17167/On the Road again

On the Road again
Date of Scene:	12 February 2024
Location:	A rural tiny town in the northern hills of Appalachia.
Synopsis:	Mercy and Sprite arrive at their destination to hunt.
Cast of Characters:	Mercy Thompson, Sprite

---

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    The pair of women are just arriving in the tiny town of Valley West Virginia. A rather tiny place far off the beaten paths and interstate. Mercy pulls into the one gas station and gets out with a stretch. "Damn that was a longer drive then I expected." Glancing at her road trip buddy. "I hope it wasn't too long and boring for you." Course they got to do a fair bit of talking along the way. Mercy does some more stretching to get the blood back into her limbs, "I couldn't imagine doing this drive as a big guy. I pity those who try to drive a small car when they themselves are not small."

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite looks amused. "Mercy. It was less than a day. Do you know how long it took to get places pre-car? Or pre-horse? It was an enormous pain in the ass. This is nothing." The redhead gets out of the car, looking around. "Not something I'll ever have to worry about." She says, dryly.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Four days," quips Mercy right away to Sprites question as she flashes teeth in a grin. "Man I can't imagine how difficult it be to only have horses if you were... 'extra' as it were." She knows Sprite is smart enough to know Mercy is talking about being a werewolf or something like that. "I haven't been to a place this small in some time." Mercy then leans into the car, flips the car seat forward and gets a gun box open. She checks it, the safety, and then sees about tucking it into a waist holster with a pretty easy draw. She isn't concealing it either. "There. That should help." She looks around and the place almost looks deserted. If someone is in the gas station building you can't see them from the street. There isn't a lot of traffic, or any traffic. Some parked cars and the like. "This is so quiet compared to New York."

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite shrugs a bit. "Well...I can fly. Or teleport. But that doesn't help if you're trying to do migrations with tribes of people. THEY can't." She pauses a moment. "Well, I could have opened a Boom Tube and moved everyone. But that would be a classic example of scaring the straights. Boom Tubes are not subtle, and when they're already worshipping you...it's just aggravating the situation." She shakes her head, and then grins a bit. "Not that I don't do that sometimes anyway." She looks over to the gun, and then the gas station. "So is this the end point? Or do we just need gas?"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Yeah those 'tubes' of yours are impressive. And awesome," she starts to get to the pump. This isn't even a digital one, one of the old gear turner ones, as she starts to refill the car. "I don't think you realize how loud those are to my ears. No that I'm complaining. I just learned to open my mouth if I know you are opening one. "This is the last stop before we get to where we are going. I just wanted to go in with a full tank and ready." She looks around and says, "also I thought it be good to see if we got any gossip about where we're headed." She watches as the pump begins to SLOWLY fill the car. "You know I read a study saying that the speed we do everything at these days says it can hurt our memory. We don't take the quite times to process and reflect like we did." She looks at Sprite, "You know... like back in your day."

Sprite has posed:
    "Oh, they're loud. Tearing holes in space-time is not exactly a small amount of energy." Sprite watches. "I don't think you're going to get a lot of gossip. Not many people around here. I wouldn't even get snacks here. They're gonna be stale." The latter comment gets a thoughtful look. "I could see it. We're into new territory for humanity. It's at least proving interesting. You have to look for the new things."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "No, you're right. We won't. But with my ears you get to hear what they say and do after you they think you left and are out of ear shot." She taps her ear with a grin. "I already heard the old man inside muttering about out of towners who are lost." Mercy has to keep holding the pump because there is no way a gas pump this old has the 'safety shut offs' like most stations do. "Alas. I am already old and stale to my good friend Sprite. She's off looking for the new things. Not some weird oddity who hangs on from who knows how long ago." As she mocks sniffs to the Eternal. "Thanks for doing this again, by the way."

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite laughs at that. "That's cool. The hearing bit. And you're not old and stale. You're interesting. Besides, for all we know, I hung out with your great-to-many-extensions grandmother or grandfather. I did a lot with the native people in the Americas." She says. "Besides. You give me cookies. And you don't need to thank me. It's a new thing. And I wasn't really busy or anything. No family business."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I'm happy to give cookies and more to my friends. Though if you do know anything and feel like sharing about my father's side of the family. I got good ears." Mercy even wiggles them a bit as the pump finally seems to finish. She starts to put the hose away and recap the car's tank. "Just hope you don't have to get too messy on this. I gotta pay, you hanging out here or wanna come in?" She planned for this by getting a fair bit of cash ready to pay because cards may not be as welcome or easy. Plus less of a trail for cops to follow.

Sprite has posed:
    "That'd be hard without details. The people really didn't keep written genealogies. And by the 1800s I was hanging out more in England and Europe. So this would be more like the sixteen hundreds. Probably twenty generations or so." Sprite admits, and gives a faint shrug of her shoulders. "It was more fun to fuck with the English. So uptight. It was great." She nods to the station. "I'll go with."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I don't even know if my father had an honest to god birth certificate. Mom does, but mom's white." She makes sure to say that BEFORE she steps into the station, and holds the door open for Sprite. Time to put on her business voice and 'see I am harmless' act. Which works more times then not. She heads to the counter. "Hi there. I got about $35 on your pump." Setting two twenties to the counter. The man behind the counter has an chair and is reading a book with a pip in his mouth that must have been lit since 1840 given how worn it looks. The man just looks at the two girls for a long handful of seconds. "You li'le ladies lost?" Bending the corner of his book page he closes it and gets to his feet to deal with an old mechanical cash register.

