[Solomon Moon]

As the dark-haired man whipped around, Jack knew he had made a mistake.

Objectively, Jack was a solid two inches taller than Solomon, but he felt damn near five feet tall all of a sudden as a single eye locked onto his soul, somehow cold as ice and hot as hell in one instant. The way he clutched at his blade was alarming enough that Jack ought to have done the same, if his bones weren't suddenly made of concrete, and his skin full of bricks. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to, for a solidly thick moment, as he realized the extreme gravity of his fuckup.

Good gods.

Finally, he managed to muster the nerve and the resolve to speak, excreting the first flurry of words he could come up with to greet the steely man, but even as he spoke, he felt like he was only digging himself deeper into a pit. With every other word, he could feel the man's visceral annoyance increase by leagues. It seemed to be taking everything in him to keep from lashing out at Jack, and the corvid faunus was very grateful for that hint of restraint.

He was considering turning tail and running back the way he came, but couldn't before a low growl rumbled at him, suspicious and frigid. Followed? By... By what, exactly? Grimm weren't especially known for stalking their prey, or at least not any Jack had encountered. They seemed mostly content to ambush and give immediate chase, not creeping through the woods, waiting for a chance to strike.

Still, suddenly he was worried that maybe he had actually drawn Grimm to this poor guy's camp site. In retrospect, he felt like a complete idiot for coming here. His own camp had already been overrun and destroyed, and he couldn't imagine how the big man would react if he told him as much. This was an increasingly stupid and arguably dangerous decision, and he was regretting every second of it.

Then, as plain and cold as he'd warned him of potential pursuers, Solomon ordered him to get inside the shelter, and he was quite inclined to oblige the man. More out of fear than anything else, honestly- fear of the Grimm that were no doubt watching in the shadows, and fear of the militant man in front of him.

The man who made Jack intensely grateful for the protective qualities of Aura.

As he brushed by him, with the all the force of a Beringel boxing with a sci-fi Atlesian mecha, and all the tact of a sci-fi Atlesian Mecha boxing with a Beringel, it took everything in Jack to keep his feet mostly planted on the ground, as he quickly pulled himself out of the path of the unstoppable object called Solomon Moon. Despite his crow-like appearance, and the folkloric associations with arrogance attributed to it, he wasn't nearly so proud as to hold his ground in front of a beast of a man who seemed full of sulfur and brimstone.

Better to live, a smart coward, than die, a cocksure fool.

He followed swiftly behind and hurried out of the path of the entrance, and indeed, as far out of Solomon's way as he could make himself, where he sat in an incredibly awkward silence until the brusque man spoke up, in what was almost a comical attempt at softening the harsh edges of his stormy, wine-dark, baritone. It didn't work- as friendly as he had tried to sound, the words hit Jack's ears like gloved fists, pounding and bashing away. He jumped, wide-eyed at the sound, and took a moment to process the fact that he had been asked a question by the man whose face now wore a name.

"Erm, u-uh, I'm, um... Uh, J-jack... S-sorry again for uhh... F-f-f-f-for, for-" Fuck, he was having a hard time getting his words out. It happened sometimes. The stutter was always there, at least a bit, but the more nervous or uncomfortable he was, the worse it got, until, well... He got stuck. But this wasn't his first rodeo. He took a few deep breaths, stopped talking, and in his head, counted to ten.

...Eight. Exhale. Nine... Inhale... Ten. Exhale.

He made another attempt. "F-for startling you, and for um, being near your campsite. S-sorry."

Solomon

Jack? It was a tragically average name for a specimen with such a unique aspect. Sol would have guessed something like "Corvus", "Corax", or something similarly elaborate. The fact that these names, chosen for such self evident qualities would have been redundant at the equivalent of just naming himself "Cyclops", escaped him entirely. Sol had never been very sensitive to those of the faunus persuasion, and the fact that this expectation represented a failure in that regard did not even occur to the one eyed mercenary. Instead he imagined that perhaps names like "Corax", or "Corvus", were as common in Jack's culture as "Jack" was in Solomon's. Again, the assumption that Jack must represent another culture, simply by the accident of his birth as a faunus represented perfectly SOl's very narrow understanding of the animal folk.

The strip of jerky hovered between them. Sol's right hand held out the offering as if it had been cast in that position from steel rods, and this fact wasn't far from the truth at that, but the moment stretched on awkwardly long and Sol wondered if the faunus had even seen the attempted gesture of hospitality. But of course Jack hadn't, one had only to look at the boy to see that he was radiating anxiety to the point of panic, unable to even meet the disfigured man's gaze. It frustrated Sol. He'd made what was, for him at least, a heroic effort in being as non-threatening as he could manage, and the other boy was still treating him like some terrible slavering beast that might lash out at any instant. The fact that Solomon could not even blame him for this completely reasonable instinct only served to drive the knife of shame deeper into Sol's chest. Jack was practically trembling, and he had to visibly master himself just to squeeze out more than a handful of unbroken syllables. Sol felt at once pity and irritation for the display.

Sol had hoped to make the boy feel safe by offering him shelter. For Sol, there was nothing more comforting than having stone to his back and an unbroken line of sight of every point of access and egress, but it was clear that instead of feeling secure, Jack felt trapped in this confined space with a dangerous man he neither understood, nor trusted not to become violent at any instant. Sol deserved nothing less.

Before he'd resigned from his position as Lord Commander of the Celestial Legion, his temper had been legendary among the troops.The fact that this assessment of his temper had come from observation of how he behaved under the most extreme of duress, did nothing to soften the blow of the black reputation that it earned him. If anything it was worse to know that when times were hard Sol could be counted on to take out his frustration on friend and foe alike. This mistrust from his own soldiers had been a major factor in the decision to give up his position, at least until such a time that he felt he'd earned the responsibility. Looking at how Jack cowered, Sol wasn't sure he'd ever be ready to retake his post.

