Log:Wildfire: Predators And Prey

Wildfire: Predators And Prey
Participants Uschi, Sylvana Fry, Maggie Locklear, Jack Fry	20 May, 2018 Jack, Maggie and Sylvana - three animal empaths - go on a mission to rescue animals trapped in the wildfire. Uschi's presence is makes the experience a tad more interesting... and a predator will always be a predator.
Location
The sky is grey and black from the smoke. The fire is relentless; already it's claimed large area of forest and fields and the firefighters are struggling relentlessly to keep it from moving in over the town itself. Thankfully, around Tamarack itself, there's not a lot of things that can burn - but some of the outlying buildings and farms have lost houses and animals alike. Jack has been working for twenty four hours with only a couple of hours of sleep early in the morning. He's now discovered something extremely disturbing; trapped animals. The call goes out to Maggie and Sylvana both - he needs them to join him, giving them the location. Once there, he meets them down the dirt track and explains the situation, wearing the protective gear of a fire fighter, and having gear for the two ladies too, handing it out hurriedly while he explains. "We got a serious problem up there. The fire is sweeping in a semi-circle, herding animals towards a cliff face. They're trapped there, and far as I could see, there's several moose, a bear and a bear cub, and some deer - all trapped along the ridge. They're avoiding each other but they are gonna die if we don't get them out. We can't go through the fire, we have to get /them up/." Maggie didn’t hesitate to come and assist. The Native American woman arrives in a bit of a rush. She’s not panicked, which some people might be in this situation. She allows Jack to explain things to them while she manages to get in the firefighter gear that is given to her. “Alright, so we need to get them up.” she nods to Jack. She’s not giving any orders. Just trying to process information so they can get going. Sylvana hurried over, Greyson her Northern Goshawk on her shoulder. She did look a bit worried but she seemed to be holding it in check for the most part. She blinked at all the gear and then looked up to Jack wide eyed. "Get them up? Where exactly are we taking them. Is there a way we could use a helecoptor or something to evacuate them down the mountain some where its safer?" When she spoke her words had an alluring quality to them, soft and sweet that drew you in. She glanced to the other woman there and gave her a smile and a nod before her eyes turned back to Jack. Making sure that they all gear up with the long heavy fire-proof coats, and helmets, Jack gestures upwards into the hilly forest area. "No helicopters free. I shouldn't even be doing this - I should be sleeping," he says tiredly. "Quite frankly, there's nobody having time to rescue some animals, so we're it." He looks at Maggie and Sylvana with an intently burning gaze; one can tell he's exhausted, but he's just so damn stubborn. "I need help to... calm the animals. From you both. And then, we're going to build a damn ramp and get them up the cliffside that way. It's only about ten feet high, so it can be done." Without waiting for their response, he throws a backpack on his back with various gear attacked to it; axe, shovel. Inside is rope, first aid kits. And of course, he brought his rifle... "Come on, let's hurry. It's gonna take at least five minutes just to walk up there." Maggie gives a nod to the others that are there, but, shits on fire yo. So it’s not really the best place to make introductions just yet. “I’ll do my best to calm them and help get them up. We’ll need to make sure if they get spooked that they don’t hurt themselves or go for the fire.” she tells them. “If any of them do get hurt we can try to get them back to the sanctuary for treatment and things.” she nods. Then she’s following the others. Sylvana looked over her Dad worry in her eyes. She bit her lip lightly as she finished getting suited up though she looked like a stick figure in the gear. She looked to Greyson and gave him a few soft pets and whispered words and he took off to go to Jack's house and wait for her there. She looked to Jack again. "After this you get some sleep Dad. You push yourself too hard and you will be no good to anyone." She sighed and then glanced to Maggie and back to Jack with a nod. "I have some of my poultice with me if they are injured that can help and I will do my best to keep them away from any fire and calm." There was a question in her eyes as she watched Jack but it remained unspoken. In truth, Jack didn't have time to explain - that the two women both can do what he can, and that all of their skills are needed. He's pushing upwards through dry underbrush and dead leaves, the trees standing tall around them; tall and /dry/. The spring green is there but not in full swing and on the slopes here, the sun has baked everything relentlessly for almost two weeks, since the snow fully disappeared. There's smoke hazing the environment, coming from further west, and it's heading their way already. "Yeah, I'll sleep later," he agrees, shooting a smile at both