A New Type of Predator; A New Type of Prey {Will}

[Judy Hopps]

"Right," Judy said, rolling up her sleeves as she looked around the overgrown library, "it's not going to clean itself up." As soon as Judy had learned the rest of the details (thanks to Merlin and his informative meeting), she'd decided that the best course of action, the obvious one really, was to start cleaning up the school and getting the place back in working order. Judy had been in favor of developing teams and signing up for different buildings in accordance with their overall importance toward the running of the school.

Given that so few people really understood what was happening, and that they were literally a school, the library just made sense as a starting point. It was already quiet, sure, but the overgrown roots and trees were damaging books. It would take a lot, but it was a task that someone could at least get started on while they were waiting for more official teams and sign up crews to begin their work.

Hence why Judy was there.

"Okay," she strolled around, wishing she could flick her ears to pick up sounds, "so I'll start with a perimeter sweep, see what needs cleaning the most, and figure things out from there..."

[William Fenris]

After the meeting, everything slightly more clear, and his future as a student here also just as clear, Will had decided to explore much of the grounds of Tintagel. His favouite place though, was here, in the library. No one else really came here. Perhaps they were scared of it's overgrown appearance, but it made him feel more at home.

He had acquired -- along with now a place to sleep for the night, and school books -- a sketchbook. He had tried 'drawing' before. Paws however had made that exceedingly difficult so the joys of having opposable thumbs was just as exciting as anything else.

He had been drawing when Judy had come in, he had been hunched over a table, looking like he was keeping something secret under his jumper.

And then when he saw her, he also hid said sketcbook, looking fearful he'd been caught in the wrong place.

"-I---I'm just drawing!' he stammered out louder than he expected his voice to be.

[Judy Hopps]

A loud voice made Judy jump. Her hands flew about her body, trying to locate her self-defense tools. She did still have a baton on hand, ready to be used if she were threatened by someone. It spun to her hand almost immediately, and she held it up, staring ahead.

"I know you!" she said, lowering and relaxing almost immediately. She could still feel her heart racing, and if her ears had better control, they'd be swiveling about. For now, she focused herself on the skittish young man (was he a fellow animal? Judy thought he might have been...). She put away the weapon and smiled.

"That's fine," she said, nodding. "I'm just here to clean up a bit. You don't even have to help if you don't want to, but I might get in your way a bit. Though I could probably avoid you: there's enough room in here, right?" Judy let out a slightly nervous laugh to look around, studying the rather large library room. At least it didn't feel as big as it would be if Judy were her normal size.

[William Fenris]

Her baton made him scrunch up tighter, preparing to be hit by the baton. She wouldn't be the first person who'd hit him. Still, she'd stopped, and roared a greeting.

With that, his heart started to settle, still staring at her until the weapon was put away.

"Y-Yes. We--we met at the meeting, I'm Will..." He considered her offer, but he also considered that now he would be disturbed trying to draw anyway. He quickly tucked away the pen and sketchbook into the shoulder bag and looked at her again. All of his actions were cautious, as if he was going to disappear any second, stolen away from here to a place of danger. A spy on enemy lines.

Still, he tried to relax. Something about Judy was odd and he couldn't figure out what.

"I--I could try to help...what did you want me to do?"

[Judy Hopps]

Judy nodded as Will confirmed that yes, they had met before. Soon she was putting on her friendly smile, the sort of smile she wore so frequently when walking around and doing her job. She did keep focused on him, but it was less out of a desire to start sprinting away and more to make sure he knew that she was paying attention.

"Oh, if you want to, that would be great,' she said, looking around. "right now, I'm mostly trying to take inventory. All this," she gestured around, "is new, even to the people who have been here before. So we've got to get a good idea of what all we need to do moving forward."

Judy nodded again, rolling her shoulders and fighting the urge to roll up her sleeves. She did have to laugh. "This is going to remind me so much of working back on the farm,' she nodded, then stepped toward Will, holding out her hand. "I'm Judy Hopps, by the way. From Zootopia originally," she might have mentioned that before now, but better to reintroduce for friendliness sake.

[William Fenris]

"Hello, Judy," he replied politely, though his unease at being interrupted was still coming across.

