RP:House of the Soul

Part of the What Dreams May Come Arc

Summary: Meri and Hudson, crime royalty of both Larket and Cenril respectively, resign themselves to the gruesome task of body shopping. No strangers to doing the hard things in life, the ruling powers of the less-than-legal world head out to follow a lead Meri dug up on a missing woman in Frostmaw. Hudson calls Joanie to keep a proverbial leash on him and he shifts into his wolf form for a search of the area the unfortunate woman was reportedly visiting. In the end they find the frozen woman and a body for the notorious criminal Valrae and her hopeful return to the land of the living.

Here are some things that are less than ideal in Hudson’s life right now. 1) Lithrydel is under attack by an evil warlord named Kahran. 2) The only thing between Cenril and Kahran is a barrier that’s growing weaker by the day. 3) The only way to patch the barrier is to resurrect his ex-mistress and convicted terrorist, Valrae Ivy Baines Older. 4) In order to resurrect her, they apparently need a body, preferably a young female one, and folks of that demographic just aren’t dying in Cenril. “Just find one,” Uma had told Hudson, with a grim wave of her hand that suggested that the details regarding this transaction were best left unsaid. This is the job from hell. Who better situated than him to get it done? But also, who worse situated? After making discreet inquiries in Cenril’s hospitals, he’d written to Meri in Larket. It would be a better look if this were on someone else after all. Uma didn’t have the connect; he did. His message to Meri had said: “M, RE Cenril V.I.B.O. mission: we need a body. Tell me some good news and I’ll come to you. H.”

No one was home except for Kadence (Meri's horse) at the time she received this note, so it was her poor horse got an earful. Hudson has had some tall orders for Meri in the past, but this one tops the charts. Even for him. V.I.B.O? What does that even stand for? After rumbling about that for a minute, Meri finally makes some noise to the horse about how of course they needed a body, Valrae's was nothing but ash. How could they bring her back without a body to put her spirit back into? The response that Hudson receives in response is questionable, it does not seem to hold promise of good news. It does not even hold confirmation that Meri was actually going to look for a body? The response that Hudson get is a quickly scrawled note that reads, 'What the heck even.' And that was a tempered response, really! This was definitely not the promise of good news that Hudson wanted, yet while the werewolf was probably stewing over what the heck himself no thanks to Meri's note, Meri herself was trying to drum up some leads, A female body, but the list of wants did not just stop there, did it? Age? Weight? Height? Other physical features? etc, etc.

Hudson indeed has a difficult time deciphering “what the heck even.” Does that mean Meri’s caught the body? Or, more likely, does it mean she hasn’t? In any event, she’s implicated with this grisly assignment whether or not she wants to be. They could play this game of ‘telephone’ (excuse the anachronism) but he’d rather discuss in person. It’s a thing you learn to do when you’re in organized crime: avoid paper trails. He saddles up Cleopatra and flies right over there. After parking his ride, he goes in search of Meri. He finds her in the first place he looks. No surprises here: she can see him coming, in his unassuming dad jeans and mint polo visible under his wool coat. “What the heck even,” he greets her, holding out his fist to pound against hers. He waves off a small entourage that’s loitering and gestures that they walk. “Thought this might be easier,” he remarks, grimacing once they’re left alone. “I should have seen this coming, but, as Valrae’s body is indisposed, she needs a new one.” He’d been watching folks disperse but now he levels his gaze on Meri. “Tell me you followed that much from my note,” he adds dryly.

