'd had planned, in the hopes that the chance to learn something new may keep Asher occupied and entertained for a good chunk of time. He hopped along beside her as they made their way through the tents, running ahead and then falling behind as he darted to and fro, his interests constantly caught and traded between things as they moved. "Ma!" He called, darting back to Tati's side, clearly ready with a barrage of questions. "Why do we have to forage?" He tilted his head, matching the speed of Tati's stride. Tati grinned down at the boy, reaching out to push his shaggy hair out of his face. "I need herbs so that I can make salves and tonics, so that I can help people." She explained patiently, despite the fact that she'd been asked the same question a half dozen times already.

"What kinds of salves are you gonna make?" He countered, brimming with curiosity. Tati shrugged, gazing at the path ahead of them, paying attention to where they were going for the both of them. "It's going to be a very hot Summer. That means bad sunburns, heat stroke, dehydration. The young and the old will need the most care, they're not as good at dealing with heat like you or I. I'll probably make some--" Tati broke off as Asher interrupted her, grabbing her hand and giving it an insistent tug. "Ma! Look at all those pigs!"

Sighing and pursing her lips, Tati abandoned her explanation and followed her sons gaze, catching and focusing on a small group of men, working to skin their kills. Pigs. Her curiosity was instantly piqued. Pigs were the perfect anatomical model, besides human's themselves, as far as Tati was concerned. All the same organs, even the skin was similar, they made the perfect subject to dissect and study. Asher darted forward, watching with interest as the men worked, and when one of the men called out a greeting he returned it cheerfully.

"Morning!" She called in return to the portly Drykas, drawing closer and speaking over Asher as he babbled questions at whoever deemed to pay him mind. "It seems you've had a good hunt!" She raised her brows, taking in the large carcasses and sweeping over the narrow area, taking in the ground muddied with blood and offal, and the men working amongst it all. An itch started in her fingers, urging her to get in there, get her hands inside the abdomen of a pig and explore. She smiled, her features calm and open. "Could we help you out?"

[Konrad Venger]

"Well, a few extra hands would-"

"Not need help. Find own meal."

Sedon's careful words and warm welcome was torched like a village in some bard's yarn when Konrad's guttural, growled Pavi came chopping out over the air. He turned around to scowl, but that was about as effective as needle against half-plate. The man just snorted and bent over his work, hiding his face with the brim of his hat, even as he kept talking.

"Look for free food. You know. I know. Bring boy, make you feel bad." Sedon's scowl became a grimace as the walahk spat to the side, before his knife resumed its grisly, scraping grind across bone and through fat. "She come back in day. Two day. Buy like all can buy. Not get for free."

"Hansel" was aware of the muttering around him. An outsider, a walahk, spurning a Drykas woman and her child, when they offered aid... but he noticed their voices were muted. They were all as avaricious as jackals now, every man, every pavilion. Food was scarce, even with hunts seemingly every hour. Water was almost as hard to find, and Konrad had heard of people starving.

Not many, but enough that a few more and Endrykas would resemble a tinderbox. After the sparks hit it.

Heavy footsteps. A shadow falling over him. His kukri halted, but he did not loosen his grip. He looked up slowly, green eyes like rotting moss glaring up like a man defiant before the ax-man's block. Sedon looked down, and his voice was low.

"You really think we can afford to be arseholes? Now of all times?" His Pavi was fluent but slow, and Konrad pieced every word together a little while after he finished. "Jonas and his... his stupidity, made us all look like bastards to our own people. Now you want to turn hungry people away?"

"We are hungry. You own people-"

"And this is a chance to show them we are not like him!"

The heat wasn't aiding Konrad's cool head. He tore off his hat and was on his feet so fast and fluid Sedon actually took a step back, hand brushing the handle of the hunting knife at his belt. Konrad' didn't even look down. Not until his had was around the hilt, and then...

Then what?

He didn't know.

"I a'ready petchin' know dat." His voice was low as a wolf's growl, and Sedon's lips pressed into a tight, white line. No reasoning with a man talking like that. "I always knew dat. Petched if I'm gunna risk goin' hungry jus' so youse can make yerself look good."

"Hansel? We won't go hungry."

