come_sailaway | care and feeding for your wolf

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care and feeding for your wolf

Who: Ylva and the curious
What: Shenanigans with Wild Shape
When: Early September, I guess. Time is soup.

just a little nap

Ylva is a wolf and has no problem telling anyone about that fact. Still, there are other shapes she enjoys. She is not one to be pinned down to one approach to anything. She's flexible that way.

What this means, at the moment, is that there is an allosaurus stretched out on the pool deck, enjoying the sun. Mammals are fine, but have you ever been a large, warm-blooded reptile in a patch of sunlight? Her feathers are fluffed up strategically for maximum sunning, tail curled politely around her, head tucked gently into the classic bird pose of "using my own back as a pillow."

She is very much asleep, but not deeply so.

just a little awoo

When night falls, though, it's possible to hear howling.

The curious will find a large, shaggy wolf pacing the sports deck under the moon, restless and unhappy. She throws her head back to howl, and stops, listening. There's no answer, of course. She knows there can't be an answer. Still, she does howl, and wait, and listen.

She remains alert, though, one ear always out for someone who might come to investigate the actual howling wolf wandering the deck of the ship.

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Ylva barely understands her phone, but that's almost enough of an explanation. She makes a face. "That's so weird," she complains. "Why do you want a pretend animal? I mean. I guess there's no real ones here, but that sounds so... pointless. And you're going to tell me that's not magic, somehow, aren't you?"

"Cuz it's easier. And if it dies you don't feel as bad cuz it's not real. Like I don't have time for a pet at home cuz I work too much." Not that he had a tamagotchi either, but it would kind of be the perfect pet for someone who was almost never home.

"I don't know how the fuck electronics work, so yeah sure. Magic. It's lightning and rocks so close enough."

The look Ylva gives him is equal parts tired and baffled. "First people tell me it isn't magic, and then it's magic that's meant to look like it's not magic, and now it's 'actually it is magic.' Lightning and rocks? I can do lightning and I can do rocks but I don't know how that's supposed to make lights or moving pictures."

All for pretend pets, too. That just sounds sad.

"I mean, I don't fucking know how it works. It's magic to me, I press buttons on this and it sends my message to whoever I want, I dunno how that happens. Like I can tell you it's through the cellular network and satellites - but I don't know what that means." He shrugs, for being super plugged into the internet and tech he has no idea how those internet tubes function.

"I'm just a deputy."

To be fair, most people do not know how the internet tubes function, and lightning through metal may as well be magic. Something something Clarke's Third Law.

Ylva wrinkles her nose, thinking. She knows the word, but only sort of. "Deputy of what? Or for who?"

"For the Hope County Sheriff's department. That's where I'm from, Hope County, Montana." He pauses, scratching his jaw as he thinks about how to explain this.

"And I'm Search and Rescue so basically saving hikers who get lost, people trapped in blizzards, that kind of stuff."

He is not going to even try to explain: helicopter pilot.

"Oh."

Ylva considers this thoughtfully for a moment. That makes sense to her, more than a lot of the other things he's said. Forests are dangerous, full of weather and terrain and wild animals that might eat you. Maybe, occasionally, a roaming monstrosity or a malevolent fae. "That sounds important," she says. "What's Montana like?"

"Oh it's beautiful," there's a soft smile on his face. For all his talk of being glad he's here, there's clearly a bit of homesickness in there.

"Hope County is a valley surrounded by mountains, the kind that almost always have snow on 'em. Big forests full of deer and elk, with a river that cuts right through it, and a waterfall if you're brave enough to hike up some pretty sheer cliffs. The fishing is top notch though, can't be beat anywhere else."

She smiles, because of his description, and because she can hear all the fondness for his home in his words.

"It sounds nice," Ylva says. "It sounds like the sort of place I live. Or did live, before I ended up here. The hunting was good, and the weather was perfect."

"Yeah. It used to be awesome. And same, good hunting, great weather. People used to travel there just for that."

