come_sailaway | winning, but at what cost

Who: Ylva and any concerned parties?
What: Ylva got in a fight with a cat, and now she's off to lick her wounds.
When: mid-to-late October, before the party, after this altercation with Siffleur
Where: The buffet
CW: Some blood and wound talk.

She won. The important thing is that she won.

Or so Ylva keeps telling herself. She's tougher than she looks, and can take a lot of punishment, but she can't stop thinking about some of the things Siffleur said to her before she shook him in her jaws like an errant pup and told him he wasn't worth killing. It isn't often that she is mocked for her very-canine-desire to be appreciated and trusted, to be liked, and he's just a stupid cat and cats are always by themselves, he's wrong and she knows he's wrong, but why does it bother her?

She never did ask his name.

At any rate, here she is in Windjammer's, in a far corner with a plate of dino nuggets, a large slab of meatloaf, and a large pile of raspberries. At the moment, though, she has her shirt pulled up, running her hand over the wounds on her side. The cuts close behind the touch of her hand, the flesh knitting back together into some bright pink scars, though her blood remains. Sighing, she takes some of the huge pile of paper napkins and, wincing a little, starts wiping herself clean.

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"Is that his name? I didn't ask. He was too busy telling me he wanted to eat the people here."

Ylva growls a little, under her breath. "He'll live. Had him in my jaws, could've killed him. He would've killed me. But he'll live." A pause. "He might have some burnt paws. I'm actually not sure on that point."

"Good job winning," Nobunaga nods. "He's strong, so you must be even stronger." He should be more sympathetic, he just literally doesn't know how.

"If he eats me, don't punish him, I asked him to cover up the evidence if I die while trying to conquer infinity." Just... He really admitted that. Out loud. To another person who already doesn't like or trust the cougar. Yes. The most excellent of life choices being made by the Demon King, every day all day.

"I'm very strong. I could've done a lot worse if I'd wanted."

But she gives him a slightly startled look. "I don't get it. You're okay if he eats you? I know we don't die permanently here, but... look, he's not exactly someone I'd trust to make it quick and painless. And it's not like he needs to."

"I don't doubt," he nods.

And tilts his head. "I don't fear pain. I don't want my reputation tarnished. A matter of pride. I'm not the type to commit harakiri or feel indebted to shame, but there's a reason they specifically seek the most painful way to try to restore honor. Should I fail, it would be more embarrassing than any amount of pain a fellow predator could bestow upon me."

What does that even mean? Best not think too much on it.

Nobunaga also has a contract - as Ari would say - to eat Siffleur too. But he's not going to mention that part. Even Oda knows that's weird.

She bares her teeth. "He wants to inflict pain on the weak. For fun. There are people here who can't fight back, not against a cougar. He enjoys their pain. Fine. If he hunts you, I won't be worried. But if he goes up against people who can't? Then I will show him."

Ylva shakes her head. "Life and death are a cycle. You can't have one without the other. But there are proper ways to do it, ways that are right. Ways that don't make people fear you."

Nobunaga's quiet for a moment. "He's already saving Ava and Fio candy for Halloween. So he's not wholly indiscriminate. Don't wolves also target the weakest in herds, the ones that would fall even if they were not eaten?"

That's the easy part. As for the rest?

"What's wrong with being feared?"

There's a reason he overly empathized with the Captain. And he's genuinely baffled by it. Not testing or defending any point of view, just not comprehending.

"That's different," Ylva says, impatient. "You kill to eat, you have to kill to eat, you take the weak, but you don't kill your own weak. And we have to help each other. We have a dumb boat and a lot of danger and we can't be hurting each other. That's the strength of the pack. How can we be strong if we're always hurting each other?"

A pause, then, "Being feared by your pack is no way to live. A pack is about love. A pack is family."

Oh okay.

Nobunaga relaxes instantly. "He just got here, Ylva. Tigers are solitary creatures. He's not like a lion with a pride, and most big cats don't find strength in relying on each other or working together. They have to claim space away from each other so that they don't over-hunt a region. The only place on this ship that can even count as is the Spirit Halloween. It's not just food for him, it's an entire way of living. Give him time, he's not beyond capacity to understand better, but it's a big shift of thinking for him. It was for me too, but at least I'm used to having to work with others. He's not even had that much. Cooperation is stronger, but usually tigers do have to intimidate each other. For them being feared by other predators is necessary. Must suck, huh?"

"Do you think I don't know how cats work?"

There's a bit of a snarl in her voice. "I have lived my whole life like this. I am a wolf, but I am a druid, too. I know how trees use mushrooms to talk to each other, and how hives of bees speak in dance, and how the fish swim up from the sea to spawn and then die of it, and how the bears grow fat to survive the winter on their corpses. He's a danger as he is, and he needs to learn."

Ylva stuffs a dino nuggie in her mouth and chews furiously. "There's nothing special about him hunting. I am a hunter. We're all hunters. We all kill in order to live, and anyone who says differently is fooling themselves. And if he only respects strength, then I'll be that strength to keep him in line until he does learn."

"Trees use mushrooms to talk?!"

Wait important things first...

"Okay." Nobunaga likes Siffleur, but he's not his responsibility. There's a reason he didn't take him into his army. "You can be the rock. I'll give him the alternative. The easy way out."

Also.... "How do trees use mushrooms to talk?"

She grunts, for a moment caught between being angry and not being angry.

"Okay, look. The bit of the mushroom that grows where you can see it? That's not the mushroom. Or at least it's just the tiniest bit of it. It's like... well, it's like one flower on a whole big tree. The mushroom grows through the whole forest, all tangled up with the roots of the trees and undergrowth. You can't hardly see it, because it's made of these tiny, tiny little threads." Ylva gestures expansively and meaninglessly, trying to communicate the vastness of this idea in vain. "The trees feed it, actually. And then they give the mushroom messages. Not in words, or sounds, but more like. A little package made of a message that only other trees could make sense of. They give those to the mushroom, and it carries them to other trees, through those threads, to other roots. Whole forests, just having quiet conversations about when they should make acorns, or how to grow without running into each other."

Talking about this has her excited, her face flushed. "No one realises it. But it's there and it's important. And I mean, that's not all mushrooms, there are other types of mushrooms that live in different ways, but some mushrooms are doing that, all the time."

Mind blown!

"That's so cool! Sugoi sugoi! Ahhhhh what happens if they grow on people, could they get telepathy? Or other animals? Or --" Gasp! "What do the other mushrooms do?"

"It's... it's not telepathy. It's just tree language." She shakes her head. "It couldn't grow on people, and you wouldn't need it because you talk with sound."

This is all very obvious to Ylva, honestly. "There's lots of types of mushrooms. Some grow on dead things and eat them. Some are diseases that infect trees or insects, make them act strange. It's just that some types of mushrooms connect trees together and carry messages for them."

"I see," a nod!

And then a laugh. "Mushrooms are so amazing. So druids are experts in animals, insects, trees, and mushrooms? What else?"

winning, but at what cost

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cw: harakiri

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