A new voice. A new tone. Not angry or cajoling or furious or offended or anything that Sedon and Konrad had filled the air with. Yacob was different like that. Sometimes coldly, confidently commanding... sometimes aloof and inscrutable... and sometimes like this. Calm. Reasonable. Irritatingly so.

The younger Drykas smiled at the woman and her child, making a quick Pavi sign for welcome and invite to our fire.

"We can't spare much, but if you would like to help, we'll not turn you down." He was so young, and Konrad saw some cracks in his counterance, just now and then. Like he was tired and angry and didn't want to be the man having to bear a pavilion on his shoulder. But they were his kin, his family, his friends... his people. So he did. He hated him all the more because of that... nobility. "Hansel? You can stay, or you can-"

"I stay. I help hunt, I stay."

He shot a look at the woman, noting her beauty with scorn. Another was as fine as her, perhaps more so. She'd dropped Konrad as soon as she'd been properly broken in by her husband; no more meetings or greetings, just... absence. Konrad beat down that nameless feeling before it could color his anger any darker. Instead he just cursed quite savegely - in Myrian, fittingly enough - and plonked his arse back down next to the desiccated carcass.

"Get knife. Soon we take out guts."

[Tati]

Tati listened, brow raised with interest as she watched the exchange between the other Drykas and the scarred walahk. Truthfully, Tati hadn't even considered their need for food, her attention had been so thoroughly captured by the chance to dissect and learn. A pang of shame twisted through her, and she dropped a hand to Asher's shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze and passing her hand over his messy hair. Asher glanced up at her, his brow furrowed and cheeks flushed. "Ma..." He muttered quietly, taking a step away from her so that her hand fell away. Tati couldn't help an amused snort. Gods forbid I embarrass him. She thought to herself, crossing her arms and pinning him with a stern eye.

For a moment she thought a fight may erupt, and she watched warily, prepared to grab her son and leave if things devolved any further. The walahk growled in Common, but thankfully made no move to draw his weapon. The second Drykas spoke up, his words seeming to calm the situation somewhat, and turned to Tati, welcoming her and Asher. Smiling, Tati returned his signs with her thanks, and moved forward to join the trio. "My name's Tati, and this is Asher."

"We're not after free food." She said finally, returning her attention to the matter at hand. She eyed the walahk, Hansel, and gestured to the pig he was currently working on. "Our pavilion's more than capable of feeding itself. My son could just use the experience butchering, and I wouldn't mind having a go for myself." Her words weren't necessarily true; they were as short on food as those around them, but Tati saw no point in pushing the matter and causing any more conflict between the men. Asher, for his part, seemed almost starstruck, far more interested in the dramatic scene brewing before him than he'd been about his mother's plan of foraging.

He moved forward to crouch near Hansel's pig, and Tati followed, kneeling beside him and fixing Hansel with a steady gaze, brow quirked in interest as he snarled in an unfamiliar language. "Forgive the intrusion." She said, too proud to offer anything closer to an apology. She drew her dagger, watching the walahk carefully. Asher leant forward, clearly full of eager curiosity. "What language was that?" He chirped, practically bouncing in place. "And what happened to your face?" Tati all but choked, her gaze snapping around to her son. "Asher!" She scolded, her expression full of disbelief and embarrassment. Asher's face feel, apparently realizing how rude his question had been, and how unwise it likely was, considering the tension of the past few moments. Sighing, Tati took pity on him, ruffling his hair, though her expression was still stern and far from impressed. "Ignore him, he has his father's lack of tact."

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad didn't do kids. Well, not in the social sense. He'd killed them before, sure: mostly when they got in the way or came at him in a brawl (Sunberth didn't have an age limit on when you started shanking people for coppers), occasionally as a stipulation of a contract. But talking to them... it was most often beyond him.

Probably because, as far as he could tell, they were just smaller versions of adults. Little bastards that grew into big bastards, in other words. He didn't have the time or patience to deal with them, no different that he did most people, and certainly didn't see anything special about them.

But he could recognize the differences. Like how they never shut the petch up.

His kukri paused its steady scrape-slide through fat and flesh as the brat squatting next to him peppered him with questions that men back home would have known were fatal. His mother gasped and squawked his name, apologized profusely and all Konrad did was grunt.

"Then father should be here. Keep little sod mouth shut."