Then Jack tried to, of all things, apologize for startling Sol, albeit with several stammering gaps that made the already excruciating experience that much more so. Sol had to admit that he'd been angry at the boy for his unexpected appearance, but in hindsight it was easy to recognize that anger as simply a reaction of nerves frayed to shreds by a life of violence in which every new moment concealed some new threat of death. It wasn't Jack's fault that Sol was wound up more tightly than the coils in a gauss rifle. If anyone here were to blame for that, it was Sol. If a powder keg took light, one could not reasonable hold the spark responsible for the subsequent explosion when it was the addition of the gunpowder that made the situation dangerous, not the presence of a spark.

"Forget it." Sol grunted, his gravel tone grinding out the words so that they came out sounding sharp and heavy, drawing out the words as he tried to come up with some explanation that would make sense to the young man, and more importantly wouldn't make Sol sound like a violent madman. It wasn't easy.

"Have you ever been ambushed?" He asked finally, holding up the offering of jerky even higher so that Jack might actually notice it for the peace offering that it was, "Even low velocity ordinance travels much faster than sound. You could be walking through the woods, and not even know you are under fire until a dozen of your friends are dead. You often don't even hear the shot that kills you."

Sol had been involved in many an ambush, and on both sides at one time or another. In fact, name just about any evil that could be committed in warfare and Sol would be able to place himself on either side of it at some point. The memories squirmed indistinctly in the back of his mind, and it made his blood feel cold, his stomach feel like an abyss in his guts, and the jerky in his mouth taste like putrid meat. He counted his breaths, swallowing the thing that was trying to rise up out of him through that lens of violence, and averted his gaze to the floor until the sensation passed.

He did what his therapist had taught him to do when he felt those thoughts begin to intrude, and focused on the grain of the stone beneath his rump, counted the cracks, focused on the coolness of the stone behind him, focused on the sounds of his breathing, anything that was real and wasn't the poison that lived in his head. When the danger passed, he didn't feel relief, rather he felt as if the intrusion had take something away with it, leaving him just a little more empty than he'd been before. He wondered how much he'd left for this little ritual to steal from him.

Sol's gilded gaze slid across to find the avian attention of his companion. He lifted his left eyebrow, his expression as stoney as ever, and only the faint feverishness of his single eye betraying the pitched battle that had just taken place behind it.

"After living like that for a while..." He continued, clearing his throat of what sounded like an entire landslide, trying to find the words that would make it sound less like an accusation and more like explanation, "You start to expect that every unexpected sound is going to be the last thing you ever hear."

@tag

1097 words

notes

Velvet of WW

[Jack Dawson Jr.]

●●●

Scorpion sting, I don't wanna

bleed

tell me that I'm not

lost

After the monumental effort taken to eke out an apology for the scary man before him, the gravely, harsh, tone as he snapped, "Forget it," was enough, in and of itself, to make Jack flinch a little bit. Sure thing- he wasn't inclined to argue, so he simply nodded, wide-eyed, and clearly still frazzled.

That only got worse.

Because now, Jack had a bit of time to catch his breath and take in his surroundings a bit more, though his heartbeat was pounding no slower than it had been since Solomon had brusquely coaxed him into the shelter. His eyes, then, fell on the insignia on Solomon's clothing.

And he was stunned that he hadn't seen it sooner. His blood ran a bit cold, and his eyes were stricken with recognition as he stared at the fractured moon emblazoned on the human's uniform, clear as day. He knew that symbol. Not especially well, but he knew it, from his sister's tales of the Faunus Wars, and from his own reading on the same events, now considered history. It was the insignia of the Celestial Legion- the Moon Forces, a band of mercenaries with a bloody past, and an unpleasant reputation among his kind.

He'd heard from Merla that that fragmented moon was the last thing many of her patients had been able to remember seeing, describing it to her with their last breaths, before they succumbed to their injuries. That once, she had been brought to the bedside of one of their wounded, captured and critically injured.

She said he'd spit on her, lashed out with bloody, mangled, hands, as she attempted to treat him. His hatred for her people, for Jack's people, was so visceral, so deeply-ingrained, that he had chosen a painful, excruciating, death, over being saved by a Faunus medic. Perhaps not every member of the Legion was as horrifically anti-Faunus as that one.

But the fact remained that the man sitting in the shelter with Jack, right then, was wearing their crest.

A one-eyed man, wearing their crest.

He didn't dare imagine that he knew the moniker of the man seated before him. If he was shaken and nervous before, he was filled with a sudden dread now.

Wide eyes only grew wider as the earth-trembling voice of the former soldier was thrust his way again, this time with a question, seemingly out of the blue. Had he ever been ambushed? No, never. He shook his head quickly. Was that what this was...? Was the One-Eyed Dragon going to kill him, then? Now that he'd taken him by surprise? Led him into this shelter, where the cameras set up in the forest to record the Midterms could never see him die?

His spine crackled with electric fear as the man's heavy hand lurched upwards. He winced, flinching away for a moment, before recognizing the offering that the hand held; it looked like food. It seemed as though Solomon expected him to take it. He did, quickly, though he immediately felt foolish for doing so; he didn't eat meat.

And this was beef jerky.

As soon as he'd grabbed it, he stared at it, as if it were something completely alien and foreign, before carefully, and not without a sense that he was walking on eggshells, extending a trembling hand back towards Solomon, with the jerky, and an apologetic look on his face. "Th-th-thank you, really, b-but, um, I-i, uh, u-um, I don't- I c-can't- Um, s-s-sorry, I c-can't eat th-this... Th-thank you, really, though, I j-j-just..." He trailed off, trying to find some words that would make this any better. There really weren't any; he had just accepted, then immediately rejected, what was intended to be a sort of peace offering. It was a kind gesture, but if he ate it, it would make him sick. And in the forest, as they were, he couldn't exactly deal with that very easily.

