Video

[theweakhavepurpose]

[The video turns on to show the outskirts of town, nearby is a fence of sorts made of junk Pratt collected from the Colosseum and some baling wire. It's encircling a fancy new shooting range complete with training dummies and targets and some other items that aren't immediately identifiable.

Okay fancy isn't the right word, everything is made of remnants he found and some of the targets are empty soup cans on sticks but it looks serviceable.]

This is Deputy Pratt. I know we're all busy freezing to death, but if you'd like to take your mind off that, I've finally got this all together. Range is up and running!

It's set up by the orchard, or well.. where the orchard should be anyway.

[He pans the camera towards the orchard to show where it is and then starts walking towards the range. The camera is surprisingly steady, this is someone who has filmed hundreds of Vine videos of him and other deputies doing stupid stuff on slow days. He's a pro at this shit.]

I've got training dummies up front for anyone who wants to get their melee fighting on. But uh.. try not to completely destroy them because I don't have a ton of wood to fix them up.

For the range itself I've got targets at 10 meters, 25 meters, 50 and 100. It's not perfect because I'm measuring this with my feet, but it's close enough. Spinner targets are for guns, and the bigger baled ones are dirt and wood so they shouldn't chew up your arrows too bad.

This thing is a work in progress.

[He sets a can onto a contraption off to the side of the range, stomping his foot on a pedal and sending it shooting down the lane and a little to the left. The camera gets unsteady here as he launches a knife that's far too big for this at the can and it tumbles to the ground.]

Keeps shooting them off to the side, but it's better than throwing something and then trying to hit it.

As for weapons... [He walks over to a large but very battered chest and opens the lid.]

I've got some throwing knives that aren't stupid like the hunting knife I have. A few bows. And some arrows in here. Keep them in this crate because the weather is not kind to bowstrings and you don't want these things snapping when you're shooting.

It's on the honor system because I'm not going to freeze my ass off monitoring this twenty-four seven. So try not to burn it down in the next two days.

[Please guys. He worked hard on this. Don't set it on fire.]

Comments

[dedikated]

Not terrible. ( A one shouldered shrug. ) Only know warbows.

Used to 'ave someone good at it. 'E left a few months ago.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Warbows? Like a compound bow?

Of course. Right when we need them.

[dedikated]

( She scrunches her face up slightly, head bobbing from one side to the other. Ehhh— ) Type of longbow.

( She's seen compound bows from a distance, with all their added eccentrics and pieces, thanks to that (then) mysterious urge to attend archery classes. Something she wouldn't understand until she returned to Hadriel and all her memories returned.

And then, a snort. ) Is Hadriel. ( What else can you expect? )

[theweakhavepurpose]

Huh. All I've got is what I've managed to scavenge, but you're welcome to come try them out.

Yeah, anything terrible that can happen will happen. I'm starting to get used to that. Well no, not really. I'm starting to try to convince myself I'm used to that.

[dedikated]

( In truth, she's kept a bow from the armoury since she returned to Hadriel over a year ago, but it can't hurt to have someone look over what's left (and she will certainly need more arrows, sooner rather than later at this rate). ) Alright.

( There's a flicker of amusement which flits over her face — not quite a smile, but something close to it, maybe. This city could very well be a study on the stages of grief, with everything people go through when they realise they're stuck here. And right now they're the kids without their guardians, thinking it'll be awesome to have the place to themselves and then having to deal with everything they've never had to do before. )

Fucks with you every time you think you are.

( It goes so quiet, the gods are so kind in their events, that it unnerves, and then all hell breaks loose. )

[theweakhavepurpose]

[They can eat ice cream for breakfast but first they need to have the money to buy the ice cream which means they need jobs and transportation and to pay the utility bill to keep the freezer going and suddenly this is a whole lot harder than it seemed.]

I'm trying to anticipate the worst so I'm prepared for it. But everything this place does is fucking insane. So I don't know why I even bother anymore.

[Because he's a world champion worrier.]

[dedikated]

( And this is exactly why Kate has never been an advocate for this whole "we'll be fine without the gods!" movement people go for. Without the gods, this city has nothing in resources — even the few trees which existed until the island planet were a whim of the gods. )

Got anything else to do?

( Other than prepare for the worst, really? )

[theweakhavepurpose]

Not really. I was planting trees, but the ground here is so frozen that it takes all day to dig one fucking hole. I'm gonna have killer biceps in a few months though.

[dedikated]

Prob'ly easier ways to exercise.

( What happened to good old fashioned parkour? )

[theweakhavepurpose]

Yeah but I miss the orchard. I don't know if it'll fruit given how cold it is, but I can't eat canned shit forever.

Okay, I could, but I really don't want to.

[His face is fucked up enough without him faceplanting off a building.]

[dedikated]

( Better canned shit than Rage's Mystery Meat, as any Hadriel oldbie will tell you. )

Won't be that lucky. ( If any of them were, they'd not be in Hadriel. ) But there's prob'ly someone who has powers to help the plants.

( Come to think of it, doesn't she know a prickly little priest who likes green shit way too much? )

[theweakhavepurpose]

[Pratt wouldn't make a good wendigo anyway.]

Hey I'm trying to be positive here. I'm the king of pessimism, working on that.

[You're not helping by being all realistic and saying what he wants to.]

[dedikated]

( Deal with it~. )

Didn't realise I were talking to royalty.

[theweakhavepurpose]

King Pratt the Pessimist. With my loyal subjects, the wolves who aren't here.

Though I'm glad they didn't come with me. This place doesn't need a dozen wolves on top of everything else.

[dedikated]

( Well, the sad traumatised mountain children had one. Whatever happened to Wolfie, now that she thinks about it? Did he go home with the lot of them? )

Dozen things that can kill people coming into Hadriel sounds normal.

( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

[theweakhavepurpose]

I'm more worried about what they'd eat. You know how much food a single wolf needs in a day?

That's a hell of a lot of meat.

[dedikated]

( She honestly doesn't. Kate can't say she's spent that much time around wolves, really. )

How d'you end up with twelve wolves, anyway?

[theweakhavepurpose]

There were twenty. We lost some.

Technically they're not mine, but I feed them. They belong to Jacob. To the Project.

They like me better though.

[So suck on that everyone in the cult. The wolves like Pratt more than them. Nyah nyah nyah.]

[dedikated]

( Well, she's never had a single pet, unless you count that one event where people kept having animals shadow them, or that one Fennec which kept shadowing her. So the concept of having several wolves not only follow you but like you is one Kate can't relate to even in the most abstract of ways. )

Didn't think wolves could 'belong' to anyone. ( Like, really, what's a person going to do if a wolf decides to leave? Tell them "no, I paid for you"? )

[theweakhavepurpose]

That's what domestication is all about.

Wild animals don't belong to anyone, and they'll let you know it.

[dedikated]

( And isn't that just why they seem like far more interesting animals than domesticated ones? )

Things here have proven that.

( They might get labelled monsters, but aren't monsters just another type of animal, really? Same as humans. )

[theweakhavepurpose]

I guess we could try and domesticate the mammoth things. But we'd need a lot of resources we don't have here. More fencing for starters.

Some herding dogs.

...Or wolves.

[dedikated]

( Did that make Kate snort in amusement? Yeah, maybe. )

It always come back to wolves with you?

[theweakhavepurpose]

I miss them okay.

[He's admitting a weakness here. It pains him.]

[dedikated]

( Look if anyone understands how painful admitting a weakness is...

Kate's voice softens a little there. )

Think that makes you like anyone else here.

( Not wolves, but so many other things. And people. )