VIDEO

[usurpers]

Name: eren jaeger
Date: juril 13th
Format: video

[ Around a fire in the dark of night, a few tents and the movement of witches, entertainment and the like of volunteers behind them, Eren sits outside of the city wall with company as the feed starts, Lex sitting next to him with Dogmeat sprawled out a few inches away. ]

Anyone with any intention of walking closer to Wilder’s Edge, don’t go alone and don’t go unprepared to fight.

We ran into something. Humanoid, with a creepy laugh. It mimicked our faces, our movements, and it was not playing around.

[ The flex of her talons, the little grit of her monster-sharp teeth, probably makes it clear exactly what Lex thinks about that. Shoulder to shoulder, Eren’s head dips, sideways to rest his cheek to the top of her head— spontaneous as the dragon sinks half his face into her curly, furry, feathery hair. There’s no resistance; if anything, the chimera leans into it. ]

Fighting that thing alone wouldn’t go well. It wasn’t infected, as far as we could tell. The Cwyld isn’t the only danger here.

[ Eren confirms with a nod that comes with wetting his lips, only turning his face to direct himself to the camera again else he’d muffle his words. His own ink-dipped hands and claws hold somewhere around her back, under her opposite arm and stretching out the wide tears at the back of his ruined, bloodied shirt and closed nape wound that had been healed by magic hands. he points to his neck. ]

It looked predatory. And it probably won’t back off unless you take it down, or trap it first. The veterans don’t know what to tell us.

[ Eren also doesn’t spend too much time with video feeds, and presses. buttons, like a grandpa. He presses all the damn buttons (that probably fuck up configurations plenty, he mutters fucking because technology is hard), until a photo is tagged to the post. A lot of photos, most of them blurry messes until one actually shows a body, of the mimic in question. A black sleek face, no features to show for except for a broken mask, long limbs, and teeth like needles behind the fissures. Its neck bares a shredded hole and its middle is spilled.

Dryly: ] We didn’t get a before picture.

Comments

[thisisamazing]

[As soon as Toothless touches down, Hiccup swings out of the saddle. Toothless pads forward to greet Eren, bobbing his head and warbling at him - no hard feelings here either, evidently. Hard to hold anything against him with the scent of blood in the air.

Hiccup cups his hands and forms a small, lantern-sized ball of fire, casting it up gently several feet above them to light the area better. That enables him to get a better look at Eren and Lex both; no major injuries that he can see, at least, minus Eren's bite.] It, uh. How much of a fight did that thing put up? And you said it- mimicked you?

[usurpers]

[ ah yes, when someone understands your head bobbing more than just staring at it. bright colors turn warm in return, and some . . . odd sound, whatever it was, comes to match the night fury’s. a good boy. ]

It thought we wouldn’t use friendly fire. It can think. [ fingers take a lock of lex’s hair, fleeting as it was gentle— all burnt up around the edges. ] It tried to copy me to keep Lex from shooting.

[thisisamazing]

[Hopefully Eren's okay with a Night Fury nosing and nudging all over him to check for other injuries besides the bite. Apparently he decides he's satisfied, because he licks over him once, and then sets to sniffing around the campsite.]

[Hiccup frowns.] So it's- sentient. [At least capable of higher thought than an animal.] And it can copy abilities. I wonder if it could copy a witch's magic, too. That's... that's a terrible thought right there. [It's all terrible rip in rip.]

...I wonder how many there are out there.

[lonewanderer]

At least as smart as a Deathclaw, [ Lex muses - and she'd lean into Eren's handling of her hair, but there's a dragon licking him, so instead she laughs and lets the dragons have some Boy Time. ]

It didn't copy any ability that we saw, [ she clarifies, a little louder. ] Just our faces and movements. I made it focus on me, since I had the gun, and had Eren lit it up with me right there - it wasn't expecting him to be willing to hit me with it, too.

[thisisamazing]

Oh, okay, that- [Yeah he misunderstood there. Here he was assuming that nobody would breathe fire at their friend. (He probably wouldn't be able to. He's horribly soft.)] I guess that's... better... [It's not. He's frowning now, turning to Eren and stating,] You really need to be more careful.

[It's probably a moot point, considering the request Eren made of him recently. He's guessing now that one of those suits of dragonscale armor is going to be for Lex. Speaking of whom, turning back to her, he says,] I'm working on a fireproofing charm, if I manage to perfect it, I'm going to give you a few written into runestones.

Okay, so it- it copies faces and movements, that's still... bad... Is it, uh- where'd you leave it?

