[Official NPC]

In the pale white light cast off by a street lamp, two men huddle together, their harried whispers drawing worried glances from passers-by. Suddenly, the taller man pushes the rotund man away, his accusations increasing in volume until it's quite clear their argument is about something illegal.

A woman screams when the small, rounded man draws a knife, its serrated edge glinting a reflection of the street lamp for a moment before plunging into his assailant's gut.

[Aella]

It is an easy thing to find disappointment.

The blade's edge had not retained its proper shape—it had warped due to excessive heat, Aella knew, and it lay pleading, misshapen and ugly upon the anvil. She stared down at it with unyielding eyes of molten gold, hammer in hand, the flames of the furnace roaring behind her. Along with the disappointment came shame. Maybe this was how her parents felt when they made her? She closed her eyes, grit her teeth, and ran her tongue against the back of them as if to taste the sensation as well as feel it. It tasted bitter. The sword had malformed because she was too stubborn to think back to the stuffy words of her fae elders, too stupid to head them, and too headstrong to go against her better instincts that screamed "don't push it, don't force it, don't."

She felt her coercion of the elements grow stronger each day, though they had not always heeded her orders. And that came down to the root of it: she had forced more oxygen into the furnace than she should have, and the flame had lept up hungrily at the malleable steel and ruined the hours of work she had just invested.

With a flash of frustration she slammed her hammer into the wretched thing, imagining herself, shattering the blade and scattering the cooling pieces every which way. It did not matter. Her master Noyle was away and would not complain at the mess, which she was certain she could clean before the morrow. She was determined to make the sword properly. She could not reach the nobleman's deadline after this blunder and would have to deliver it in person, though, and this troubled her. Regardless, Aella set to work, to have it done tonight.

——

She left the forge as Neme broke free from her cloudy prison in the east and the sun sank below the crests of the Apolli Mountains. The air was cold of late, so Aella had taken to wearing her leather boots instead of trodding barefoot on the icy ground. Her breath appeared before her, and she lingered, watching it rise and then dissipate on invisible air currents. She felt the breeze tug her cream-colored shift against her lithe form, felt it tussle her hair like a lover, and though its cold bit her nigh-covered skin, she relished it all the same. Her body ran warmer than most, she found, always last to feel the cold even when she was young. I am nearly an adult now, she thought, as more of her breathes lingered in front of her. Another breath, another, and she would soon be home, her boots making soft noises on the cobblestone beneath her as she trodded.

There were other noises as well. The street was not empty at this time of night, though soon she surmised it would be, and a few Anyeli travellers, humans, fae, what-have-you lingered here and there speaking, looking, purchasing, doing whatever the deeds they intended. A conversation, too, was taking place, the sound a low rumbling, a great beast rolling in fitful sleep. Some last minute deal about to be brokered, she guessed, by the tone of it. Aella glanced up at the gray sky, clutched her bag of coin to her chest, the payment for her twice work, and pondered. The sword had been well built. She was proud of it. The anger was gone from before. She felt elated, even, gazing at the drifting clouds and thinking of greater things, finding the sensation akin to those rare times when she braved the sojourn to the woods at night to sing her songs to Xanth. She thought of her future, where she may be in a year, two years, and beyond...

And because she was so focused with the world above and beyond her, she did not notice the two men some distance behind her trailing her, waiting and watching as she was watching the heavens above, though their eyes were hardened by the forge of time rather than simple conviction. They were the eyes of bandits, thieves, and cutthroats alike.

Thank you, Xanth, for this good harvest...

A sudden stab of force at her back severed her prayer, a jab inbetween her shoulder blades. The thrust stole the wind from her, knocking her off balance. She barely caught herself with her hands before her head connected with stone.

"What..", her anger billowed, and she could feel her emotions and judgment cast aside in the cold wind. She went to turn, to confront her assailant. A savage whack at the back of her head brought darkness in around her.

She awoke two minutes later, lying where she had fallen, a bit dirty and scuffed but no worse for wear. She felt for a moment the frigid cobbled stone, pushed herself to her feet with athletic ease, then took in her surroundings. Her hands were empty, and for a moment that did not seem to matter. But then it did. She screamed in fury, her eyes molten gold, her bag of coin gone.

——

Only a short distance away, down some alleyway lit meagerly by street lamp, did the two men who robbed Aella come to terms with who would split the spoils, the bag, fine leather, the coins, and everything else they had stolen from her. One of the men did not agree with his share of the portion, so he let his steel speak for him. It was then that they both heard that same wrathful scream.

The small, rounded man, had the sense in him to bolt.