The other reason he stopped talking was because Solomon's gritty voice had continued along the topic of ambushes. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought, the idea that death could come from anywhere, at any time, and he might be helpless to avoid or prevent it, just because he may not realize it's happening until too late.

Solomon looked away suddenly, and Jack felt his shoulders relax, as he slunk back a little where he was sitting, up against the cold stone wall. Just having a momentary relief from the Atlesian's penetrating gaze was a mercy he was immensely grateful for... He felt on the verge of a heart attack, just knowing that he was being watched, examined, analyzed, by that lonely, ice-cold, eye of his.

And then that relief was gone, snuffed out again, so easily, as the man turned back to haunt Jack with his gaze once more.

He gulped, uncertainly, and listened as he finished saying what he'd intended to say about ambushes. Something in his voice this time seemed a bit gentler, but it could also just have been that Jack had gotten used to the earthen groaning of whatever tectonic plates kept violently smashing themselves together in Solomon's throat.

He nodded tentatively, sitting in silence for a while, uncomfortable and unsure of what to say next.

He wasn't sure what possessed him to say it, but suddenly, he spoke, his own voice a little less timid, and a little more careful in its articulation, despite the words still thrusting themselves forcefully past his lips: "M-my sister. She um. I-i heard her say something l-like that once... A-about ambushes. And w-war." And as soon as he'd spoken, he resumed his self-appointed task of staring at the ground, and hoping for Solomon to finally give the all-clear, that they were safe from whatever perceived threat he was anticipating.

And yet, deep down, as much as he wanted to run away from this terrifying person, he was curious about him. How had someone like him come to be at Haven...? Jack could ask the same question of himself, for a host of different reasons, but the fact remained that Haven was the last place he would have expected to find a man with a reputation like his.

The last place he'd have expected to meet the One-Eyed Dragon...

Aura: 100% ● @spookyman ● WC: 1069 ● TWC: 1069 ● f e a r

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0

[Solomon Moon]

Solomon

Sol rarely did anything half-heartedly. Like the explosions he generated with his semblance it was often all or nothing. There was no gradient. Sol was either doing something, or he was not. This was probably why most people found it a somewhat unnerving experience to be the focus of his attention. Finding oneself beneath the gaze of Solomon's solitary golden eye was akin to finding oneself beneath the glare of a spotlight that was intense enough to burn. It was like the lack of a second eye funneled all of his intensity through a narrow aperture and amplified that intensity as if through a lens. Only the most hardened souls, or those that were utterly oblivious, could meet Sol's unshielded gaze for any great length of time. It was less noticeable among the soldiers of his old unit, and among the hunters and huntresses of Haven for the same reason, but whenever Sol found himself interacting with the civilian population, he remembered just how horrid he was. To anyone who hadn't seen battle, who hadn't shed blood, who hadn't killed, Solomon Moon was a monster, a mad dog, a firearm without a safety switch.

That was how Jack was looking at him. Sol pretended not to notice it, but sharing a confined space with the young man made it impossible to miss that the poor boy was absolutely terrified. His bulging wide eyes darted around like they were connected by a string to a darting flying insect. He kept his hands and feet as close to his center of mass as possible, as if he were afraid that any appendage that strayed too far would be torn off. He was pale, almost trembling with fear. His voice quavered like a broadcast on a bad frequency.

It wasn't like Sol deserved any less. He was a monster. He was a murderer. He was a mass killer. He was a mad-man. Right before the end, when Sol had been at his worst, even hard men, the kind who thought that those qualities were laudable, had started to look at him the way Jack looked at Sol now. He'd been such a master of sin, committed such evil that even evil men could not stomach him. It was enough to make Sol wonder what would have happened if Yoshito hadn't cut him down in that fateful battle. It was enough to make Sol wonder just how much further he could have fallen if being crippled and forced to relearn the most basic of tasks anew hadn't arrested his downward spiral. But there was more than that in how Jack looked at him, Sol could tell.

Jack was a faunus after all. Did he suspect? Did he know what manner of beast had lured him into this cramped little shelter?

The One-Eyed Dragon was not known for his discretion. The One-Eyed Dragon knew only war, and violence, and death. It mattered not who died, for all men were but meat and blood in his eye. He did not discriminate when it came to dealing out evil. Death was universal. The Dragon had even been known to, on occasion, lash out at his own forces who strayed too close to his work. But that was not to say that the destruction was doled out equally.

The Celestial Legion, the private army of the House of Moon, Solomon Moon's private army after the death of his father, had worked primarily for Atlas and Mistral, putting down rebellions and insurgencies in the border states where the authority of the kingdoms was more difficult to enforce. This meant, on the whole, engaging poorly equipped rag-tag militias, often from the absolute bottom of the economic ladder. The venn diagram of the systemically oppressed rural populations, living below the poverty line, and most likely to revolt, intersected at a single point that could be summed up succinctly as "Faunus". It hadn't been by design. It hadn't been driven by any special motivation beyond garden variety greed.

It hadn't been intended, but Sol had killed a great many faunus. The Celestial Legion, and by extension Sol himself, had profited greatly by being the boot that stood on the necks of faunus throughout the eastern kingdoms. Whether meant by the command structure, or simply overlooked, the work attracted the absolute worst of ultra-conservative, violently hateful, bloodthirsty, faunus hating soldiers of fortune, and made them rich as it gave them opportunities to commit the darkest fantasies of their regressive bigoted minds. Not every soldier in the Celestial Legion was a rabidly deplorable extremist, but enough were that the reputation stuck.

"Moon" was a household name in much of the periphery, a symbol of the oppressor, a symbol of humanity's destructive racial segregation.

The One-Eyed Dragon, the beast who waged a personal war across Northern Mistral, was said to have killed more men than winter itself and felt even less sympathy for the dead. The One-Eyed Dragon fed himself on the flesh of faunus children, burned entire villages to blackened pits just for being in his way, and raped their women and tortured their men. He was the iron-fist of anthro-centralism given flesh.