"Hansel?!" Sedon, a-bloody-gain, tossing him an angry look. "The boy's father is... gone. Killed in a fire."

Another grunt, about as emotional and apologetic as a knife in the guts. If anything, the news seemed to just goad on the walahk, and he grinned at the child... if that was the word for it.

"Monster did this," he said, pointing to the ugly marks of abuse that deformed the right side of his face from chin to ear. "Boy should take care. Make me monster. Maybe do to you face next."

Oh, but was he expecting a bloody buffet of shyke for that little comment. Especially when he punctuated it with a flick of his soaking kukri at Asher's chubby-cheeked face. But here's another thing about children: they're naturally fearless. They know little to nothing about the world, and few of their instincts tell them to quake in terror at anything unknown, like a cautious adult or even older child would.

Asher was still in that golden time when all new events were the potential to learn and enjoy, rather than disappoint and stoke fear. So Konrad could do naught but blink for a moment as the boy shook his head, chin thrust forward a little.

"Nuh-uh. My Ma would stop you."

For a tick, whatever activity or retaliation Konrad had earned with his words was utterly stalled. The other Pridesun were either stunned, shocked, aghast or, for the most part, amused. Even Sedon's jaw dropped a little and Konrad was just... staring.

"... okay. Boy can stay. He is funny." He flicked a glance up and down the pugnacious midget. "Not smart, but funny."

Scrape-slide, scrape-slide... down limbs and flanks and stomach, peeling off flesh that would still be treated and crisped for the stew pot at some point. Even the trotters and eyes would be gnawed on, or fed to those hunting dogs one Pridesun owned. Konrad wiped his brow and pointed to the fat-covered belly.

"Boy?" He said, not even bothering to be polite, or remember his name, for that matter. "Want to hold guts?"

"Wow, really?"

"Really. Smell like you."

"Nuh-uh."

"Just hold bucket, stupid..."

[Tati]

Tati's gaze slid slowly to Sedon, carefully expressionless to hide her irritation at the man's words. To know that Drykas she'd never truly met had heard of her families loss felt strange, and somewhat invasive, as though people were peering into her life without her knowledge. Tati bit her lip however, and restrained herself from telling the man to mind his business, knowing that Cairo hadn't been the only Watch member lost that day, and the tragedy had affected pavilions all over Endrykas. The thought did nothing to temper her annoyance.

Much to Tati's own pride, the mention of his father didn't particularly seem to bother Asher, and if it did he didn't let it show, his attention held fast by Hansel, who continued on. Tati sat back, listening and watching, but making no move to interfere, only stiffening slightly when Hansel growled a half threat in broken Pavi. Asher stilled, eyes going wide for a moment as the walahk flicked his blade towards him, before bouncing back, stubborn confidence displayed all over his little face.

Tati chuckled, an amused smile curling her lips at his words. "Would I? Do you think I'd be able to stop him?" She asked, brows raising, her voice mock serious. Asher's look of utter certainty didn't falter, and he nodded. "Ma, you're way scarier than him when you're mad." Tati smiled, warmed by her sons faith in her, despite how unrealistic it was. Truly, Tati would happily lay down her life to protect him, but when it came down to facts, she wasn't skilled in fighting or protecting others.

The mother perked at the mention of guts, and rocked up onto her knees to lean over the pig. "I'll help you remove them." She said, suddenly far more invested than she had previously been, keen to get to work. Asher pulled the bucket over and held it in front of him, craning his neck to get a good view at the pig's stomach. She waited for Hansel to do the honours and cut the stomach open, and once he'd done so she would reach forward and push her hands inside the cavity without a second thought, pushing flesh aside to peer down at the coils of intestines and the glossy mound of liver. Grinning, she wrapped a hand around the organ and brought her knife forward to cut it out and get a closer look.

[Konrad Venger]

Should be hanging the bastard up on a hoop, or a noose. Not this... sloshing crap.

Konrad had to thank a lifetime of being up close and personal with blood and death. If nothing else, it had rendered him almost immune to the stink of death things. Men had voided their bowels over his shoes when he gutted them. He had actually gutted men before, ripped and tore and pulled and laid out strands of stinking innards like ropes.