[Kiel]

“Okay, like, stay here, okay?”

“You mean right here?” Moving to the exact spot where he'd pointed, Pria tipped her massive head sideways to eyeball him.

“Yeah, like —” Seeing the smug expression on her face, Kiel closed his mouth with a snap and grinned. All his life, he'd heard about how, like, dragons were all grumpy and temperamental and stuff, and that he'd have a hard time getting one to like him enough to run errands with him for free. Zeph and Slythe acted like they'd both hatched on the wrong side of the nest, like long-lost siblings out for blood. And, like, okay, so his family (mostly) shared better bonds with their dragons, but even then, he'd gone into the ritual expecting to come back out with a new "friends" that, like, totally wanted to eat him.

“I'll wait here.” Swishing her tail with the grace of a creature much smaller than her, the burgundy dragon's butt met the ground with a bump, squishing a crate of what might have been apples in the process. She didn't even notice.

“Wahaha. C'mon, Shane, let's go.” Brushing the top of the shadowkin's head as she sidled up to rub her slender nose against his knee, Kiel grinned again. Man, having a dragon was so much awesome, he could hardly stand it. And being Chosen for a 'kin on top of that, his whole life was, like, utter bliss or something, man.

When Shane pounced on his ankle, totally agreeing with him, Kiel giggled. “Race you, race you!” The 'kin had barely phased into a shadow a few yards ahead with him chasing after her when they heard a scream. Heads whipping around, Kiel's hand dropped to the hilt of his katana.

“That was anger,” came Pria's pragmatic response as she went right back to... doing nothing. Like, Kiel would think she was sunning herself if it weren't night time. "Mooning herself" seemed kind of weird and oh, so wrong.

“Yeah, but, like—” Before he could expound on all the reasons they should still help, 'cause, like, Kiel just couldn't help himself, a portly little man shot out of the dark. When he saw Pria, he skidded to a dead stop, dropped his jaw like it wasn't attached, and started whimpering. “Hey, hey, like, dude, it's okay. She only eats people when they're bad.” He'd totally meant it as a joke, but Pria took offense anyway and drew herself up to her not-insubstantial height to glower at him.

For a second, the dude looked like he was going to start bawling like a baby. When Shane growled and put herself between him and her Chosen, Kiel caught a glimpse of red-tinged blade glinting in the Neme-light. “Don't interfere.”

“Uh, but, like.” Hand curling around the hilt of his katana again, Kiel frowned. Maybe Pria was wrong when she said that scream had been one of anger. “You know, what kinda guy would I be if I ignored a scream like that, like, right?”

[Erasmos]