If Jack knew even half of the things said about Solomon Moon, then he would quite rightfully be unnerved.

Sol's gaze drifted back towards the floor as he considered this unwelcome reality. The very thought of what he might look like to Jack, shamed him to his very core. Jack's rejection of the jerky, Sol's last strip, came as little surprise in light of that realization. Even though the boy had taken it, he seemed to reconsider and come up with a reason why he couldn't accept it after the fact. It was as if he feared what Sol might do if he rejected the offer, but still didn't trust the source enough to risk eating the dried meat. Sol felt truly sorry for the terrified boy, and released him from his suffering by listlessly plucking the meat out of his grasp before he could stutter out whatever lie he'd been working towards.

"Forget it.." Sol grunted quietly, as he tore into the strip himself, as if intent on proving that it was harmless.

Sol busied himself by grabbing handfuls of twigs from a pile on his right. He carefully snapped the twigs, none of which were much thicker than a stalk of wheat, into even lengths about the same length from his thump to the tip of his forefinger, collecting the snapped twigs in his left palm. The silence yawned on between the pair, as Sol completed this peculiar and arcane task, punctuating the deafening stillness with the occasional crack of snapping wood. Then Jack surprised Sol by speaking the first unprompted words the one-eyed soldier had heard him offer.

Sol's eye flicked up to find the boy, his brow lofted curiously as the avian faunus spoke of his sister. It sounded like she was a soldier, or at least had participated adjacent to a battle or two, given the choice of words.

Sol nodded, and his gaze fell back down to his hands as he snapped another twig. His expression seemed quiet and contemplative for a long moment. Jack's statement hadn't really been a question, but the mere fact of the effort implied he wished for some sort of dialogue, and Sol considered long and hard how to respond to it. Part of him wanted to take the words for what they were, an effort to fill the uncomfortable silence, and leave it at that, but a larger part wanted to honor the supposed spirit in which they'd been intended, and to extend the olive branch. Sol deliberately chose to ignore the possibility that Jack's sister might be the exact kind of soldier that he'd sent back to the mud by the dozen back when he'd been hunting his father's killer.

"In my experience." He said, a trio of words that opened up a world of unpleasantness, his dull grinding voice barely a whisper as he snapped another twig, left hand bulging with a faggot of a few dozen similar lengths of dry tinder, "People need to lack one of two things to chose to be soldiers. Sense, or choice. Every soldier I've ever met either had no sense, or no choice. It is simply not something a sensible person would chose to do."

He began to lay out the handful of sticks in between himself and Jack in the center of the shelter, constructing a cone of twigs a few inches in diameter.

"I would presume." He said quietly, as he pulled the glove on his right hand half up his palm, exposing a few centimeters of the flesh on the back of his hand to Jack as he held it above the small stack of tinder. Only it wasn't normal flesh. With the aid of faunus night-vision Jack would be able to see that the "skin" on the back of Sol's right hand was scaly, speckled with squamous red plates between coal black flesh. "That your sister is a sensible person."

A glow passed briefly through the thin border of exposed black flesh, and the smell of burning kindling filled the shelter as he pulled his hand back and tugged the glove back down, hiding his deformed hand before Jack could get a better look. Curiously the tower of dry twigs was smoldering gently, puking out a thick column of black smoke that began to fill the shelter. It seemed like a strange mistake for someone as apparently experienced and careful as Sol had demonstrated himself to be with his construction of a shelter and apparent concern for stealth to make. But coaxed the flame to burn more furiously as he blew gently on it, until the kindling was fully involved.

The smoke seemed not to bother him.

"Are you and your sister close?" Sol asked, seemingly absently, his face illuminated in the flickering light, golden eye shining with reflected light, expression almost peaceful, "Tell me about her."

He began to add twigs to the growing blaze, which it now became apparent he'd constructed in a specially prepared depression in the center of the shelter, delineated by a ring of palm sized rocks. It seemed like it should make the problem of smoke even worse, but strangely as he added more fuel and the fire burned more brightly, the smoke produced became cleaner, until it was practically producing no visible smoke at all. Sol grabbed something from the floor nearby, a bundle of fabric with the hilt of a sword sticking out of one end. With an arm that strained not at all beneath the weight, he gripped the hilt of the wrapped blade and stabbed past Jack at the flap that served the shelter for a door, allowing what little smoke had collected to escape in a subtle puff. The confined space, which had seemed dark and foreboding a moment before, started to grow warmer, and bathed in the glow of the growing radiance, every nook and cranny became illuminated in a gentle orange light. Sol leaned back into his corner again, testing the glow of the fire against the light coming in through the makeshift window to be sure that it wouldn't give away their position.

Satisfied, he reached into a pocket and drew out a package of foil and tore open one corner before balancing it carefully on one of the rocks surrounding the fire. A few moments later the first scent of cooking food joined the smell of smoke, as the MRE began to heat up. The package contained separately packaged vegetables, fish, and mashed potatoes. It smelled artificial, over-processed, and to a man who hadn't eaten anything but jerky all day, absolutely delicious. Sol took a swig out of the flexible canteen he'd also produced from a pocket in his combat jacket, and nodded at this work of culinary brilliance. He seemed very satisfied with his efforts, this moment representing one of the few moments of peace afforded to soldiers in the wilderness. It was an activity plagued by perils, as foes might see the fire, or smell the smoke if they were nearby as the fire was lit, but neither Sol nor Jack seemed to be going anywhere, so might as well make use of the time to scrape together some chow.

Sol glanced to his companion. He wasn't exactly looking for praise for such a basic accomplishment as being able to heat up a pre-packaged field ration, but he was curious as to what Jack's reaction might be towards it.