Hudson would not be very hard pressed to find Meri, not today. She has been fairly absent from her shop ever since she made it back from the Shadow Planes, so he will not be locating her there. But her home has been immediately next to her business for sometime now. He does not even have to go knocking on her front door to find her. She is outside...gardening? Well it’s not secret that Cal has a thing for plants so it should really come as no surprise that Meri has taken an interest in his hobby. Anyway! Meri is outside. Her hands a little on the soil-covered side but they are charmingly wiped off on her jeans prior to that fistbump. “Uh. Yeah. I mean I got that eventually. But still.” What the heck even. I guess it is not all fun and games when you are trying to save the world? ...Except Meri’s motive is to help Valrae first, helping Cenril is just like a bonus perk. Warped. “Look, I have been digging and researching and I think I got a couple of possible options but I have questions.” Questions that Meri would not ask Hudson in the front yard. The door to the three story townhome is opened and Hudson is invited inside. Meri will lead the way to the kitchen, one singular beer will be presented to Hudson. None for Meri. They were leftovers, Meri has also stopped drinking since her return from the Shadow Plane. “I guess I am just concerned about some of the not so small details. Like...freshness. Can we go digging up a grave? Or does this body need to belong to someone who is very recently deceased. And does how they died influence anything? I don’t think that it does if we had a Necromancer helping.” But they had witches. Was he magic the same? Meri did not know, she was a psion not a mage. “If the person died of disease, is this going to be an issue? Is some sort of physical trauma preferred? Or do we need some sort of freak accident like drowning to make this work...” No disease to fight. No wounds to heal. Well...depending on how hungry the fish were feeling. Either Meri is overthinking this, or this task is not as simple as anyone is hoping.

Hudson is impressed by this winter garden. The fact that Meri and Callum seem to take care of it themselves is mostly what’s impressive. He and Alvina do not have time for this. They have a gardener, as their hobbies consist almost entirely of child-related activities. It happens. In any event, he follows Meri inside and gratefully accepts and goes about opening the beer that she tenders him. “Freshness,” he repeats, with a grim smile, as he settles back against her counter. “That’s one way of putting it.” He rubs his face. He doesn’t know the answer to these questions, not really, but like Meri he can hazard some guesses and together they’ll make it up as they go. “I think it’s supposed to be somewhat fresh, Uma says she can preserve it if we get it to her that way.... Probably not dead of some sort of disease that would kill her again, sure.” He squints at Meri and takes a healthy swig from his beer. “This is good,” he compliments it, peering at the label. He returns to the main reason behind their meeting shortly, remarking, “Freak accident is probably best.” He drinks again from his beer and exhales forcefully, considering her. “You’re keeping me in suspense. So, do you have some candidates?’

Kids, they do that. Only like another fifteen years or so, Hudson, then maybe the word 'hobbies' will become part of of Hudson and Alvina's vocabulary again. So close....For the most part Meri has drawn the same conclusions that Hudson has. They probably should not be going out and digging up any graves, and it probably should not be some illness. Still, Meri had this hope that maybe magic would allow them some wiggle room in that area. Meri expresses her frustration with a cross-eyed expression. Lovely. "I mean, I don't think Valrae is going to appreciate it if we just go and suffocate some dame, is she?" Callous, but it was probably the easiest option that they had available to them. They could hand select her body that way. "Well there was a chick who drowned in Rynvale, but that was like a month ago. Which is probably not any good." Based on their discussions, it did not seem good. "A gal out in Venturil got sick recently and passed, not entirely sure what got 'er though..." Sometimes even common illnesses if left ignored and untreated could become fatal. The third option will also take effort on their part. "A woman in Frostmaw has also recently gone missing. But I am not a tracker, tracking in the snow is not easy." One of these options is a red headed woman. One blonde. One brunette. HINT THOUGH. The brunette drowned in Rynvale.

Hudson makes a show of hemming and hawing. “Probably not but then again, ... mass destruction of society as we know it? But yeah probably not.” Meri keeps talking and Hudson rubs his face. He’d shaved two days ago and fully intended to shave today but obviously that’s not happened. “I have an ice box at home. Well, frozen does keep things fresh. Ish,” he comments, lifting his beer in what appears to be a toast. He drinks. “I’m working on my wolf self lately,” he says, in the playful tone of someone who’s making fun of self-improvement even as he claims to be engaging in it. “I bet I could find a body, but I’m not a nice dog sometimes so we can bring Joanie just in case.” He pauses to drink again, and then rolls his shoulders to loosen some tension that had settled there in his ride over. “We can send her a raven before we go looking. If you’re game to come with. Do we have the details on where she was hiking?”