He'd walked across mass graves and plague-addled slave pens. He'd smelled bodies rotting and stomachs bloated and turned to soup under their skin. Konrad knew what death smelled like, and one of the few impermeable rules he'd found the world worked under was no less true in that arena.

Do something long enough, and you be come numb to it. Anything.

So other men retched and turned away; took a few ticks to wipe their mouths, breath air back into their lungs, then get back to work. Konrad did not shirk from his task. His kukri popped that thick membrane under the ribs and a host of serpents came slithering out, limp and smelly, pink and red and white and grey. Before he got the chance to grab a handful, a slender, tanned arm came worming its way under his grip and-

Okay, now that made him recoil just a little. Not the action, not the arm... but the grin. Like she was really enjoying this.

"Aww, Ma, what're these?"

"Guts, lad," Sedon said from over the boy's ear, taking a few lengths here and there to study them for rot or disease. "We'll mash 'em up, make 'em into sausage or mush. Tastes good."

"Do we have those, too, Ma?"

Konrad listened with half an ear, concentrating on hollowing out the animal. Working his way up with Tati's shapely-but-strong hands helping him, the mass of slick ropes came out, then the liver, two fleshy sacks that were kidneys... and then, reaching up into the ribcage...

"Come... on... you... sod-"

Konrad nearly fell backward as the wobbling, bag-like masses of lungs came away in his hands and came sucking out of the stomach slit with a slurping noise that sent one man gagging all over again. Konrad just cursed low and angry and alien and as he righted himself-

"I heard those words again! Like you said before!" He scowled from under his hat and found the fearless face of Asher staring wide-eyed at him. "What is it? It's not Pavi, or Common, or what the big colorful people speak in the stone city."

The scarred man didn't want to talk to a child, but he knew the petcher wouldn't shut up until he was answered. Threats clearly wouldn't work, not against one who was apparently immune to intimidation. Instead his words growled out as he worked, handing the still-warm breathing organs to Tati, then reaching back inside to find the red, pumping prize.

"Myrian. From over sea. In jungle. Learn some when was boy."

OOC: Here's where I found all the schtuff about pig butchering.

[Tati]

Occasionally the stink would waft over her and she'd pause, teeth clamping tightly as she let the stench and her automatic urge to gag pass. She'd dealt with worse before, but it was still difficult to deny her body's natural reaction. "We do, right about there." Tati answered Asher, nudging him with her elbow, smiling as she let the intestines slide through her hands into the bucket, shoving the large masses of slimy gut to keep them from flowing over the side and into the dirt, her bloodied hands closing around the attacked stomach as it was pulled from the abdominal cavity. "This is where food goes after you eat." She explained, drawing a path from the stomach to the small intestine, which already resembled sausage a great deal. "Then it's moved through here, the intestine. Two different parts, that do two different things." She continued, her hands trailing over the large intestine, eye's gleaming with interest. "Ours are slightly different though, not this large, or quite this shape."

Glancing over, Tati was surprised to see that Asher was starting to look a little green, his brows furrowed in distaste as he listened to his mother chatter away. Tatai paused, eyeing him carefully. "You're not going to be sick are you?" She asked, lips only pursing tighter when Asher shook his head. "Just not in the bucket or on the pig, okay?" She said finally, hiding a small, pleased smile as she watched the young boy set his shoulders and turn back to the pig, clearly determined to get through the gutting without emptying his own. Her attention was pulled away as Hansel jerked free the lungs, grunting out that fierce, foreign language once more as he passed them towards her.

The outside was smooth and glossy, closely resembling the liver, but when Tati pulled it towards her the flesh gave and moved strangely. She pressed at it, head tilted with fascination at the unexpected situation, the lungs themselves almost pillowy to the touch and not nearly as dense as she had expected. I wonder if they'd let me cut them open... She wondered, but thought better of asking, lest she wear out her welcome with strange questions. Tati glanced up from the lungs, though her hands continued to run over them, squeezing and pinching as she turned her attention to Hansel and Asher's conversation. "Is that where you're from?" She asked, cutting in before Asher could start up with a steady stream of what's, why's and how's. She watched eagerly as the walahk thrust his arm back into the chest of the pig. "This really doesn't bother you, hm? You've barely even grimaced this whole time."

