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lowtldes · 6 years

Text

your sharp and glorious thorn

rating: M (for game-typical violence)

ships: arthur morgan/original female character

chapter: 2/?

previous chapters: chapter one [tumblr] [ao3]

words: 6k

tags: slow burn, treasure hunting

warnings: game-typical violence

chapter summary: Arthur crosses paths with Iris sooner than he’d like.

also on ao3!

Arthur doesn’t like riding into Strawberry. It’s not that he’s nervous someone will recognize him from the time he broke Micah out of jail, it has more to do with the fact that he and Micah just about killed half the town.

No one is going to recognize him. No one is alive to recognize him. And it’s that that stirs guilt in his belly. He’s never been one to enjoy killing needlessly. Let alone half a town of innocent people.

Arthur lights a cigarette, pressing it between his lips to stop himself from gritting his teeth. No, Micah Bell has already ruined enough things for the gang, Arthur’s not going to let the mere thought of the man ruin his day now too.

STRAWBERRY. Arthur lets his eyes linger on the overhead sign as he takes a drag of his cigarette, passing through his exhaled smoke, looking as if a fog had parted for the tourist town to grace his vision.

He can probably stay the night here, before setting out again tomorrow. Watson’s Cabin, right up north in Big Valley. A tip worth looking into, especially since he was only a day’s ride out of Strawberry when he heard about it.

Back in Strawberry, barely two days since he beat that godawful old man and left his granddaughter with a bunch of dead bodies by the dam. He sighs. This robbery better be worth it, he’s spent far too much time away from camp, he’s gotta have something good to show for it when he gets back to Horseshoe Overlook.

“You… What the hell are you doing back here!”

Arthur tenses up. Hopefully they weren’t talking to him.

“Hey, hey, I’m talkin’ to you!”

Arthur sighs and stops his horse, Charon, right outside the hotel. The mayor’s reciting the same speech he hears every time he rides into town, it’s nothing but background noise now, just about as significant as the cigarette butt Arthur tosses into the dirt.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard ya,” Arthur grumbles and slides off his horse. He turns around, briefly looking for the source of the voice before he wrinkles his nose at the sight of the man.

It’s Jameson Cole, looking about as drunk as Uncle on his birthday. Whatever this man has to say to Arthur, it isn’t going to be any good. At least this isn’t going to be about that awful business with Micah.

“Mr. Cole,” Arthur greets coolly as the old man staggers towards him, bottle in hand. Jesus, the man hasn’t even crossed the road and Arthur can smell him from here. “I think it’s best you and I don’t talk.”

“You—y-you good fer nothin’ thief,” Cole hiccups when he’s close enough to Arthur, much to the dismay of Arthur’s sense of smell. “You kidnapper!”

“Excuse me?” Arthur says slowly, quietly, not keen on the attention the man’s words are drawing to the pair of them. The new Sheriff is an earshot away, dammit, Arthur doesn’t need those kinds of eyes on him right now. “I stole nothin’ you didn’t owe. If my memory serves right, it weren’t even you that paid. It was—”

“Iris! Oh, you bastard,” Cole wails, pausing to take another swig from his bottle. He jabs Arthur in the chest with his index finger. “You! You took ‘er! Stole her away and now I gotta beg on the street for a drink! Kidnapper!”

Folk are staring at them now. Women swiftly walking away from the scene, men eyeing Arthur suspiciously with their hands resting heavily on their guns.

Arthur’s spilled enough blood in Strawberry. He doesn’t want another fight on his hands, not here. He raises his hands in surrender, leaning back from old Jameson Cole and his whiskey stench. “You’re drunk, old man. Get out of here and stop makin’ a scene.”

Jameson Cole blinks blearily at Arthur, breaths coming out like wheezes. “You give her back. You give back Iris, oh, stupid little Iris, I’m afraid the house neeeeeds a cleaning! She ain’t been back since ya ran off with her!”

“I don’t have her, you old fool,” Arthur sneers, walking away from the man. “Maybe your granddaughter saw sense and ran far away from ya!”

Arthur shouldn’t care, the Coles are people he should be done with. If the world were in any way kind to him, he’d have never seen them again. But the knowledge that Miss Iris Cole didn’t return home after that whole mess with the treasure hunters doesn’t sit well with him.

Should’ve seen to it that she got home safe, he berates himself, you goddamn idiot, Morgan. What kind of man does that? Leave a woman out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a bunch of dead bodies? This is why he loathes debt collection. Arthur’s already a bad man, he knows that, but collecting debts has always brought out a shade of himself he does not like any more than he likes his usual self.

Arthur sighs and mounts Charon again, muttering under his breath. “Don’t owe these people a goddamn thing. Ah, you fool, Morgan.”

He starts to ride out of Strawberry—so much for a night in the hotel—and takes the road leading in the direction of Owanjila.

