[Azula will not be joining the festivities in town. She's been staying away from... well, everybody. She does very little for most of the day, antisocial even by her standards. She doesn't even go for her normal morning run.
It's not until some time after Thor returns from hunting that she finally emerges and goes straight to his shack. It... will be a new look for her, to be sure. No makeup, hair pulled back and quickly tied instead of being elaborately styled, and she's even dug out something simple and plain to wear, rather than her usual immaculate wardrobe.]
Considering the increased need for meat, I thought you could use a hand.
[She doesn't even try to summon her usual flippant tone.]
Thor's trips had been more frequent of late; considering the sudden explosion of dragon eggs, the one thing Somnius was going to need a lot of soon was meat. Thor had been preparing. But even his stockpiles wouldn't last once the eggs hatched and the scaly little fuckers started growing. If they got to be anything like the size of Baldur's old mount, Thor could empty the forest and still not have enough to feed them all. But for now, it would do.
He's in the middle of cleaning an elk carcass on the table he's set up in front of his house; really the kitchen table but he never fucking ate at it for the most part, so it was more use out here. The house does look better though, at least the exterior. When Thor's not hunting he's generally been working on it along with whatever help he's managed to scrounge up from trading his hauls. It's not there yet, but it still looks a sight better than the dilapidated wreck it was when he first moved in.
He turns around to see Azula, notes how very not "immaculate" she is at the moment, bloody skinning knife held in his hand, and just nods.
"Wouldn't say no." He says finally. "You got a knife on you or is that a stupid question? Got some rabbits need attending to while I finish up with this." Said rabbits are currently hanging upside down from a rack Thor has assembled.
The question immediately makes her feel foolish. Stupid oversight. Sloppy. Inexcusable. She quickly covers it with a smirk. It makes her look a lot more like- well, her, despite her current appearance.
"I may be new to this, but somehow I thought my kitchen knife wasn't quite the right tool for the job."
Which carried, of course, another unspoken request- to learn. She had some survival training, but- well. She'd been better at the hunting part than the field-dressing and butchering part, when she'd had to do her time in the field. She'd let the knife expert in her group handle that part.
At the time, this sort of dirty work had felt beneath her dignity. Now... well, right now it sounded like a cathartic distraction.
The snark gets Thor to laugh, though it's mirthful, and not mocking. "Guess you got me there. Hang on." Luckily Thor had manager to barter for some spare tools to ease wear and tear. He disappears into the shack, door left ajar slightly, since Azula has already been a guest inside and knows how largely empty and barren the interior is. Thor doesn't spend much time indoors unless to sleep.
After a moment he returns with a skinning knife, and a sheathe, which he offers to her. "Here, yours now. Rabbits are easy once you get the movements down. I'll show you." A good cut and you could just yank the skin off.
The laugh, admittedly, is gratifying, and the smirk feels a little less forced after he says it. She accepts the knife without a word, drawing and examining it closely, then tucks it back into the sheath. No word of thanks- the gratitude is overwhelming- instead, all he gets is
"Rabbits are fine to start with."
Really, anything would do as a distraction- rabbits or otherwise. She just needs to feel productive right now. She finds herself a place to sit and studies him closely as he works.
Thor steps back, and approaches where the rabbits are hanging, taking one, laying it down across the table. "Pinch the neck like this, and you make a little cut, here. This is where you get your hands dirty. You work the tear with your fingers, hook under the skin...and pull with one hand, grip with the other."
Holding the rabbit by the neck, Thor pulls the skin down, twisting as he does so to break the skin, doing so easily, the movement smooth and practiced. The end result is a mostly skinned rabbit carcass. Thor nods to where the others hanging.
She watches with hawklike intensity as he moves, noting the surprising deftness of his fingers as he works. For a man who claims to lack finesse, he's certainly capable of developing a technique when he wants to.
Well. She thinks she's committed the movement to memory, so at his insistence she takes a rabbit and her knife and tries to replicate them. The initial incision is careful and precise, she's clearly no stranger to using a knife. The actual skinning, however, is a lot more slow and tentative than his- she's being careful with the pelt, but she's clearly going very slowly in order to do it. The lack of a sharp tug means she even needs the knife one more time to open the pelt wider. The resulting hide is intact, the resulting carcass undamaged, but she's still clearly scowling.
