Watch the right. You favor your right when you turn.Steph took a deep breath, and started a series of handsprings, occasionally aiming at one of the person-shaped outlines now covering a small circle of unfortunate trees. The outlines had red targets for fatal injuries, white targets for temporarily debilitating injuries, and pink targets for
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What he found, he had to admit, he was not entirely expecting, although this being Hogwarts he couldn't say he was surprised. Dief was stopped at the edge of the clearing, sniffing enthusiastically at what did, in fact, appear to be a live chicken. Fraser came to a stop beside him and sighed. "All right," he said to the wolf's dirty look. "My apologies." Oh, he wasn't going to live this down for a while.
Muttering to himself, he looked up into the clearing to see Stephanie there. "Ma'am?" he called. "Is this your chicken?" he asked, more out of curiousity than anything else.
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She held the chicken up to eye level. It clucked. "It seems pretty content, being a chicken." She turned the thing around, so that its beady chicken-eyes were looking right at Fraser. "What do you think?"
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Much like, say, half-wolves, like the one who was currently snickering at him. Fraser shot Dief a glare. "Yes, yes, I do understand, thank you." Wolves. Honestly.
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Huh. She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. "Does your dog mock you a regular basis?"
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At the question, he flashed her an incredibly weary look. "Diefenbaker is a wolf, actually. And yes, I'm afraid so. I merely expressed the opinion that I found it unlikely that he'd picked up the scent of a domesticated chicken out here," he indicated the woods at large, "but I suppose I forgot to take the presence of magic into account." At his feet, Dief whuffed amusedly. "Now he's going to hold it over my head for ages," he sighed, compressing his lips tightly.
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"So he's not one for the 'don't bite the hand that feeds you' adage?" Pretty wolf, even if he was cocky! "How did you get a pet wolf, if you don't mind my asking? They aren't exactly in the window of your local Petco."
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Granted, his list included wolves, so... "Oh, no, Diefenbaker certainly doesn't bite." He wisely decided not to mention the one time Dief had bitten him. After all, there had been extenuating circumstances. "But he's not particularly grateful, no, if that's what you meant," he added with a sharp look towards the wolf, who whined innocently.
Turning back to Stephanie, he explained: "He's actually a half-wolf. I found him in an abandoned mineshaft... oh, six years ago now or so, and we've been together ever since. He followed me to Chicago, and now here." Like his dad, but less dead!
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Another Chicago boy? "Where did he follow you from?" The guy sounded Canadian, but the American accent peppering his vowels made it hard to tell.
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If Fraser had known that Stephanie thought he had an American accent, he would have died of misery, so it was a good thing she hadn't said it. As it was, he looked a little embarrassed. "The Yukon. I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself sooner -- my name is Constable Benton Fraser, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police." He held a hand out to her.
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"You're a mountie?" Not just a mountie! The mountie! The smoky-maker-outer mountie! Unless this place was crawling with mounties relocating to Chicago. She smiled gracefully, not letting the fact that she knew this man's kissing habits show, and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Stephanie Brown. Of, um, Gotham City."
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He returned her smile and shook her hand politely. "Yes, I am a Mountie. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Brown. I'm not familiar with Gotham, I'm afraid." Which probably meant she was from another world, he was guessing, and took it in stride. "I don't believe they have one where I'm from, although I suppose it can't be all that different if you have both a Chicago and a Canada."
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Steph nodded and didn't say what state Gotham was in, because then the universe implodes. "We also have talking wolves! Usually genetically engineered for the purpose of some nefarious plot." Honestly, some villains didn't even try anymore. "We get a lot of nefarious plots where I'm from."
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Right now, for example, he was smiling very innocuously at Stephanie. "Well, he doesn't exactly talk," he hedged, glancing at Diefenbaker. "Not in human speech, at least. Most people don't find themselves able to converse with him. We do have our share of nefarious plots, though."
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"Oh, those are just the worst kind of plots. I'm not surprised Chicago is rife with them. What with all the Bears fans." Bears fans were shifty individuals. "No offense, if you yourself are a Bears fan."
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In his experience, Bears fans weren't any worse than any others -- although, to be fair, he didn't think he'd actually asked any of his arrests whether or not they were fans. Still, he felt a little defensive on behalf of his adopted exile home. "I've found that most Chicagoans exhibit a great deal of pride in their home teams," he told her, "so I'm sure any overlap is merely because of that. For example, my, ah..."
Oh, great -- here was the problem of what to call Ray again. Fraser wasn't sure if he was ever going to figure this one out. He hesitated, glanced at Dief, and cleared his throat. "My, uh... partner is a very great fan of the Bears, and I ( ... )
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"Mounties have partners? Do you go out, patrolling the Chicago wilderness?"
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