'... mass destruction of society' ... Meri is looking all too thoughtful when Hudson brings up that counterpoint, what was one more murder in the midst of a war? What do they call it? Collateral damage? If worse comes to worse and Hudson and Meri are not able to hunt up a body, at least they both seem to be...somewhat...accepting of that gruesome option. "She supposedly told her family that she was heading out to Lake Frysta, she left for it in the morning but was not back by evening." But sitting stationary in Meri's home would not find them a body to stuff Valrae's spirit back into. They needed to get moving and so Meri would explain the sparse few details that she did know en route. Of course they have already done a search of the area immediately surrounding the lake and they turned up nothing. Before they leave Larket, they take care of the issue of sending word to Joanie. On the way to Frostmaw? Meri probably had a few questions, about Alvina, the kids, etc etc. There were not questions about him 'working on his wolf self', the comment was enough to raise concern so that Meri would proceed with caution. Fast forward to Frostmaw, HUdson, Meri and Joanie are standing in front of Lake Frysta.

Yes: Hudson and Meri are business people and sometimes murder is the business you're in. It's fine. If the grisly needed doing, they'd have to grit their teeth and do it for the good of society. Hudson had already thought about this. There's people who owe him money in Cenril, that'd be the logical place to start. If needed. For now, though: Lake Frysta. "That's a good tip," he tells Meri, impressed she's pulled all of this together on the basis of his cryptic note. Of course, people in their line of business, the asks are always pretty unreasonable. Find a body. Don't let it be this way, or that way, try not to kill anyone, blah blah blah. He finishes his beer as Meri goes through the remaining details, then he sends a bird to summon Joanie and they get moving. He's more than happy to fill Meri in about Alvina and the kids on the way over: Alvina's good, although about fed up with being pregnant; their children grow like weeds, lycan blood and all that; Harper's struggling with their kindergarten but loving gymnastics; Luna is not into sports, very into art these days, the icebox is decorated with trash/drawings of random dogs. The girls know about Kahran, actually, because they have ears and listen, but they don't really understand the danger beyond him being some sort of faceless boogeyman. He asks Meri about Callum and the mood in Larket. It seems to him that Macon relies on fear (of witches? Now Kahran?) to keep the population in check, he muses. A conversation for another time, maybe because Joanie's just arrived to meet them by broom. The older woman is bundled up. After greeting Meri warmly, she gives Hudson a potion, which he drinks, grimacing terrifically, without explaining its contents to anyone. (Perhaps it's obvious.) "It would help I guess if we had something of our missing woman, for the scent," he remarks as he shucks off his coat, extending it to Joanie, who is waiting patiently. "Beggars can't be choosers though," he adds, a beat later, as he pulls off his sweater. He doesn't continue stripping; his body shifts into an oversized russet wolf. Messily done, thinks Joanie, who sighs and collects the rest of his clothes from the ground. She tidies them all away with a wave of her wand. For his part, Hudson is sniffing the air, and then, ears alert, pads forward to a nearby tree, which he promptly salutes with his leg and pees against. Joanie looks at Meri in a cheerfully put upon manner.

Meri has not actually heard that Alvina was pregnant again, this is both a surprise and not a surprise to Meri. Meri will go on to explain that things with Callum seem to be okay. The mood of Larket...It does not seem to be a positive one. Sure there may be some people still loyal to the King and Queen. Meri goes on to explain that the more time she spends in Larket, the more she wants to pack up and move out. A common theme for Larket these days, isn’t it? She has yet to talk to Callum about that though. Kahran is indeed a subject for another time, Joanie arrives and let’s face it...Frostmaw is cold. Who wants to hang up out here for a prolonged period of time? Which is why Meri can’t exactly blame Hudson for shifting the way he does. Why would he want to strip down while standing upon frozen grounds? Meri would have obviously given him plenty of privacy — no questionable situations for either of them. Now that Hudson has gone wolf, Meri settles her sights upon Joanie. It had occurred to her to ask the werewolf directly, but she did not want to be offensive. So she’ll do it when she thinks he can’t understand her, he is peeing on a tree right now after all. “Any signs I ought to watch out for?” She makes a vaguely motion to the wolf with a toss of her chin. “And unfortunately we did not get anything with the woman’s scent on it.” Meri could only do so much...! They were honestly damn lucky she had managed to drum up this much of a lead on such short notice. “So I am not too sure what we are supposed to do from here on out. Follow him? Hopefully he is hungry?” Gross Meri, sorry Joanie. Somewhere out in the wildnerness, some distance away from the lake, there is a frozen woman whose body is hidden beneath a pile of snow.