Thor watches her work, and yeah, it's slow. But of course it would be, she's clearly never done this before. But he can tell the lack of instant perfection in her efforts is annoying her. She really just can't let herself off the hook, can she?
"Yeah, that's pretty good. My boy Modi, he tore the first rabbit he tried to skin apart." He even kind of chuckles warmly at the memory before realization sets in. He's never mentioned his sons to Azula before. Oh shit. "Uh, set it aside for now. Just by the end of the table there. Once you're finished skinning them, they gotta be gutted. We'll do this in steps." He continues working on the deer for a moment.
"It took you about four minutes by my count to do that one." He says as he works. "Speed comes with practice. Do another one and let's see how that goes." There. He's set a time to beat, a goal for her to work towards that will show improvement. Mastery won't come all at once, but it will come, she just needs to see proof of that. Four minutes is practically an eternity for skinning rabbits. There's so much time she can shave off.
And Thor will try not to linger too much on that painful memory settling in his mind of a long ago camping trip out to Midgard. Just focus on what's in front of you.
'My boy Modi.' Interesting, that. He'd never mentioned the name. In fact, he'd never mentioned a family, aside from his... complicated past with his father.
And memories of those conversations were not going to improve her mood. So she leaves it be, and instead she simply focuses on the next task. A goal. A simple enough benchmark to improve her skill. Several rabbits, which means several attempts to master it, to get it right. That would do for a start.
She takes the next rabbit and silently starts working. Still slow, but at least she doesn't need extra help from the knife this time. She'll take it. Without hesitation, she moves onto the next. Faster, more fluid, still not practiced but she's picking it up quickly.
"I suppose you didn't attempt to hatch a dragon."
... Rrgh. She'd been doing so well, working in silence, not thinking about it, but somehow it seemed like she kept slipping up around Thor, despite her best efforts. Sloppy. Sloppy and unacceptable.
Well, whatever. It was just an idle question. That's all.
Fortunately, it seems Azula is content to leave that little slip-up behind as much as Thor is. The work continues in silence for awhile longer, until Azula speaks again. Thor shakes his head, taking it in stride.
"Figured the best place for me to be is as far away from those eggs as possible, I..." He stops for a minute, stares off into the distance. "...Better all around that way." He wonders how Azula might square that with the knowledge he had a son of his own, but he suspects she probably won't pry. Azula respects his privacy as much as he does hers. They share only what they want, when they want. Or at least that's the idea. They both seem to be having trouble today.
He resumes working. "But I figure a free delivery of meat won't go unappreciated. Guess they'll be hatching soon and if they're anything like the dragons back home, they'll be hungry little shits. So this is fine."
"Decently common back in the Nine Realms, if you know where to look. Vanaheim's up the ass with the things." Thor's massive shoulders shrug. "Had a...another member of the Aesir kept one as a mount. Big bastard, too." Not to mention ill-tempered. Thor shed no tears when Baldur's pet ended up on the wrong side of Kratos.
So there's an uncle in the picture now too. "Weak fool" probably means something a lot different to Azula than it would most people, especially if the man killed dragons in his prime. Maybe he got tired of being a monster.
"Didn't think dragons were vegetarian, did you?" He asks, a faint note of amusement in his voice. He glances up as she sets aside the rabbit. "Good. You're catching on quick. Make a hunter out of you yet."
Well, it seemed everybody got a dragon except for Azula. Wasn't that... fun.
Whatever. She ignores it. Those dragons would be completely different from Thor's, which in turn would be different from these. It's hardly important.
"They're beings as much of spirit as flesh, where I come from. The original firebenders."
...was that too much to say? She suddenly wonders if that was a hint of some sort, something he could work backward from. Well, she'd said it now, so it hardly mattered.
"For all I know, they didn't eat at all... or they ate other spirits, or starlight, or some other such nonsense."
