18044/The friendship that never was
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
The friendship that never was | |
---|---|
Date of Scene: | 24 May 2024 |
Location: | Breakstone Wilderness Campsites |
Synopsis: | Piotr and Logan go over some old survival journals, maps, and other assorted documents Logan has put together about wilderness locations. Then share some heart felt emotions, thoughts, and advice that involves how hard you hit it. |
Cast of Characters: | Piotr Rasputin, Logan Howlett
|
- Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Adjacent the meandering trails that cross the woods spreading boughs outward above and beyond Breakstone Lake, a stone's throw from more official tent sites, sits a makeshift picnic alcove on a high bank overgrown with moss and fallen logs. It's nature's own sitting lounge, with an overlook and the pleasant burbling backdrop of that aforementioned lake. Right now the 'picnic' is several parcels of varied beer and a large bottle of whiskey.
Piotr sits on a log facing Logan, with a few maps spread out on a log between the pair, a mix of aged, wrinkled parchment and newer, modern additions-- with a few annotated revisions drawn in here and there. Next to and atop these geographical diagrams rests a weathered, leatherbound journal; an old backpacker's volume from one of... perhaps a FEW of Wolverine's wilderness stints.
"People were using your lean-to and earthwork here, still; the cache had been replenished, there was fuel for the stove." It's one of the more remote choices, not even really NEAR any of the major coastal trail networks. "Look." The journal page is turned, and the makeshift location has indeed been upkept, rebuilt, even expanded. Piotr's sketched it expertly in charcoal, with the lush summer foliage grown in all around the hidden haven.
The large Russian leans to retrieve a fresh beer, carefully placing the used up one in a bag for disposal. Don't get him started on all the people who -don't-.
- Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan finishes off the beer he'd been nursing and dropped it down in the carton where he'd retreived it, hooking another in the same motion while he's leaning down over the diagrams he'd provided to Pete some months prior before the Russian's souljourn. His wicker, thread bare, cowboy hat sits on the table, hanging from the unopened neck of the whiskey bottle because he's got a cigar chewed into the corner of his mouth. "It always did tend to attract a few hikers this time'uh year." He agrees, twisting off the top to take a swig.
A hairy arm draws across his mouth, beer set down with his hand still wrapping it's middle.
"How was the game? I head out there every few years to curb back the predator population.. The nineties were rough on the wilde life." He tilts the bottle, "Use to be there weren't a deer for miles mid season." While he might not be, exactly, an ecologist, he definitely puts in a great deal of effort to keep things balanced in most of the coves that he's established over the last century or so.
Some of them he only remembers because of the journal he kept.
Shame he didn't do that with his plethora of wives.
- Piotr Rasputin has posed:
Piotr cracks his own brew, and swigs right from the bottle as he takes a moment to think back. It's the kind of thing that demands the right word. "Thriving." It's not a 'how you say' sort of situation with Rasputin. Despite the heavy Russian accent, the young giant has Charles Xavier's vocabulary. "Vibrant."
Aside from the quick sketch adjacent to the shelter right in Logan's journal, it's come back to him with nigh countless such doodles, and even more small and folded papers carefully tucked within. Not bookmarks, per se-- relevant art. In this case, game birds, deer, a particularly impressive buck. All of which seem to have been patiently observed, appreciated, and recorded rather than being sought as trophies.
"I salted and dried smoked meats the way you showed me for each leg, and foraged the local flora to learn about it." Beat. "Though I also packed in a whole lot of trail mix." He's not Logan, some days all he sniffs out is crab grass. "The coyotes are still out there, but there's a few bear in the immediate area. And whoever's hunting or treking out that way is looking out at least a little."
Another, deeper draught draws Piotr's eyes out over the wind-rippled lake. "I wrestled a grizzly out west after it charged another group of backpackers." It's dry, deadpan. But so close, /so/ close to utterly cracking up, to the facade shattering with his own buzzed amusment. "My friend, I remain a Russian stereotype."
- Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan tips his bottle up with two fingers, setting it back on the table with a brisk nod. His hair is longer than he usually keeps it. Long enough that could pull it into a ponytail.. Long enough that the grey is starting to grow out where sideburns meet his beard. While it's hardly a fair depiction of his age, it's definitely starting to show more than usual. "Over population was the problem. Over population an' no prey." He points to one of the maps, then pulls it over to indicate a section of the mountains.
"Lots of over huntin', over fishin'... Glad to see people are comin' around to what we're tryin' to do." It's small things, little steps. Logan can, and has in the past, been a grand gesture kind of guy, but when it comes to his pet projects in the wild... he's taken a more moderated approach over the last two or three decades.
Place where nature is blending with civilization in harmony, or at the very least the illusion of it. Nature's unpredictable and not as easily controlled.
With a grin around the cigar returned to his teeth. "A big ol' chromed out cliche." The furry mutant leans back against the edge of the picnic table. "So ya back for good or jus' a lay over before more walk about?"
- Piotr Rasputin has posed:
"Even in Russia today, people are taught that accumulation is meritorious. And sure, there are things to strive for, but..." One broad, gnarled trunk of a shoulder shrugs beneath loose flannel. He learned it from watching /you/.
"Hoarding is mental illness, not worth or character. Domination and manifest destiny over coexistance..." The colossal Russkie shakes his head, his own mane close-cropped with nearly military precision, his granite jaw framed by a similarly carefully grown goatee. It's likely not how he looked on the trail, unlike Logan... who remains just Logan regardless, somehow.
