So high, so far to fall

[m_pinocchio]

So he goes hunting, but even that doesn't help. The ritual of waiting, moving, stalking and springing doesn't do anything to soothe him. He stands in the snow with his breath a cloud in front of his face and he listens to his heart beat, unsure of any word for what he's feeling. He's lost a lot. Maybe more than this, before. Maybe he shouldn't be

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[doesnt_speak]

Florence didn't know Chris. She knew of him, of course, that he was friends with Mike, that he was Canadian, married to the man named Jim, that he'd been on the Council. She knew that he was a curler, that he gave lessons in the rink beside the Compound, that he had a goddaughter, but she didn't know him, just like she hadn't known Eostre.

Even without that personal connection, she still feels for those who have lost him when she catches wind of his disappearance. Maybe she never knew the man who's gone, but she knows Mike and so she puts on her warmest boots, the jacket the box has given her, and she goes out into the jungle with her gun still hanging at her side.

It takes her longer to find him that she likes, but when she catches the scent of blood in the air, she sighs, resigned, and turns in that direction. Less than a minute later, she finds Mike and the elk carcass, her boots crunching on the snow to signal her arrival. There's blood everywhere, but she's seen worse and she takes almost no notice of it as she crosses toward

[m_pinocchio]

He's not even that surprised to see her. She's seen him at his weakest and his most lost, and it makes sense that she'd find him now.

Now that Chris isn't here to bring him home anymore.

With anyone else, he might be ashamed at the evidence of what he's been doing. With her, he just lets his mouth twist into something that might be a bitter smile before he looks down at his bloody hands again. "Hobbes send you out here?"

[doesnt_speak]

Shaking her head, Florence comes closer, stripping off one glove so she can reach into her pack as she nears him. She expects if she'd stayed around just a little while longer, Tom or Neil might have asked her to go, but she hadn't stayed. It wasn't something she needed to be asked.

Tugging a clean, white cloth free from her pack, she offers it to Mike so he can clean his hands. The mess behind them is something else entirely, something that will need to be cleaned in time, but it doesn't need to be now. There are other messes, bigger ones, and they need attention before the elk does.

[m_pinocchio]

He takes the cloth wordlessly, not even bothering to try to refuse it, and he wipes his hands and bends to rub snow over them and wipes them again, until they're only faintly smeared red and the scrapes on his knuckles are clear. They're not deep, though they sting in the cold air.

He almost hands the cloth back to her before he realizes how ridiculous that would be, and instead he holds onto it, letting his hand drop to his side. "I kinda..." He sighs. "I dunno. I fucking lost it." Which is beyond obvious, but he's not sure what else to say.