wickedchouette | (no subject)

[Callisto wakes up in a little thatch house in a small village, and at first breath, it reminds her so much of Cirra that it sends her head spinning. When she realizes a half-second later that it isn't her old home magically come back to life, fury quickly overtakes confusion, and the end result is that the welcoming do-gooder who swings by to greet her ends up in a headlock with her sword to his throat. In the ensuing scuffle, she learns a few important things. One - she is as alone as she was in Tartarus, with none of her army here to back her up. Two - the man she almost killed is not alone, and indeed has a whole slew of companions willing and able to rush to his defense. And three - she has never seen a small village filled to the brim with this many trained fighters. One woman (clearly favored by some god or another, or perhaps a minor goddess herself) has some sort of ice power, which she uses to immobilize Callisto by freezing her wrists to the wall.

While they have her restrained, they explain. She, like them, has been pulled from her own world and into this one, by persons unknown and for reasons unknown. Everyone wakes up in this village, and with every new arrival, a new little house for them magically appears. They grow and hunt their own food, and everybody works together (this part is stressed) to try to survive and find a way home. They show her something that they call a "network device" that's used for instantaneous communication over long distances, and explain that, just like the house, she's been given one of her own.

Callisto promises not to attack them if they set her free, and they actually do, which is as good evidence as anything that this is another world entirely - no one from her own would trust her promises. Luckily for them, though, she doesn't currently have a lot of interest in laying waste to this place - at the moment, she's more interested in getting out. It's clear to her that the entire village (with its magic people and magic houses and magic communication boxes) is in some sort of thrall to a powerful being, and she's not interested in sticking around until said being shows up to collect on all the gifts it's been giving out.

They all warn her that she's making a mistake. The forest beyond the village is filled with monsters, and no one who's tried to leave for good has ever come back. (Well, of course not, Callisto thinks to herself. What do they think leaving for good means?) She pays their warnings no mind, taking only her sword and, after some thought, the network device. She might not trust it enough to use it, but she wants to examine it further. And then she goes.

The forest, she finds, isn't that much different from the ones she's used to. Maybe it's filled with monsters and maybe it isn't, but it is filled with game animals, and she's able to easily catch a rabbit for dinner, which she cooks over an open fire. It's towards the end of her meal that she notices that she has a visitor, lurking in the trees about twenty yards from where she sits. She squints through the gloom, trying to make out any details or features, but the only conclusion she comes away with is that they're vaguely human-shaped.]

Are you one of the monsters?

[She calls out.]

Or are you somebody else who wasn't interested in being fattened up for slaughter?

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[Her introduction to the village was much like Callisto except she fled to the forest before nightfall. Villages made her edgy. Too many human-animals. All this magic made her think of the Entity, too. She took a box to try to figure it out--and it had shiny parts--into the forest. A cave was suitable enough for her until she could build a proper shelter.

This wasn't her forest. Not needing to hunt the same idiotic survivors over and over was freeing but she couldn't kill the fools here. The not-Entity disliked that.

That's when she smells the meat cooking. Her answer is a harsh laugh.]

Depends who you ask.

[As she steps into the light, stolen clothes still caked in grime and not a little blood (though, mostly just from an elk she recently slaughtered).]

Just don't like villages too much. Too many humans.

Depends on who you ask.

[Callisto echoes, her teeth shining white in the dark as she smiles. It's a sharp, fierce expression, without a hint of kindness or warmth to it. Whoever this stranger is, they feel more familiar to her than all the villagers put together.]

Come sit.

[She suggests, gesturing to the space across from her. She's still wearing the leather armor she arrived in, and it's not exactly made to be comfortable during cold nights, but the fire is warm and inviting.]

I might think about killing the humans if they show up, but I won't kill you.

Oh?

[That gets a laugh out of Anna as she takes up the invitation. It's cold, more like the barking of a wild dog. Stupid stranger but it's a cold night. The fake-Entity also enforces it's rules, she's found out. Not that this newcomer knows that yet.]