[usurpers]

[ he’s good!!! he’s good, buddy. he probably just smells like lex and a pile of hormones that just got himself a mate, but you know, silent deets between dragons.

ah, dragon spit. something eren didn’t and will continue to not care about in terms of sloppy, stringy saliva. he was in a mouth once??? and now that he’s just a little more inclined to reptile behavioral patterns— he’s gonna rub some of that right back on him before he leaves. he can’t top that much slobber at once yet.

hiccup . . . pls. thanks for not telling her, you are still a bro, he can’t even be mad. but, for real! he can’t be mad when he doesn’t have context. ]

There was mutual consent. [ he won’t carelessly light anyone on fire . . . if he could make himself clear on that, but onwards! to the body. ] This way.

[lonewanderer]

I'm fire resistant, [ Lex offers, as if that will help. She thinks it should, but fire resistant isn't fire immune. ] But some runes would be good.

[ How many will go to Dogmeat? Who can say. Either way, he gets up to join the group with a stretch - probably exchanging a glance with Toothless about These People And Their Mating. ]

Gonna be a little harder to see, now.

[thisisamazing]

Well, that's- that's good. I didn't know about that. [Lex being fire resistant, that is. It's been pretty hard to keep track of who has developed the ability to do what in this place.] It can't hurt, though. They can- you know, they can be used on other people too. [So you two don't light anybody else on fire!!

He's not too worried about Dogmeat at least. That good boy's getting some dragonscale-paint fire resistant armor.

Toothless snorts at the slobber being rubbed back on him, but he's content to let it go. Definitely sharing a 'look' with Dogmeat like 'These people. These people.'

Hiccup draws Inferno and extends the blade, muttering a soft charm to light it up like a torch, following after them to where they've left the body. Toothless joins him at his side, sniffing curiously along the ground.] I wonder why no one's ever talked about these things before. It seems like- you know, like the kind of thing you'd mention.

[usurpers]

[ hello, inferno???? we meet again. you are a wonderful sharp object and eren can’t help, for at least five seconds, to verbalize his charm in body language.

self control, tho. ]

We’ve gotten looks like we’re lying about it.

[ which is kind of ridiculous, considering . . . what they’re about to walk up to.

a scrambled body of a mimic, and what would probably happen if you fancy yourself a skirmish with two monsters. and a dog. ]

[lonewanderer]

[ If it helps, Hiccup, the fire resistance was from home. Mutations are weird.

The lit up blade has Lex raise an eyebrow, but she's impressed. She waits until they get to the actual body of the mimic to fiddle with the Pip-Boy on her arm; it blends in with her armor fairly well, but when the flashlight turns on, the light is a bright, neon green. ]

We should probably move it, honestly... before it vanishes down somethings throat. Especially if Morgan wants to look at it.

[thisisamazing]

That's ridiculous. Why would you guys lie about something like this? [Maybe he doesn't know them super well, but he can't imagine what the point would be to make something like this up. And sure enough, when they lead him to the body, he can definitely see that they aren't lying.

Frowning, kneeling down and lifting Inferno like a torch, he shifts it around to get a better look at its... features. After a moment, he waves Toothless over, who comes to sniff at it, rearing back with narrowed eyes and a little hiss.] Yeah, I know, bud. It's pretty gross.

Someone wants to- to study it? [Thank the gods, honestly, because he does not want to. He just wanted his dragon to get a sniff.]

[usurpers]

[ sort of tastes gross too, and maybe he'll just tell toothless that when they've got some dragon time. ]

If it's anything like us, [ digestive system, reproduction system, etc, he had class about this except, laughs you don't want titan class. ] they'd learn a lot. Might've been easier if it was alive, though.

[ that makes eren think about bean. yes, they caught a titan and one of his captains named it bean. someone killed it to burn any evidence of their origin.

. . . ]

What if we look for another one?

[lonewanderer]

We could, [ she muses, ignoring the urge to kick the corpse. It's been ripped apart enough as it is; she's not sure what will throw Morgan off. ]

Not sure where to start, though.

[ Deeper in the Wilde, she supposes. Further away from the city, and while that's tempting... it's also dangerous, and not something they're equipped to do at this time. ]

I figure we let Morgan look at it first, get a few more answers about how it's supposedly a myth and what the myths say, that sort of thing. Make sure Toothless and Dogmeat know what it smells like, in case another one pops up.

[thisisamazing]

Well, probably, but how would you even- there's no way you'd take one alive if it was as- as bad as it sounds. [Well. Maybe, though. He looks up and frowns at Eren.] Not without a plan. And- and proper protection. [He can see the benefit to it, but at the same time, that sounds terrifying and horrible.

Lex is the voice of reason here.] Yeah, that's- if one ever comes around the Edge, Toothless will be able to smell it, I figure. Right, bud? [That just gets an unpleasant hiss and rumble from his dragon. Toothless does not want to see another one of these things. It does not smell right.] But looking for one sounds- it sounds a little crazy. At least without more information.