Somewhat tentatively he offered the canteen out towards the other huntsman, jiggling it a bit and making the cool water inside slosh audibly, just in case the crow wasn't paying attention.

@tag

1097 words

notes

Velvet of WW

[Jack Dawson Jr.]

●●●

Scorpion sting, I don't wanna

bleed

tell me that I'm not

lost

Somehow, the way he rumbled forget it struck Jack as significantly more threatening than it was likely intended.

Still, if Jack was nothing else, he was good at doing what he was told. He nodded and returned to staring down at his feet. The sounds of snapping sticks penetrated the air for a good moment, before something had possessed him to speak up.

And, as though he hadn't expected the most obvious result of his action, Jack was taken aback some as Solomon looked up at him, as if judging that the handful of nerve-addled words he'd spoken were true. He hadn't had much of a reason to say anything at all, honestly- it was largely fear and stress that provoked the sudden flurry of words, and now that he was being examined so curiously by the gruff half-stranger, he was twice as uncomfortable and thrice as mad at himself for being dumb enough to speak up in the first place.

And then, just as suddenly as he'd broken the silence, they were returned to it, but for the sound of twigs snapping and rustling about in the one-eyed man's hands. And just as sudden as the return to silence, was Solomon's turn to break it. A stilted and abrupt parody of conversation, if ever there was one- talk, stop. Talk, stop.

Solomon talked.

Interesting, philosophical, words. Words which Jack was embarrassed to say he hadn't expected from the former mercenary's mouth.

Sense or choice... He reckoned he was in the first category, much as he'd like to place himself in the second. Merla hadn't had a choice, in some grand sense; at least, who could see so much suffering and hurt in the world, and make the other choice, to sit back and pretend it wasn't there? Her choice was clear, even if it had cost her her life in the end, just as it could very well cost Jack his. She chose to fight that suffering, and help people, because the alternative was too cold to endure.

Solomon pulled his glove askew as he brought his idea to its conclusion, offering Jack a glimpse of what appeared to be burn tissue and heavy scarring, at a glance. He swallowed, recalling the many myths and stories about the soldier before him. He wondered how many were true...

Smoke rumbled from the flames, and Jack was mostly unfazed by it- he'd grown up in a diner, smoke was as ordinary for him as rain. His companion's gravelly voice tore through the haze, noticeably gentler, but also noticeably not gentle. Jack answered without hesitation; "Were... W-we um... Were close." He paused, thinking. He glanced up to meet Solomon's solitary gaze. "The Fall." It was as good an explanation as any; two words, and they told everything they needed to say. He wasn't sure why Solomon cared about his sister, but presumably, it was idle conversation to occupy his mind as he built his fire. Jack obliged, moments later.

"Sh-she um. Merla... She was a m-medic. In the um. The F-f-faunus War. And a Huntress... She s-served in south-eastern Mistral... A-after the war, she w-was offered a position at Haven. H-head of the Infirmary, a-and a professorship, t-teaching first aid and ethics." He wasn't sure if this was what Solomon wanted to hear, but it was the first thing he could think of. Which said a lot about how his perception of his sister had shifted, following her death- as much as he tried to remember her as a sister, and a person, it was hard to avoid conflating her with her deeds and legacy. "Sh-she was my hero... She was a h-hero for a lot of um. People."

Talk. Stop.

Following his short burst of motivation to talk, it was only inevitable now, in the verbal dance they were engaged in, for Jack to stop talking, as abruptly as he'd began.

He gazed into the fire, wistfully. It appeared that Solomon was beginning to cook something, hopefully not as meaty as beef jerky. Smelled like fish... Carrots, onion, corn... Instant potatoes. For a man as militant in appearance as Solomon, the MRE didn't surprise Jack in the least. And funnily enough, it wasn't all that unfamiliar a sight to Jack either.

His family's diner was built on a foundation of turning war rations into more palatable war rations, after all, and he'd studied the family recipe book about as well as he'd studied his medical texts. Which gave him an idea, as Solomon passed him the canteen. He offered an olive branch of a smile, and graciously accepted the offered drink. "Th-thank you." He took a hearty swig, before offering the canteen back to its owner, along with a suggestion. "I, um. I h-have a few wild herbs, and s-some mushrooms I foraged e-earlier. If you um. Want to add th-them to your meal. It's not much, b-b-but, I..." For once, he decided to just let himself shut up, and just reached into his bag to let his meager contribution to the MRE speak for itself.

As he'd said, it wasn't much- a handful of loose thyme and carroway, and a few measly chanterelles and oyster mushrooms. Awkwardly, he extended the small collection of wild ingredients to Solomon; whether he accepted them or not, at least he could say he offered.

Aura: 100% ● @boomboom ● WC: 922 ● TWC: 1991 ● c o o k f r e n

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0

[Solomon Moon]

Solomon

"Merla"

Sol sought his memory for any mention of an avian faunus by that name. His knowledge of the Faunus War was nearly encyclopedic, at least from the point of view of humanity. No matter how he scoured his memory, he couldn't call forth any detail to connect to the name at least not related to that awful conflict. At least now the boy's reaction to Sol made a bit more sense. If Jack knew enough about the Faunus War to recognize Sol or his insignia then he was quite justified to be fearful of the one eyed warrior. With that barrier dropped between them, Sol belated lifted his head with a bit of a start as more pieces fell into place.

"The Fall... Merla... Served in Southeastern Mistral... Head of the Infirmary... The Fall... The Fall..."

It all clicked at once. By the dead. Why did he have to ask that? The truth was plain as a gunshot in the dead of night. Merla had the job before Haragitanai joined the faculty. Jack was talking about her exclusively in the past tense. The Fall. Merla had been on the airship whose crash had wiped out an entire generation of Mistrallan huntsmen. Sol had been twenty-one at the time, and had been on the other side of Mistral, fighting deeply entrenched insurgents, radical remnants of those groups who fought in the Faunus War, but even there, the news of an entire crop of the nation's future dying at once in a freak accident had reached him.