Will followed the girl -- woman's eye sight--- what was she exactly? He was still trying to figure that out. Her body was older than the form he had been given, though he wondered how that magic decided, as wolf years and human years were not the same.

"I---you worked on a farm?"

He had never heard of Zootopia before, but he could feel his head tilt in surprise, like a dog being posed a question.

"What's Zootopia like? My home, The Woods, wasn't particularly nice."

[Judy Hopps]

Judy nodded in greeting, though she didn't see him taking her hand right away. She shrugged, figuring he just didn't like being touched, or maybe that wasn't something that they did where he was come from or something along those lines. She was nodding right along with the next question too:

"Yep, my parents were big farmers back in BunnyBurrow, which is this little town that's mostly filled with, well, rabbits. There are quite a lot of us, y'know," Judy flushed and waved a hand, "bunnies."

Judy began walking down the lines of the books, reaching into her pocket to pull out her phone. She could start keeping track, put a few notes down. "Zootopia is amazing. We've got problems and all, but it's this wonderful community where lots of different animals pulled together to make this great community. The Woods doesn't sound too bad, but I guess it must have been rough, huh"

Judy paused, looking back to Will. "Did you want to take notes or something? Since we've got to," she waved at the library, "figure things out. Oh, and if you see something you think you could fix really simply, we should probably give it a shot, right?"

[William Fenris]

He didn't take her hand, because he didn't formally understand the greeting, he again, looked a little worried, hands in pockets as he followed her.

So, he was a wolf in his world, and she had been a bunny? The whole notion made him sick. What if she found out he was a wolf? Wouldn't she be afraid of him?

He decided, as he had experienced however with Red, that he should be open about it, as open as his nerves would allow.

"I -- I'm a wolf, where I was from," he explains, quietly, as they walked. "I didn't enjoy being one. I'm....I needed to get away from them. That's why I accepted the school invitation."

He pulled out the sketchbook, using the pencil to not just take notes, but started to map out their route, as he suspected the large library would be easy to get lost in.

"Zootopia sounds....perfect actually. In The Woods....lets just say if you don't act tough you're treated pretty poorly."

[Judy Hopps]

"A... wolf," repeated Judy. A bit of her, that bunny bit, wanted to run as far and as fast as she possibly could. Though she did listen as he kept going, insisting that he wasn't like the others, even going so far as to say that he'd outright accepted an invitation to the school.

"It's pretty great," admitted Judy. "We'd be living side by side there. Well," she laughed, running a hand over her hair, wishing she had her ears to ruffle, "maybe not literally side by side, but we'd be perfectly fine with each other," she lowered her hand, shrugging. She noted his notes, even leaning forward slightly to see what he was doing.

Nodding, Judy pulled back, looking around. "The books almost look like they were preserved, don't they?" she asked, stepping toward a shelf. She raised a hand, touching some of the vines, moving them to try and get to a book.

[William Fenris]

"Yeah, where I'm from, we wouldn't be friends at all, wolves are....well, they're the bosses, and they do and eat what they want, even humans would flinch at the sight of me."

He looked like one of those humans now, fearful, ashamed, amongst other things. He seemed to fold in deeper to himself. He didn't want Judy to think he would have ever considered her like that, in fact, he had found himself avoiding prey all together, eating plants and fruit in the months before coming here. No wonder he was skin and bone. Though, once a hunter, he could hunt again if he needed to...

"I never wanted to be like that, it's why I had to get away. I ran away as fast as I could when I knew I had somewhere safer to go."

Then his head leveled up to the look at the books. "Well, safe is probably not the word..." He watched her try to move some of the vines, his head tilted. Whilst he was lanky and impossibly tall in comparison, he pointed.

"They do, but the vines are in the way? You could always get on my shoulders if you wanted to reach and remove some of the taller vines?"

[Judy Hopps]

Judy frowned. "Where you come from sounds pretty awful, if you don't mind me saying. Sounds like you did the right thing getting out. Trust me, it's always better to get out where you belong," she gave him another wink before focusing her efforts on the plants. It did sound like Will definitely did the right thing getting out of there, away from the awful and the animals responsible. Judy had seen that sort of thing first hand, and she was almost tempted to double back and give Will a quick, reassuring hug.