Maggie and Sylvana over his shoulder. He hasn't brought Goblin - he'd never endanger that dog like this. "So yeah, we need to keep the animals calm, and then make them move how we want them." Least that part won't be impossible for this trio. "Maggie, Sylvana. Sylvana, Maggie," he remembers distractedly, pushing his helmet back to squint towards the west. "Fuck," he says, eyes widening. "I see flames. The wind must've shifted. It might mean the animals are in a better position, but it also means we might be trapped up here..." "Thank you, that'll be helpful if anyone gets burned." Maggie offers to Sylvana with a warm smile. Then there's a bit of a blink and a look to Jack when Sylvana calls him 'Dad'. Because that's a complete out of left field thing. "She's right, sleep is a must after this. You're running yourself into the ground." she backs his daughter with a nod. "Nice to meet you, Sylvana." she gives her a smile when Jack does introduce them. Then he gives them the bad news. "I've been trapped in worse places." the woman states in a determined voice. "Let's just keep focused." she adds. Saturna has disconnected. Sylvana gave a smile to Maggie and nods. "You as well. I also have some of my medical herbs too. Though with the fire I thought the other would be more needed." She chewed her lip a bit at the mention of the wind shifting some. "Yeah lets worry about the animals first and then we can worry about ourselves." She was worried though there seemed to be something else off about the young lady today. She was not as peppy as usual, but then its probobly just the fire right? "I'm gonna be level with you. If we're in danger, and the animals suffer burn damage, I am going to shoot them. Because I ain't risking any of you," Jack says matter of factly. "We're going to take off rather than risk saving them and end up being crispy critters ourselves." He suddenly stops though, his wariness rising. There's a sound from west, the crackling thunderous sound of the fire. The smoke is getting thicker and it's a bit unpleasant to breathe. "Did you hear that?" he says, lowering his voice. Both women can hear /and/ see it - from west, through the underbrush, comes an animal. It's a bear - and it is panicky and angry. It's more lucky than its trapped relatives further up, as it can run onwards, but it IS running straight towards the trio. Jack's first instinct is to protect. He's exhausted mentally and physically, but it's all he can think about - if he was more levelheaded he would perhaps react with more clarity, but what he does is an immediate sprint towards the bear, waving his arms and shouting. "Here!" And he is moving to the side, trying to distract the bear from coming anwyhere near Maggie and Sylvana. At seeing her dad just jump infront of the bear she panics slightly. The first thing that kicks in is to take matters into her own hands. She eyes the bear and starts to mutter to herself in Cherokee. After a moment her body goes limp and she falls to the ground as her conciousness leaves her and slips into the bear. Once there she works on directing the bear into a more safe route down away from the fire. "Jack!" Maggie shouts as he jumps in the path of the bear and there's a few seconds when the Native American woman is going to try to Possess, but Sylvana collapses. The shotgun is brought up. She looks down to her and then takes a knee as she watches the bear divert, "Jack, you're damn lucky your daughter seems to have your tricks as well." she tells him. "Stop jumping in front of things. We aren't fragile." she huffs at him. Of course, Jack could've done it himself - but the instinct to keep the two women safe overruled it, momentarily. "Hell," he breathes, watching Sylvana collapse and knowing why; he gives the bear a little wave as it is literally his daughter now, watching her run off. "Yeah that was stupid," he admits, moving over the lean down at Sylvana's body. "She'll be back soon." He coughs - the smoke is getting thicker. Not wanting to stay, he carefully lifts the girl up and places her over a shoulder, grunting from the effort. "Let's keep on moving. It's not far now." ANd he starts trudging laborously up the hill again. Sylvana in bear form huffs at Jack as he waves and runs off to a safe location from the fire trusting the two of them to do what is needed while she handles this. The one saving grace of this wildfire is that there's been very little wind. So, it's travelling slowly enough that you can outmove it if you're careful. The worst part is that everything burns; it's been a dry spring, and there's so many dead leaves being baked in the sun on this mountain slope, the fire can move unhindered in very large areas. The air here is filled with smoke, as a trio of people move upwards towards a ridge with a cliffwall, about ten feet high. Jack - wearing the protective gear of the wildfire fighters, carries Sylvana over a shoulder for now, for some reason. Maggie, she soon veers off as there's several bird's nest with desperate birds, that she is going to try to save before rejoining Sylvana and Jack up there on the ridge. Their problem, why they are here? The fire is burning in a large