“Hey, you!” Someone calls to him at the end of the main road—a young woman lugging a bucket full of fresh water. “Mister, I heard you talking to that awful old man.”

Arthur slows his horse, running a tired hand down his face. “Listen, Miss, I already told the man I don’t have his granddaughter—”

“But you’re heading out to look for her, right?” The woman presses, a bit of water sloshing out of the bucket. “That’s why you’re leaving town?”

“Yeah,” Arthur grunts, half shrugging. “I guess.”

“I work with Iris at the hotel,” the woman says, frowning softly, concerned. “She came to the hotel last night. Late last night, a strange look in her eyes. She told me Mr. Davis is dead and that she’s leaving.”

“Leaving? Where?”

“She didn’t say exactly,” the woman’s frown deepens. “I don’t think she quite knew where she was goin’ either. Just said. North. North of Big Valley. If you’re looking for her, you might want to start there.”

“Big Valley,” Arthur nods. The cabin he plans to rob is around there. Good. This won’t be a complete waste of his time. “Thank you, Miss.”

“Please find her, sir. She didn’t… she looked—she didn’t look quite right.”

Guilt stirs in the pit of his stomach. “I’ll get moving, then. Have a good afternoon, Miss.”

Iris ignores her rumbling stomach and walks along the road, treasure map clutched in one hand and Sammy's reigns in the other.

Her feet hurt. These old boots certainly weren’t made for walking, but she keeps on.

She knows where the treasure is. Or, at least, she'll know it when she sees it. There's no special instinct to treasure hunting, after all. Considering what Mr. Morgan did yesterday (or was it the day before?), it's as easy as sticking your arm into a hollow rock.

The treasure is by water, a shallow bed of water, according to the illustration on the map. And it's in Big Valley. That, she knows. Has to be. It's a gut feeling. Perhaps there is a special instinct.

Sammy lets out a whinny of protest, nodding his head and almost yanking the reigns out of Iris’s hand.

“I know,” Iris says. “I know, I know. But we're almost there, Sammy. We have to be. We ain’t riding back to Strawberry any time soon.”

Sammy huffs, sounding almost disapproving, but begins to follow again when Iris tugs on the reigns.

There’s that thundering sound again, her stomach groaning for food. Iris doesn’t have any food. She knows nothing of plant life, either. She only knows that eating the wrong plant can be a deadly thing. Better to be hungry for a day than to die by a plant.

The thundering sound continues, though her stomach has stopped its protests. The sound is distant, getting closer by the second. It's a rider, she realizes, the familiar galloping sound of a horse.

Iris stops and turns in the direction of the sound. Whoever it is, they’re heading straight towards her.

Oh. It’s the outlaw.

Iris clutches the map tight in her hand and stands close to Sammy, right next to the saddlebags. If he’s changed his mind and come back to rob her, she’s got one of the dead treasure hunter’s cattleman revolvers.

The memory of Mr. Morgan gunning down the treasure hunters is fresh on her mind again. He moves fast, Iris probably wouldn’t even be able to pull out her gun before he robs her. She’d at least like to try to get a few shots in, though.

He clicks his tongue and stops his horse when he’s close enough. His guns, notably, are in their respective holsters, not at all drawn and pointed at Iris when he dismounts his horse.

“Miss Cole,” he greets, hands resting on his gun belt. He’s exactly the same as when she first met him, lurking outside her homestead like a bad omen. Only this time, there’s no growl to his voice. There’s a roughness that’s still there, ever-present to the man’s voice, but this time around his greeting doesn’t sound like danger.

“Mr. Morgan,” she says back, voice feeble not with fear but with a tiredness. “You’ve… you’ve returned to rob me.”

Mr. Morgan tilts his head back, scrutinizing her from under the brim of his hat.

Iris is sure she looks as though some sort of fiendish wind has passed through. She hasn’t spared a moment to maintain a civilized appearance—her braid is all out of sorts from the wind and her fidgeting with it, her skirts are muddy from all the walking, her shoes are on the verge of falling to pieces, and she’s quite sure that her sore eyes are bloodshot, with darkened circles of exhaustion to complete the look.

Oh, she must look half-mad.

“No, ah,” the outlaw clears his throat awkwardly, scratching at his short beard. “No, I am not here to rob you.”

“Then what is this?” Iris frowns, hand tightening on Sammy’s reigns. “Have I stolen something of yours, then? Another debt that has to be paid?”

Mr. Morgan looks uncomfortable. “No.”

“Then why have you sought me out? I thought you’d have gone far, far away from Strawberry by now.”

“Well,” Mr. Morgan takes a step forward, cautious as though he might spook her. “The people in town said you haven’t been seen for a good while, and I didn’t like how I just left you in the middle of nowhere the other day, so I came out to… well, to check on ya.”

“Do you always check on your debtors after you’ve taken their money?”

