M-21 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feralheart) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crescentview2023-01-02 10:21 pm
feralheart) wrote in crescentview2023-01-02 10:21 pm
January/Summer catch-all
WHO: M-21 and anyone
WHAT: Open + catchall
WHEN: All summer
WHERE: All over the island
WARNINGS: none, TBA if needed. Plotting here!
i. message in a bottle (beginning of month)
[ M-21 can be found at the memo board leaving his incredibly compelling self-advertisement-slash-transparent attempt at cheating. He's also lingering a little over the response to another one before he takes it with him. Catch him in the act, or take him up on his proposition!
Threads using the "compelled to speak the truth" event happen before Jan 7. ]
ii. rain on the beach (Jan 10)
[ Possibly M-21 did not understand the assignment to exercise with a partner. Possibly he's just getting in his laps industriously, proving why he counts for the "works out five times a week" scavenger hunt option. Either way, a little rain isn't going to slow him down any. He's jogging contentedly along the beach with absolutely no regard to how annoying running in sand is, or the rain that should be soaking him.
Probably because there's a localized sunbeam around just him. The smugger he gets about this, the brighter it seems to shine. Does this mean the goddess made up with him? He has no idea, but he's going to bask in it while it lasts. Anyone approaching will get a relatively good-natured nod. ]
You coming?
iii. wildcard
[ Catch me on my planning/PM/discord if you want a starter! ]
WHAT: Open + catchall
WHEN: All summer
WHERE: All over the island
WARNINGS: none, TBA if needed. Plotting here!
i. message in a bottle (beginning of month)
[ M-21 can be found at the memo board leaving his incredibly compelling self-advertisement-slash-transparent attempt at cheating. He's also lingering a little over the response to another one before he takes it with him. Catch him in the act, or take him up on his proposition!
Threads using the "compelled to speak the truth" event happen before Jan 7. ]
ii. rain on the beach (Jan 10)
[ Possibly M-21 did not understand the assignment to exercise with a partner. Possibly he's just getting in his laps industriously, proving why he counts for the "works out five times a week" scavenger hunt option. Either way, a little rain isn't going to slow him down any. He's jogging contentedly along the beach with absolutely no regard to how annoying running in sand is, or the rain that should be soaking him.
Probably because there's a localized sunbeam around just him. The smugger he gets about this, the brighter it seems to shine. Does this mean the goddess made up with him? He has no idea, but he's going to bask in it while it lasts. Anyone approaching will get a relatively good-natured nod. ]
You coming?
iii. wildcard
[ Catch me on my planning/PM/discord if you want a starter! ]
no subject
It's not a problem if you don't surround yourself with spineless people.
[ Days since M-21 has checked if something or someone was out of his weight class before trash-talking: once again (always) zero. But as grumpy as he is about spilling all the werewolf beans, that's probably not Mishka's fault. So he gives a little grunt of acknowledgment even if his eyes narrow minutely at "your kind." ]
I don't pick fights with humans, if that's what you want to know. I do my job and I settle my debts. Anyway, your turn for truth. What do you mean, lost men?
[ Does he care that that's not how the game is played? Apparently not, it is now. ]
no subject
Well, since you've been honest with me, whether or not by choice, I find it fit to be honest in turn.
The cities are the jurisdiction of vampires, but the lands between are ruled by the beasts - werewolves included. Alas, my profession does ask us to travel, and no small number of times have I returned to reports of my men strewn in two, connected only by the fraying string of their innards, because they had crossed paths with a roving werewolf pack. Once, even, we retrieved a lone survivor who was in the process of turning.
( Which, you know, helped confirm that deaths with those sorts of wounds were werewolves, and not any other nasty. )
Might I ask truth again, if we're to assign it? What is your job, then?
no subject
More vampires... Fine. I won't say you've got no reason to be curious. [ And, after a beat: ] ...Sorry about your men.
[ It's not exactly sympathy, but there's a slight softening in his tone just the same. Just because death becomes routine doesn't mean it goes completely unfelt. ]
I'm a security guard. At a school for human children. Vampires and werewolves mostly keep to themselves in my world, but experiments like me or Infected don't necessarily play by the same rules. If anything threatens the kids, I take care of it.
no subject
( He seems almost - intrigued? by the sentiment, whether or not it's sympathetic. When his people died, the Syndicate asked when he was finding better ones to complete the jobs they left undone, and why he hadn't recruited better ones to begin with.
None of them were the sorts of people most would miss. Some sent back money to lovers, or families - but they weren't soldiers. They didn't send out missives to the still living. He thinks, though, they would only be bitter if Mishka had ever spoken to them.