semicircle and has trapped several animals against that cliff face. There's a bear and its cub, four deer, and a moose and its calf - they are not together, seperated by boulders and avoiding each other in their panic, though the deer and the moose are quite close to each other. The only way to get to them? Is from above, on top of the cliff itself. Walking to them below is impossible due to the fire. Maggie is nearby, working on her own rescue for now, and Jack gets up there, setting Sylvana down carefully - he knows she will be back in her own body soon enough, only a couple of minutes ago that she jumped into a bear to get it away from here. He moves to the edge of the cliff, looking down to locate the animals. "Fuck." He realises the moose calf? Is injured. It tries to stand but seems to have broken a leg. It is braying in pain, making the mother moose even more panicky and anxious. After what possibly seemed like forever to her father in this current situation Sylvana's eyes flutter open and she draws a deep breath and sighs. "OK hes safe and away from people." She looked up at her father giving him a soft smile before carefully getting to her feet. Smoke drifts up from the forest fire, and the light breeze means it hovers in dark patches among the trees. Down in the cliff area besieged by flames, there is the braying of injured moose and the scuffling sound of animals - presuambly - moving through the brush. The boulders and cliff face are a flickering reflection of light and shadow from flame and smoke. Amongst them... Well it's unlikely anything would be seen, when a patch of rock becomes a little darker. Standing downwind from where the moose and deer are, there is an unseen entity. If anything were to notice Uschi as she steps out from the raw rock of the cliff and lurks in the shadow of a boulder, it may be the bears - but even they may be a little preoccupied right about now. Jack walks along the cliffs edge, carefully - locating the animals is a bit difficult, the smoke is getting thicker. "Syl, I'm going to see if we can get the beers up first, and get them away from here. Seems the easiest ones, they can climb," he notes, nodding at his daughter as she returns; he's clearly relieved she returned to her body. He drops the huge backpack, unhooks the large axe and goes to town on some smaller fir trees, thick enough to hold a bear, if he ties a few together. Faster to chop some smaller trees than one big. "Think you can try to calm the bears and give them a chat on what to do?" Sylvana nods and shrugs out of the heavey gear her father had put her in. It was hot and uncomfortable and causing her more issue than help at this point. She moved over towards the cliff edge and laid on her stomach looking down at the bears. "If I get momma to understand then the baby should follow though I am sure both can be convenced easy enough. Just becareful with your chopping Dad ok?" She smiled down at the bears as she took a deep breath calming herself and drawing on the energies of the earth around her in her own way. She chanted softly in Cherokee as a way to clear her mind and prepair for speaking with the upset animals. Once she was ready she set to work. "Hello there friend momma bear. I am a friend you have nothing to fear from us. We are here to help you and your cub get to safty from that which burns and makes breathing hard. The male two leg is going to lower cut tree's for you and your cub to clime. I need you to carefully climb those broken tree's and bring your cub too. Once you have reached the top you may freely go and find safty" Her voice still holds that Alluring quality as she speaks so sweetly and calmly to the bear. Down in the green glade, where deer doe and moose maid do not play, there is... Nothing stranger happening than what was happening before: the breeze blows smoke across the small protected half-moon of space that the fire is yet to touch, and the light-and-shadow flickers as the flames grow in the distance. Within that shadow, creeps another shadow - slow, steady, footfalls unheard and scent of rot and pine tar brushed in the opposite direction of the the moose. Uschi is creeping along - but if there is nobody around to see her, is she really doing anything? Yes. It's just subtle as all hell. The moose will never see what's coming. The bear with her cub is pacing back and forth down there, making upset noises once in awhile, trying sometimes to climb the cliff, but sliding down. And she won't leave her cub, anyway. Sometimes she walks towards the fire, then turns back, realising that threat is too big. But, then she suddenly stops and looks up, sitting down on her haunches, hugging the cub close to herself. She responds with imagery to Sylvana - she will wait. Climb up. Then run away. The bear is calm. Sylvana smiles to the mother bear and nods "Good Momma" She said in a soothing voice. Her eyes caught the movement of something...no someone down in the clearing and she points it out to her father. "The bear understands but do you see that down there?" She asked squinting her eyes some as she watches. Having choppsed down two trees with furious fast strokes of the big axe, and tackling