The Fall had been good for the Legion's business. The upstroke of bandit activity that came in the wake of such a loss of the peacekeeping capabilities of the kingdom had meant a lot more work for mercenaries, and a great boon to their coffers as they were able to demand rates that were practically extortionate from the desperate settlements left without protection. In a way, Sol had benefited directly from the death of Jack's sister, his hero.

It stole the words from him like they had been smashed out of his head by a hammer. Sol could do nothing but stare mutely at the boy, his entire perception of Jack completely refashioned by the addition of that solitary completely unexpected detail. Stupidly, he wanted to say something, anything, only to realize as he was dragging the words together in his head that it would be the exact same sort of empty platitude that he himself hated to hear whenever he revealed anything about himself to others. The words soured and dried up on his tongue, unsaid.

Sol went back to tending the fire and the MRE, a pregnant silence left to gestate between them. Perhaps a better man could have said something comforting, could have said something that would be valuable to the young faunus, but Solomon Moon was not a better man, so he said nothing. Fucking Coward.

The one eyed warrior fully expected the rest of the night to pass in that uncomfortable silence, certain that he'd just murdered any chance of a rapport between himself and Jack, if not by dredging up a horrifically painful memory of the loss of his sister and personal hero, then certainly by failing to acknowledge that he'd done so. Fucking. Coward. It made Sol feel sick, and it made the freeze dried food he was reheating turn his stomach nauseously. He suddenly didn't have much of an appetite.

"I, um. I h-have a few wild herbs, and s-some mushrooms I foraged e-earlier."

Jack's voice actually startled the war-hardened killer the slightest bit, and he snapped straight as an arrow where he rested to turn his head towards the source of those words. Again, understanding took a few moments, and more than a few glances between Jack's averted gaze and the articles held out in his palms, but then it dawned upon the scarred soldier and a bit of hope blossomed in his breast.

Sol swallowed, a faint twitch of the corner of his mouth threatening to perhaps become a smile at some point, as soon as the muscles there that had atrophied over the years remembered how best to accomplish it. He poked the balanced MRE closer to Jack with the stick he'd been using to tend the stealthy campfire. His mouth felt dry and cracked, and he covered up his absolute loss for words by reclaiming the canteen and taking a swallow.

"By all means. You are my guest." His voice sounded even more jagged and cracked than usual, but there was a peculiar warmth there too.

It was probably just that the monotone avian was hungry. Why shouldn't he be? He'd been trapped in this forest just as long as the cyclops, and Sol was famished. There was probably nothing to read into the gesture but being purely transactional, Jack meaning to trade some foraged food for a shared portion of Sol's field ration. It was a perfectly understandable and pragmatic rationale, but Sol still dared. somewhat stupidly in his own opinion, to hope that it was a sign of something more than just cold reason. He dared to hope that it meant that Jack didn't hate him.

It gave him courage enough to speak a little more.

"You know," He said uncertainly, as he pulled a single cigarette out of the first aid kit on his belt, and lit it from the smoldering tip of his fire poker, "Among the northerners," he was of course referring to the rugged bands of northern barbarians from the frozen wastes of Mantle who he'd served with in Atlas and Mistral, whose numbers made up a large majority of the Celestial Legion's forces, "It is considered a great honor to prepare dinner for the party. Good food is a rare luxury in the field, and those men who can fight as well as cook are held in high esteem."

Sol stopped at that, puffing idly on his roll of tobacco until it caught. It was dangerously close to being complimentary, and worse yet, friendly. Chances were Jack would hear it, and see the gruesome example of a man saying it, and justifiably judge it as insincere and suspicious. It didn't matter that Sol meant it, that he was actually impressed by Jack's offer, the dead knew, Sol was simply not the kind of creature whose friendliness and comradery could be trusted. The mud of southern Atlas and the fowled swampy waters of northern Mistral were full of good men and women who could testify to that.

@tag

1097 words

notes

Velvet of WW

[Jack Dawson Jr.]

●●●

Scorpion sting, I don't wanna

bleed

tell me that I'm not

lost

Jack flinched as Solomon jerked upwards at the sound of his voice.

But as the Atlesian's face contorted into what he could only assume was supposed to be a smile, he reminded himself that if Solomon wished him harm, he'd have likely already done it by then. Which was a correct assumption- instead of striking him down, the One-Eyed Dragon nudged the MRE pack towards the faunus. With a gracious smile, Jack reached down and, with careful precision, quickly chopped his herbs and mushrooms against one of the stones surrounding the fire, using his sword. It was old and faintly rusty, in spite of his best efforts, from surviving two wars, but the falchion's blade was still sharp and heavy, like a good kitchen cleaver. Hopefully Solomon would appreciate the pragmatism, far more than he would be offput by the mundane use for a Huntsman's weapon.

Foraged foods chopped, he added them to the meal, spreading them carefully into the mashed potatoes, and over the fish and vegetables. It would be better with a little salt, but he didn't happen to have any left on him, after his camp was overran.

As Jack busied himself with the cooking, Solomon spoke up again, this time provoking a less anxious reaction from the faunus. He glanced up, at what he presumed to be a compliment of sorts. He actually wasn't entirely sure, frankly. The tone of voice, and well- the voice, itself, seemed to suggest otherwise, hitting his ears like hot coals and rusted nails. But the words themselves, and the way they were phrased, seemed to be pointed at Jack's addition to the MRE, which, upon finishing, he carefully slid back across the fire towards Solomon.

He looked up as the man finished speaking, and could see something unusual on his otherwise stony face. He wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't seem hostile. He offered a thin smile, fond, but restrained, as he thought of his family. "M-my dad told me the um. Same thing. N-n-not about the um, th-the Northerners, though... H-he fought in the Great War. He was p-popular in his platoon, for c-cooking. Then he ended up in M-mistral... Now he runs a diner in town. In the um. G-ground District." It felt like a good, valid contribution to the conversation. At the very least, Solomon had asked him earlier to talk about his sister. By extension, he figured maybe he'd want to know about the rest of his family, or at least the relevant details.