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad knew of a man back home who bore the look of this woman. Petrocious, or something like that. A healer and scholar, or so he called himself, though the scant few times Konrad had been in his sanctum, he'd seen little of health or scholarly pursuits inside. Just death and corpses and all the myriad ways they could be defiled. Organs sliced open, splayed wide and hung up like trophies. Bodies dismembered and neatly categorized, sketched and scribbled about on yellow pages, to be seen by no-one but that polite madman and those like him, Konrad assumed.

Like this one, he thought as Tati's eyes shone with boundless, guileless enthusiasm. Grinning over guts like she's a hungry wolf.

"No, I am not."

She asked a question, and he answered it. Bluntly, brusquely, and without any attached avenues for further inquiry. If she was more perceptive than her son, anyway. Konrad disliked plenty of things, but talking about his childhood was a sure way to mature "dislike" into "physically threatening".

Sedon cleared his throat from the side and handed over a couple of buckets. The mother and child accepted them, slopping out innards and organs and other things that seemed like both, and neither. Just the mass of detritus from any living things, only more so from such a big one. They slopped and shook and quivered and stank and Sedon couldn't help but pat his diminished belly.

"They're smelly now," he said to Asher with a wink, hefting up a full bucket in each hand. "But once we wrap them in skin and cook them up, you'll be eating pig sausages!"

"We haven't had those in forever!"

"Well, close enough..."

The walahk watched them both warily out the corner of his eye, still elbow-deep in the sow. Any mention of food was likely to catch his attention; mention of it going to someone else, doubly so. But there was no point arguing about it, grousing, whining. It wasn't his way, and it wouldn't help.

His way was to take what he wanted, but that wouldn't work here. Here, he had to be a part of something to survive. Loners didn't last, not in the midst of drought and near-famine. So Konrad had to be... sociable.

Now, there's something that will make me retch.

"Have been around bodies... all life," he said as he felt around, finally grasping the long-still organ in the center of the chest cavity. "Not smell bad to me. Not, ah... not notice."

One, two, three-

With a heave and a grunt and a sickening, sliding, sucking, ripping sound, Konrad's arm came back out drenched red from elbow to fingernails, and grasping something half the size of his head. It looked almost like a steak, only with more veins, and rounder... and he offered it to the woman, curious as to how she'd reaction.

"Not eat," he warmed, dropping the heart on the sheet in front of her. "Cook make into stew, or some new thing. But look. Is heart."

[Tati]

His reply was abrupt and terse, making it clear that he wasn't a fan of the line of questioning. Tati let the line of questioning go, concentrating on organs and offal as she divided them into buckets. Her stomach rumbled at mention of sausages, and she exchanged a glance with Asher, taking in his pleading expression. "Well, perhaps we can come back in a day or two and buy some?" She suggested, hoping that there would be enough for them and that the price wouldn't be unreasonably inflated to make the most off of the hungry masses. "I think I owe you something tasty after all of this." She said, winking at Asher as she jiggled the bucket of organs for emphasis.

Konrad spoke up once more, and Tati's attention turned back to him, wiping her hands off against her front as she did so and realizing a moment too late that she was in fact not wearing her apron as she had assumed. The old, stained scrap of clothing was stored away at The River Flower, as Tati hadn't particularly thought she'd need to bring it along on what had originally been planned as a foraging trip. The woman cursed under her breath, glaring down at her blood smeared front, before giving up and finishing the job, wiping off the back of her hands too. The walahks reply caused her to pause, brow raising with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. It was clear from his appearance that he hadn't had the easiest life, and Tati couldn't help but wonder about the series of events that had lead to him joining up with Endrykas.

"I work at The River Flower." She replied finally, watching as Hansel thrust his arm inside the pig. "You'd be amazed at some of the stenches I've come across. This is almost fragrant." She trailed off, eye's tracking back to the arm he had twisted up and into the pig, pulling and struggling at the last of their prize. Finally, he reared back, ripping the heart free and sending flecks of gore splattering out of the carcass. Tati, jumped with surprise, before letting out a hoot of glee. "Good job!" She congratulated, grinning ear to ear as she accepted the large organ from him. Holding it at eye level, she tilted it from side to side, counting the major arteries as she found them, and pressing her fingers into each. It was heavy, and the flesh itself was tough and dense. "I don't get many men offering me hearts these days." She laughed.