them down when having whittled away enough, Jack soon has two trees he binds together with some rope. He pulls them to the edge, and looks out over the ground - he squints, seeing motion near the moose. "What the..." He coughs, the smoke annoying his lungs - he's inhaled smoke all day, more or less. He's exhausted and half wondering if he's starting to see things. "I see... something. Someone?" he whispers to Sylvana, even as he's pushing those tied trees over the edge, tying the end of the rope to a tree up there to keep them holding there. "Alright, tell the bears to climb up!" He's moving away now - the bears are under his daughter's control, not his. And he's reaching for his rifle, because now things just got weirder. While the /moose/ will see nothing comin', the humans up overhead at the cliff top will: down in the gloom there is a ... well it's not an animal, it's a -person-. Good lord! There's a /person/ down there?! A woman, probably -- dressed in dark clothes stained with grime and soot, just like her face and hands. No, hand -- one arm is immobile by her side, tucked into the strap of a bulky mountaineering rucksack on her back. Doesn't seem to hinder her movement much -- the woman is loping along in the shadows, heading towards the moose over yonder. Uschi moves with purpose -- bare feet stepping amongst pine needles and leaving barely a trace of track behind her. It's hard to see her face from this angle, but her focus? Entirely on the animal in front of her - and for someone who's trapped in a ring of fire, with flames licking at the wooded landscape around her... She doesn't really seem, uh, scared. She seems ... confident. Sylvana watches the woman and the moose for a moment but once her Dad had the tree's down she turns her attention back to the task at hand. "Climb Momma bear Climb" She called out to the now calm bear with a smile and gentle eyes. "Thats it come on....go find a safe place to rest" The bear mother and the cub on its back, start climbing efficiently. It's a black bear, and lithe enough that those two logs, with branches still attached, can hold her weight. It only takes the animals a few seconds to get up and start running off, away from the fire - to freedom. Two animals safe, 6 to go. Lifting his rifle, Jack uses the binocular on it to get a better look at that figure. He's not going to shoot anyone or anything, if he can help it. "Fuck," he mutters. "I think... we probably don't want to interfer with whomever is down there. I got some suspicions." The rifle is slung over his shoulder, followed by his pack. "Help me with the logs!" he calls to Sylvana, coughing violently again and hunching over for a few seconds, before he grabs the two trees and starts pulling them. "Let's go to the deer..." Sylvana stood up and helped her Dad with the logs moving them over with a frown. "When we are done getting the animals to safty we are going home and I am looking you over. That is not a good cough." She looked at him her eyes filled with worry. Once she had the deer in sight she looked down at them and took a deep breath before centering herself and starting to speak to them in order to get them to do what is needed. "Climb the broken tree's and run to safty" This time she kept it short sweet and too the point on this one, her mind worried about her father. Uschi doesn't seem too preoccupied with what the bears are doing -- Sulvana is leading them to safety, but the feral looking woman is focused entirely on the job ahead of her: the moose. Is that /totally/ true, though? Because Uschi is sniffing the air, tilting her head, putting an ear in the direction of the Mortals' conversation and movements... Does she know they're there? And what would Jack possibly be suspicious about? Many things, maybe. But what proof could he have of, what? There is not much breeze, but the smoke around the protected clearing is getting denser, and denser -- pale and misty and moving up around the ground like a thick fog. Oh jeeze, is the fire spreading faster?! Huh, the air doesn't look as -dark- as smoke, but it /must/ be smoke because it wafts in so quickly and... Hides a good deal of things, down there: animals, trees, ground, Uschi herself. Poor woman; so easy for drifters like her to get caught out in natural disasters like this, if they're not alert when living in the woods. A short while later, there is the call of a moose in alarm. Having moved the logs over, the same distance down as where the bears were, Jack waves off Sylvana's concerns. "I'm fine." He looks down at the panicking group of deer, the smaller animals pacing back and forth and not sure what to do, until Sylvana controls one of them; that one stops pacing and looks up. If they're lucky, all of the deer will follow that one. "Gonna put the logs on that boulder," Jack suggests, starting to maneuver the heavy logs. He's smart enough to tie the rope around a tree up there first, in case he'll drop them. That'd be bad. He also tears off his coat, and grabs the one Sylvana had earlier, wrapping them around the logs where so that there's more surface to walk on - he pushes them apart and shoves branches in between. "It's not going to