Not that he was any surer of why exactly he'd wanted to know about his sister.

Aura: 100% ● @moonfren ● WC: 446 ● TWC: 2437 ● sMaLl tAlK

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0

[Solomon Moon]

Solomon

Sol had been at Haven for more than a few months, and was now participating in the second round of exams after (unfairly in his opinion) flunking out of the first, and other than his physical with Dr. Haragitanai, this was the first time he'd managed to carry on a conversation for longer than a few minutes without it devolving into violence or hostility. That realization struck him like a bullet between the eyes. It was something mundane, simple to the point of being completely taken for granted by his peers, and the fact that something as plain as making small talk could be so remarkable just reminded the one eyed man just how broken of a person he was. Perhaps Shadecloak had been right to assign him to the Orchids for the second round of testing, not that it would make him hate the cold bitch any less. This whole misadventure had only started from Sol probing for details that might help him pass this exam, but the nature of the answers, while perfectly meeting the criteria, was such that he dared not to record any of it. To do so felt too much like a betrayal, like he'd ambushed Jack into delivering sensitive details.

There was no uncomfortable silence to follow his compliment. Actually Jack wasted so little time in answering that the former soldier would have believed that he'd finally done something to convince the tall lad that Sol was not a threat. It was so unexpected for him, that the golden eyed warrior couldn't call to mind any meaningful response, and instead just continued to puff gently on his cigarette. He scanned the words suspiciously for any sign of insincerity, hidden barbs, double meanings, with such a practiced familiarity for doing so that he didn't even realize he was doing it, at least not until he came to the conclusion that, No, Jack wasn't trying to trick him, goad him, or insult him. Jack seemed to be perfectly sincere, and the fact that Sol expected the opposite revealed a great deal about himself. Sol wondered briefly and privately what it was that made him expect people to hate him, but the question answered itself so quickly that it was foolish to even ask.

He was The One-Eyed Dragon after all, and had bought that name with the blood and suffering of others, sometimes innocents. Sol had done things that would leave scars in the fabric of the world for hundreds of years, and had willingly participated in systems of oppression that would, in all likelihood, never be unraveled. It was true that only a very small number of people hated him personally, but that was mostly because Sol was very careful to prevent anyone from knowing him closely enough to gain any insight that might be used against him. The Majority, and that was "Majority" with a capital "M" daubed in blood, justifiably despised him for what he symbolized. Sol was the spoiled noble, the heartless capitalist, the incompetent heir, the cold iron grip of the military industrial complex, all rolled into one, with his crimes interchangeable depending on who was passing judgement at that moment. Over time, even Sol had started to lose the distinction between that symbol and whatever he was without it, wearing the right mask, playing the role, depending on whose company he was in. He wore a mask to separate himself from a world which he hated and which scorned him in turn. He wasn't even sure if there was anything beneath that mask anymore, or if the parts of him he'd hidden away from the erosive forces of the world had labored so long in darkness that they were just desiccated husks, only held together anymore by the disguise in which he wrapped them. Maybe there had never been anything there to begin with, maybe he had only ever been the mask, and once he removed it, he would discover that there was nothing underneath.

It was moments like this, tiny, insignificant, human moments, where he could just talk to another person and forge a connection, however frail it surely would be, that birthed the deepest kind of regret inside him, the taste of honey on the lips of a starving man, the faintest spark in a world gone dark. It hurt him deeply in a place he had done his best to forget, and in a way he barely understood. How he wanted to yell, to scream, to confess every fear and insecurity he had, to grab onto that spark and stretch it out into an inferno and obliterate his sins and his weakness in the conflagration. He wanted to pass through the threshold left open between him and this stranger, to cast open the door and allow an unfettered view of himself, to be seen clearly, if however briefly, to be heard, understood. He wanted to tell someone, anyone, everything there was to tell about himself, and he wanted to be witnessed as he truly was.

But how could he? Even if he could collect everything and produce the right words to make it understandable, and through his words bleed out all the pus that had collected over the years, and say all the things he desperately needed to say, who would understand him? It was the mad ravings of a lunatic. It was impossible. He'd tried, the dead knew he had, but it never came out right. Those moments of weakness always ended in looks of disgust, concern, or acts of violence.

Sol simply wasn't equal to the task. He wasn't a philosopher, or a poet, or a psychiatrist. He was a shell. He was alone, a prisoner in his own flesh, bound in chains of his actions, gagged with his crimes.

Even his voice was unfit for the task. It was rough, unpleasant, broken, and would turn even the sweetest song to dissonant chords. Sol wasn't blind to the disgust, the disdain, and sometimes even shock or fear, others showed for the ruin of his vocalizations. It took more courage than he cared to admit to say anything at all, to endure the scorn, and it took more courage than he thought he had to say anything truly illuminating. It was why he often said so little. It was what others often interpreted as impatience, indifference, coldness; another link in his bonds.

So Sol just sat quietly for a long while, tasting the tobacco smoke on his tongue. The smell reminded him of his father. It was strange, how he could barely remember Terrel's face, but the smell of tobacco made it feel as if the old man were close enough to touch. It was bittersweet, a nostalgia that almost reached deeply enough to touch that ball of fossilized grief he still held deep inside with the other relics of a life that had ended in the northern swamps.