"Place seems relatively safe,' offered Judy. "Nobody's trying to kill anyone. Just us versus the overgrowth," she poked another plant, trying to remove some. She pursed her lips, working them as she studied the problem. It felt like there should be some sort of easy answer here, something that they just weren't quite seeing.

"well, we're mostly just looking now," said Judy, scanning up. "I suppose we could try that if we needed to? There's probably a ladd--" she turned, and almost immediately saw a ladder. Unfortunately, vines had crept up it and wrapped it in place, locking it against a wall. Judy sighed, pointing toward it, wanting Will to notice what she'd noticed.

[William Fenris]

"Yeah, like I said in the meeting....i have no plans to go back. I can't go back."

Though, having heard that people were reappearing, did that mean sometimes they were just sent back if they weren't good? Will could feel his stomach clench just at the idea of it. Still, he was glad to have Judy there, she was calm and confident, it was a good person to have around.

That and she always seemed to be on the right track. When she points to the ladder he frowns.

Oh.

He gives her a look, chewing at his lip, before moving over to said ladder and tentatively, still getting used to his legs, climbed part of the ladder, starting to tear at the vines and climbing as he went. The higher he got, the the more vines, which he pulled at, but barely any refused to budge far to his annoyance.

"Some of these look like --- they are actually --- tied into the ---bookshelves---!"

And as he pulled one, he almost lost his balance, leaning back in fear, only just able to rebalance himself to go forwards and hold the sturdy bookshelf again with a fearful steadying of his breathing.

"-Please don't do what I just did...." He called down still trying to get his heart to settle back into it's ribcage.

[Judy Hopps]

Can't go back... the words had so much weight and meaning that, again, Judy almost felt like hugging the poor guy who said them. Weirdly enough, he reminded her a lot of Nick. Predator, abused by the system, very much feeling left out. "You shouldn't have been treated that way," she said with authority, and probably would've continued but, well, bookshelves and plants got in the way.

Judy followed Will to the ladders, watching him carefully as he climbed. She got into position to at least try to catch him if he fell, though given their size difference, the likely result would be squished not-rabbit. "Careful!" she called up, and her caution proved either pointless or predictive, as Will nearly fell. "Here!" she moved closer then, closing the last bits to steady the bottom of the ladder. "You should've just waited until I steadied it or something!"

Judy glared at the plants, feeling them underneath her paws. She shook herself of that irritation, instead looking up at him with concern. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Maybe we should look around for something to make the cutting easier?" she didn't move from the ladder, but judy still looked around, hoping for something to jump out to her.

[William Fenris]

"I'm okay, I promise...I-I was just being silly...I'll come down now...."

Will looked back down at Judy, he tilted his head, it was so sweet to see her concern, she barely knew him, and yet there she was, willing to go to any length to keep him safe.

And she was a rabbit before, of all things. Maybe, if he had no home back in The Woods, Zootopia would be better...

Still, his heart now settled he climbed back down the ladder, looking up at the books in futility. He was bested by tree vines, how his family would have mocked him, and torn it apart with their claws. They'd have probably wrecked the entire library, not caring for the books and joined in the carnage.

"Err --- what about --- oh what are they called. Scissors?" He made an action with his hand. "Or something larger?"

Still he put a hand to the mess of hair that was what was left of his fur and looked about him. "O-Or maybe we need a bigger team of people?"

Will also realised, apart from Red, and she was a special case with their wolf connection, that this was the most he'd spoken or interacted with anybody, and it felt nice, fuzzy almost, a comfort in his chest he couldn't quite explain.

[Judy Hopps]

Okay, he was coming down. Judy still held the ladder, bracing to make sure that Will didn't end up tumbling. She moved aside as he landed, resisting the urge to check him over to make sure he was all in one piece. Coddling struck her as a bad idea, however, so she stepped aside and instead turned to start looking around.

"Scissors might work?" offered Judy, looking back at him. "It would depend on the size of the scissors. They are the most likely thing we'll find here though," she pointed toward the desks, "let's check in there. We might find something usable. The, ah, magic seems to have kept things mostly intact after all," yes, the idea of magic still unnerved Judy slightly.

She walked toward a desk, considering Will's second question. "We're just the scouting party," she explained, walking around a desk. "It will definitely take more people to actually get this place back in order, but we can get a good start on figuring out what needs doing and where to start." Judy found drawers, and she bent down studying them intently.