He frowns. “Well, no. But—"

“Then why bother? You don’t have a to give me, or my granddaddy, or the entirety of Strawberry a second thought. A lapse of judgement is what you’re experiencing, Mr. Morgan. So allow me to direct you back to Strawberry, and we can go our separate ways.”

Mr. Morgan’s voice rises an octave, indignance lacing his voice. “Direct me back to Str—”

“To Strawberry, yes.” Iris lets go of Sammy’s reigns and crosses the short distance between them. She rests her hand lightly on Mr. Morgan’s arm and nudges him to turn around, pointing somewhere off behind him with the map clutched tight in her hand. “You can get to Strawberry simply by going back the direction you came from.”

Mr. Morgan resists at first, then obliges her light shoving and turns. “I know that, Miss Cole. You might think me a fool, but I’m at least a fool who knows where he’s going—is that a treasure map?”

“It is.” Iris swiftly retracts herself from his space and starts walking away, her sore feet screaming with each step. “And it’s close.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time? People are worried about ya, Miss Cole.”

“I’m sure the only person breaking a sweat is Gramps, since I’m not there to clean up after him.”

“Well, what about your job?” Mr. Morgan says, following hastily after her. “Ain’t the hotel manager wondering where you are?”

“The hotel manager is dead,” Iris reminds him, halting to glare at a spot in the distance. Little Creek River. “Those treasure hunters shot Mr. Davis in the head.”

“Shit. Well… well someone else must’ve stepped up in the hotel,” Mr. Morgan says slowly, trying to salvage whatever’s left of his persuasion attempt. “There’s gotta be somethin’ in town that you gotta get back to. You can’t just wander around forever.”

Iris briskly spins around to glare at him. Mr. Morgan’s standing close enough that her long dark braid whips across his chest at the motion. “My boss at the hotel is dead. My job is most likely up in the air at the moment, and this is a moment I’d like to take to reflect on how I’ve been living my life.”

Mr. Morgan presses his lips together. “But you got—”

“I have nothing in that town, in that life, except for my leech of a granddaddy!” Iris looks at the worn map in her hands and sighs. “I don’t know if I want to go back to Strawberry, Mr. Morgan. I feel as though I’ve been going through my life like a phantom, and I need to start going through it like a person. With… with some kind of ambition. Something to look forward to.”

“Those are some dangerous thoughts, Miss Cole.”

“Are they?” Iris sighs again. “Twenty-seven years wasted in Strawberry. Did you know I’ve never set foot outside of West Elizabeth? Let alone Big Valley? I’ve got nothing to show for my life.”

“You don’t…” Mr. Morgan scowls. “You don’t have to show anyone anything.”

“I want to show myself something,” Iris says firmly, steeling his gaze. He often hides underneath his hat, she’s noticed, and being close enough now to peek under the brim and catch his blue-green eyes feels like she’s discovered something hidden once again. “I don’t know what I plan to do with my life after this, but for now, all I know is that I want to find this treasure. I want to show myself that I can find it.”

“And where is this treasure, huh?” Mr. Morgan scoffs. “No need to get all protective. I ain’t gonna take it from ya. I just… you—you look like hell, Miss Cole.”

Iris feels her face heat up. She scowls and walks away from him again, towards the soft sounds of trickling water. “I’m going to get this treasure, with or without your bothering.”

She hears Mr. Morgan mutter something under his breath, but he keeps following her. Risking a glance back, she sees that their horses are following after them slowly.

Little Creek River looks shallow enough that the water would barely come up to her ankles. Iris does her best to ignore Mr. Morgan’s lingering, glaring hard at the map while she hears him light a cigarette.

This looks like the spot. The way the illustration’s lines are darker around this particular bend looks precisely the same as the area in front of her. Iris’ eyes flit back and forth between the map and the riverbend before her. The X looks to be about ten feet away, buried right in the bed of the creek.

“How do you know that this is the river in the map?” Mr. Morgan’s voice grates over her thinking. He stands by their horses, cigarette between his fingers and a curious look on his face.

“I like riding around the valley when I get the time,” Iris answers, folding up the map and walking towards the treasure spot, the soil wet beneath her boots. “Not as often as I’d like, but… I admire the landscapes long enough to guess right about which stone goes where.”

“Well, you found that treasure last time. I can’t argue with that.” He snuffs the cigarette and looks around. “Damn. It’s gonna be dark any minute now.”

“Scared of the dark, Mr. Morgan?”

“Nah. Just don’t wanna die like an idiot, is all.” He walks to where she’s standing in the creek, brows raised as she kicks around the silt. “The wildlife around ain’t something to underestimate. Especially in the dark.”

Iris glances at him before sticking her hands into the cold, cold water to dig. “Could we camp, perhaps?”

“We?”