He does seem to take note that they have an overlap in vampires, as well. )
A security guard... That's much more mundane than I expected. ( LIKE? You're an artificial werewolf and this is the job you get? Not judging, but goodness. ) Are infected people turned by vampires and werewolves? I'm quite surprised people, however, would like to replicate those sorts of creatures when you live free of them. Why court trouble?
no subject
He knows much better than he'd like about people no one else would miss. Disposable and expendable. It figures that that would transcend worlds too. What could be more human than that? He shakes his head to forcibly dismiss that line of thought. ]
Call it a hobby of the guy who got me out of that lab.
[ HE KNOWS... He knows. No one ever believes that he's really just a security guard because it's staffing choices as made by a very eccentric scientist. ]
Yeah. People turned by experiments, anyway. They didn't tell subjects like me what they were thinking, but it's not hard to guess. Vampires and werewolves have the kind of power humans can't even touch. Eternal life? Mind control? Of course someone wanted to get their hands on that.
no subject
Ah, so someone was sympathetic enough to come to your rescue?
( Still, that concluding earns a slight frown from Mishka, rare as it is. It's not surprising, of course, that humans would self-sabotage in pursuit of the impossible, but... It is dismal, to know of a world where vampires are kept separate, and there are those who would seek to undo it. )
Hmmm... So, then, what did they intend to do with you? Use you as a soldier? I can't imagine a werewolf is the ideal pet for anyone but a fascination with the exotic.
( He knows they exist, but, you know. )
no subject
Something like that. They ended up in the organization's crosshairs, but they took me in after.
[ It was messy and a long story, in other words. He recoils a tiny bit at the word "pet," looking affronted for a moment. People really keep comparing him to a dog... ]
Raw materials. Trash. They threw us at jobs they wouldn't waste an expensive experiment on. [ There's a brief pause. ] What happened to the survivor you found? The one who was turning.
no subject
( The question, though, is met with a beat delay. Mishka shrugs. His expression is a little more ambiguous. )
My unit is to operate precisely, and werewolves are difficult to control. The order was to contain and forward him to an alternate branch for, I believe, sale - whether trafficking or skinning, I was not privy.
I did not think he would be fond of either outcome, so I chose death for him instead, before he'd been fully altered. They were not pleased with me for that.
( Did he ask this man what he wanted? Unclear, but signs point to... )
no subject
[ That's all M-21 has to say about that. Fucking RIP, Kranz.
He folds his arms over his chest as he listens a little less than impassively. "Trafficking or skinning"? After the lab, he wouldn't have thought he was squeamish. But that still manages to get a look of disgust out of him. ]
Tch. And I thought the Union already had a monopoly on sick hobbies. Your higher-ups are real pieces of work. They treat all your people like that?
[ As for how Mishka treats his own people... He needs to think that one over a little more. ]
no subject
On his own matters - Mishka considers it a mercy kill, but one's mercies can be colored by bias. A corner of Mishka's lips curl up in half a grin. )
We are disposable, and it is only those who prove themselves too useful who become a little less disposable. Still, we are not a good peoples - perhaps not worth your sympathy. That which my employers would do to him, they do to all people, and we are their tools toward this end.
It is perhaps merely fair that our organization may cannibalize us, in turn.
no subject
[ It's not really an excuse, but he knows full well he doesn't have a lot of room to judge, either. He gives a little grimace for that.
He's really got no idea how to read someone like Mishka, or what to make of that smile. Flippancy? Survival technique? Both? ]
...Maybe guys like us should stick to "dare" with these kind of games. At least if we're sober.
no subject
( The empathy surprises him; he has met his fair share of moralizers and hypocrites, and he would not have thought much less of M-21 if he had been one. The blood on the hands of another is often within plain sight, and easy to judge; that on your own hands is often much harder to notice, and accept.
The remark does earn a laugh, though. )
And I can't disagree with that, either. Ah, you were looking for someone for your scavenger hunt, yes? We can trade numbers, to end on a bit of a lighter note.
no subject
Awkward. But there were definitely more awkward people to have unintentionally spilled all that to. He'll chalk it up as another minor grudge against the goddess to go on her tab. ]
Right. Good idea. The exercising one, for me.
[ Luckily he was just looking at this while putting up his memo, or he would've long since forgotten. ]
Siblings, only if the other M-series count. I don't know how picky the goddess is being. What about you?
no subject
This land does not have the tension Ostoya does. Were he home, he might consider M-21 a danger to be dealt with; or killed, and granted mercy. But here there is no need. It's hard to reconcile that. )
The exercising one likewise, and the one pertaining to languages. Though I never traveled beyond my continent, it was a useful thing to speak to merchants from other lands.
( And then, because he's curious: )
Do you exercise because you hope to remain capable of combat, or simply for pleasure?
no subject
[ ...Probably. He's never really tested that. But sometimes you just need to run, okay. He wouldn't have called it a hobby or anything like that before being asked, just something he did. ]
Why'd you ask? Staying sharp for combat?
[ It's only fair to be curious in return now that Mishka's put the question in his head. A guy prepared to do mercy kills on werewolves probably needed to keep his training up a little more, he thinks, without noting any alarming implications for his own prospects here. ]