awooooooo werewolves of milton

[friendsfordinner]

Who: open to all, with a special focus on #TeamMoonTouched
What: let's all get together and be a proper pack
When: forward dated slightly to late January/early February
Where: Milton, in and around the church to start with.
Content Warnings: n/a, will edit as needed

The day after the storm clears out, Hickey tacks up a note on the community hall message board. Ever since Raylan mentioned the idea of all those wolf-changed getting together to form a pack, to take down a deer or a moose in a communal hunt, it hasn't left Hickey's mind. There's at least four of them here, probably more. That's enough. They could absolutely take down a moose. They just need to get to know each other, figure each other out, and become more in-touch as a pack. Easy enough, yeah?

So he puts up his notice. And the evening of the meeting, Hickey gets his little soiree set up. He does have food: rabbit jerky, a few jars of pickled vegetables, bottles of water and a bottle of pine wine, all set out on a table he dragged out and placed near the pews. (He's a good host, dammit). The set-up is very informal: it's a place where everybody can chit-chat and get to know each other at the start. Gotta make sure everyone is comfortable before he makes his proposal, after all.

( ooc: feel free to use this as a mingle post! Make your own starters and tag around. While the note on the message board is specifically tailored to the Moon Touched folks, anyone is welcome to crash the party. )

Comments

[friendsfordinner]

"We do what all wolves do," Hickey says, like it's obvious. "We form a pack. Think about it. We don't have much in the way of ammunition here. A little bit of gunpowder, bows and arrows, but not much of anything. If all of the wolves get together, we can take down a deer with minimal damage to the beast. Drag it back to the community center, that's what, forty pounds of meat? Think of what you could make from that."

Hickey's eyes are shining as he talks. There's something enthralling about this, about the idea of a community, of everyone accomplishing great things. But there's also something enthralling about the idea of just not being fucking hungry.

"I just want people to live," Hickey says, with a little shrug. Specifically, he wants himself and his own to live, but he can keep that to himself during this conversation. "And as far as I can see, these gifts can help. Besides, be a waste to ignore them."

[clothed]

"Closer to eighty, if it's a healthy one," Sansa mildly adds, brow furrowing in thought. "More than that if you keep the softmeats; the livers and kidney and lungs, even the heart can be eaten, and the entrails emptied and cleaned to make sausages."

It's difficult not to feel some sense of hope at the promise of Mister Hickey's suggestion. Sansa is used to the scarcity of resources during the cold; even having grown in summertime, Sansa was born at the cusp of winter, and her early years were marked with restraint. By the time Arya had come, summer was in full swing, but the North remains cold and unforgiving, Ned Stark remains austere in his lordship.

Mister Hickey need not tell her about the importance of a pack. Sansa knows it in her very bones; she is Stark's blood, same as Jon, same as Robb. This could be good for everyone.

But. "Then... you mean to lead the pack, ser? What of your friends? The ones you misliked at the gathering?"

Will you withhold your aid from them?

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey knows what the right answer to this is. It's not his actual answer, it's not what he truly feels, but it's the right answer nonetheless. How he truly feels about the others, those people that the girl called his friends but in reality are the bane of his existence, that's being kept under wraps.

"I'll offer anything we catch to them as well. But it's up to them whether they accept it or not. I can't force them."

He shrugs, in a sort of 'can't help that' sort of gesture. "If we have enough meat to donate to the community, it'll be just that: to the community. If others accept it or not, that's their own business."

[clothed]

It's a fair answer. A diplomatic one too, and one Sansa hadn't expected. But a simple, common girl would not doubt the words of a fellow, would she? What would Lyanna Snow say that Sansa Stark wouldn't?

"I think it's fair to keep what we can," she answers in a measured tone, worrying her lip between thoughts. "If they have issue with the hunter... even wolves do not share, if it means going hungry in the cold."

What's the worst reason a man would want to hunt for others? Petyr Baelish hisses in Sansa's mind. To poison the meat, or starve the herd.

Meat is meat," Sansa finally settles on. "And we have to choose between surviving and dying, don't we?

Have you been a wolf long?"

[friendsfordinner]

She gets it. Hickey nods before continuing, a light tone in his voice,

"If someone falls off a ship, you don't jump in if you can't swim. You throw a rope. Same line of thought."

You do what you can to help other people (if they're worthy. If they deserve it). But you don't do anything if it greatly impacts you. What matters most, what matters more than anything else in the world, is staying alive.

"As for your question, I'd say...six months or so? Probably closer to eight. Don't really see much use for a calendar here, but I know other people are keeping track. I've been one long enough to pick up on how it works."

cw female biology

[clothed]

"Women have ways of counting, even without the moon. Six to eight moons' turns is a long time."

The quickening of her womb has never been such a relief, in her first month in Milton, and having read what she can of the books available in the community hall she's learned that a woman's sickness is not a sickness at all. A sign of good health, because of course a woman's haleness is marked by blood. Sansa shakes her head; she doubts Mister Hickey would want to be troubled with a woman's courses.

