"You Tried": The Ship

[birdsbirdsbirds]

Who: Bloodsport crew and any visitors aboard their fine vessel.
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Ship shenanigans!
When: While they're still on the Starlight.

---

[time to check in on the Bloodsport... what antics has this well-behaved and perfectly well-adjusted crew been up to?]

Comments

[bb_wolf]

[Bigby is glad for Sascha to not know the things the Fables know about the cruelty of the world. Things like his own losses, like Snow's horrors, what Blue witnessed at that final stand.

Sascha doesn't stop to think, which is why Bigby calls him an idiot. This? Is innocence, rather than stupidity. He doesn't get how dangerous it is, because no one has hurt him yet.]

Don't be sorry. Be careful. Keep track of the time and get back to a ship, any ship. The Fleeters mostly seem like a good lot, they won't fuck you up like mundanes will.

[pneumo]

Who're they? [ 'Mundanes' isn't a word he immediately associates with human. But at least he seems genuinely curious, if a bit more muted now that he's getting a serious talking to rather thank a serious talking-to. ]

[bb_wolf]

Mundanes? People. Not Fleeters. Not Fables, where I live, but here, it's people who aren't part of the Fleet. Most people, sure, most people are fine. But you can't tell which aren't. And the ones who aren't will do awful things to you.

[It worked last time to make sure Sascha understood...]

What am I telling you, Sascha?

[pneumo]

[ Ahh feedback time. Sascha remembers this well. ]

Mundanes are...people? Like the ones who aren't on our spaceships. [ Because technically everyone at this station is on a spaceship. So he means just Atroma's. ]

[bb_wolf]

Right. And what do you need to know about mundanes?

[It worked last time. He hopes it'll work again.]

[pneumo]

You can't tell the good from the bad, and some want to hurt people so I should make sure I go to bed properly. [ As in, not in the middle of the street. Or a booth at a closed bar. ]

[bb_wolf]

Good boy.

[It's not meant to sound condescending. He's learned first time this time, which is good. AND he didn't need prompting for the logical jump of 'people can be bad, I should go to bed somewhere safe'.]

You're learning. That's good.

[pneumo]

[ It also helps that Sascha genuinely takes those words to heart because...well, no one ever says them to him. It's nice, and for a moment he fidgets a little, happily, where he sits. ]

You're a strict teacher.

[bb_wolf]

Nah. I haven't hit you with a ruler, made you study books or write out lines.

[His teacher was not a nice man, nor a patient one. Crane, may he rot in Europe, was not a good teacher, but Bigby had learned from him.]

[pneumo]

That last one would have been hard, haha. I couldn't read until I got here. Then all of a sudden I knew how! Cool, right?

[bb_wolf]

Yeah.

[Bigby gives Sascha a careful look.]

That's pretty good, compared to learning the hard way.

[pneumo]

Maaaaybe... I've always thought it'd be fun to go to school for a change. [ He crosses his legs where he sits on the cushion, leaning back on his palms. ] People sound really fun when they talk about it.

[bb_wolf]

I hated it.

Mind you, been centuries since I did it. Might've been better without Crane teaching me. Old bastard loved that I had to defer to him.

Wish I'd popped his head off when I had the chance. Would've saved a lot of fucking grief.

[And maybe a bunch of lives.]

[pneumo]

[ He's not exactly sure who Crane is, but apparently he's caused Bigby some trouble and that's pretty interesting--but not nearly so much as the 'centuries' comment, at his Sascha's eyes brighten a little. ]

So you are an old man after all~

[bb_wolf]

[Bigby shrugs and settles down more in his pillows.]

Compared to most things. Snow reckons I'm probably at least a thousand years old.

[pneumo]

...You don't know? [ That Sascha's particularly interested in. ]

[bb_wolf]

No. Wolves don't give a fuck about how many years pass. I have no idea how old I am. I can just try and work it out based on how old other Fables are. I'm one of the oldest. We know that.

[Not necessarily the oldest. But quite possibly.]

[pneumo]

So...you were a wolf first, then a Fable? [ Is that how that worked? Fables were made? Or were they born? He's honestly not sure how much they differ from himself, but the distinction is obvious compared to a human. Humans don't turn into giant, furry wolves. ]

[bb_wolf]

Fables are just everyone from the Homelands. All the intelligent ones, anyway. I'm a wolf Fable. My mother was a wolf. My six brothers are all wolves, though I'm by far the biggest of them. I worked hard to get that big.

[pneumo]

Is the Homelands someplace all Fables come from...? [ Like a country? ]

[bb_wolf]

Yeah. It's our world. Worlds. There's lots of lands in the Homelands. Different places. Islands. Countries. Kingdoms. Forests. Jungles.

I came from a forest. It was always dark, shadowed, full of animals.

[pneumo]

I came from a forest too. The trees were so thick, that even when it was day out the ground was still okay for me to walk around on.

[bb_wolf]

And the roots made snares that tried to catch your paws- feet. Sounds like my home.

[pneumo]

Yeah! Except, I don't think we have giant wolves back home. [ But it'd be nice to think they did, certainly. ]

There was a really nice village near where I woke up that took me in.

[bb_wolf]

Ain't no other wolf-

There isn't any other wolf like me.

[He is not New Yorker, he will not speak like one.]

I lived for a while near a village. There was this old biddy lived on the outskirts I'd been sizing up for my first human meal.