“I’m assuming you’re not going to leave me alone until we get back to Strawberry.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mr. Morgan sighs. “Just… get a move on with that, will ya? Sun’s already coming down, and I’d rather find somewhere with four walls and a roof.”

Iris snorts, extracting her hands from the silt and opting to dig into the spot beside her previous attempt. “I suppose that’s better than a tent. But I doubt the folk living up in these parts would be hospitable.”

“There’s a cabin a heard about. I was plannin’ to camp there for a night or two to scope out another place nearby. Vetter’s Echo, I think it was called. Heard the owner hasn’t been seen for a long time. Whoever they are, they’re likely long gone, I’m positive they won’t mind if we use their place as shelter.”

“What were you planning to head up here for, if not to find me for whatever’s nagging at your conscience?” Iris says, then snorts. “An outlaw with a conscience, how ironic.”

Mr. Morgan makes a noncommittal sound. “It’s none of your business. Anyway, the cabin should just be up the ways from here. There’s likely some provisions there, which we need, because you’re lookin’ mighty peckish.”

“Were you planning a robbery?”

“None of your goddamn business, Miss Cole. You don’t need to get involved with that,” Mr. Morgan says firmly, all but confirming her suspicions.

Iris quietly wonders if she does want to get involved with that. She digs deeper into the silt, dirt getting caught beneath her fingernails. What does she plan to do after all of this? She can’t go back to monotonous life in Strawberry. She refuses.

Her nails scrape against something solid in the dirt. Iris jumps at the contact. “Oh! I’ve found it!”

Whatever it is, it’s smaller than a buried treasure chest from pirate stories. Definitely not shaped like any container Iris has seen before. Her fingers find some part to grip and curl around it, pulling it out of the riverbed. The top of it emerges from the silt as she pulls it up, smooth and bone white under the water.

Iris manages to pull the treasure up halfway before she recoils with a shriek, falling backward into the creek and soaking up even more of her skirts.

Mr. Morgan is next to her in a second, boots splashing in the shallow water and hands hovering cautiously over her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Iris doesn’t answer, just stares wide-eyed at the human skull still stuck in the silt. The human skull she dug up with her bare hands. Her skin crawls.

Mr. Morgan eyes follow to where she’s looking. He breathes an astounded, eloquent, “Jesus.”

“I… I touched it. Him. Her. Whoever they were,” Iris whispers, distraught. “I…”

“Well,” Mr. Morgan mutters, wading over to the skull. “Looks like you found your treasure.”

Mr. Morgan pulls the skull out of the silt and water, standing to his full height. Something about seeing him—someone else—taking her findings in their hands kicks Iris back into motion. Splashing a bit in the creek, Iris scrambles to a stand and snatches the skull right out of the outlaw’s hands.

“Thought you were frightened of it,” he says, shrugging and raising his hands in surrender.

Maybe at first.

“I was just surprised,” Iris says, narrowing her eyes at the small grin on his face. She turns her attention back to the skull. “Whoever this dead fella was… he can’t hurt me. Why should I be scared?”

“It’s not every day you dig up a dead head with your bare hands,” Mr. Morgan offers, perhaps attempting to console her. “Surprise and, uh, fear—it’s reasonable.”

Iris doesn’t answer him, but she frowns anyway, looking down at the skull so maybe Mr. Morgan doesn’t see her flushed face.

It’s already dark, the sun had fully set while she was digging, but Iris sees something in the skull’s hollowed eye catch briefly under the starlight. The smallest of shines.

“Miss Cole,” Mr. Morgan says, standing much closer now to look at the skull over her shoulder. His clothes smell like cigarette smoke. “I think you’re gonna have to—”

“Yes,” Iris cuts his sentence off swiftly, quietly. She swallows hard. “Yes, I see.”

“Would you like me to do it? It’ll still be your treasure, even if you let me.”

“I can do it. I will do it.”

Iris readjusts the skull in her hands, turning it upside down. She keeps a firm grip on the jaw, fingers sliding into the small, stiff opening of the mouth. With her other hand, she hooks her fingers into both eye holes, grimacing.

Sorry, she thinks. Then she pulls her hands apart with a sharp tug.

There’s a crunch as the jawbone snaps clean off, Mr. Morgan standing so close that with the force of her tug she accidentally elbows him when the piece comes loose. He lets out a small, winded oof as her elbow collides with his gut.

“Oh, sorry,” Iris says quietly, out of polite instinct. She’s not really paying attention, instead gazing into the hollow of the opened skull.

“No harm done,” he mutters.

There’s still quite a bit of bone in the way, but Iris turns the skull back right side up and shakes its contents into her palm. Several gold coins fall out, along with two more gold nuggets, and a small scrap of paper.

“You’re telling me that all this was buried not even a foot into the ground, for any fool to find?” Mr. Morgan huffs. “I should give up robberies n’ just start digging.”