[ Thor will find a present sitting outside his door, wrapped in black wrapping paper with purple bows. Wrapped in a leather case, a set of hunting and butchering knives gleam with dark wood and polished steel. On top of the present is a bamboo pot of freshly made dumplings with a spicy tuna filling. ]
[So for Blake-related reasons, Yang took some pottery classes at the Clay Oven. Turns out, she's definitely no prodigy at it, but while making a gift for Blake she also tried her hand at making some plates.
...She wasn't very good at making those either but Matilda did show her a nifty trick of filling in the cracking on her plates with gold to create what looked like a cool lightning effect to Yang. And naturally she thought of Thor when it comes to lightning.
So she's hoping Thor will enjoy a set of 4 ceramic dinner plates all with the same kind of lightning crackle look to them. And if he's not one for formal dinnerware, maybe they'll be useful for whenever he has company over? They're all wrapped carefully in a nice little fitted basket.]
[So, after the impossibly wonderful gift Thor got for him, that Katsuki deeply treasures (even if he's too young to legally drink, he did so anyway because it felt like a crime not to), the young blond well and truly took his time trying to think up something just as good for the god of thunder himself. It takes him quite a while, not because it's hard or anything, but because Katsuki really wants it to be as special to Thor as his gift was to the young man.
So, after compiling a list of what could be the best things to get, Katsuki does his best to get them as swiftly as possible. It's not until evening that the mail mice deliver it all, because it's quite a task, and some of the items have some weight to them, too. How they manage, no one knows, but that's not important. The contents of the boxes they deliver are!! Inside the large box are several things, wrapped very delicately but in some sturdy stuff so they don't get damaged - Katsuki wanted these to arrived in pristine condition.
The first item is a bamboo sake bottle with two small glasses included. Yes, there is indeed sake within, and it's some good shit, too. A sticky note is placed on the wrappings that reads only serve hot - sake's okay chilled, but some brands are best when it's got some warmth - this is one of them. The next thing is a very carefully folded wall scroll of the weather gods in Japanese Shinto mythology - Raijin and Fujin, and a note about the story of the two bothers, for a little bit of context.
Lastly, a fur lined cloak for the big guy, since he goes without a shirt so damn often that Katsuki can't imagine he doesn't get cold sometimes. It's big, and has a hood, custom made by the blacksmith, of all people, but it functions real nice and it quite cozy, if a little rustic-looking. The thing's for practicality, not fashion. If Katsuki wanted it to be posh, he'd go to Clothilda, and he'd rather shove his head into a meat grinder. Finally, Thor is the only one to actually get a letter:
In my country it's customary to serve someone else before yourself, but you kind of beat me to it, huh? Don't know if this shit's to your liking, I haven't drank a drop until today, but give it a try and let me know how it compares. That set will also last you a lifetime, too - sturdy as hell so long as you keep it clean and dry after use.
Don't have a name to give you that'd be anything better than God of Thunder, but also thought you'd like to know about mine. There's plenty of stories from my home about this crap, if you're ever interested. Might tell a few of them at that party of yours, actually.
Oh, and don't freeze those fat tits off, either. I got you something that might help.
Crass as always, but his handwriting isn't fast or smudgy - he took his time with this, and hopes it actually is as good as what he was given. And hey, it's also his RSVP - he wouldn't miss a chance to talk and eat for the world - one "god" to another.]
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timeasmymeasure
[Action] On May 27th
Date: 2023-05-28 02:59 am (UTC)It's not until some time after Thor returns from hunting that she finally emerges and goes straight to his shack. It... will be a new look for her, to be sure. No makeup, hair pulled back and quickly tied instead of being elaborately styled, and she's even dug out something simple and plain to wear, rather than her usual immaculate wardrobe.]
Considering the increased need for meat, I thought you could use a hand.
[She doesn't even try to summon her usual flippant tone.]
Re: [Action] On May 27th
Date: 2023-05-29 06:08 am (UTC)He's in the middle of cleaning an elk carcass on the table he's set up in front of his house; really the kitchen table but he never fucking ate at it for the most part, so it was more use out here. The house does look better though, at least the exterior. When Thor's not hunting he's generally been working on it along with whatever help he's managed to scrounge up from trading his hauls. It's not there yet, but it still looks a sight better than the dilapidated wreck it was when he first moved in.
He turns around to see Azula, notes how very not "immaculate" she is at the moment, bloody skinning knife held in his hand, and just nods.