Another day they'll have to talk about Larket and the regime issues. Perhaps Hudson will suggest that Meri speak to Kelovath, Larket's very own displaced monarch. Anyway, right now, it's much warmer being a wolf, that's for sure. Thanks to Joanie's potion, Hudson, whilst still being subject to the wolf's whims and such, is more present than he would otherwise be. "Eh, aggression," offers the older witch, helpfully, in response to Meri's question. "He's in there, though. More present in this form, for what it's worth." Having satisfied this urgent but base need to piss on a tree, Hudson trots back to the pair of women and commences sniffing about. He is memorizing their scents, to better be able to pick out what's not theirs. It takes him a moment, whereupon he snorts in what appears to be a decisive manner and bangs his tail on Joanie's leg. "Yep. I think so," says Joanie, mounting up on her broom in what constitutes a signal to the wolf that they can begin searching. Hudson, for his part, begins leading them on that search. He follows the confluence of scents around the Lake until they diverge, then he leads them from one trail to another. It's not exactly a linear trajectory. It's circuitous. Here are some things that they find, running down the various scent threads in the area: (1) a scope for a crossbow, (2) a yellow sweater, (3) fingerless gloves, and (4) a sickle. Joanie, for her part, had picked up the sickle with a shrug to Meri. "Sometimes useful in witch spellwork," she says with a mischievous yet cryptic old lady's gleam in her eye. They'd found the body after that, the russet wolf digging and whining in a snow drift. Everything happens for a reason, apparently: Joanie uses her sickle to carve up the ice that is holding it fast.

There was always another day, Meri would probably be curious to know of this Kelovath, but for now she is a focused woman because it is damn cold out here. Joanie’s answer is less than satisfying but does not press. Aggression. Meri is quite calm as the wolf moves in closer for a sniff, which is of no real surprise to anyone. She does know Tuna. Now that Hudson knows what he is -not- tracking. They are off, and not in a straight line either, which is expected. The scent that Hudson is looking for could be days cold by now. No complaints from Meri, all the running around got the blood flowing and helped to keep her warm. The items that they find along the way are observed. A crossbow scope is not so abnormal. A yellow sweater though? Usually people want to keep those on in climates such as these. Same with the gloves. Which is why Meri seems it a good idea that the witch picks up the sharp, pointy thing — just in case they meet trouble. Meri is on guard from this point out and does not relax even when they have located the body. Joanie begins chipping away with her sickle at the frozen body and Meri is partly inclined to help, but what if they are ambushed? Realistically if this women did meet trouble, it has probably traveled on, but one never knows in these lands. “Stand guard,” Meri says to Hudson, before moving toward the frozen woman. The tips of Meri’s gloved fingers make contact with the ice, sending a light ripple of energy through the ice, just enough to help break it away from the body in chunks without actually causing damage to the dead woman. She soon is free enough that she could be hauled away. Or levitated away. But really, has this hope that she expresses to Joanie, “So do you have a shrinking spell handy so that you can put her in your pocket and take her...somewhere else.” All redheaded jokes aside, it is fairly hard to discern the particulars of this body. She is frozen, there is a sheen of snow and ice in her hair that makes it hair to tell, plus she is clothing she is wearing is also frozen to her. Maybe once she thaws out, we’ll know. Blonde? Brunette? Hm.

