Foxx News: Woman Sets Rabbit Trap, Catches Family Instead

RP Date: 2026-10-10

Location: The Wreck

Participants: Adamina, Lettie, Marw

Summary

Marw goes out to catch a rabbit and instead snares a daughter, a former employee, and several deeply unwelcome facts about her past/future.
Faced with accusations of motherhood, ageing and taxidermy, she responds with admirable composure: rum, denial, and criticism of everyone's clothing.

This archive was published after approval by all listed participants.

Roleplay

Marw stood several yard away from the ruined hull, dressed in her usual black with her collar of plum silk barely visible under the coat. She stood there inspecting the remains of the rigging, landing on the flag. An hour glass emblazoned in gold on the plum material. This surely was not a coincidence. "No," she muttered. Whatever explanation Grimwych eventually intended to offer her could wait. Today was not a day for mysteries. She had far more practical. So she turned her back on the vessel and crouched beside a narrow run in the grass where the grass was squished. Small tracks. Rabbit most likely. Blunt ends to the grass show signs of recent nibbling. From the pocket of her coat, Marw drew a length of wire and began shaping it carefully between her fingers. The movements were precise and well practiced. She fixed the snare low across the run, tested the loop with one finger, then adjusted it by barely an inch.

Adamina approaches the wrecked vessel on feet that are light and all but silent.  Unlike her mother--and unlike the landlubber self her family would be familiar with, she is dressed in the same sailor's clothes she'd entered Grimwych wearing.  She has rolled up the sleeves of her shirt past the elbows, revealing a myriad of colorful artwork; the mot prevalent of which is a kraken with its tentacles wrapped around a running red fox.  Pants of thick cloth and a pair of boots that are slightly too large for her and stuffed with paper complete the eternally young woman's ensemble.  She walks forward from the north, and at first  the ruined hull is between her and Marw, but the latter will undoubtedly hear her moving as she pads alongside it in search of a hole large enough to infiltrate the interior.

Marw still had her fingers on the wire as she heard the movement of another. Glancing in the direction it came from before slowly straightening to full height. Her hand brushing over her knee before she turns in the direction of the sound. Her pale blue gaze found Adamina and remained there. First the clothes inspected, the tattoos, the oversized boots. Her expression did not change too much bar a narrowing of her eyes in assessment. Finally she looks to the ground Adamina had walked upon. "Tell me, do you indend to continue to walk over the ground with the grace of a drunk elephant practicing the nutcracker?" A shift of her own feet. "If so I will move my trap elsewhere if you continue to be such a deterrent?"

Adamina is so caught up in penetrating the ruined vessel that she doesn't even hear footsteps behind her until Marw's voice cuts through the silence of this calm day like an icy knife.  The young woman's face loses all color, and she whirls around in surprise, sure it is some kind of mistake. Yet Marw speaks again--and it's a voice she would know anywhere, the first she ever heard. "Mother!" she sputters. "How the hell?"  Her vision swims, and she sways unpleasantly back and forth before grabbing hold of the hull.  There's not much to grip, and she nearly falls on her ass. "Dance practice is tomorrow.  Carpentry lessons are on schedule for this afternoon."  Her words are a bit of a joke. "What are you <i>doing</i> out here?" she ventures. "How did you get such nice things?"  She was Marw, that was how.  She always found a way.  Maybe she'd been here longer.

Lettie wanders with slow steps down along the path that led towards the bones of the once ship now a land carcass of another time. There is something held in the palm of her hand that she is studying with such intent that she is oblivious to the rest of the world around her. "me - cowe? Meow?" Her voice is just loud enough that herself ramblings can be heard, making little sense to what she is trying to say. Rather, she is trying to read the time piece of paper held in hand aloud, thinking she is alone out in the vast abandoned world.

Marw lofts her brows as she is called such a thing. There is not a single drop of recognition at all, just madly masked surprise. Her first thought was this person knew her name and was pronouncing it horrifically badly. The second, and what she deemed to be the most logical, was this woman was quite mad. Once that thought flitted through her mind, it was quickly locked into place. "Hmm." she says. The inconvenient thing about mad people is that they were hard to predict, not in the interesting and challenging way intelligent people were, where their moves made logic after the fact. The sailor outfit, the color-by-numbers on the arms and these claims on these lessons all supported her theory. She starts to unfasten the wire; if this mad person were to attack, especially if it had her eyes on her nice things, a wire to the neck would have to suffice. An incline of her head to the boat as she dryly responds evasively without an answer to the questions but a question of her own "What are <i>you</i> doing here? Playing mermaids and pirates is it?"

