nexus_crossings | (no subject)

It's difficult to say where Jake has set up camp - the last time he was here, this was a park, but he doesn't remember some of the hills and the meandering, mostly-iced-over stream that cuts through the middle. The Nexus does that sometimes, rearranging terrain and buildings when you're not looking. Twisted trees sprout here and there, and he's found enough deadwood to stoke a roaring bonfire bright enough to be seen from miles away, the white snow reflecting the blaze into a million glittering sparks. The smell of cooking meat wafts nearly as far, mingled with woodsmoke.

Despite the warmth of the fire, Jake has not shed many of his layers, bundled up in custom-made winter gear made to fit his nine-foot frame. Only his face and tail are bared by design, his gloves temporarily removed to tend to the skewers of meat being roasted by the flame. His bow and arrows sit to one side, far enough away to not risk catching fire, bloody arrowheads boasting of a successful hunt.

Should anyone come by his fire, Jake smiles, baring sharp teeth. "You the explorer type, or would you rather stay home? You ever itch to see what else is out there?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was the wafting smell of the meat that drew Harald out towards the area where the tall blue man was sitting. Was he a man? He had a long tail which could mean he was alien or perhaps part animal? The Viking thought himself tall for a man at 6'4" but this creature dwarfed him.

"Not stay home. Explore, learn, become stronger."

Harald's thick Norwegian accent coming through as his English was weak and broken. The sight of the bow and quiver of arrows interested the Viking because he too was a hunter.

"Meat smell good. You are hunter?"

It's not often that Jake hears English anymore, except when he pays Hell's Gate a visit. It's not as though he's speaking it now either, his own mastery of Na'vi having grown in leaps and bounds from years of immersion to the point where he sometimes forgets he ever knew otherwise. The Nexus is handily covering for his lapse, the translation field active this deep even if the antiviolence field is weak. He tilts his head a little, unable to place the accent but recognizing that it's an Earth one.

"Well this didn't fall out of the sky," he jokes, waving vaguely toward the roasting meat. It's pretty much impossible to identify what creature it was before, but it was substantially sized, more than enough to share despite Jake's much larger size. He turns the skewers, then reaches for the arrows, scooping up a fistful of snow to rub the arrowheads clean one at a time. "I've hunted here before, but it's different every time. Easy to get lost. Or get hunted back."

Harald wasn't used to being a visitor in the Nexus much compared to his other band mates like Ziggy and Mick, yet he did like visiting and meeting new people. This one was certainly different. The Norwegian often just slipping into English without thinking because not many spoke his language outside the tour.

"What creatures to hunt here?"

The Viking wondered and thought about bringing his soul mate, Trygg, to the Nexus to hunt together. They could roast meat over a roaring fire just like this man was doing here. As for getting lost---Harald wanted to avoid that part.

"You hunt alone?"

Jake shrugs, the gesture partly obscured by his thick fluffy coat. "All kinds of stuff. I don't know what most of 'em are; unless something from Pandora got through to this side, I couldn't tell you. Unless it was a tiger I guess, I saw a picture on the news once." He's careful to hold his hands away from himself as he cleans the arrows, reddened water dripping down onto the snow instead of his winter gear. Each of the arrows is about as tall as Harald himself, from fletching to tip.

He makes a sort of grunt in his throat. "Today I am, but that's not always the case. Especially when the Great Hunt rolls around, then it's pretty much the whole clan. Yearly migration kind of thing, we get enough talioang to feed everybody for weeks."