Nat

I'd suggest not pissing me off too badly as I'm the one stalking things with a hunting rifle, and I know how to use it.

I also have a red bra that's just as lethal.

Honest Review: Bugs

So remember when we were all praying for winter to end?

Turns out we were idiots.

The snow melted, the sun came out, everybody got excited for about five minutes, and then the bugs arrived.

Not a few bugs.

Armies.

Clouds of the little bastards.

You stop moving for ten seconds and suddenly you're donating blood like it's a community service project. They're in your eyes, your ears, your food. I swallowed three mosquitoes yesterday. Extra protein, I guess.

Lottie says they're part of the ecosystem.

The ecosystem can fuck right off.

Even the goats are losing their shit. One of them ran headfirst into a tree trying to escape a cloud of mosquitoes. Can't even laugh at it because, for fuck's sake, I get it.

Van keeps saying the bugs can sense fear. Which sounds like bullshit right up until you watch them pick a target. Then she's out here acting like she's in some low-budget horror movie, narrating who's gonna get swarmed next.

Tai pretends she's too tough to care. Meanwhile, I watched her get nailed by three mosquitoes in a row and spend the next ten minutes trying to murder every bug within a fifty-foot radius.

Misty's collecting specimens. For what? Fuck if I know.

Akilah actually knows what all of them are called, which somehow makes the whole situation worse.

Then somebody pointed out that the Antler Queen veil is basically a giant bug net.

Huge fucking mistake.

Suddenly everybody wanted a turn wearing it.

"Just for water runs."

"Just while I'm gathering firewood."

"Just until the mosquitoes stop trying to carry me into the fucking woods."

Shauna shut that shit down immediately.

Some of us looked at it and saw protection from the relentless airborne assholes trying to eat our faces.

Shauna looked at us like we'd suggested using her knife to stir soup.

The argument lasted twenty fucking minutes.

Longer than some of our hunting discussions.

At this point I'm not even sure we're surviving anymore. I think we're just feeding wildlife in increasingly creative ways.

Final score: 1/10.

Winter tried to freeze us. Spring's trying to eat us.

Honest Review: The Goat Situation

I don’t know when this turned into a fucking farm.

Seriously. One minute we’re starving, freezing, barely holding it together, and now it’s spring and we’ve got goats like we signed some contract I definitely don’t remember agreeing to.

They just showed up. No warning. No build up. Just… goats. Everywhere. Like the forest went, “You know what these idiots need? More mouths to feed.”

Fucking hilarious.

And these things have zero boundaries.

You leave anything unattended for two seconds, it’s gone. Food, clothes, something you were literally holding a second ago. One of them tried to eat my sleeve while I was wearing it. Like I’m part of the menu now. Great. Love that for me.

And they climb. Of course they climb.

Trees, branches, huts, anything that exists. I look up, there’s a goat on the roof like it pays fucking rent, staring out over camp like it’s in charge now. Then it just starts screaming. Loud. For no reason. Just losing its mind.

Fuck’s sake.

And somehow we’re all just… accepting this?

There’s one that follows Lottie around like she’s its personal life coach. Figures. She says something about “energy” and now she’s got a goat entourage. I don’t even question it anymore.

Another one keeps squaring up to Tai like it wants to die. I’m waiting for that to resolve itself.

And then there’s the naming.

Yeah. We’re naming them now.

I heard someone call one “Buttercup” and I almost lost my shit. You cannot name something that might end up being dinner. That is a rule. A very obvious rule. We are not getting emotionally attached to backup protein. What are we doing?

Misty tried to organize them. Like, actually organize them. Talking, clapping, whole thing. One of them headbutted her and walked away.

Honestly? Deserved.

At this point I’ve stopped asking questions.

We’re out here in the woods, living in huts, starving half the time, and somehow also managing a herd of goats that nobody asked for and nobody controls.

Final score: 6/10.

Points for entertainment, I guess. They’re loud, they’re chaotic, they don’t give a shit about anything, which, yeah, relatable.

Minus everything else.

Late. Yeah. I Know.

It takes Nat weeks.

Not because she forgets. Not because she doesn't care.

Because she reads the poem once, then again, then folds it back up like it might burn her if she stares too long. Because every time she thinks about finding Lottie and saying something real, her chest locks up and she suddenly has somewhere else to be. A trap to check. Tracks to follow. Anything that doesn't involve standing still and being seen like that.

Lottie said she sees her.

Nat is still not sure what to do with that.

So she does what she always does when things get too big.

She keeps moving.

The weather shifts eventually. Not warm, but less brutal. Enough that hunting is not an excuse anymore. Enough that staying away starts to feel obvious. Cowardly, even.

Nat hates that feeling more than anything.

So one night, sitting just outside her hut with a scrap of paper that she stares at for a long time.

“Stupid,” she mutters.

Then she starts writing anyway.

……………<>……………

It does not rhyme. I am not doing that.

This is already bad enough.

You write like you mean it like it's easy like the words do not get stuck halfway out and make you feel like an idiot

I don't have that

I have this

You said you see me

I don't know what you're looking at half the time I barely recognize myself

but

you are the only one who doesn't look away or try to turn me into something else

that has to count for something

I call you Prophet Girl

not because I think you're whatever everyone else thinks

but because you see things and you say them out loud even when it screws everything up

even when it scares people

I don't do that

I just… watch

and I noticed you before all of this

and maybe after

and yeah I noticed you back home too

so

don’t go thinking that moment between us was nothing

because it wasn’t

it was

loud

like a guitar turned up too far like something you feel in your ribs before you even hear it

and I don’t know what to call it either

but it is not nothing

and it is not a game

so

yeah

that is what I have

……………<>……………

Nat reads it over once.

Makes a face.

“Jesus.”

She folds it before she can change her mind, stands up, and walks straight toward Lottie’s hut before her brain can catch up and stop her.

She does not knock.

Just opens the door, walls in and pushes the paper into Lottie’s hands the second she sees her.

“There. Don’t… read it out loud or anything.”

Her ears are already burning.

“And for the record,” she adds, like she has to get this part out before she bolts, “Prophet Girl is not me making fun of you or what you do. I… like it. It’s yours...It makes me happy when I call you that...”

That is as close as she is getting to explaining it out loud any better than she did on paper.

Nat lingers for half a second too long, like she might say something else, but she can feel the blush rushing up neck to the tips of her ears.

Then she shakes her head once, sharp.

“Yeah. Anyway.”

OOC:

Okay, Hamlet.

This is an inbox, not a tragedy.

Okay. I’ve had enough of my teammates looking at me like I’m a food group. I do not need random strangers seasoning commentary.

Hannibal Lecter. Classy, polite, good taste in wine. Obviously. And it has nothing to do with the fact Lottie spent half the movie basically in my lap every time the music got creepy. Totally unrelated.

Absolutely not answering that.

#needdat #luvulottiebuturgonnahavetostepasidesweetie

#mamaneedshersweettreat

#whitechocolate

What the hell did I just read..!?