The Hunt Begins

"I am physically well."

Oh god no she was one of those. The things that hadn’t had much human interaction in their lives, and as a result seemed to be from the middle ages. Or from under a rock. Under the Rock Girl’s next comment stopped him from simply backing off, as curiosity won out over his need to quietly abscond. “Given you location?” He repeated dryly, unable to restrain himself. Under the Rock Girl’s eyes were moving around the common room suspiciously, as if she did in fact expect to come to some harm simply from sitting in her chair. 

Lorraine lowered her needles again and looked at the boy she was, apparently, having a conversation with. Her look was still one of deadpan boredom, but she was looking at him now. Her eyes gave him a quick once over before she answered him. “Not quite,” she told him slowly. “It’s more to the fact that I am prone to attack from your kind.” 

Then again, maybe he could simply just give a textbook definition, like most of what he’s read up on selkies when he first arrived in BATS. It probably wouldn’t hurt, but seeing as he’s already been hurt twice over, he didn’t quite see the point. Finnian pulled his outstretched legs and folded them to himself, keeping his bound arms between his thighs and chest. His hands he closed into fists so as to keep his fingers away from Lorraine lest she threatened to break them again. He leaned his temple against one kneecap and wished he could go back to unconsciousness instead of having to go through some sort of interrogation.

"As part of the lesser fae, I suppose we selkies are also not inclined to give straight answers if we don’t want to," he rambled on, quite done caring whether he was giving pertinent answers or not. "I’ve never been good at nor comfortable with lying, but I don’t relish being robbed of my liberty to disclose information about myself or my kind. Haven’t you ever had anyone tell you anything willingly before? Doesn’t it feel better than bullying your way through?"

"Maybe you’re not here to win people over, but you could use a little more tact if you want information." Finnian could not help but roll his eyes as he said it and he sighed agin. "But since there’s very little about selkies that I can personally admit to, I’ll make it easy for you. Selkies are seal folk, we live in the sea. We turn into humans when we go land and shed our seal skin. I’ve no idea why, really, but we do. Some of us get captured and trapped on land as humans, but we’ll always choose the sea, because it always calls to us… and it’s very difficult…" 

As soon as he said that selkie's were lesser fae, Lorraine stopped listening, going back through what little she knew of Fae creatures. Her study in weres and human to animal transformation creatures, such as familiars, rarely brought her into the realm of the fae. She thought the creatures too trying for her tastes. She preferred a better hunt one gets from chasing a were. 

As she thought of faes, the selkie's judgmental accusations of her bullying and tact went unheard. Whether this was a good or a bad thing for the creature would remain a mystery. But as she was only listening to the tone and noticed the slight accusation within it, she deemed that he was not giving her any useful information. When he sighed again, this brought Lorraine back to her senses to listen to him again.

His explanation as well as his sad tone about the sea did nothing for Lorraine. If anything, it strengthened her apathy. But she was finished with him. She knelt to his side, drawing her dagger from her boot once she was on her knees. She grabbed his tied wrists with her free hand and pulled them to her. With one swift cut, she freed his arms. And then with a second swift cut, she freed his legs. She straightened quickly, putting a few feet between them. 

Maybe she was some sort of creature that was hunted relentlessly and it was bred into her. Maybe she was scared of men. Maybe she was scared of everyone at this school all ready. Maybe she was just a coward. At least two of those things Alec could relate to on a very personal level, and despite the girl’s tone obviously stating she was done with this interaction, he couldn’t help but extend at least a partial olive twig, if not even a branch. 

But a fellow hunter words, a Woden's words, no less, bounced around in her head. She tried to make her expression as neutral as possible as she looked back to the boy whom had her ball of yarn. She blinked at him once as she thought over her answer. Was she alright?

"I am physically well," she decided on, looking at him with no emotion. "Given the location I have given myself, it is all I can really hope for," Lorraine continued, her voice becoming deadpan.