“Any fool with a map,” Iris corrects, staring at the gold bunched in her hand with wide, wide eyes.

“And you knew exactly where it was again,” Mr. Morgan muses, stepping back and adjusting his hat. “Think you got a knack for this, Miss Cole.”

“I do, don’t I?” Iris looks down at herself, holding the treasures tight in her hand and the skull in the other. No bag, no pockets. She looks back up, past Mr. Morgan’s impressed expression and instead squints at the horses grazing several feet behind him. “Sammy! Sammy over here!”

Sammy finds the grass more interesting than the gold Iris is holding. Typical, that horse never listens to anyone.

“I’ll get him,” Mr. Morgan says, waving a hand as he walks away from her. He takes Sammy’s reigns and starts leading the horse towards where Iris stands by the creek, and whistles for his own dark horse to follow. “Charon! Follow me, boy.”

“Charon?” Iris asks when he’s back within earshot. “How dramatic of you.”

“Thought it’d fit him well,” the outlaw smiles fondly, tugging Sammy’s reigns. “I stole him at this show just outside of Valentine. There was a man on the stage, no arms and no legs, telling old Greek tales.”

“And you stole his horse?” Iris asks, clutching the skull and gold close to her chest.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “Some bastard thought it’d be funny to throw things at the storyteller. He had a fine horse. That’s Charon right here,” he jerks his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to his horse following him. “This here’s a dark bay Andalusian—a war horse. Thought it’d be nice to name him after that half-horse half-man the limbless man spoke of. The one who trained heroes.”

Iris frowns. She’s not the most educated person. Not educated like those city folks who stay at the hotel, but she has read some books, especially the ones educated city folk accidentally leave behind. A book about old myths from far away lands kept her up for weeks.

“Forgive me, Mr. Morgan, but I think you’re confused.”

He stops Sammy right in front of her and lets go of the reigns. “Confused?”

“The half-horse half-man you’re thinking of is Chiron. An easy mistake, I suppose, since the names are quite similar.”

Mr. Morgan stops and stares at her in disbelief. Perhaps he’s expecting her to laugh and joke, but she’s quite sure that Charon is not the figure he’s thinking of.

“Goddammit,” he exhales, voice rising an octave. He shakes his head, hiding beneath the brim of his hat. Iris wonders if he’s blushing. “So you’re tellin’ me I’ve been calling my horse some nonsense this whole time?”

“Not quite nonsense, no.” Iris walks over to Sammy’s saddlebag. “If I recall, Charon served as a ferryman to bring souls to Hades.”

Mr. Morgan hums, squinting at his horse as if to see if the story sticks.

Iris tries to fit the treasures in the small saddlebag, but the gun she picked off the dead treasure hunter is in the way. “If you keep the name, your horse is now death’s ferryman. Do you… do you see yourself as death, Mr. Morgan? Or I suppose the name could extend to you, making your horse the vessel and you the actual ferryman.”

“Well…” Mr. Morgan rests his hands on his gun belt, clearing his throat awkwardly. “I have killed some people… quite a lot of people. But it was them or me. Ah, I shouldn’t be saying these things to a lady.”

Before Iris can respond, she grabs the gun in the saddlebag the wrong way. Intending to extract it from the bag to make room, she accidentally hits the trigger and a shot fires a hole out of the bottom of the bag.

“Oh!” Iris startles back, ears ringing from the closeness of the gunshot. Sammy whinnies and rocks his head back and forth in a panic. Charon, on the other hand, doesn’t flinch at the sound.

“Jesus!” Mr. Morgan yells, hand instinctively falling to one of the revolvers holstered on his belt. “What the hell was that?”

“I… the gun—shit, I blew a hole through the saddlebag!”

“Why is there a gun in the saddlebag?”

“I took it from one of those treasure hunters you killed!” Iris snaps back at him. “What’s the problem with keeping it in on my horse, anyway? You got an entire armory on your war horse, Mister.”

Mr. Morgan sighs and runs a hand down his face. “Jesus.”

“Oh, this damn bag is ruined.” The saddlebag is useless now. The hole at the bottom is big enough for any of the treasures to fall out.

Mr. Morgan motions for her to come closer. “Alright, give the gold to me. I can put it in my satchel for the time being.”

“No!” Iris scowls, holding the treasures close. “Do you take me for some kind of idiot?”

“You’re an idiot if you think it’ll be a good idea to walk back into Strawberry holding that gold out for everyone to see.”

“How do I know you won’t just run away the moment I hand the gold over to you?”

Mr. Morgan places his hand on his chest, eyes serious. “I give ya my word that I won’t, Miss. I just wanna see you home safe.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Iris says. “You’ve made it clear several times that you rob people for a living.”

Something moves in Sammy’s saddlebag. A slow, sliding movement before it falls right out of the hole and lands on the grass with a thump. Her first gold nugget from the last treasure.

