Sweeping branches of evergreen pines form a sort of natural roof overshadowing most of this clearing. In the center is a fire pit with several old logs polished from use for seats. A separate stack of firewood is discreetly piled up at the base of an old spruce, protected from the damp by a tarp. At the edge of the clearing and extending back a bit into the woods resides a rough wooden structure with a slate tile roof. A stone slab rests off to one side of the clearing in a place of some prominence. Nestled in among the pines are a few hardy perennials--red alder, quaking aspen, and a big leaf maple or two--that, come spring, will create a profusion of color in the clearing.
A faint trail leads off to the east, and a bit north.
Compact is the word for him: wiry, maybe 5'6" in his beat-up black combat boots, with a sense of compressed energy and imminence like a coiled spring -- or a cocked gun. Never quite still for long, balance flowing through the balls of his feet. There's a striking intensity to his narrow blue-green eyes, the colour contrasting with his fair skin and spiky copper hair; just below the left is what at first appears to be a faint mole, but closer inspection reveals as a small, long-healed scar. His features are appealing, with high cheekbones and a good jawline, but it's the confident mien and roguish smile that most often seem to draw people in.
The above are probably the first things people notice on nights during which he is not also wearing a fluffy, thigh-length caramel-coloured probably-faux fur coat. This not one of those nights. Under it, he's more reasonably clad, in nicely-fitting dark indigo jeans with a plain white tank, its ribbed cotton skimming close enough to hint at the musculature beneath. Over that, he's wearing a long-sleeved, navy blue shirt, unbuttoned; judging by the white-on-red number patches on the left arm, the flag patch on the right shoulder, and the round fleur-de-lis patch to the left of the collar, it was once part of someone's Scout uniform... probably not his. Okay, the 'Boy Scouts of the USA' patch over the right pocket's a hint, too. There's a couple leather-and-bead bracelets on one wrist and a length of ball-chain disappearing beneath his collar; his nails were apparently painted black some time ago, since they're starting to show chips. Late teens, most likely, and when he speaks it's in a mellifluous, southern-accented baritone voice.
His scars are the most striking thing about this man. A deep scar circumnavigates his head, cutting his visage into parts. His visage is far from flattering even without the scar, featuring an unevenly flattened nose, cauliflowered ears, and monobrow sheltering sunken eyes, and long, greasy hair bound in a tangle of a rat-tail. His hands demonstrate a history rich in manual labor, with stumpy, thick fingers and fingernails broken to the quick. His right arm is a massive length of scar tissue from shoulder to hand, with the weak muscling of a paraplegic, a strong contrast against the bulk and muscling of his body and other arm. The skin of his torso, usually covered up by a shirt but still appearing at his neck, consists of thick, red skin with peeling scales. Not much of the damage is visible as his long-sleeved, plaid shirt is buttoned up to the last button. His jeans are almost fashionable, being shredded through at the knees. He's wearing a black bomber jacket with a patch of a snake hissing on the back.
Maybe Felix would rather get his fur wet than his clothes today, or maybe he's just finding it useful to be a bit quicker through the bawn today, but either way, it's a small wolf that actually heads into the compound, skidding in the wet dirt beside the firepit as he comes to a halt. Afternoon! Been looking for you. A glance toward the canopy of branches, and he starts to shift up toward his birth form.
"Good", Reggie grunts as he tentatively releases one of the slabs, reaches for another by his foot, and props that one up as well. "Been looking, too. Been looking for someone to go chop that wood, over there", he indicates a woodpile, which, handily, has an axe leaning against it. "Split each length into thirds."
Felix gives the axe a faintly wary look... but only for about half a second. How hard can it be, right? And he does like hitting things. He heads over and obligingly picks it up -- then one of the lengths, at which point he hesitates, glancing around for already-chopped wood to answer the sudden question in his mind: thirds? Which way? He gives in after a breath or so, "...so, I ain't done this before. There a best kinda way to do it?"
