[Tsiyone]

Tsiyone sighed as he walked along a path that wound through one of the rare dry sections of Los. His master, Zahrib ibn Hezoul abd'aali-Nen al-Farahij al-blah-de-blah-de-blah had set him on bath duty again. Tsiyone detested bath duty. It essentially consisted of traversing the several miles from the Temple of Farahij to the nearby Aludra Falls in the nation of Los. You then had to procure as much water as you could carry and travel back up to the Temple of Farahij.

Thankfully Tsiyone had ended up on this job many times before, and along with other servants had discovered the various shortcuts, as well as the best places to try and glide. The only benefit of this task was that your were not required to do anything else for the day, since by the time you got to the falls and returned it was time for the master's bath and then servants that were not in a live-in position were allowed to leave for the night.

Usually this job was assigned to two Zanaryans at a time, due to the large amounts of water needing to be moved. For some reason today, however, Tsiyone had been assigned to it alone. It was probably something to do with those accusations from the Abd'aali's daughter saying that Tsiyone had tried to steal some of her jewelery. As if Tsiyone would ever steal something so valuable. He was a petty thief, not a cat-burglar!

There was no arguing with your master in Zanarya, though. If you were a servant that was all you were. Tsiyone usually didn't mind this so much, though, as no one looked twice at a servant for the most part. He was under the radar, and had been for the past few years, and that was all he wanted. Some nights he still woke up to nightmares about being back in that facility he'd grown up in. They weren't always so bad, though, as some of them did feature his mother, after all.

But those were just dreams. Tsiyone knew he'd never see his mother again. He wasn't sure how, but somehow part of him just knew that she was dead. The loving woman who'd seen more pain than Tsiyone knew was dead, and Tsiyone knew it, though part of him still refused to accept it without some sort of closure. He hadn't seen her in many, many years, so part of him was convinced that she was still alive, but for some reason the depths of his heart said otherwise.

Tsiyone gritted his teeth as he continued to walk. He couldn't keep thinking about the past like that. It was gone. He was in Zanarya now, an entirely separate realm from his torturers on Earth. Still, some day, such as today, he was far more on edge than others. As such he found himself reaching for the beat up old pole arm that was strapped between his leathery wings every time there was a sound from behind him.

Piper's Boutique ≈ DaFont ≈ Selphie's World ≈ Aethereality

[Official NPC]

At roughly the same time that deformed monkeys appeared in the quadrangle and Euphenia Vallas' closet, a fifth made its debut at the Temple of Farahij. Since this one was not dropped into an already chaotic environment, it did not lose its temper through the frustration and confusion of attempting to locate its "master", and so its natural deviousness was allowed a freedom the others were not.

As luck would have it, the monkey had appeared behind Tsiyone ibn Reza, the muted sound of its sudden appearance muffled further by the cry of a wild bird passing overhead just at that exact moment. This afforded the monkey time to acclimate before it could be spotted and attacked, and instead of shrieking madly as it hopped about in search of its target, it scampered after Tsiyone on all fours, just far enough away that its quiet chimping would not give it away.

At first, at least. As the young Zanaryan continued, the bewinged and bloodstained monkey drew ever closer, hiding behind rocks and trees in the path whenever its stalkee seemed as it he might turn around. Every so often, its wings would scrape a rock here, or its scampering would dislodge a spatter of pebbles there, at which point it would immediately scurry behind the nearest object large enough to hide its deformed figure, and then wait a moment or two before resuming its pace.

[Tsiyone]

Tsiyone didn't have a problem with being alone. He'd been alone for most of his life. He sometimes had a problem with huge open spaces, due to being cooped up in a cell for most of his life, though. On the other hand, he also sometimes felt extremely claustrophobic for the very same reason. Today seemed to be one of those overly defensive days where he'd much rather be able to sit in a corner and know everything that was going on in the room.

The marid sighed as he walked along the empty trail to the waterfalls. It was a generally quiet day with good weather. It was only slightly cloudy, so no chance of rain. But in all reality that was good as bath duty was already annoying enough without having to fight the world around you to do it. Tsiyone was just about to one of the point where if you get a fast enough running start and then lunge off the thirty five (or more) foot cliff you can glide for a good mile or so and cut loads of time off the trip to the water when he heard a scraping noise behind him.

“Who's there!” he shouted aggressively in Zanaryan as he fluidly withdrew his weapon. It was a simple pole arm that had certainly seen better days, but it was better than trying to defend yourself with nothing. “I am in the service of an abd'aali, show yourself!” he shouted again in the Zanaryan tongue. Speaking in Elysian while in Zanarya was... well... fairly pointless, honestly. Speaking English was worse, though, as if you did that almost all people in the realm would stare at you as if you were a lunatic.

Tsiyone tightened his grip on his weapon and stepped towards where he thought the noise had come from warily. Getting robbed on these trails was very uncommon, getting mauled by a wild beast, however, was certainly not. If there was some gnarly-fanged, bloody-clawed, demon-spwaned monster hiding in the bushes, Tsiyone certainly didn't want it getting the drop on him.

Piper's Boutique ≈ DaFont ≈ Selphie's World ≈ Aethereality

[Official NPC]

There was a gnarly-fanged, bloody-clawed, Xanth-spawned monster (although that was perhaps debatable) hiding in the bushes. This monster didn't understand Zanaryan - or any of the spoken languages, for that matter - but it didn't need to.

The aggression in its stalkee's voice incited an answering aggression that drew it out from its hiding place, upright on its legs so it could use its hands to throw a lump of golden poop at the young Zanaryan while it chattered away, its deformed wings flapping awkwardly.

[Tsiyone]

“What in Zanarya?” Tsiyone muttered, his eyes widening a bit as the beast revealed itself. He was so taken aback by the creature, that he didn't aptly defend himself from the monkey's initial attack. “taroch crap!” he yelled out as the chunk of gold made direct contact with his chest. Oh yes, that would bruise. “You little-- is that gold?” Tsiyone's rage was diverted as his eyes landed on exactly what it was that had hit him.

Putting his guard up a bit more, Tsiyone bent dont to look at the solid piece of glistening metal. As far as he could tell, it really was gold! What luck! Well, not the getting-attacked-by-an-evil-monkey part, but that free gold part was really awesome. The Zanaryan found himself quickly pocketing the precious metal before looking back to the demon-monkey-thing.

“You stay back,” he said defensively as he took a few steps backwards. He was only a few yards from the take off point, if he could get there maybe he could out-fly the monkey. The beast's wings seemed similar in make to his own, and so hopefully the fact that Tsiyone's were bigger meant that he'd fly better.

Piper's Boutique ≈ DaFont ≈ Selphie's World ≈ Aethereality