Adamina is vaguely aware of Lettie, but it is all she can do to keep herself upright and her faculties in order.  She keeps the palm of one hand pressed against the ruined wood of the ship, one finger running across a long-lost barnacle.  Adamina studies her mother, waiting for some barb--a jab at her appearance, something, and like Jesus, it is delivered. "Something like that.  I'm going to build myself a ship and sail away from this dump."  It wasn't that much of a dump, but she needed something to throw back at her mother, whom she was unprepared for. "Hildako says we're in some kind of other world."  She raises one brow. "It's done you favors." 

Lettie growls, it's a soft thing under her breath, at the paper in hand whispering loudly at it, 'tell me your stupid message'. The last letter she got was magically enchanted by the sender to talk to the lynx knowing she couldn't read to save her life. This one seems the sender wasn't him and fully unaware of her intellectual difficulties with basics every other adult here most likely knew. Odd one out, per usual. It was just three words, <i>Welcome home, Lettie</i>, easy peasy. Nope. She had yet to get any of the words off it and was growing increasingly upset at her own failures. So, she stops there just at a distance still unaware of the people at the ship though her ears have picked up on their talking and are twitching atop her head. Worn leather boots with untied frayed laces on her feet sink lightly into the dirt path, slightly dampened from recent rain that occurred the previous day or two ago. The werelynx is dressed in a pair of black overalls, borrowed as they are rolled several times to fit her short legs, with various rips and holes in the legs from her various adventures, and beneath it she just has what appears to be a bra on, no other shirt as her mother stole hers to wash it. Her arms are covered in scratches and bruises and the deep still healing gash along her collar bone stands out. What is more standout than anything for those with the spying eye is the <i>plum</i> colored nail coloring on just her right hand and it looks to be shiny and fresh. Her hair is brushed, or it was when she left home, it now has some tangles from being to the post office and taking the walk to here.

Marw closes her eyes as Adamina declares her plan to simply sail away, a second passes before she opens them again. "I wish you the best in your endeavor." Yet this interaction keeps on throwing more and more peculiar things her way. A shake of her head comes, though the pins in her hair seem scared enough of her that they do not fail and each lock stays exactly in the place she demanded of it. "I do not know who or what this Hildako is that you speak of. However, evidence does suggest there are quite a few people from quite a few different worlds, yes." What one Adamina was from, was not asked. Then as Lettie steps into view, she shifts, angling herself so both sailor and cat could be looked at with little more than a turn of her head. The young woman also gets a closer look. Luck might be on the cat girl's side, though, because if she had spotted that nail varnish before yesterday, the girl might not have survived the day. The person who had send Marw a bottle would never know that they might have just saved a life with that one action. "Oh lord." she mutters at that outfit. A glance between Adamina and Lettie, back and forth a couple of times. "Why do the two of you look like you have dressed as if you have given up on life already? Yes we will be sacrificing someone but it is not going to be both of you. One will suffice." A tilt of her head. "By all means, if either one of you has given up on life, let me know. I will walk you to the stones right now, and we will get an answer quite quickly to this lingering question."

Adamina raises both brows now, looking between her mother and the cat-girl. Lettie's ouotfit is...well, it's something.  "We look like we've scavenged clothing because we've scavenged clothing.  My wardrobe didn't survive the shipwreck."  The young woman's eyes narrow, and she takes a step towards Marw. "What do you mean <i>sacrifice someone?</i>  Don't tell me the bloody cultists are here too."  That would be just her luck, for those wretched circus people to follow her from one world to the next.  Still, the presence of Lettie does halt her from filling her mother in on more family information.  One does not hang their dirty laundry out to dry.  She smiles at Lettie. "Hello there.  I'm Adamina, and this disagreeable woman is my mother, Marw.  Do you need help?"

Lettie lifts her gaze up from the paper that holds some mystery to look now at the two women at the ship. One looks familiar from the old taxidermy shop and the other looks almost familiar, just less wrinkles with a more youthful glow. Interesting. Older-younger sister has arrived and now Younger-older boss is here. What is going on with this strange new world, snatching from various timelines of life. "My moms doing the wash and I don't like being inside walls," she answered matter-of-factly as if that was the most common knowledge and Marw should have already known it. She glanced down at the pants she wore, many sizes too big on the runt of a person, then back to the woman all dressed prim and proper for what this place offered. Same old woman, different lands. "My Hela says I am not allowed to offer myself up for things be it a trial of a mysterious potion trapped inside a giant twine ball or a sacrifice to appease some rocks," she said with a shrug, because there is a good chance curious cat that still didn't know what the word 'sacrifice' meant would have raised her hand to do it. She looks to Adamina and offers her the piece of paper with those three words, "Can you read this to me?" Then she adds, "Mrs. Foxx is my old employer from the world I came from, except she was much much older then. Still just as cranky about clothes and not looking like a scarecrow it seems. I'm Lettie."