Generally speaking, doing ‘dog stuff’ can cause Hudson to become further entrenched in the wolf, because the wolf gets excited about having the steering wheel. It is true that, thanks to Joanie, Hudson is less aggressive and present enough inside his wolf form that he can internalize her request to stand guard. But, one can’t simply suppress all the dog behaviors. So, while he does obediently fall back and sits on his haunches, he emits a puppyish whine in the base of his throat as he watches the proceedings - and the area around them - with interest. Indeed, the wolf part of him is disappointed to be told to sit quietly while Something Is Happening. Why can’t he dig? He wants to dig! Digging is so great! Everyone else is digging! Wait, Meri isn’t digging. His wolfish eyebrows furrow as he looks anxiously between Joanie and Meri, and his tail smacks the ice beneath him, beating out a rhythm of canine impatience. But then: Meri has done something helpful, he knows, he can feel the magic. He gets to all fours and issues a singular, enthusiastic bark, because LOL EXCITING, Meri did a thing, alert the world! “Hudson,” Joanie hisses at him. He sits again, looks somewhat ashamed, even. “It’s trial and error with my potion,” she sighs, for Meri’s benefit. Joanie has pulled out her wand and, with a wordless nod to Meri, is murmuring some words. The body is carefully slid free, and levitated out of the ice through an invisible door of sorts, through which it disappears. It appears easily done, but the older woman’s brow is lined with concentration. The body stored in this mystery witch storage unit, Joanie jerks her wand back in the opposite direction, and Hudson’s clothes drop loose onto snow in a heap. He sniffs them suspiciously. Joanie, for her part, exhales in a rush. “I don’t like the idea of storing an entire dead body in what basically amounts to my purse,” she complains, tucking her wand away. “But ... it’s ... fine.” She looks at Hudson, who is now focused intently on a nearby squirrel and has not understood that he is to change yet. “Hudson,” she addresses him. She says his name again, and he, after yawning, turns to look at her. Ah, right. He picks up some of his clothes in his mouth and trots behind a snow-encrusted shrubbery. Joanie smiles thinly to Meri as they wait. What a line of work this is...

Meri obviously can’t determine how different Hudson’s behavior is without the potion compared to with. Probably considerably different? But this wolf sitting in the snow before her seems friendly enough, which may not be a bad thing so long as the potion does not wear off while Hudson is still a wolf? So Meri inwardly speculates. The woman is about to comment when Joanie whips out her wand and falls into concentration, levitating the body through a door to...where? Joanie’s purse? Wild. Meri blinks a couple times, trying to wrap her mind around that. “Whoa. Is that like a bottomless purse?” Meri does have a guess as to the answer, but her tone of voice is an impressed one, so her silly question is a compliment in its own way. “And, I don’t know. He seems trainable. It is definitely not a bad start...?” Not that Meri knew what Joanie’s end goal was with this potion. The clothes are dropped, Wolf-Hud’s drags them off behind the shrubbery, and they wait. It is a pretty quiet wait with Meri looking more toward Joanie, or the sky, or anything that is not the bush Hudson is behind. She has her back to that. That wait is not going to be silent. When it sounds like Hudson is probably a man and changing into his clothes (when she hears a lot of crunching around in the snow, like someone is putting pants and shoes on), Meri rumbless, “Come ooon. It’s cold out here.” Oh really. “We got what we wanted. It’s in Joanie’s purse. Let’s go....!” Back to warmer climates, not that Larket was much more appealing to Meri than Frostmaw, but at least Cal was there.

Joanie’s eyebrows wing upwards at Meri’s question about her purse. “It’s a magical plane which makes it more or less bottomless in comparison with your average purse,” she says. Her eyes glint with merriment. “One of the first spells I learned when I became a competent witch,” she adds, in a tone suggests her reasons for wishing to learn it are obvious. Joanie considers the icy lake landscape, since they’re talking about Hudson now but it would be rude to stare at the shrubbery while he’s changing. “I think the important thing is suppressing the wolf’s desire to behave aggressively,” she remarks. “I am less concerned about suppressing his desire to engage in embarrassing dog behaviors. So long as Hudson the man can control when he’s violent in his lycan forms, that seems enough for me and minimizes side effects.” Hudson’s boots crunch in the snow signaling his return. “Embarrassing dog behaviors in-deed,” he agrees, buttoning his coat as he joins them. He lifts his chin at the sickle Joanie’s holding. “Sorry about your purse. Thought I was onto something with that sickle, it smelled like person blood,” he informs her, before glancing toward Meri. He extends his arm in a wordless gesture that agrees they should get moving. Who knows where Uma herself will keep the body. This is not their problem. Their job is done.