[014]

[forestpride]

[Well. It's been a while. San missed all the hubbub and craziness going on in the village. ...She was a little busy, when viewed a certain way.

At the moment it's hard to view her at all, though. She's in the village, but keeping to the shadows, and may very well be crouched beside your house right now. If you do notice her, she's in the sundress,

Comments

[derek_bliss]

[Derek is out in the back yard of house 55, putting the garden there back into decent shape. He hears the clink of metal before he catches the scent, and will pause and look in the direction of the noise.

He'll nod carefully at her.]

...Are you all right?

[forestpride]

[Her response is very wide eyes and several slow, tense backward steps. You're someone she's never even met before, to give her some buried idea of trust in you.]

[derek_bliss]

[Derek will shake his head and hold his hands up slowly.]

It's all right. [He keeps his voice low, like he's speaking to a skittish animal, and stays crouched where he is.]

Won't do a thing to you. But you're coughing. Here...

[He'll very carefully pull out his canteen and take a careful drink from it before settling it to the ground and backing away to the other side of the garden, away from her. He'll settle again, sitting completely and crossing his legs--a position that would be difficult to rise quickly from, and would give her plenty of time to react if he did.

He watches her, concerned. She might not know him, but he's seen her with Moro before. And her scent is often on the great wolf when they meet.]

[forestpride]

[Speaking to a skittish animal, hm?

But he's watching her. Is it another test? San shivers, and stays put. No, we are not touching that water.]

[derek_bliss]

[Nope, not a test of any kind.

After a little while, Derek will return to what he was doing, working on the side of the garden furthest from where San is hiding. He'll leave the canteen where he placed it; if she chooses to try it, that's fine. If not, he'll retrieve it later.

But he's not going to push any further.]

[forestpride]

[It takes a very long time of him not looking at her for her to move. If he's watching from the corner of his vision, it will look like slow and painful movement, too. One shaky step toward the water, and when he doesn't react or look her way, another.]

[derek_bliss]

[Derek will continue to work on his patch of plants. He can see her from the corner of his eye...and hear and smell her, too, so he's perfectly aware of where she is, and if her pulse is high from fear or panic, he can hear that, too.

He'll continue to act as if he's unaware of her, though, and taking note of her condition as she edges slowly towards the canteen. He'll even let his work edge him further away to give her more of a security buffer.]

[forestpride]

[In the light, the tight iron shackles around her wrists and one ankle stand out. But he moved, even though it was away. San freezes in place, halfway to the canteen, down on all fours and shaking]

[derek_bliss]

[Derek sees those shackles and has to go completely still for a moment himself. There's a certain type of rage that most vampire hunters on his world have, that burns deep down...and right now his own is threatening to surface in reaction to the bindings.

He'd growl, if he didn't think it would send San fleeing back to the shadows.

Instead, he takes a quiet, deep breath, and goes back to de-weeding the furrows around the tomato plants, his back mostly to San.]

[forestpride]

[Going for the canteen again. She'll make it this time, but on her knees beside it she doesn't seem to really know what to do now that she's there. Staring at it for a while is all she can manage]

[derek_bliss]

[He'll watch this for a while before deciding to risk speaking to her.]

...Unscrew the round part and you can get to the water.

[forestpride]

[He noticed her. The words are enough of a surprise - not to even begin with the complexities of 'unscrew' - to send her scrambling away. Not that she gets very far.]

[derek_bliss]

[Well, fffffff. He was trying to avoid that reaction from her.

Still she's down, and probably tangled, and since the avoidance tactics are blown, he'll very slowly stand up and make his way over to her, grabbing the canteen on the way. As soon as he's within reach, he'll crouch down again to get back on her level. If she's tangled, he'll try to carefully reach out to help untangle her...if not, he'll unscrew the canteen and then slowly offer it to her.]

[forestpride]

[She's not tangled. There's not enough chain left attached to her bonds to really tangle her up. This close he'll be able to see all of her injuries. Plus she's raised her hands to block her face from attack.]

[derek_bliss]

[Well, that's a relief. Still...this is not good.

Derek will sit back on his heels for a moment, thinking. Words don't seem to be working, so...wait.

Maybe...

Derek will take a deep breath and then make a very cautious, gentle noise in the back of his throat. If San chooses to look up, he'll look away from her slightly, avoiding her eyes, and lowers his head. Not quite submission...but no aggression either.

...Does that make more sense to her?]

[forestpride]

[It does, but not in the right ways. Like tone of voice, San's not processing the intent behind that noise very well - everything sounds like it's coming after her. The visual gesture is better. It at least gets her to lower her hands.]