Marw shakes her head at Adamina's predicament of having to scavenge clothes. That was a problem that she would need to solve on her own as Marw was being selective on allowing people to know her occupation of seamstress. After all that is what she was before she turned to taxidermy in her later years. As Adamina introduces herself, she starts to interrupt "I am no?" However, the insane woman had uttered her name. That caused her voice to stall. A piercing glare towards the redhead as she tries to figure out how in the world she would know her name "Ms Foxx. You can call me Ms Foxx." Not Marw, not mother, she was certainly not a mother?surely? She was prepared to glower at the other until she figured out this mystery, but Lettie added fuel to the flames. Not the name of Hela, that rings no bells either. But her last name was dropped in casually. Now attention snaps back to Lettie, same glower, same mystery. "You should have more than one top. A couple of outfits does not a wardrobe make." How the hell would they ever be anything close to a functioning society if people only owned one of each item of clothing and felt it was suitable to wear such ill fit, scruffy garb. Perhaps that should have been her suggestion for who to sacrifice instead. A pinch to the bridge of her nose as she returns her mind to the mystery at hand, how they knew pieces of her. She stepped back from them both, then her hand dropped, clasped in front of her. "Mr Corvo put you up to this, didn't he? Some joke he thought would be amusing."

Adamina looks at Lettie a little harder. "You were Xenith's little sister, weren't you?" she ventures a question. "Working with Hela? Dong art?  I believe we might have met a time or two..."  It's all fuzzy.  Muddled.  Unclear.  Trying to recall too deeply gives her the low throbbings of a headache.  She takes the paper and reads it over. "Welcome home, Lettie.  I don't recognize the handwriting, do you?"  She offers the note back and then regards Marw again. "We have all been pulled from our homes and transported to another world where we may or may not remember who we are, and you're concerned about how many clothes everyone has."  The young woman shakes her head, red hair cascading across her tattooed arms. "Same old mom.  And that's Mrs. Foxx, not Ms, though I guess it doesn't matter now.  Be Ms. if it makes you feel better.  You've not got anything to return to."

Lettie tilts her head to the side, her gaze losing focus for a moment as she gazed out at nothing, though her ears were moving as if she was listening to someone talking. The tell tale twitch they did hard to hide. It was just the three of them standing here, just them making noise. She was spaced out for a few moments before her hand moved to rub at her own ears, clearing the sound that didn't belong to this space where they stood. It was happening more frequently these days. Turning back into the conversation she looked to the elder Foxx woman, "I don't know that name, sorry?." a pause, "I'm a feral wild child that lived in the forests once upon a time in a land not of here. Owning one set of clothes that are not stitches pieces holding new length on is a treat for me. These are long enough I won't have to sew on more leg space?if I grow anymore." She was fairly short as it was, those ears giving false look of being taller. She did just let on that she knew how to sew clothing even if the state of hers at present didn't look like it. The smile she had all too excited over the fact that they were too big actually. Then she returned to Adamina, "Yes, he was one of my siblings back in the other world. I worked for Mrs. Foxx and studied art under Hela, yes yes. No, I do not know this hand writing?and welcome home? Home where? Here?"

Marw wished she wasn't here. For a woman who liked to control what people knew about her, was selective on exactly what she revealed and was more akin to circling the outside, this was not a position she was used to nor willing to be in. Where people claimed to know more about her than she had permitted. Lips part ready to ask a question, then close. Silence reigns. Then she speaks, "I will be back momentarily." The wire in her hand wrapped into a neat loop and hands slid into her pockets; she walks towards the boat. She knows where she is going and uses the hole in the side to step in. There is the occasional creak from the wood within, as if the rotten boards threaten to snap but all bark and no bite. It is a few minutes before she returns, two bottles of dark rum tucked under an arm, a single low ball glass. Back at the entrance of the hole she had entered, she takes a seat, rear upon the wooden planks within, legs stretched and crossed into the outside. She leans forward and sets one of the bottle upon the floor, as far away from her as she could reach, a wave of her hand towards it as an invite for Adamina and Lettie to help themselves to it. The other she keeps to herself, opening it and pouring herself a glass. Of course the other two did not have any glasses obtained for them, she could have carried them if she wished but if they dressed like savages, they could drink like them too. She however would drink her rum from her glass. She takes a long slow sip, swallowed, lips part again but no, she isn't ready yet for this conversation. The glass is finished, another poured, before she is ready to speak again. "So, you two are from the same world." A fact that had been established. Lettie seemed the easiest to question next "And if you grow, you make new clothes. How you look is highly inappropriate. You dress like if you need the bathroom, you will just squat and do your piece on the ground. That is not really a message we want to be giving outward to the world." Then to the more troublesome between the two, Adamina "Ms." she repeats, firmly. "And why do you say I have nothing to return to?"