Might be more interesting than those beasts that live in the forest. [In her opinion, anyway.] It's quieter out here, anyway. Villages never suited me.

They don't suit me, either.

[And that slight change of wording makes all the difference. She can't say never, because they did suit her once - before Xena ripped her family, her life, and her soul from her.]

Tell me about the beasts. Does that blood belong to one of them?

Not one of the beasts that the pack fears. Just an elk.

[Elks could be deadly; something that Anna knew far too well but most that didn't hunt them wouldn't think of them so.]

The 'monsters', on the other hand, are far stronger than an elk but still just beasts. Things that look like beasts from storybooks. Giant cats with stinging tails and wings; large serpents. Large birds big enough to steal a cow.

[She lists them off with a shrug.] New prey but boring.

I guess anything would be, if you're used to hunting people. You don't eat them, do you?

[Her tone has a joking lilt to it, but... well. Who really knows, in this place? If it turns out she's sitting fireside with a cannibal, she wouldn't be at all surprised.]

[Within the deep rescesses of her mask, there's no way to see how her eyes narrow at the question but the edges of her lips curl into a growl.]

No. Human animals are prey but they're not meat or fish. [They're not the sort of game you eat. There were definitely cannibal Killers back in the Entity's realm but she wasn't one of them. She pauses then:] You don't hunt minks for meat. You hunt them for fur. The meat is no good for eating; you can use it to trap other prey. Humans are like that. Interesting. Good things to scavenge off of but you don't eat the meat.

[Callisto doesn't seem bothered by the growl, or the anger it implies. On the contrary, her own lips lift into a smile, dark and approving.]

We're the same.

[Or close enough. Callisto doesn't really believe that anyone is like her - immature and self-centered as she is, she genuinely sees her own rage, determination, pain, and grief as being stronger and more consuming than anyone else's. But all the same, this woman's mindset feels very familiar.]

We could be allies. I lead an army on my own world, but I have no interest in any of the village folk.

[That gets a snort of laughter. Even before meeting the Entity that notion would have been ridiculous. No, she was a solitary predator; her darling little ones aside. She needs to go back to the village one of these days to scout it out.]

You don't even know my name. [A truce of sorts was easy to find. A fire was nice to share but hunting together? Fighting together? No. Her animal-like eyes peer out.] No. You... are different.

[She doesn't doubt that this woman spilled much blood but that didn't mean that she'd fit alongside the other Killers. A killer, most likely, but not a Killer.]

I'm no soldier.

[If Callisto were from a bit further on in her own timeline - after dying and then returning to the world of the living more than once, after becoming an immortal and then a god - she'd understand Anna's response better. Hell, she wouldn't have even made the offer in the first place. But now, fresh from her own first death and still very mortal, still very human? She's not offended by the brush-off, but she is surprised by it. Truly solitary people don't get far where she's from - not doing what she does, anyway.]

No?

[She tilts her head to the side, regarding her.]

But you are a fighter.

I can fight. I'm a hunter.

[Soldiers were a different story, though. Anna didn't mind calling herself a killer but a soldier? Something about that doesn't sit with her. Her mother wouldn't be happy with that.]

Soldiers hunt together; I don't.

I'm not a soldier, either. My army is a warlord's army. Or it was.

[Despite the past tense, she doesn't actually sound broken up about it. Having her armies had suited her at the time, but she'd never thought of them as permanent fixtures in her life. Her first had been dissolved when Xena had captured her, and she neither knows nor particularly cares what happened to the second after she died. Maybe she'll be a warlord again someday, and maybe she won't. Whatever happens, she'll do what needs to be done.]

Fine, then. But if we're not allies, aren't you worried that I might attack you?

[She says this completely conversationally, pulling her skinned, cooked rabbit off the fire and examining it. Satisfied that it's well-done enough, she sinks her teeth into it.]