“Miss Cole, your treasure’s as good as gone if you try carrying it in that bag. I promise I won’t steal from you.”

Iris narrows her eyes at him, trying to look as threatening as she can, but the threat is lost the moment her hungry stomach rumbles as loud as thunder in the sky. Mr. Morgan’s lips quirk, the damned outlaw is trying not to laugh.

“Alright. Fine,” Iris frowns, stepping towards him. “Put it in your bag.”

Mr. Morgan flashes her a small, tight smile and moves for his satchel, opening it up for her to dump her gold into.

“You’re not keeping that skull, are ya?”

“I thought it could be a souvenir. A trophy for my findings.”

“I’m not carrying a dead fella in my satchel.”

“Oh, alright,” Iris says, slightly dejected. She turns around and tosses the skull back into the creek.

“Poor bastard,” Mr. Morgan says, watching the skull splash into the water. He picks up the last gold nugget from the ground and turns to his horse. “Come on, I’m sure there’ll be some food for you at Vetter’s Echo.”

The cabin is one of the smallest Iris has ever seen, and the moment she and Mr. Morgan hitch their horses a bad feeling settles in the pit of her stomach.

“Keep that gun with ya,” Mr. Morgan says. “We might find a holster for that in here. That means no more shooting holes through bags.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Iris asks, following him up the path. “What if someone is still living there? What if they don’t want us around?”

In the dark, the cabin looks eerie. What if whoever’s inside has gone mad from the isolation? What if they try to attack Mr. Morgan? Or if they try to attack her?

Iris tightens her hold on the treasure hunter’s revolver—her revolver. I’m a treasure hunter now too, I suppose.

“Then we rob whoever’s living in here,” Mr. Morgan shrugs, answering as if the answer was the simplest thing in the world. “Just enough to be on our way, we won’t let ‘em starve.”

“I saw camp supplies on your horse,” Iris suggests, casting a glance back at Charon in the trees. “Why couldn’t we just camp?”

“A fire and a tent ain’t gonna protect us if someone or some animal gets the wrong idea about approaching us,” Mr. Morgan answers gruffly. “Now if I was on my own, maybe I would’ve. But I think you’d be better indoors. Less chance for predators.”

Iris stops on the steps up to the cabin while Mr. Morgan quietly turns the doorknob. He grimaces when the door swings open with a rather loud creak, then takes a cautious step inside. Iris begins to follow him inside, but freezes when she hears a loud, loud rumble of breath.

“Shit,” is all she hears from Mr. Morgan inside before the roar of some kind of behemoth shakes the cabin.

There’s a shout from Mr. Morgan, and Iris makes it to the door to see a bear on top of him, roaring and clawing at him. The back of the cabin looks like it’s been torn open long ago, and judging by the old corpse on the floor next to Mr. Morgan, this bear has been the only occupant of the cabin for quite some time.

Iris screams, unsure what to do as Mr. Morgan gets mauled, fear freezing the blood in her veins. She’s never seen a bear up close, and her mind can’t fathom just how big a bear is. The walls of the cabin are practically hugging the creature.

Mr. Morgan cries out again, drawing a knife and slashing at the beast, and it’s only then that Iris registers that she’s here and that she can do something. Something, maybe, with the gun in her hands.

“What in high hell!” Someone screams, voice full of terror. Oh, it’s coming from her, she’s the one doing the screaming.

Mr. Morgan just barely dodges a swipe of the bear’s teeth before Iris finally kicks into motion, drawing her revolver and unloading every bullet left.

Which is about three bullets.

The bear roars as the bullets embed themselves into its hide, but it doesn’t seem to be too injured. Instead, it is still very intent on making Mr. Morgan its next meal. She watches Mr. Morgan continue his struggle, there’s a blur of the bear’s paws and suddenly a bleeding scratch on his arm.

Then she sees an old shotgun, lying on the ground between Mr. Morgan and the old corpse.

Iris has never fired a shotgun before.

She darts down for it, not really having to avoid the bear as it doesn’t even seem to be aware of her existence, and checks to see if the shotgun is loaded. Iris steps back into the doorframe and takes aim, this time being sure to not fire blindly and instead target the bear’s face.

In the heat of the moment, Iris forgets that some guns, powerful guns, not only pack a punch to whoever’s being shot, but also to whoever’s doing the shooting if they’re not prepared for it. Iris pulls the trigger, the blast of the gun deafening, and she sees the shot go right for the bear’s face before the recoil violently flings her back.

Iris hits the railing hard, promptly tumbling backward over it with a scream and free-falling several feet before she hits the ground.

She lies on the lumpy ground, flat on her back and blinking stars. Distantly, she still hears the bear’s growling, but now she hears Mr. Morgan’s ragged voice as well, calling out for her.

“Miss Cole! Goddammit! Miss Cole, you alive?”