Adamina watches her mother wordlessly with the two bottles of rum.  Has she ever seen Marw drink anything but wine?  At this juncture, she can't remember.  Regardless, she does he familiar motion of smoothing her clothing as if she is still wearing skirts, and sits down opposite her mother, grasping for the bottle and opening it.  Mina has no qualms right that moment drinking from the bottle, though whether she will share its contents with Lettie is questionable.  As she swallows the first couple of gulps, she studies Marw.  For now--for <i>once, </i>she is at an advantage.  For perhaps the first time in her life, she has somewhat of an upper hand, at least until Hildako and/or Hela open their mouths and spoil things.  She could say nothing, or lie, see her mother off to whatever sacrificial journey she was embarking on, and be free of her.  Rid of her.  Yet something tugs at her chest.  The wrong words could leave Marw stumbling around, running in circles, seeking the truth in the wrong direction while she, Adamina, and potentially Hildako, got a handle on things.  But how much did her sister know?  Hildako was as self-centered as she was obtuse, but had Mother told her after Mina left? <i>Because your life turns into sad and thankless drudgery.  Your husband spends his days wearing diapers and barely able to feed himself, your other children are so irresponsible they can't live on their own, and you're cursed--we're all cursed. </i> And who was this Corvo, guy?  Another gulp of rum.  A pleasant buzz now joined her headache. "Ask Mr. Corvo."

Lettie wandered over to where the two were sitting to have a drink of these rum bottles that came from this ship. How long had they been in there? Were they part of why this woman was not able to remember her past and people from it? She opted out of drinking the mysterious wine from the unknown ship belly in the middle of land. A seat was taken however, then her little finger that she'd bumped out of place in the motion snapped back into place like it was normal. She glanced down at her oversized clothes, shrugged, "I come from the same world as you. You are not this you. You are Older you there. You own and run a taxidermy shop. You let me work part time for you and to stay in one of the rooms upstairs. I am not allowed in the shop unless I look presentable." She nodded her head as she recounted the bits for her, slowly as not to spook her anymore than she was. "If I wanted to use the outside for a place go to the bathroom, I would just shift into a lynx and disappear into the wilds for that. I happen to not and use the inside like a lady, thank you very much. I haven't found much for clothes in my size. Everything is too big."

Marw looks relieved as the blame is shouldered on the person who is innocent of it. A small nod of understanding, and her seated posture straightens as if the familiar metaphorical rod is at her back again; now all is right with the world, and this is just a joke. No need to resort to further rum then. She moves to close her open bottle, but Lettie's words are not supportive of this being an elaborate joke constructed by a mischievous man. The lid remains off her bottle for now, and her glass remains cradled. "I am a seamstress," she corrects. "Not a taxidermist." Yet, if one were to go to the place she resides in at the moment, they would find some rabbit hides drying, ready to turn into the lining of gloves for the winter. Perhaps it is not a far leap after all. "I am old enough," she snips, aware that her arguments are lacking unarguable logic. The very thought of being older than she is when she looks in the mirror is quite horrific. When she's told she lets Lettie stay in her home, work for her, and that Adamina earlier claims she is a mother, she lets out an exasperated whoosh of air. "You two make me sound like I am some bleeding-heart saint. Birthing children and housing the needy." Said no one ever. Another generous sip and she rises to her feet, a step taken towards both Adamina and Lettie, an absentminded twirl of the glass in her hand so the amber liquid swirls around like a little whirlpool within. "I am going to ask you both this once. I suggest you consider your answer carefully; the truth is the only response that will serve you well. Anything else will make what follows considerably less pleasant." She lets the silence sit for a moment, her gaze moving between them. "Do you know me? And have you both been telling me the truth?"