"Every generation seems to think it is new and disastrous, but it is nothing new, is it? All we can do is the small things; stem the tide. Fight the good fight so the spark stays lit." It's a lesson Piotr's taken to heart better than almost anyone else who's passed through this august institution. Now, the Russian strives for another shot, displacing Wolverine's hat-- carefully-- to retrieve the bottle. This time, the drink he takes -is- to buy time to actually gather his thoughts; to weigh how he feels.
"I came here as a boy, from a farm, the future set out before me gone in the blink of an eye." Logan knows this part of the story; go! "But was that ever who I really /was/?" It's a rhetorical kind of thing, Piotr doesn't pause there. "Heroism, idealism, purpose beyond survival or the immediate needs of my Tribe-- I learned those things here. They defined who I found myself wanting to be wherever I walked, but when I come back here I... I feel removed from the struggle once more, unsure of my place in the bigger picture. It has changed-- I have changed."
That same huge shoulder shrugs more adamantly. "Life is change. Is that good, bad, both? I suppose that is the pathfinding from here." He drinks again, of course. Then passes it over as he steels himself to the burn.
- Logan Howlett has posed:
Logan doesn't interrupt, but he's never been a very verbose individual in conversation anyways. Even at his most chatty, he'll often resort to pointed, poignant, grunts to make his thoughts known. Which has less and less to do with age, the more an individual gets to know him. Obviously, time has an effect, but most of that time is taken from him. The wisdom of experience betrayed by memories he only recalls in dreams. Never really knowing, for sure, if the movies in his mind are reality or fictions. Some of that past is still hidden, but the experience, somehow, still remains.
He reaches out and takes the bottle in a gnarled hand covered in callous', but doesn't immediately drink. There's few people that Logan shares his thoughts with. The things that bother him, the things he thinks about when he's alone in his cabin with a bottle of whiskey. His opinions on the world? The course of time and things ever changing.
"Gotta hold onto that, kid." The idealism. "Life'll take it from you. We're all jus' mountains an' hills." He taps the bottle against his temple, patting it once it settles back between his legs on the bench he's seated. "An' time is the river that runs through it.. changin', shapin'.." He finally sucks down a healthy draught of whiskey and coughs into his fist after swallowing. The only outward indication of any burn at all.
"They need your idealism now more'n ever." Pointing the bottle in the direction, exact, of the Mansion. "Turmoil's comin'. Jean's steppin' down, things are changin' faster than anyone's tryin' to keep it together.. and I've never been 'that guy'. You want somethin' torn apart? Ain't nobody better than me... but what they need right now is stability, strong shoulders. To either carry them out of the fire or let them lean against it when the weight is too heavy to walk alone."
The bottle drops down, caught between two fingers, so he can hold it back out to Piotr. "Whatever you decide, though. I know you ain't the sort to do so without thinkin' bout it first."
- Piotr Rasputin has posed:
"I don't know." There's a lot to not know about, in the whole quagmire. Piotr cracks a half of a smile, steely eyes shifting askance to Logan. "The Wolverine School for the Gifted has a certain ring to it. Guaranteed viral clickbait, at least." Someone's bound to appreciate it too late, after too few seasons. Art and its contemporaries, etc.
"That is the rub, isn't it? Virtually everyone who has compromised their idealism, or turned against that camaraderie... they feel /justified/. Life always gives one a reason to lash out, doesn't it?" Perhaps that's the trick of the whole classical ordeal. "But we must never give in; and always seek out new ways forward."
Setting the whiskey aside after one more swig-- which is fast for Piotr, who lacks Logan's special biology-- a somewhat unsteady mitt extends to clasp his ally and mentor's own broad, reinforced shoulder. "You are more than an especially sharp weapon, and you of all people have wisdom enough to know that. Nearly every hero here who can throw a decent punch owes you, you fed me on the trail, even without walking it beside me." This is /important/. Intense even beyond the buzzed emotion carrying it out in stream of consciousness.
Even without the transformation, Rasputin's features are ironclad. "And /any/ home, any land, must be defended by the humble and the righteous against any who would see it defiled, and its people made victims."
- Logan Howlett has posed:
"Don't you wish that evil on me, boy." Logan uses the title 'boy' very tongue in cheek. Piotr is three or four times his size, after all. And has been a child for a long time. Even if all of them are whipper snappers to the Wolverine. It's said with a smirk in his beard, nails digging into it to scratch at the hidden jaw somewhere there in.
A rare moment of joviality from the usually stoic elder mutant subsides as quickly as it was revealed. Paying homage to what the Russian says with a fractional nod of his head. The time of silence spent adjusting his hat, picking it up and tossing it a few inches, only to pick it up and repeat the process. An action of collecting his thoughts on a matter. Buying time, even. In his own way.
After a moment, he leans back and fishes a box of matches out of his pocket and strikes one near the end of his cigar. It'd gone out ages ago and he'd chewed on it rather than rekindling. The flavor was lost, the aroma was bland. Whatever brand he's smoking, it's definitely not expensive.
A cloud raises out the corners of his mouth.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." He has never been especially religious, but even for someone as steadfastly against the organization of the Church itself, there's glimpses of wisdom in their holy text. "I just don't want you to end up a casualty of over thinkin' a thing. The where's of belonging, the how's of makin' your way through it all."
He sets the cigar back between his teeth, puffs a few times with cheeks hollowing out. "I didn't spend all that time teachin' you kids to stand on your feet so you would keep it held closed to your chest. Just like wrestlin' that bear to protect them backpackers..." He points towards the mansion. "Lots of bears. Lots of backpackers."