Shadows Over Camp Darkness

It was one of those nights that begged for you to sit on the stairs and look at the stars all night long. Not a single fluffy cloud in the sky to obscure the view, a three quarter moon hanging low enough to touch, and the slightest of breezes that didn't chill so much as tickle across the skin and encourage cuddling. Gideon was wrist deep in blood when it occurred to her to stop for a moment and enjoy the atmosphere before she went back to helping the Cook butcher a carcass of meat. It wasn't just a healthy outlet for some of her looming aggression, though it helped, and the fresh blood would actually go a ways to help soothe the Fury's healing wrists, but Gideon needed the entrails to help feel the Hell Cat and her babies. The Kittens would be nursing still, and would be for the greater part of the next month or so, but the Cat could use all the extra nutrients she could get. And it wasn't like Gideon would be queasy over a little offal.

The day had gone mostly well; her little chat with the vampire had had some kind of an effect, though it was still too early to tell just how hard he was going to listen to her words, and the rest of her kids seemed to be rolling along without too many obvious bumps. Hantu needed very little in the way of direct handling; his confidence was growing simply because he was being put in situations where his natural skill sets had worth, something he hadn't gotten a chance to experience before. Omen Angelspawn had been suspiciously quiet all day long, but not in a brooding way but more of a contemplative internal way. Gideon figured to let him have another day or so before she poked at that ball of barbed wire. Cala was going to need the next day to be all about her; Gideon had seen the girl clawing at her arms when no one was looking; as if she could scrape off a layer of contamination. Aglaope would need to feed soon, so maybe Gideon could combine that with Cala's treatment somehow. There had to be a way to help both girls without things getting messy in every way that counted. As for the Nightmare, Gideon was just glad to have made it through the day without someone trying to kill her, let alone having Mardrom offer the Fury her literal throat. Gids knew her self-control was strained thanks to injuries and the provocations as of late.

A distraction of the best kind wandered into view, in the middle of his patrol. Virgil was backlit by the moon, a silhouette that Gideon could recognize simply because she knew the way he moved. It still felt odd to her to acknowledge that they weren't just bedmates but actually loved each other and the strange flutter in her gut that mixed with guilt reminded her that she was keeping a pretty damn big secret from him that affected him directly.

Just before Gideon could call over to her lover she stopped herself, scanning around to see if she could spot anyone or anything else watching. It was just over a week into the Camp and she had to be so careful now, now that she knew that not everything was kosher in Oz. Instead of hailing Virgil over, Gideon focused back onto the cooling entrails wrapped around her fist, letting her mind go over which parts of the dead beastie her Cat would likely eat and which ones she'd avoid. She was trying to think of anything to keep her mind off of Virgil and how she could almost feel him stalking around the Camp in a literal sense. Now that the Healer had brought her awareness to it, Gideon couldn't keep her mind from worrying at the sensation like a tongue poking at a missing tooth. It hurt but somehow she couldn't seem to stop herself from metaphysically prodding the connection.

Furies weren't supposed to form these kinds of bonds; the deep connections that would allow someone in past all magical and bioengineered defenses, and yet Gideon wasn't delusional enough to deny the fact that Virgil had and so had a few of her friends. It left Gideon feeling more than a little off kilter to realize that she had actual connections to beings that weren't Fury, and that left her feeling highly exposed and vulnerable now. Especially since Virgil had already used it to trick her into unconsciousness.

Cookie grunted at Gideon and pulled the entrails out of her hand, drawing the Fury out of her own head space and back into the moment. Virgil had ambled off keeping to his patrols in an irregular, ever changing route and Gideon breathed a little easier now that she could avoid a confrontation again. "You gonna talk about it?" Cookie asked in the gregarious way of the Clurichan. A distant relative of the Leprechaun, the Clurichan cared more about wine than anything else, but somehow Cook had ended up here at the Camp as a chef. Gideon always thought it was best to not ask how that kind of thing took place. The Cook had always been here, would likely always be here, and no one ever paid him much mind, which gave Gideon an idea.

"You're usually aware of things around here, so Cookie, have you noticed anything that's not quite right here in the Camp? Not anything overt though, I know that'd have gotten reported. I just mean... things not being quite right?" Gideon pressed, knowing that what she was dealing with now had to have given itself away before she had been clued onto it.

The Cook grunted again, wiping the last of the blood off of his flaying knife. They'd pared the meat into sections, filleted the bones out and scraped off every trace of skin and hair tissue. Even the guts and organs were organized into edible versus poisonous parts. "There's a whispering that you might be in the family way." Cookie finally admitted.