It's weird being homesick for something that doesn't even exist anymore. Well, the land is still there, but from what Sharky has told him, the animals got all mutated and weird and most of the trees got blown away.

"Sounds nice. Didn't realize how much I miss there being actual land until the whole thing with the diner. Infinite water is just.. weird."

"With no fish," Ylva adds. "I don't know a whole lot about ocean, but I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be fish. And algae. And seabirds. And things like that."

But she did catch that past tense in there. And that's... sad. Tragic, really. "What happened?" she asks. "Was it farmers who got rid of the forest? Because I know that happens, sometimes."

"I've never been on the ocean before either but yeah. Me and Lucius were gonna try fishing but there's just... nothing there." Not that anything on the ship makes sense, but that seems the strangest, especially since the ship feels like it's moving and going somewhere. Why not just stay stranded in a bowl of water?

"Nah, someone dropped a bomb on it. Levelled the place." He looks away, "Like uh.. really big fireball."

He can speak in magic terms sometimes.

"What?!"

She's upset. She's so upset she stands up, and starts pacing back and forth. She's maybe not always the best druid in the "defender of nature" sense, but there are some things that are just too upsetting to bear. "A whole valley. Everything. Is it all gone? Nothing at all?"

"Pretty much. The impact when it hit caused basically an earthquake and knocked over buildings and trees and started avalanches. And then everything caught on fire. The uh.. the fuel that makes those bombs work is toxic. It poisons the air, so even if people and animals survived they'd die a few days later from breathing it. It's fucking gnarly as shit." He stays where he's sitting, watching her pace and almost wishing he could work up that level of upset about it. But he knows if he does he'll just spiral worse and worse until he's a screaming ball of panic like he was right at the end.

"The people who survived had to live underground in bunkers for years."

Well, that's even worse. Ylva turns to face him, all despair, and sinks back down to sit on the ground.

"Why? I don't understand... why?!"

"Because it was time for our world to collapse under our own hubris." He frowns and looks away. Don't go full cultist. Don't go full cultist.

"But for like.. specifics? I have no idea. I don't even know who did it. Probably some other country that wanted us to be the first to die."

She sighs, heavily.

"I'm sorry. That's... a lot. I'm sorry." Ylva reaches forward to give Pratt a reassuring touch on his shoulder.

He stiffens but he doesn't pull away, which is a good sign for him. Been here long enough that he's maybe better about being touched when he's not the one to instigate it.

"Thanks. But.. I think I'll be okay. Eventually. I just hope everyone who made it is doing alright. They're the ones that got stuck suffering through the Collapse and living in bunkers which sounds miserable."

She pulls back immediately, because she does see that stiffening.

"It does sound miserable." Ylva sighs. "Would it help to howl for them, too? I mean, that's what I'm doing out here. Sometimes you just have to... I don't know. Try to be heard. Try to send a message. Even if it probably can't work."

"If I could howl I so would. But I'll just look stupid doing that." He says as if he hasn't definitely howled at the wolves back home because he wanted to say hello.

"I guess it's nice to know that people survived though. That animals and plants came back - it wasn't the end of everything. That's.. something like hopeful."

"I won't laugh."

She's serious about that, at least. She will probably not laugh.

"It's true that you find living things in all sorts of unlikely places. I guess even in... toxic wastelands."

He eyes her, because yes, he would like to howl at the nothingness around them and get it all out. But with how fucked up his voice is he's not even sure he can. Little does he know he's just gonna sound even more like a wolf.

"Promise?"

"I promise," she says, seriously. And that's true, because it's not too often that humans make an effort to howl with her. Even if he's terrible, the effort is appreciated.

Pratt kneels where he is on the deck, throwing back his head and letting out a howl. He at least sounds like someone who's heard hundreds of wolves howl before so it's a decent attempt.

They can howl into the night, it'll be nice and cathartic.

She smiles, but she absolutely does not laugh, either. She puts her head back and howls as well.

It's definitely cathartic.

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care and feeding for your wolf

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Yay i can use his wolf awooing icon

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