Watching Jack work, was nearly therapeutic, though not directly. The boy moved with a skill and dexterity that bore a quiet confidence completely at odds with his fearful stuttering demeanor. It told Sol that Jack was well practiced in the culinary arts, and that they were a type of refuge for him to escape from a world that was often hostile and threatening. It was obvious to observe the care, the silent pride in the task, however meager it might have been, and signaled to Sol that Jack could have done a lot better than a freeze dried MRE if he'd had more time to prepare. The production of the curved blade to chop the roots and herbs gave Sol a sharp instinctual start, but it was just a product of his traumatized brain continuously searching the environment for threats, and while he couldn't exactly relax with the bare steel glinting in the firelight, evoking horrible memories in Sol's head, the former soldier was able to accept it's presence once it's purpose became clear.

It was a peculiar weapon. Clearly old, and of a design that Sol had seen at the Mistrallan Museum of Military History, earlier that year. Sol recognized the sword as a Valanese infantry weapon. While well cared for, it was starting to show signs of degradation and not fine enough to have belonged to a commissioned officer, most of whom came from wealth and could afford much more elaborate arms and tended towards cavalry over infantry in any case. Sol felt a little chill at the thought. That sword had been wielded by a man fighting for the enemies of those to which Sol's family had aligned themselves. There it was, a bloody piece of history, preparing his dinner.

Sol was ashamed that the revelation didn't put a larger dent in his appetite, but he really was starving.

He didn't wait for an invitation, the very moment that Jack indicated that the food was ready, Sol snatched up the packaging with his right hand, blithely unconcerned for the heat of it, even as it made the glove he was wearing sizzle audibly. Using a tin spoon he produced out of a case from the inner pocket of his jacket, he quickly portioned out the food onto a triangle of foil that he tore off his emergency blanket, and slid it over to Jack. He kept the larger portion for himself, though not out of selfishness, but rather because his share contained the filet of fish, and Sol had paid attention to the faunus' dietary preferences. The golden eyed warrior considered the division for another brief moment, and slopped out a bit more gravy and vegetables to make up for the unequal allotment.

Sol's stomach let out a long grumble, that was the single loudest sound that had filled the shelter for a good long while, and holding his food in his right hand, he prepared to begin shoveling the food into his face with his left. He paused briefly the spoon mere inches from his lips and glanced at Jack, who had no tool in evidence with which to feed himself, and could not be counted on to do so by hand, given the dense plumage covering his arms. Sol grunted, and plopped the spoonful back into the package and then tossed the spork down on top of Jack's portion.

Salivating like a starving dog, Sol tore the glove off of his left hand and dug into his meal without a further thought, scooping the stewy mixture of gravy, herbs, mushrooms and vegetables with out with two blunt powerful fingers, before plucking out the slab of steamed fish and taking a big juicy bite.

In the first few weeks of basic, Sol and the other new recruits had been allotted only a few minutes to eat during mess. The sarge would time them down to the second, and whatever chow was left on the table after the timer expired, was taken away and tossed in the trash. The exact time limit varied arbitrarily depending on the drill sergeant's mood at the time, and could be as little as three minutes, and never any more than five. It was intended to simulate the conditions of active duty, where soldiers might be engaged for days at a time, or might come under attack during meal times and need to have consumed enough nourishment to function effectively, and the uncertainty of even a peaceful activity. If a rookie didn't eat enough to fill themselves up in five minutes or less, then they went hungry, and they fought hungry, and they trained hungry, with every expectation of keeping up with the rest of the squad. Three minutes was an insanely brief window to consume enough nutrition to make it through what might be a further eight hours of hard marching, or combat drills, or whatever fresh hell the sarge had dreamed up for that day. Like many things in military life, it was an impossible goal, and half the lesson was to still give one hundred percent even when the task seemed impossible. It also taught another valuable lesson, that in the field one might find themselves without food if something happened to the supply lines, and it taught them to recognize the symptoms of actual malnourishment. With only one meal of no longer than five minutes per day, Sol and his squad had spent those first few weeks on the verge of starvation, barely able to function from hunger, and even once had raided the trash for discarded morsels. An Lt. had caught them, rifling through the garbage like feral dogs, and had forced them to eat everything in the bin as punishment. Sol and three others spent that night with the most horrible cases of food poisoning, only to have the sarge force them to hike twenty kilometers in full gear first thing the next morning.

Sol ate like he was expecting someone to take it away. He barely had time to chew what he was cramming into his mouth, and even less to taste it. He was well on his way to demolishing the whole ration in less than two minutes, when he looked up at Jack who was much more conservatively picking away at his own share. Cheeks bulging, face smeared with gravy, cigarette still somehow dangling from the left corner of his mouth, Sol blinked and swallowed loudly and made a rueful expression as he realized how strange it must seem to a fresh recruit like Jack.

"This is good." He said, coughing slightly, the last gulp being slightly too much for his tortured throat, as he smeared some of the gravy off his face with the back of his hand, "Maybe I should pay a visit to your father's restaurant, and see what your family can do with real food."

It was a stupid thing to say, and with his voice like grinding gears and black reputation, Sol was vaguely concerned that it would come across as a threat. Besides, he could never actually do such a thing. The One-Eyed Dragon, eating at a restaurant run by faunus, who it bared mentioning had fought for Vale during the Great War, was a fantastically idiotic decision, and a great way to get food-poisoning, or worse. He groped around for something to change the subject.

"My father fought in the War too, like yours." Brilliant choice, idiot, just casually mention that at one point your families would have been mortal enemies, "Uh.. That was his sword, wasn't it?" Sol gestured towards the falchion in question with his left hand "I saw one like it at the museum." That was slightly better, though still would have seemed an obvious deflection to anyone paying attention.

Sol's hand fell back down, unconsciously finding the pommel of his own sword, as he thought about his own father for a brief moment, as if talking of him had called Terrel back from the pat for a brief instant. Sol's gaze, which had been shining feverishly, went flat and drifted back into the middle distance. He went back to feeding himself, more slowly this time, the food having lost all flavor for some reason.

@tag

1097 words

notes

Velvet of WW

[Jay]

XP Distribution:

Jack Dawson Jr.: 24
47 + 24 = 71