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite walks in and starts looking at the snacks. If there are any. "Nah, just partway between A and B." she answers him. She's playing it more subdued, since she's the "kid". Let the grownups talk.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    There are some. The traditional Little Debbie sorts. There also looks to be some locally made jerky for sale. Of course you got pretzels and nuts that shouldn't be too out of date if at all. There's candy bars as well. The offerings are modest. A few magazines that are current, most of them are stuff like Field and Stream, or Guns and Ammo sort. Focused on more outdoor activities. Mercy glances to Sprite and says, "hey grab that Motor Trend magazine for me will you?" She looks to the guy and nods to the man. "Like she said. Just taking the back roads as we are on our way to meet someone. Anything we should know about the road headed west?" The man is steady and in no hurry whatso ever. He starts to ring up stuff and waits before giving a total. "I wouldn't stop 'til Parkersburg if ya can make eet," he simply answers.

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite grabs it, and walks up towards the counter with that, a couple of candy bars, and some nuts. "Why, are we in Deliverance country? Doo de doo doo de de doo doo doo..." she makes the banjo noise.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    That guy gives the girl a bit of a look as he takes the items and rings up. "No. That movie's 'bout as real as Wrong Turn. Just lotsa folks who like to be alone and own guns 's'all." He gives the total to Mercy as she pays it out and keeps her 'clueless and nice' smile going. "I like guns to," she offers and says, "and know how to shoot. My faster father taught me. I grew up in the mountains of Montana. We'll be fine." The guy leans just a bit to look at the gun on Mercy's hip, and doesn't bat an eye. In fact he seems to give a nod of approval. "Alright. Take care now. 'Preciate the business." With that he'll hand over a simple brown bag with the things in it and the change. Mercy takes it with a word of thanks and will get ready to return to the car.

Sprite has posed:
    Sprite smiles back to him, and then follows Mercy out. "You think it's just that?" she asks once the door shuts. "And if you need me to, I can pull info out of people's heads." she drops that just easily.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Not a chance. Sure some werewolves like to be alone and are very territorial. But if the alpha I'm sort of family with is asking me to check it out. His wife is either trying to kill me again. Or he wants someone more sneaky then his own sons sniffing around. But there is surely to be some blood in the air. It may just be a bad transfer of alpha for a small pack, but more then likely it's a wolf going rogue." Mercy looks surprised at Sprite, "I didn't know you could do that. Definitely will make it easier when we find our guy." She settles into the car and will get ready to start the bug up again. "I just hope that this isn't going to be more then one or two werewolves. I'm not strong enough to just walk into a pack and kick ass. Though I can fake it when I need to."

Sprite has posed:
    "Yeah, well...never advertise what you can do unless you trust people." Sprite says, wryly. "Besides, I'm a goddess, Mercy. I can do anything." She gets into the car. "I can probably handle the heavy lifting. I'm not Thena, but I don't suck." she says.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Anything's a tall order Sprite," teases Mercy. "I doubt even you can do some things." Mercy shakes a head and says, "you're here for my escape route if needed. I didn't want to get you into a fight. Honestly this is the thing where a surprise bullet will do a lot to get the wolves back in line. Besides if you kill them all then the alpha may take it against him." She has to drive carefully as they roads get curvy and narrow in the mountains. "If anything, I'd rather have my good friend find someone that may be nice to go on a date with."

Sprite has posed:
    "I'm tempted to say "try me"." Sprite says with a grin. "But of COURSE I'm gonna help you. Unless you have to like...one-on-one duel him due to tradition or something. And trust me, I can beat people without having to kill them. But I'll follow your lead. Unless some asshole tries to backstab you."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy jokes, "You asking me on a date," as soon as Sprite says 'try me' knowing that isn't what the girl was saying. "Besides I don't play that side of things," Mercy offers. "Despite the amount of time I spend around all those way to good looking Amazons for training." Mercy's head shakes emphatically, "Good God no, to the duel. If I do that I could then be said to be in charge of the pack. That sounds a bit like a nightmare and a big hassle." There's no signs and just lots of open green mountains that are the northern edge of the Appalachia mountains. "It's hard for me to think of these as mountains sometimes. What with growing up closer to the Rockies."

Sprite has posed:
    "What? No." Sprite says, making a face. "How did you even get that out of that? And yeah. The Himalayas are awesome for mountains, but so are the Rockies."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Save for with you, I haven't left America." Mercy reaches over to steal a few bites of a snack the Sprite picked up. "My heart breaks. So cruelly denied and so fast." The mechanic mock swooning as if heart broken. But she stops as she sees a sign that is so faded it's almost blank. "That should mean we're coming to our place. The guy I'm looking for is named Hagley Brown. Supposedly ex-military but dishonorably discharged. He had a tattoo at one point, but I wouldn't try to use that. Some guys scratch them off when they change, or loose them in fights."

Sprite has posed:
    "Not a worry." Sprite says. "I can pick him out if we need that." She looks over to the sign, and then slightly shifts her position in the seat before rolling her shoulders. Just in case. Her eyes are bright. This is the exciting part.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    They pull into an area. This is one of those places that time forgot. There's a general store, a single place to eat that isn't quiet a diner, the post office is the size of a shed, one market, there's a single building that looks to be the 'official' one. The sort where you go for cops, and any actual 'city' business. Not that it looks like anyone has stepped in it for ten years. Mercy drives them slowly as they look around. Just a bit down a side street there's a one story building that is long and narrow with the sign "Rod's Bar" and in front of it are two pick ups and two motorcycles. Mercy slows. "You don't think it be that cliche do you?"