#// sam: how do you say up yours in farron

[fishermcn]

@yellowfingcr // x

Were he a man of sterner stuff rather than the wasted mongrel that he actually was, he might not have gone face first into the marsh water. Were he not bones pressing plainly against scarred skin and exhaustion from so many sleepless days, he might've already gotten up, might've already lunged for her throat with knife in hand to pay a wrong for a wrong like men were wont to.

But he was a wasted mongrel, he was skin and bones and exhausted in them, and so into the waters he went with a disgraceful splash.

Flailing, sputtering and coughing on water and curses alike, he manages to scramble back onto unsteady feet after a moment. Caked with mud, thoroughly soaked, he shivers with some amalgamation of chills and anger alike as his assaulter begins to patronize him. As though the slap still stinging his skull and the yellow of her rags burning his eyes were justified for the sake of some rotten crabs.

He'd have made at go at her by now, would've tried to gut her like he might a fish, but the pick at her hip and the crossbow on her back tempered the fury with caution, wariness. Went without saying her sneaking up on him, passing the traps he'd carefully set up barely an hour past. Dangerous one, her.

Didn't mean he wouldn't say his peace though, sneer tugging at the corners of his face in a hateful way. “Fuck off. They're mine. Starving.”

His belly growls as though in agreement, joined by the hissing pop of a pot about ready to boil over. With the fire between him, her, and the squirming bag of crabs they're squabbling over, there isn't much of a chance to make a run for it with the goods in tow.

Fine by him. With a snort and a hack, he spits a nasty glob aiming for her cloak. “No one'll keep a meal from me. 'Specially not a loon like you."