"Wouldn't say no." He says finally. "You got a knife on you or is that a stupid question? Got some rabbits need attending to while I finish up with this." Said rabbits are currently hanging upside down from a rack Thor has assembled.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-29 07:14 am (UTC)"I may be new to this, but somehow I thought my kitchen knife wasn't quite the right tool for the job."
Which carried, of course, another unspoken request- to learn. She had some survival training, but- well. She'd been better at the hunting part than the field-dressing and butchering part, when she'd had to do her time in the field. She'd let the knife expert in her group handle that part.
At the time, this sort of dirty work had felt beneath her dignity. Now... well, right now it sounded like a cathartic distraction.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-11 02:58 pm (UTC)After a moment he returns with a skinning knife, and a sheathe, which he offers to her. "Here, yours now. Rabbits are easy once you get the movements down. I'll show you." A good cut and you could just yank the skin off.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-12 02:54 am (UTC)"Rabbits are fine to start with."
Really, anything would do as a distraction- rabbits or otherwise. She just needs to feel productive right now. She finds herself a place to sit and studies him closely as he works.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-12 04:44 am (UTC)Holding the rabbit by the neck, Thor pulls the skin down, twisting as he does so to break the skin, doing so easily, the movement smooth and practiced. The end result is a mostly skinned rabbit carcass. Thor nods to where the others hanging.
"You try."
no subject
Date: 2023-06-12 05:17 am (UTC)Well. She thinks she's committed the movement to memory, so at his insistence she takes a rabbit and her knife and tries to replicate them. The initial incision is careful and precise, she's clearly no stranger to using a knife. The actual skinning, however, is a lot more slow and tentative than his- she's being careful with the pelt, but she's clearly going very slowly in order to do it. The lack of a sharp tug means she even needs the knife one more time to open the pelt wider. The resulting hide is intact, the resulting carcass undamaged, but she's still clearly scowling.
"Needs work. Where do I put them?"
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 05:21 am (UTC)"Yeah, that's pretty good. My boy Modi, he tore the first rabbit he tried to skin apart." He even kind of chuckles warmly at the memory before realization sets in. He's never mentioned his sons to Azula before. Oh shit. "Uh, set it aside for now. Just by the end of the table there. Once you're finished skinning them, they gotta be gutted. We'll do this in steps." He continues working on the deer for a moment.
"It took you about four minutes by my count to do that one." He says as he works. "Speed comes with practice. Do another one and let's see how that goes." There. He's set a time to beat, a goal for her to work towards that will show improvement. Mastery won't come all at once, but it will come, she just needs to see proof of that. Four minutes is practically an eternity for skinning rabbits. There's so much time she can shave off.
And Thor will try not to linger too much on that painful memory settling in his mind of a long ago camping trip out to Midgard. Just focus on what's in front of you.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-25 06:07 am (UTC)And memories of those conversations were not going to improve her mood. So she leaves it be, and instead she simply focuses on the next task. A goal. A simple enough benchmark to improve her skill. Several rabbits, which means several attempts to master it, to get it right. That would do for a start.
She takes the next rabbit and silently starts working. Still slow, but at least she doesn't need extra help from the knife this time. She'll take it. Without hesitation, she moves onto the next. Faster, more fluid, still not practiced but she's picking it up quickly.
"I suppose you didn't attempt to hatch a dragon."
... Rrgh. She'd been doing so well, working in silence, not thinking about it, but somehow it seemed like she kept slipping up around Thor, despite her best efforts. Sloppy. Sloppy and unacceptable.
Well, whatever. It was just an idle question. That's all.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-27 05:19 am (UTC)"Figured the best place for me to be is as far away from those eggs as possible, I..." He stops for a minute, stares off into the distance. "...Better all around that way." He wonders how Azula might square that with the knowledge he had a son of his own, but he suspects she probably won't pry. Azula respects his privacy as much as he does hers. They share only what they want, when they want. Or at least that's the idea. They both seem to be having trouble today.