Reggie removes his hands from the slabs and studies his work, and flexing his fingers as he does so. His fingers are blackened by soot and reddened by heat and bare a similarity to cooking sausages. He shifts up to glabro to quickly heal his burned fingers. ~Take a length.~ The pile of wood contains lengths of tree trunk, each about a foot and a half long. ~Prop it up on the ground. Split it lengthways. Lift axe over your head. Swing axe at it. If you hit your foot instead of the wood, heal it back.~
Felix smirks at the last part of the instruction, and sets the log down, on end. He eyes it a moment, then steps back, settling his weight evenly between his legs as if he were going to fight, and gives this splitting thing a try. It's not a perfect hit, not smooth and equal, but he does get the blade meeting the wood, and having erred on the side of 'potentially hit it way too hard' rather than 'potentially don't hit it hard enough', it does actually split. And his foot doesn't! This time, anyway. He laughs, looking pleased at it. "...okay. That ain't thirds, though." It's not even halves.
Reggie shifts back down to homid, again flexing his fingers, which expand and closer with an increased range and more easily than before. He grunts at Felix's effort, which could be interpreted as "Good start.", then follows up with words, "Take the larger of these pieces and split that again."
The larger piece takes somewhat more effort to convince to stand on end than it did before it got split, and the first time Felix steps back, it falls right over again. He narrows his eyes at it and gives it another try, this time stepping back and swinging the axe nearly in one move. It's probably sheer luck that he hits, and in fact looks like he nearly didn't, but hitting by luck is still hitting! "Ha," he tells it, as it has clearly Been Shown. The pieces get pushed aside by his boot, and he moves another log into place. "So! Now that I caughtcha. You got a minute to let me know if you got any news you want spread to the Nation outside our borders?"
"While you're chopping, I've got time", Reggie bargains. "This is for your challenge? Remind me about it--do you have to quote everyone very carefully, even down to the way they say words, no adding 'g's where people drop them, or is it more like normal news spreading?"
Felix snorts. "Yeah, 'cause I'm gonna be =addin'= Gs people ain't puttin' in when I quote 'em," he says, and steps away from the fresh log, settling into a good stance before going for another swing. It's better on aim, this time. "Yeah, it's for my challenge, but nah, I don't reckon I gotta play tape recorder. I mean, I =can=, but he said full accuracy, memorized with no loss of information, an' MOST of the time, I reckon normal news spreadin' handles that. He wouldn't specify when I asked just to be sure, so I'm doin' it my way."
"Like Frank Sinatra", Reggie nods. "Still, I had better think about what I want to say." He takes one of the thicker logs, and sits on it, chin resting on fist, in the position of The Thinker.
"Ah", Reggie exclaims, and stands up, transforming into the battle form, and addresses the trees across the clearing of the Sept Compound as if they are a gathering of an entire Sept, in the Mother Tongue, with no 'g's dropped : ~The Uktena are strong; we fought with the Sept against a Nexus Crawler and one of us, Tiny-Needle-Spears-The-Heart, long may the Silver Record remember her, fell but her sacrifice helped win the battle. We have rited a cub in the past year : He Who Watches And Sings to the Three Mountains has joined us. We have another to rite this year. We keep the Sept strong.~
"Or the Sex Pistols," Felix agrees, grinning, and hums the song to himself as he hacks at the slightly larger piece of the current log. A chunk flies off, but the main part of it skitters off toward the wood pile instead of splitting. "Fuck!" He stalks after it and tries to get it on end again, pausing with one hand holding it in place when the Adren rises. Wood-chopping can wait; the logs may be getting split, but his attention isn't.
Snakepatcher scans the trees, as if looking for one stepping out of place, but there's only the patter of rain rustling branches. With a release of tension, he shifts back down to homid as he leaves his pulpit.
Felix pauses for a moment longer, watching, before he inclines his head slightly. "Thank you," he says, then steps away from the piece of wood, which stays up... barely. "I'll make sure that gets passed on." Another step back, and he goes to split the log-piece; it works this time, if still nowhere close to evenly.