He surreptitiously followed her pacing with his eyes, wondering what she would do now. He had given her an answer, and he hoped to God she would be happy with it — after all, since she is Jennifer (no matter how much she denied it, it was too late to take back), she would’ve known what he meant by being a selkie. Lorraine knew what a selkie is, didn’t she? She had lived in Stronsay to study how to hunt them, hadn’t she? He frowned when she finally faced him, armed with more questions that led to him forming more questions about her as well, even if he was ninety-six percent sure she wouldn’t let him ask her.

"You don’t know what a selkie is?" he just had to say, unable to break this already dangerous habit of answering her questions with another question. Finnian rushed to amend his response with a hasty, "Of course, all right, fine."

Though something struck her as odd before she could continue. It almost sounded like something of redemption, how this creature played at being human though it clearly wasn't one. She wondered if it was something like redemption. A creature wishing to repent against itself. She supposed that, somewhere, she could respect that. 

It was something to consider at a later date. She took a step toward him to stare down at him in an apathetic gaze. He seemed very cooperative and Lorraine asked herself if she would perhaps free him. Maybe later. But certainly not at this instant.

Creature. Creature… she kept calling him creature. What creature dares to try and stalk a hunter? As the statement presented itself forward in his thoughts, Finnian finally figured out why Lorraine acted like she did — she was a hunter, one of the exchange students, and she came from that school along with the others that were already here. Never mind that she seemed to be the girl he once knew just a few moments ago; he now understood her preoccupation with knowing what he was exactly. She probably wanted to know, to study them, to better know how to kill more of them. Weren’t they being groomed to do just that?

Finnian looked away; whatever indignation he felt was irrelevant now, for all the fight in him was gone. Why would he even try to get her to acknowledge him as someone who should be called by his given name? She didn’t even acknowledge him to be anything like her — he wasn’t human in her eyes. Maybe even then, back in Stronsay, she was already learning how to kill them, that perhaps her family had been hunters too.

"I’m a selkie, that’s what I am," Finnian answered quietly, though he forced himself to look back at her as he did so. "You probably know what a selkie is, don’t you, Lorraine?” he went on, emphasizing her name, and hinting at accusation not in his tone, but in his eyes. “You must have hunted them in Stronsay, too, and for what — sealskins? Sport?” Finnian fought the shiver that threatened to overcome him, having to recollect the more unpleasant memories he had from home… ones that both broke his heart and made him angry.

She stopped abruptly and faced him. She knew of his anger and it made her own anger cool, instead of heat, as it would most other creatures and hunters. But she learned that anger made things and people be stupid, rash... It was how she had killed more than one creature. Anger calmed her better than any words or actions.

She leaned against the base of a forgotten statue as she thought over her next list. While she had paced, she had come to terms, slightly, with what his yet again cryptic answer was. She gathered her new list and started down it.

Brow furrowed in confusion and momentarily forgetting the dangers of picking up unknown objects at BATS, he reached down to retrieve the offending object. Glancing up he half anticipated to find Felicity peering at him from around a chair, but the werecat was no where to be found. Instead the only other person within reasonable yarn rolling distance was a tall and fierce looking girl, staring him down with an expression that on someone less intimidating might have been called trepidation. Alec didn’t recognize her, and chalked it up to the seemingly never-ending influx of new students over the past semester. 

At first, Lorraine didn't answer him. She stared at the ball of yarn, or more glared at it, before staring at him for a second and then eventually, slowly and hesitantly, as if she expected him to attack her, because she did, she stood up, reached over, leaning her arm as far out and staying as far away from him as possible, grabbed the ball with the edge of her fingers, and plucked the ball out of his hand. Once the ball was in her possession again, she moved away from him quickly and sat back down in her chair. Once she had resettled into her chair, she looked back to him coolly.

"Thank you," she said in a tone to match her face. She looked easily back to the patch of knitting she was working on.