He resumes working. "But I figure a free delivery of meat won't go unappreciated. Guess they'll be hatching soon and if they're anything like the dragons back home, they'll be hungry little shits. So this is fine."
no subject
Date: 2023-06-27 06:05 am (UTC)Interesting again. But she suspects prodding would be counterproductive, so she opts to focus on the second thing he said instead.
"I never met a dragon back home. The last of them died when I was a child."
With a slight smirk, she adds,
"Killed by my uncle, back before he became a weak fool. He... neglected to make any notes about their eating habits."
Another rabbit cleaned and set aside, and she seems satisfied with her work this time.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 05:05 am (UTC)So there's an uncle in the picture now too. "Weak fool" probably means something a lot different to Azula than it would most people, especially if the man killed dragons in his prime. Maybe he got tired of being a monster.
"Didn't think dragons were vegetarian, did you?" He asks, a faint note of amusement in his voice. He glances up as she sets aside the rabbit. "Good. You're catching on quick. Make a hunter out of you yet."
no subject
Date: 2023-07-09 06:54 am (UTC)Whatever. She ignores it. Those dragons would be completely different from Thor's, which in turn would be different from these. It's hardly important.
"They're beings as much of spirit as flesh, where I come from. The original firebenders."
...was that too much to say? She suddenly wonders if that was a hint of some sort, something he could work backward from. Well, she'd said it now, so it hardly mattered.
"For all I know, they didn't eat at all... or they ate other spirits, or starlight, or some other such nonsense."
[ holiday delivery! ]
Date: 2023-12-24 08:46 am (UTC)Non-Descript Winter Holiday Gift Delivery
Date: 2023-12-25 08:56 am (UTC)...She wasn't very good at making those either but Matilda did show her a nifty trick of filling in the cracking on her plates with gold to create what looked like a cool lightning effect to Yang. And naturally she thought of Thor when it comes to lightning.
So she's hoping Thor will enjoy a set of 4 ceramic dinner plates all with the same kind of lightning crackle look to them. And if he's not one for formal dinnerware, maybe they'll be useful for whenever he has company over? They're all wrapped carefully in a nice little fitted basket.]
Christmas Gift Delivery!! | 12/25
Date: 2023-12-26 01:22 am (UTC)So, after compiling a list of what could be the best things to get, Katsuki does his best to get them as swiftly as possible. It's not until evening that the mail mice deliver it all, because it's quite a task, and some of the items have some weight to them, too. How they manage, no one knows, but that's not important. The contents of the boxes they deliver are!! Inside the large box are several things, wrapped very delicately but in some sturdy stuff so they don't get damaged - Katsuki wanted these to arrived in pristine condition.
The first item is a bamboo sake bottle with two small glasses included. Yes, there is indeed sake within, and it's some good shit, too. A sticky note is placed on the wrappings that reads only serve hot - sake's okay chilled, but some brands are best when it's got some warmth - this is one of them. The next thing is a very carefully folded wall scroll of the weather gods in Japanese Shinto mythology - Raijin and Fujin, and a note about the story of the two bothers, for a little bit of context.
Lastly, a fur lined cloak for the big guy, since he goes without a shirt so damn often that Katsuki can't imagine he doesn't get cold sometimes. It's big, and has a hood, custom made by the blacksmith, of all people, but it functions real nice and it quite cozy, if a little rustic-looking. The thing's for practicality, not fashion. If Katsuki wanted it to be posh, he'd go to Clothilda, and he'd rather shove his head into a meat grinder. Finally, Thor is the only one to actually get a letter:
In my country it's customary to serve someone else before yourself, but you kind of beat me to it, huh? Don't know if this shit's to your liking, I haven't drank a drop until today, but give it a try and let me know how it compares. That set will also last you a lifetime, too - sturdy as hell so long as you keep it clean and dry after use.
Don't have a name to give you that'd be anything better than God of Thunder, but also thought you'd like to know about mine. There's plenty of stories from my home about this crap, if you're ever interested. Might tell a few of them at that party of yours, actually.
Oh, and don't freeze those fat tits off, either. I got you something that might help.
Crass as always, but his handwriting isn't fast or smudgy - he took his time with this, and hopes it actually is as good as what he was given. And hey, it's also his RSVP - he wouldn't miss a chance to talk and eat for the world - one "god" to another.]