Iris’ vision clears, and oh, the bear has left the cabin, breaking through the railing and heading straight for her. Its face is bloody, very bloody. Did I do that?

Oh, the bear looks very angry with her. Absolutely livid.

“Oh no,” she mumbles, disoriented, voice failing her as she starts backing away in the dirt. “Oh, please no.”

“Hey!” Mr. Morgan calls out, a desperate note to his rough voice. “Hey, you big bastard!”

The bear rises to its hind legs, towering over Iris and roaring. A shot rings out, and both the bear and Iris look back at the cabin to see Mr. Morgan standing by the broken rails, his hat gone to reveal a mop of short brown hair, pointing two revolvers at the bear with a furious look on his face.

Mr. Morgan fires both guns at the bear’s face. In that second, it’s as if there’s no end to the bullets. The speed of it takes Iris right back to when he gunned down those two treasure hunters before they could even blink.

The bear lets out one last groan before it collapses onto the ground, its big, bloody head landing right in front of Iris.

Mr. Morgan holsters his guns and starts walking over to her and the bear. “Did it get ya?”

Iris doesn’t directly answer. She only leans back to lie flat on the grass again, a twig poking into her head as she looks up at the night sky. “Oh my goodness.”

“I was not expecting that,” Mr. Morgan murmurs, kicking the bear’s paw as he inspects the corpse. “Thank you, by the way.”

Iris sits up, willing her heart to stop its panicked racing. “For what?”

“Shootin’ the damn thing. Saved my life.”

“Well, you killed it. I s’pose I should thank you for saving my life as well.”

“Nah,” he says, smoothing back his hair. “Makes us even, I guess.”

He then draws a knife, bends down, and begins cutting away into the bear.

“What… what are you doing, Mr. Morgan?”

“Arthur,” he says.

“Pardon?”

“Just call me Arthur.”

“Okay… Arthur. Well, then you can just call me Iris. I suppose there’s no need for formalities if you’ve fought a bear together.”

Mr. Morgan—Arthur—huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I think camping might be safer, Arthur.”

“Yeah. That ain’t no four walls and a roof up there anyway.”

“Three walls and a dead man.”

Arthur snorts and tears at the bear’s skin. “Better him than us, Miss—uh, Iris.”

Iris plucks a leaf out of her hair. “Better him than us.”

#rdr2 fanfiction #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x oc #rdr2 #oc: iris #fic: your sharp and glorious thorn #my writing #yes i did this instead of my piles of homework

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years

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Talking about road trip fic led me to the concept of Athena: Actual Cryptid Hunter and then I took that a step further into veritable crack fic concept of “Athena with a youtube channel dedicated to cryptids and ghosts and her attempts to capture an actual ghost on camera by shouting ‘FIGHT ME, GHOSTS, I’M READY’ in allegedly haunted locations’”

A video, newly posted on the 14 of January, 2028, to a three-year-old youtube channel that has amassed a decent following despite its amateurish production value:

UPDATE: NOT GHOSTS

A young woman with long red hair sits in front of the camera, wearing a yellow “Suns Out Guns Out” tank top. What of the room is visible behind her shows an unmade bed and some colorful posters, the subjects of which are difficult to make out.

“Hey everybody! Happy New Year! I know, I know, it’s been nearly a year since I last posted anything, but a lot’s happened! I had to buckle down and study for the bar - I passed! Go me! - and then I came back home to Los Angeles - I’ll have to drop all of my open European investigations, but I swear, Nessie, I’ll find you someday! And I’ve been busy with, you know, working as a defense attorney! It’s… it’s been a ride, there’s been a lot of good and bad, but it’s mostly calmed down now, and I’m ready to resume.

“So the biggest thing that’s - well, not the biggest thing at all, not even close - but the biggest thing that’s relevant for you all is that I’ve met a bona-fide spirit medium! So I talked to her about this and everything and she says that ghosts can’t just hang around without being summoned by a spirit medium, and then are confined to the body of the summoner. I’m pretty inclined to believe her - she’s an expert and I’ve seen her do some weird stuff, no spirit-summonings yet, but my boss has seen her do that and he trusts her and I trust her. So I might’ve been wasting some of our time every time I went chasing ghosts these past years, but there’s still a lot more than ghosts out there!

“First up: with all the intensive studying I did, I never had time to make it out to the Himalayas to search for yeti like a lot of you suggested I should do, but you know what we’ll be doing now?” The young woman pauses for dramatic effect. “Bigfoot! We’re going Bigfoot hunting!” She claps her hands together. “I’ve gotten my license and a car since I’ve gotten back, since Amercia’s not as big on public transit” - she makes a face - “and if I ever want to get out of the city I need a car, and none of my friends drive.”

She frowns again at the camera. “If any of said friends found this channel somehow, I don’t love you any less but, uh, seriously, Boss please learn to drive. Your daughter is gonna get her license before you do.