be very stable, but they got a chance. Otherwise, I'm gonna go down and carry them up." He is worriedly glancing towards where they saw that person/figure - but now everything is obscured. He startles, from the alarmed sound of the moose. He says nothing though - he just grimly continues, pushing the logs out and shifting them up on that boulder so the angle is not so steep. The deer jump up and start moving precariously across. The lead deer coaxes the others, it's not very stable indeed, but they all, somehow, make it up. Sylvana smiles. "Good deer run along now find somewhere safe and be careful. Tell your friends not to come this way" Yup totally a mother about all this. Once the deer were taken care of she looks towards where the Moose were..." Hows it going down there Dad" Down below, the deer emerge from the smoke and make it up along the pathway -- but that moose? Nowhere to be seen. The crying continues - loud, aggravated braying from within the smokey fog; it does not like what is happening. What -is- happening, anyway? Because the sound is down there one moment... ...then the next, a moose is billowing much closer, yards away from where Jack and Sylvana are now, through the copse of trees. What?! Those with acute animal senses - so these two Fry's - might note that the sound goes from annoyed to disorientated. What?! The moose can be seen - assuming it is the same moose, and not a different moose, but there most certainly was not a moose there up until a blink ago -- and joining it, one can see a dark huddled creature loping off through the brush, just a flash really but... What is that? Jack is tired as hell, he's been working for 24 hours straight, he's inhaled smoke, and he's still working. So, at first he thinks truly that he's just gotten crazy and iS seeing things, realising that moose is right near them suddenly. He's pretty sure it is the same one - he grabs for his rifle again, but doesn't aim it at anything. Watching that figure flashing by, did he even see that? "Syl," he says quietly. "My brain is not working right at the moment. But I believe one of us has to go down there, and it ain't going to be you. Unless that calf suddenly also materialises out of thin air, up here." He moves to the cliffs edge, staring down to the side trying to see that calf. Sylvana frowned at him "oh no it IS going to be me you are in no shape to be going down there. You stay up here and calm momma down. I can go get the baby. I can see what is wrong with it and treat it while I am there if need be. You need to rest." There is a flash between the trees, then nothing again -- well, at least nothing from over /there/, up on the top of the cliff face. Down in the smokey fog shrouded glen? The moose calf is calling out through the gloom, it's voice difficult to hear over the crackle of the forest burning -- flames lapping at trunks, sap boiling beneath bark, boughs breaking and falling against the floor, sending sparks flying. Still, the moose calf can be heard. Until the moose calf can not be heard. There is no other sound - not even cries from any feral women who may or may not be in the smoky fog below. Was Uschi ever really there? Was she a figment? Was it a skinwalker taking on her form? A sleep deprived hallucination? Maybe she's part of the fire itself. Shortly after the calf's cries stop, the dense smokey fog begins to lift -- showing the same crescent of untouched woodland, safe from fire, but absent of all animal life. "I ain't worried about the calf," Jack notes darkly. "I'm worried about what's lurking about here." He stops at the edge, tilts his head, listens. "And... I think we're too late anyway. It's gone." He looks tiredly at the now lonely mother moose. "Care to tell her to wander away from here?" He accepts this - it's one out of hundreds of dead animals he's seen in the last couple of days, anyway. And he kills animals regularly himself. But, for once, he wished he could've saved one, despite it all. The mother moose is moving to the edge of the cliff, braying and calling for her calf, unwilling to leave. Sylvana moved towards the female Moose and spoke softly as soothingly as she could. "Its time to go now. Go to safty..." There was a sadness in her voice but she knew that they had saved more lives today then they had lost. "Alright," Jack says, hiking his backpack, rifle and everything back up on his back. "Let's get the hell out of here before we're getting crispy. Let's find Maggie." He watches the confused mother moose walk away on her long legs; she will live, and have another calf next year. "We did good," he says, squeezing Sylvana's shoulder. Before he leaves, he does push those logs down - not risking them to catch on fire and spread up the cliff. That cliff might actually work as a natural barrier for the fire. Sylvana looked up at her dad and leans into him a bit as they walked. "Yeah...we did. More will live then what would have if we had done nothing.." It seems that she was reminding herself that as much as her Dad. She took a deep breath and then coughed having forgotten about the smoke maybe? "I want to look at you when we get home. See what I can do to help your breathing."