"I've had Lady returned to me here for longer than that," she continues, and reaches out to Lady to comb her fingers through the wolf's rump. As she is, Lady is closer in size to a horse than a common hound - and still smaller than Ghost, a full adult direwolf. "In a few months more she'll be large enough to ride, if a man should be slight enough. Or I could, if I wanted, but I don't.

She's my friend, my Lady." Lost to her, back home; returned to her here, and Sansa is ever grateful. "And she's smart. Direwolves always have been. If you two met as wolves, I'm sure she would recognise you."

She decides, then. "We'll help. With the hunting, if nothing else, but with other things too if we can."

[friendsfordinner]

Hickey, a man who knows in theory that women have periods but hasn't actually had to deal with any (what with being a gay man previously on an entirely male-staffed exploration), makes a little 'you got me there' sort of noise. He knows that women have ways of counting. He's not going to ask any questions about that!

Especially when Sansa says she'll help. Hickey nods, a small smile crossing his face as he says, "Thanks." And he means it. The more help, the more members of the pack, the better.

"Though this is just me being nosy. How's a direwolf different from a regular wolf? Obviously there's the size," as Lady is fucking huge, "but is there anything else I don't know about?"

[clothed]

"She is her own master," Sansa confesses, if it might be called a confession at all. "And as clever as a man, despite the lack of speech."

Starks have a healthy respect for the sigil of their house. Direwolves have roamed the northern lands for longer than the First Men have lived in the North, and the Starks have ruled over the North for thousands of years. Their blood is old, and the magic between them runs deep.

If Mister Hickey should look closely, he might notice a human-like knowing in the wolf's eyes - a look similar to Sansa's, reflected elsewise. A wolfish girl, a girlish wolf.

"Sometimes," and Sansa says this quiet, pitching the words to keep only between herself and current company, "we share our dreams, and I see through her eyes when she is far from my side."

[friendsfordinner]

As Sansa pitches her voice low, Hickey instinctively realizes this is something he should keep to himself. Which he can do. He's not going to spill a secret, not unless there's something he can get out of it. And at the moment? Keeping the fact that this weirdo girl thinks she can dream wolf a secret is a very good idea.

He doesn't question it, though. He can turn into a wolf and his husband can set people on fire with his mind. Why wouldn't Sansa and her direwolf share dreams?

"In that case, I suppose I should extend the offer of working together in a pack to you as well as Lady. Seeing through her eyes...something like that could be useful."

[clothed]

"I'm more than grateful for the invitation," Sansa replies with honesty. "I'm sure Lady is, too." It's easier when she doesn't have to lie, she thinks, or not lie in so bald-faced a manner at least. The best lies are the truth; Baelish had taught her that.

What is the custom, again? To say thanks, or to officiate an agreement between folks here? Sansa furrows her brow for a moment before she remembers— "Should we shake upon it? A— a handshake, is that what you do when you come to accords with someone?"

Sansa straightens her shoulders and holds out her hand (her left, she hopes it's the right one to offer) to Mister Hickey. "To working together."

[friendsfordinner]

"It is," Hickey says, as he offers Sansa his hand. Taking hers, he squeezes her hand lightly before giving it a hearty shake. To working together, it is.

"If there's anything we do where you're from to signify a deal, I'm up for doing that as well."

Sansa's pack now. If there's something in her world that she does to signify working together then hell: he'll do it.

[clothed]

"Where I'm from, the commonfolk bend the knee to their lords," she answers with some sheepishness. "We don't have to do anything, I don't think. I like the handshaking."

Admitting to it feels like brushing up against her true name, too. She's a lady of a great house, perhaps the last remaining trueborn Stark, and it means life or death back home. Sansa understands that the politics of her home have no place here, but perceptions are finicky things — what if a man mislikes the highborn? Takes it personally, on principle?

She's kept it secret for this long. This, too, may be a secret she'll keep from Jon. With girlish affectation, she pulls her shoulders in and looks up to Mister Hickey. "Do you know what we'll do first, after this?"

[friendsfordinner]

Bend the knee to their lord? So what, does that mean this girl's a lady? Hickey gives Sansa a once-over as he mulls this over. Because she's right: Hickey doesn't have much like for nobility, for the high and mighty. The House of Lords, the lords and ladies, even Queen Victoria herself. They never did anything for him. They never benefited him. So fuck them all.

But Sansa...if she is nobility, she's not acting like it. Here, at this meeting, hell even the times he's seen her elsewhere, she acts like a girl. Slightly silly, slightly quiet, just a normal, average girl. If she's got highborn airs, she's not showing them. And the moment she does, Hickey will ignore them.

The only hierarchy a pack needs is the leader. And he's already laid claim to that position, thank you very much.

"Immediately after this, I want us to go out as a pack. We don't have to hunt, we can just run and explore. We need to get to know each other as wolves just as much as we need to know each other as humans." He looks over at Lady, giving the wolf a little nod before, "Lady can join us as well if she wishes."