“Anyway what was I saying? Right! Bigfoot!

“You know, there was actually a sighting last month right here in Los Angeles county, so I’ll be looking locally and then I’ve got some time off so I’ll be driving north towards the prime Bigfoot real estate. It’s gonna be some long hours of driving in between stops I’ve checked off, but we’re gonna maximize our chances of finding Bigfoot by driving through the area. Like maybe he comes south for winter! We don’t fully understand his habits and with limited evidence I might be doing a little bit of guesswork. And two: since I’ve come home, I’ve… reunited with an old friend, and we haven’t really had a chance to catch up and all, yet, so I was gonna invite him along. Wish me luck, and I’ll get back to everyone with my game plan. Probably post a map on tumblr and link it in the next update.”

She grins and flashes a peace sign before the video ends.

“Repeat what you just said, but slower.”

Athena rolls her eyes. “Do you” - she jabs a finger into Simon’s shoulder - “want to come with me” - she points at herself - “to go Bigfoot hunting?”

“The final portion is where I find myself having difficulty understanding.”

“Bigfoot!” Athena throws her hands in the air as though attempting to pantomime the size of the creature. “Sasquatch! The cousin of the yeti and abominable snowman! You have to know what Bigfoot is! Everyone knows Bigfoot!”

Simon closes his eyes. “I know,” he replies, “what Bigfoot is.”

“So then what’s the problem?” Athena puts her hands on her hips and tries to pretend that she doesn’t know that Apollo, halfway down the stairs ahead of them, isn’t trying and failing to stifle his laughter.

“It is not real.”

“You don’t know that!”

“There is a nigh-impossible chance that it is real.”

“Those are the same chances as a lot of cases that Mr. Wright takes on, so I think it could happen!”

“Athena’s a huge believer in this kind of stuff,” Apollo says, having stopped and waited for them on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. “Bigfoot, Mothman, all that nonsense.”

“Do you not remember the lesson of the Nine-Tales Vale case?” Simon asks.

“Well we know now that Tenma Taro specifically isn’t real, but the Nine-Tailed Fox still could be, and all those other yokai, like sure what Jinxie saw wasn’t real monsters but there still could be real monsters lurking around! You don’t know! Bigfoot’s real and there was an article that one was sighted around where Junie lives last month, and I’m gonna find him!”

Apollo raises his eyebrows and looks at Simon. Simon looks at Athena. “This is her hobby,” Apollo says. “This, and running, which I think are both proof that she’s a madwoman.”

“I’m gonna get Bigfoot pictures and tape them to your forehead,” Athena says. She turns to Simon. “So, want to come?”

She waits until Apollo has gone to get his bike and is out of earshot before she adds, “And when he says it’s a ‘hobby’ he doesn’t know about my youtube channel.”

Simon sighs and even in that sigh Athena can hear a conflicted mixture of exasperation and resignation. “Your what.”

A thread of comments on a tumblr post, beneath an embedded youtube video titled “BIGFOOT SEARCH: THE BEGINNINGS”:

> everyone please watch this video i dont care if you dont care about bigfoot or cryptids just watch this video

> I’ve been following this girl since basically she started and this is the funniest thing she’s ever posted

if you want background she’s this kid from Europe who started at 15 just doing these stupid videos camping out overnight in haunted places and making compilations of herself shrieking at every sound or sometimes you can’t even hear anything and she’s still screaming

and from there she started doing like cryptid hunting, she spent like two weeks at Loch Ness complaining about the crowds and then started researching more obscure cryptids and haunted locations and all

anyway she’s been on hiatus the past year. said she was taking the bar exam so either she’s a supergenius or lying but anyway this is the second video she’s made since she came back saying she’s gonna take a road trip thru Bigfoot territory and please watch this video

> she’s actually not European, she’s from LA and is back in Cali now and that’s why they’re going after Bigfoot

> god the way he says “it’s for fighting off the bears” I’m screaming

> did she dig up an actual fucking ninja in this year of our lord 2k28 like what is with this dude

> what are they gonna do if they get pulled over for speeding or smth and the cops find an actual fuckin katana in the car

> I mean she said she’s a lawyer so presumably she will lawyer herself out fo it

> how has no one mentioned the hawk in the backseat yet

> holy shit I didn’t even see that

> it’s not a real katana guys, it’s called acting

> you obviously have not watched her old videos because she’s a fucking godawful actor like look at her face when he says the katana is real she couldn’t act that

> they’re gonna get pulled over and have an actual fucking hawk and an actual fucking katana in the car

> if this video series doesn’t end in them actually fighting a bear I’ll be so disappointed

#i intend to write at least a second part of this that's an actual transcript of the video i mention at the end #ace attorney bullshit tag #this is one of the silliest things i've ever written which i say a lot so i guess silly is one of my main brands

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