The Next Night

Skotad finally waded through the underbrush into the clearing. He had been driven out of his hive by the incessant snoring of his lusus (he didn't remember it being so damned annoying before) and had wandered the coast, until deciding to head towards a clearing where he had taken part in a casual get-together the night before. He wandered around the edge of the clearing before finally sitting down in front of the pile of ashes that had been the previous morning's fire, pulled his bladestaff out of his specibus, and prodded the charred logs with it, musing to himself about the previous nights' events. He didn't know why he had joined the gathering. Boredom, he supposed. He hadn't really done much, just stared moodily into the fire like he was now.

"Would you look at that?" Zubrae said as he crept up on Skotad from behind. "Finface came back."

He continued past the sea dweller and circled the ash pile, pointing at Skotad with his hatchet as he spoke. Like the night before, Zubrae was wearing his signature facepaint.

"It was a miracle you even showed to begin with."

Zubrae lowered the weapon and sat down on the opposite end of the burnt logs. It was a fun hangout last night, even though almost half of it was devoted to glaring at Shayla and trading insults with her. He moved the hatchet into his left hand, wanting to keep it out of his strife deck and visible so long as Skotad was there, and looked at where Shayla's nails had dug into his right hand; what started as simply holding hands quickly escalated into testing each other's threshold of pain. Zubrae switched the axe back into his primary hand and returned his attention to Skotad.

"If you're trying to get yourself back into the group again, you have to stop being so fucking boring."

Skotad closed his eyes and took a calming breath when he heard Zubrae walk up. To tell the truth, he had been rather grateful for Shayla's presence the night before. It had been a relief to have Zubrae's ire turned elsewhere for once, although he had been a trifle envious of their interaction. He carefully avoided thinking of the glares he himself had received from Atma over the fire. Regardless, his determination now to ignore his fellow auspisticee (after all, he would be justified in avoiding interaction, since Morgan was nowhere to be seen at the moment, although truth to be told he wasn't sure her presence would improve anything) was immediately broken when he heard the clown's latter comment. He glanced up in surprise. "wait, was I part of 'the group' to begin with?"

"Zubrae, leave him alone." Aerona stated, walking over to the two trolls by the pile of charred wood and ash.

She had enjoyed their little get-together the night before, however little she added to conversation. She liked listening to others, or just watching. She was used to just being an observer. Truth be told, though, she just didn't want to get any closer to the fire than she had to. Being raised by giant bugs will do that to a troll. She strode over to Skotad and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, smiling.

"Don't worry about him, 'Tad. You are part of the group, so stop worrying. And you-" pointing accusingly at Zubrae "-leave him be! He isn't boring. He's just... shy." She thought over her retort for a few moments before nodding, agreeing with herself. She went to go sit by the previously warm fire, taking out a piece of charcoal and drawing symbols on the hard ground.

Skotad made a face at her grumpily. He had rather expected to be wandering alone tonight, as he was wont to do on occasion. It didn't look like that was going to happen this time. Aloud he said, "Fat chance of that ever happening. Seems it's his job."

((OOC note: I'mma not use Skotad's quirk for dialogue. The lack of ending punctuation makes it all kinds of unintelligible without line breaks. ))

Aerona looked up and Skotad, confused at his grumpy demeanor. She realized, looking around at the desolate little cliff, he probably came out here to think. She looked back at her drawings, then at the sky.

"If you want to leave, 'Tad, you can. Or, you could stay. We don't have to talk. You can go do your lone-wolf thing."

She looked up at him, waiting for a reaction.

Zubrae rolled his eyes at Aerona's comment towards him. He remembered Skotad being much less reserved before his disappearance, shy or not. Furthermore, the sea dweller seemed to reject reconnecting with his old friends, but the moment Zubrae decided he wasn't fit to be around them anymore, he shows up to the gathering like he was expected.

"Yeah, ocean sucker, leave. Maybe I'll see you in three sweeps when you decide we're worth your time again?" he said, glaring across at Skotad.

He glared at the clown, stung by that last comment. He wanted to complain that it wasn't a fair one, but truth to be told, it would be hypocritical of him to make that complaint, since Zubrae didn't actually know any of the details of why he'd vanished into seclusion. For all that guy knew, he'd hit the motivation spot on without even trying. And Skotad wasn't about to bare his soul to tell this hostile indigo-blood why he was being unfair. He looked back into the ashes again, but he didn't leave. Instead, he picked up his bladestaff and began doodling in the sandy dirt, expression stubbornly closed.

Aerona looked backed down and signed in defeat, continuing to draw images on the ground with charcoal. Zubrae could be blunt, she knew that, but now he was being downright rude. Still, she wasn't about to get into a fight. Resigning herself to silence, she hopped that they would get over whatever it is that was bothering them.

Expecting a response that never came, he continued watching Skotad before turning his attention to Aerona. Stupid Skotad hardly ever shouts back, and Aerona doesn't look like she's having fun. Zubrae's gaze then fell to the pile of burnt logs and ash; might as well get another campfire started.

"Well, this is fun," he said sarcastically while bringing himself back on his feet, "but how 'bout we get the burning started?"

Skotad snorted. "You came here tonight for fun," he said with equal sarcasm, but he got up. "I'll grab some kindling." He had seen quite a bit of deadwood on ground in the small forest he had walked through to get here. Within moments he had enough fuel of varying sizes to keep a fire going for hours. He shoved some of the ash out of the small pit and replaced it with a small pile of kindling, over which he placed the half-charred logs from last night. "Anyone got something to light this with?"

While Skotad was gathering he kindling, Zubrae started to take some of the left over logs from last night and began splitting them so that they could keep the fire fed once it got going. Only two logs split by the time he got back, Zubrae was busy wrestling with the third, foot on top of it while he tried to prey out his hatchet which was stuck roughly halfway through. Finally he yanked the axe free and searched through his sylladex and patted his pockets in response to Skotad's question.

"Nope. For once I actually don't have anything for fire starting..."

Another chop downward and the difficult log was split. That should be enough for a while, not that it matters without a fire.

"We could... try making sparks from the rocks, like in the movies." Aerona joked, getting up and wiping her coal-dust covered hands on her black jacket. She supposed she should try and help the two, even if she wasn't going anywhere near the soon-to-be-fire. She wondered if there was any flint around, in the ground or above.

Skotad padded down his pockets and checked his sylladex, which as usual had a lot of junk and very little of use in it. Not that there was anything here he'd like to replace whatever he took out of it with. Damn modus. He shrugged apologetically at his companions. "Maybe we could ask via trollian if someone has something that will work, or something?" he offered lamely.

The leaves of a nearby bush rustled and a twig snapped as Atma emerged from the darkness. She wore her usual dark clothes, but this time she wore her black hoodie with her symbol on the back. She grinned and shook her head as she walked toward the group with a slight limp.
"I sweare you guys wouldn't knowe flint even if it jumped up and bit you on the face." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small stone and held it out to show to the group.
"Thise is flint." She then slid the hidden trowldagger from her sleeve and pointed to it. "Thise is Steele. Flint meet steele." She ran the shovel dagger over the flint causing a few sparks to fly. "Nowe if you get the woode set up I'll provide the flames."

She slowly made her way closer to the fire pit and took a seat directly across from Skotad and flashed him a nasty smile.