Gideon blinked at the allusion to someone thinking she was pregnant and then she started to laugh. The Cook just watched her cackle for a few moments, patient as he drank from his wine skin. "Oh sweet everlasting violence, no I am not pregnant Cookie, I promise you that. In fact, thank your lucky stars that I'm not. Furies don't stay pregnant for very long, our magic pretty much takes care of that problem, but for the stretch of time while one is incubating...." Gideon shuddered. "Let me put it to you this way, imagine me in all my glory with a hormonal cocktail of pure chaos thrown into the mix. It ain't pretty." Gideon smirked. "Other than the fallacious assumption on my ability to progenerate, has there been anything else going on?"

Cookie gathered the food stuffs he'd use to cook and left the rest for Gideon to take to the Hell Cat. "Your little witch friend isn't as subtle as she likes to think." He was being purposefully evasive and Gideon frowned, letting her brain puzzle out what he meant by it.

Lisa was supposed to be helping Gideon slip the kids out tonight if she could get the things necessary for her charms. But if Cookie was saying what Gideon though he was saying then that meant someone else was aware of the looming attempt too. Bollocks and damnation that meant she'd have to wait for a different night or risk discovery. Before Gideon could ask for any other information, Cookie put a slice of raw liver in her hand and lifted it up to her face to press against where her missing eye was. Gideon gave a smile and held it to her face, not bothered by the heavy copper smell and slimy texture. Cookie had seen how the blood had helped her burned wrists and was trying to do what he could to help her scarred face as well. It was kind of a sweet gesture from someone she'd always figured had just tolerated her presence.

"I'm not planning anything stupid, but when I do I'll ask you if there's anything you want me to pick up while I do it." She offered with a grin and Cookie just gave another grunt.

Part of her actually wanted to warn him of what was likely coming, but her survival sense kept her quiet. Everyone was beginning to think she was pregnant, and that could be useful. Because Gideon was suspecting that there was a second Fury in the Camp, though not incubating inside her. The taunting gift, the geis on the Hell Cat; all of it was too like something Gideon would do if she wanted to try and get another Fury's attention without letting anyone else know she was a Fury herself. The question Gideon was stuck with now was whether or not this Fury was here out of curiosity or malice. Or both. Or something else entirely. Gids was pragmatic enough to know that her sisters were as volatile and unpredictable as she was, and she'd mellowed down in the last while so they'd be even more erratic. It just depended on who it was out there waiting for her attention to be wholly on them.

Without more conversation Cookie grabbed his meats and went inside, even keeping the contained of animal blood to use for whatever arcane, kitchen purposes it could be put towards. Gideon kept her own package of food stuffs for the furbabies Gids now had in her repertoire. It would have felt incongruous for a Fury to send Gids the Hell Cat if she wanted all of Gideon's attention on her, but Gideon understood the reasoning. If Gidster hadn't been up to taming the Hell Cat or killing it, then she wasn't worth the effort anyways. Considering the fact that last year Gideon had taken on a Maelstrom alone and won, Gideon could almost appreciate the fact that this new Fury in the Camp wanted to feel her out before a head on confrontation to establish who was the more dangerous. The cautious approach told Gideon that this other was experienced, likely older than Gideon was, and a true War Fury as opposed to Gideon whom had been a soldier for only part of her life and not all of it. Gideon wasn't going to assume that she would be stronger or more dangerous than the other Fury because although she was young and relatively inexperienced, she was smart.

It wasn't really a game of cat and mouse, because in that game there was a predator and prey. In this instance it was more like the wolverine and the jackal; two predators circling each other and trying to feel each other out. Gideon could assume the worse, that this Fury was here to do her serious harm and put the others of the Camp at risk as well, but something told her that there was more to it than just the need for violence. If the Fury wanted blood, then they would have attacked more directly than she had yet. So either this new Fury wanted something from Gideon that she wasn't sure Gideon had to give yet, or the Fury was waiting for something to happen before Gideon could meet her face to face. Either way left Gideon with one sure path ahead of her; keep the bystander casualties to a minimum if possible. Gideon always did love a challenge; teach unstable kids how to survive, avoid getting thrown out the Camp, raise a Hell Cat with kittens, try not to get her loved ones killed, and ultimately survive whatever was coming next. Yep, definitely a challenge, and Gideon wasn't too proud to admit that she was excited by the prospect.