Adamina sets the rum bottle down in her lap, between her crossed legs. "Would I have <i>this </i>if I didn't?" She extends her left arm to show the tattoo of the running fox wrapped in a Kraken tentacles. "Adamina Foxx is my name."

Lettie chuckled, "No, this you isn't one yet, but the older you sure is one though. You had me put a dead animal in a box of flesh eating bugs when I first met you. You also said my dressing ways was wrong then too." The werelynx nodded her head as she confirmed the statement. She did add, "You said you'd rather I show up looking proper than with leaves in my hair from sleeping in a tree. So, perhaps not a saint for housing someone, but ensuring your business doesn't look bad with a messy cat sweeping the place." She shifted, listening to that distance noise that was off beyond again. Then she was rubbing her ears some more, trying to empty the echo of someone she couldn't find yet. Damn skull. Mismatched gaze landed on the woman as she came to question her, "Yes, Marw Foxx I know you. Not like that one does, our history is much shorter, only a few months old, but you the aged version of you and I know one another."

Marw was getting a headache, or at least looked like she was trying to encourage one into existence as she touched her temple in thought, wanting some reason to depart and escape this puzzle. A glance to the tattoo as it was shown, a glance up to the face as Adamina says her full name. Unfortunately Adamina was a good name, she might have picked it. Possibly. No. Absolutely not, she would not have picked it because that means she would have become a mother. A fox tattoo was not proof enough. As Lettie chimes in, there are a few words that cause a wince "I am going to need you to stop using the words old, older, aged and anything of that theme whilst talking about me." A twitch of her lips as she looks at the mess Lettie is currently in "So why are you not properly dressed now if I gave you this advice?" Then to Adamina, she snaps back "And no, you will tell me. What does Mr Corvo have to do with this?"

Adamina takes another drink; she will spare her mother news of her fate for today, but Lettie earns a decidedly irritated look. "That one? <i>That one?  </i>Pardon you, I happen to be a living person with a name." She stands a bit unsteadily. "Ask him." She doesn't know any Mr. Corvo. "You brought him up.  Now, it's lovely as this has been to see you both. I've got some work to do." She moves further into the wreck of the ship and rummages around in search of something.

Lettie glances over and offers a shrug to her as she has a moment of flip out over having a name, "Alright, Avocado have fun with the work stuff." She was truly bad at names. She turned back to Marw and nodded, "Alright, well, then you just remember that when I speak of you I mean the other version my from world, not this earlier model. However, time pending we are here I might get to know this you better than the last one. I do hope you don't keep old men locked in rooms this time around." She offered her a flash of a smile before she made a face at her. "Clothing is not as common here. Would you rather I leave some at home to keep nice and washed? Or wear them all out for getting into trouble in various run down buildings to have them all covered in holes? Call this?work clothes?"

Marw starts to bend to set her glass down, ready to abandon it to return home to her wine. She changes her mind after a dip of a couple of degrees and straightens back up. No farewell offered to Adamina as she goes into the ship. A brow lofts at the claim she keeps old men locked in rooms. Who the hell was she? That she did not ask. What she did ask instead to the cat girl was "Where do you live?" Although bluntness and minimal details were favoured, once the question left her lips she recalculates. "I can visit next week and we can see what we can do to ensure you have a suitable range for you. In the mean time, try to keep your underwear concealed from others."

Lettie glanced up the path that led away from the ship wreck, "I live with my mother in the old farm house?I think?" She glanced down at the note that was now crumpled in her other hand. The one the redhead told her said 'welcome home' and her empty hand patted the pocket her overalls to feel that key tucked inside that came with the note. She didn't know the writing, but she never paid attention before to what people wrote like since she cannot read. Had her mother kicked her out? Was it her dad that kicked her out? Both parents tired of the cat child already? She swallowed emotions that were starting to bubble up over those what ifs. Her attention back to Marw, "What do you mean my underwear?" She did then glance over a shoulder to check out her own behind, having to spin in a small circle to see it. She was looking for holes in the back of her britches, "My patootie isn't showing?"

Marw opens her mouth and for a moment it seems she is going to explain exactly what she means. She thinks better of it. Lips purse and she gives a shake of her head before reaching for the bottle of rum. At this point she decides this will be a far more substantial supper than anything involving actual food tonight. "I will find the farmhouse next week," she says, tucking the bottle against her side. "We will address the issue then." A final glance over Lettie's current interpretation of work clothes earns the faintest tightening around her eyes. "Until then, simply try not to make it worse." And with that, Marw turns to leave, apparently deciding that motherhood, mystery daughters and visible undergarments are all problems best mulled over after several more measures of rum.