'''Why did that behemoth attack you?''' Vincent shrugged at the boys' question. He had no good idea himself, though he had seen the beast watching him from the shadows while he had been harvesting the fruit. He moved to put the knife away, thought better of it, and turned on his heel, striding to the behemoths' slowly cooling corpse. Setting the tip of the blade into a joint in the creatures armored hide, he pried away a piece of armor, revealing soft, delicate white flesh beneath. Heartened by his find, Vincent prized off more pieces of armor, setting each piece aside in the sand; he might be able to find a use for them later. The behemoths' meat looked like it would be fit for eating, but only cooking and tasting would tell. Using deft strokes of the super-sharp knife, he carved the carcass into its constituent parts. His training as a Turk had included anatomy lessons on just about every kind of creature, so he was also a skilled butcher. While Vincent worked on the carcass, Jacob picked his now dry clothes off the ground, shook them free of sand and dressed.
"Rekindle the fire. I'm going to cook one of these" he said, gesturing to a piece of steak with the point of the knife, "to see if it's any good to eat."
'''No need. This is the same kind of behemoth that lived around my village. The villagers used them as a primary meat source. There is a special way to dry the meat, but I know how to do that.''' Vincent nodded, stacking the large amount of assorted cuts of meat on the plates of armor, carrying them two to a hand over to the flat stones at the lakes' edge. Once he finished carting the plates of meat over, he searched for a smaller flat stone to use as a griddle. He found one to his liking and lugged it over to the fire pit. He rearranged the fire pit with the stone at its' center and rekindled the fire, feeding it bigger until he was sure that the stone was hot enough to sear the two steaks he had chosen for their lunch. Jacob watched the ex-Turks' every movement with intense green eyes, as if trying to commit it all to memory.
"You can show me how to dry the rest of the meat while our lunch is cooking." Nodding,the boy came over to him, taking a large plate and sorting through the chunks of meat.
'''Do you have any salt? The drying process goes faster with some salt.''' Jacob said, his signing punctuated by him setting the chosen strips of meat out on the flat stones. Vincent shook his head; he had a large number of supplies in his pack, but the last of his salt had been used up quite a number of years ago, and the only salt mine he knew of that was still available was a half a continent away.
'''The meat can be dried without salt, but it won't last as long, only about six months. With the fruit and berries you found, and the meat and some fat from the behemoth, I can make pemmican; that will last about as long as the sun-dried meat.''' Vincent nodded, committing what he hadn't known to memory. Taking the knife, he sliced the chunks of meat into thinner strips so they would dry better. Taking an armor plate full of strips, he switched the now dried fish with the behemoth meat. Working side-by-side, he and Jacob finished setting out the meat to dry just in time for the steaks Vincent had put on the griddle stone to be done. Taking two small, roughly plate sized and shaped pieces of the behemoths' armor, he speared the steaks neatly on the tip of the knife, transferring them to the makeshift plates. He handed the biggest to Jacob, along with a small, narrow-bladed eating knife. They ate in silence, both staring into the fire, one with a blank emerald gaze, the other with an intensely focused dark garnet.
'He shouldn't have been able to lift Hydra, let alone fire it. He shouldn't even know what a gun is. My three are the last there are. I would find it exceedingly odd if he was able to use Death Penalty. Hmm. Perhaps I should retrieve it? No, it is safer where it is. Why was he able to sleep through Cerberus firing so close to him, yet he woke up when I shouted at him?' These thoughts tumbled through Vincents' head, ricocheting and rebounding off one another until his head hurt from trying to sort them out. In an uncharacteristic display of emotion, he shook his head harshly, sending his myriad braids flying with the force. Jacob started, skittering sideways in the sand as a couple of the almost six-foot-long pleats slapped him. A small part of Vincents' mind buried underneath all the serious noted the boys' shocked expression with a small snigger.
'''How can you deal with your hair being that long?''' Jacob signed, chewing absently on a piece of steak. Vincent looked thoughtfully at his hair, so carefully braided. In truth, it had only gotten as long as it had because it was too difficult to cut it every three weeks to keep it at a more easily manageable length. In his Turk days, he had been going to a barber on a weekly basis. He wished he could chalk up the rate at which his hair grew to one of Hojos' experiments, but unfortunately, his hair was simply a product of his genes. If he remembered correctly, his fathers' hair had grown the same way. In the end, he shrugged, not having a good enough answer.
"I suppose I should cut it. It grows so fast though, that it is difficult to keep on top of. It has been this long for almost three years, and doesn't seem to have grown any more, so I might leave it. Truth be told, I've become accustomed to it." He left it at that, opting instead to check on the pot of fat gathered from the behemoth. It was rendering nicely, and would be ready to use for the pemmican in a few more hours. He stood gracefully, going to check on the state of the drying fruit. The blueberries were done, having dried to hard little balls. The figs would require another day, as would the coconut strips. While he was up, he also checked on the meat. Some of the thinnest strips would be dry enough to use on the morrow. Vincent glanced up at the sun, which was by now westering, sending out brilliant rays of orange across the sky. Heaving a sigh, he turned and made his way back to the fire, snagging a few half-dried strips of coconut and a handful of figs as he went. He handed two-thirds of the fruit to Jacob as he sat back down, a piece of the coconut already in his mouth. Jacob sat quietly, savoring the fruit, as he watched the silent gunman from the corner of his eye. He noted the long, lean lines of muscle beneath the mans' skin, moving with the fluidity of silk in water whenever he drew a breath or shifted his position slightly. He noted how thin Vincent was, nothing but sinewy muscle. Watching, Jacob was reminded of the python one of the elders of his village had kept as a pet. The snake had been nearly ten feet long, as big around as its' owners' thigh. Idly, he wondered if Vincent had fangs like the python had had. He was about to dismiss it out of hand when he caught a flash of pearly white as the man in question popped a whole fig into his mouth. The mans' canines were definitely longer than they should have been. Absently, he ate a fig, not really noticing the flavor of the little fruit. Instead, he let his eyes crawl over every inch of Vincents' exposed skin. Though he had been out in the desert for however long, his skin was porcelain colored, even-toned without a blemish...That's when Jacob saw the cross-hatched scars covering just about every inch of Vincent. There were long, thin, pale scars that seemed to follow his veins; short, jagged scars that looked like they were made by a monsters claws; and dead center over his heart, three small, puckered scars in the shape of a triangle. Trying not to make it too obvious and draw unwanted attention to himself, Jacob leaned backwards a bit, trying to get a look at Vincents' left shoulder. There, on the gunmans' back, just left of his spine, were three larger, puckered scars, identical to the ones on his chest.
"You're wondering what they're from." Vincent said without looking at Jacob. The boy returned to his former position with a look of apology, and perhaps a trifle indignant that he had been found gawking. He nodded slightly, his greens eyes focused intently on his hands folded in his lap. Not quite knowing why, Vincent began to speak, his voice low and soft.
"When I was much younger, I loved a woman who didn't return my feelings. You see, she felt responsible for my fathers' death, and felt guilty every time she looked at me, Because of that, she turned to one of her colleagues. He was a jealous man, and begrudged her the small amount of time she had spent with me. During the course of their relationship, they married and she became pregnant. She offered her baby to science before it was born and I, in my devotion to her, tried to reason with her. Her jealous husband, tired of my 'interference' decided to have me gotten rid of. In the end, he shot and killed me, and then used my corpse for his experiments. I am the way I am because of him."