Perhaps ignorance is the most horrible sin of all, to be completely blind to all that is around one, to take for granted the ability to breathe, to think, and to act freely. But for Erasmos, a blind eye obscured notions of family, true friendship, a sense of duty, and financial responsibility. While he wandered from place to place, as if a parasite tasting one host after another and seeking the proverbial greener pasture on the other side of the fence, he felt slight indications of loneliness, of lack of purpose, of something missing. But he seemed to always shrug off such thoughts, deciding that he merely needed a new novelty in his life to take his mind off of such dismal thoughts. Like King Leer, he sought only the things that made him happy, while tossing any as rubbish anything that didn't fall into the immediate category of easy pleasure. The man did have the sense enough to realize that things like eating, drinking, defecating, were vital to life, but he dismissed them simply as survival, in his mind, perhaps his one and only duty, a man of no purpose but self preservation. And it was that very same call of nature that found him lurking in the back alley of a local tavern. Dingy mud bricks told a story perhaps indicative of his own fate - to be created, set in place for a purpose, and then to be corrupted by the wind, the weather, and the uncaring world which would continue to spin regardless of it's condition. Erasmos brought his hand to his face only for a moment, lingering long enough to satisfy a scratch, and then readjusted his posture leaning up against a wall. Tonight he had decided to wear his "human clothes", and the 'right way' at that, despite his disliking of these garments which hindered the wind against his skin. At last, the moment he had been waiting for happened. The back door of the tavern peeked a single bean of light and then swung open as a figure no taller than his waist emerged, struggling under the weight of a pile of things nearly as large as himself. "Hey Jacob, Jacob.", he called to the boy, who merely padded forward, dumped his load in a large waste container, and then proceeded to turn and walk away. He paused at the door only long enough to utter a few words. "I already got in trouble for last time.", the boy uttered miserably, already grasping the door handle and throwing it open again. "What's a life worth!", Erasmos shouted, now standing. The door to the tavern clicked shut. The boy had not entered, but instead now stood still, his head cast at his feet, as if his routine had been broken. "You still owe me, you know.", Erasmos said quietly, now coming forwards and resting in speaking distance. "I can't pay." "Why not? You said that you were earning money last we spoke, and here you are, a servant at the pub...." "I broke a dish!", the boy exploded, his fists now quivering in anger. Erasmos paused, as if contemplating his next verse, but his eyes were cast directly at the boy's arm. "Let me see.", he said softly to Jacob. The boy gave a reluctant sigh and with trembling hands, delicately lifted his shirt which seemed so old and used up that it might dissintegrate off Jacob's body at any moment. The bottom of the shirt lifted as any fabric would, revealing a skin so pale that it seemed to reflect the meager ambient light around duo. Yet the boy's sides were haunted by a ghastly formation of ribs which protruded grotesquely from beneath the skin. "You haven't been taking your medicine.", Erasmos scolded, his voice near a whisper, and his eyebrows bent with concern. "How much do you owe?" "A lot." "By the gods, how many dishes did you break, boy?", Erasmos now exclaimed in frustration. "Just one, But every time I mess up, the boss says that it comes from my pay, so, I try to work longer, but I just get tired, and then I make mistakes, and then it costs me, and then I'm worse than when I started.", Jacob explained, his voice hinged in pity. Just then, there was a sound like a gust of wind howling through a close street. Erasmos looked up for a moment and then back down at the boy, holding his chin in one hand. Surely setting the lad up with a job had been a good thing, but how could it be that he was now worse than when he had started? A scuffle caught his attention again and he peeked his head out from the alley way enough to see the on-gonigs. A terrified man seemed to tremble between a gigantic lizard and a rather suspicious looking other man. As he watched, squinting his eyes to see, he couldn't help but notice a small object in his hand, a tawny brown... could it be a purse? He dug in his pockets and produced his own purse, a leather bag with drawstring, it was empty of coin of course, he merely used it to hold shiny round stones that he found, useful for trading to children as marbles. "Hey Jacob...", Erasmos muttered, his eyes trained on the scene. "Gotta get back to work...." "C'mere..." "Fine, what?" "You still got sticky fingers?" Erasmos leaned down in order to access the boy's ear, placing his own purse in the boy's hand. He leaned against the wall once more, but this time his eyes trained on the plan he had just devised. Jacob ran forward in a hurry, bumping against the terrified man holding what looked like a purse. Jacob recovered and continued forwards into the alley, the same that the terrified man had just come from. "Yes....", Erasmos whispered to himself. A few minutes later, the boy emerged and handed Erasmos a heavy purse. He quickly deposited it back in his pocket, carefully unbinding it there, withdrawing half it's contents by guestimation, and placing them in the boy's hand. "Half the work, half the profit. Go buy your medicine now.", he patted the boy as Jacob scrambled back inside, a roar of discontent following from a booming voice that was surely displeased with Jacob's tarrying outside. Erasmos feet now carried him forward in innocent strides, past the strange overgrown reptile, frightened man, and suspicious man altogether. If there were a shadow-kin also lurking in the darkness, he hadn't noticed it. He paused by chance beside the body of a surely fellow bum, and took a seat beside the figure. Removing his makeshift knapsack , he unfolded it to reveal his two tarps, placing one over the body of the surely sleeping fellow (which was Aella) and the other for himself. "Nice night, eigh? Think I'll just relax here for a bit." After a few moments, he added, "You're sure a quiet one. That's okay, I like the quiet sometimes too."

[Aella]

Aella was furious. Her fists were clenched and quivering at her sides, her heartbeat tempestuous and barely contained within her tiny frame. She had just let out her fearsome howl and stood there, listening to its echo, collecting herself, forcing herself to back down from a point of no return, her mental Rubicon. Her cheeks were flushed, a darkening red on her olive skin.

"Do not, do not, do not," she muttered. She stomped on the ground with a leather boot, huffed at the cold night air and then glared at a street lamp, trying to come to terms with what just transpired.

Some common thief had taken her hard-earned money. She knew that much. She was not hurt, at least not badly (she had gingerly touched the back of her head moments before, feeling moisture there — sure enough, blood, though not much of it to be alarming). She had not known how long she had lost consciousness, but judging from blessed Neme above and the air around her should felt that little time had passed. Aella had not heard the stranger talking to her while the inky darkness had consumed her senses.

She also felt poor. She had not been very wealthy, at least not for some time. The apprenticeship had seen to that. The sword had been one of her best in a while, too, Aella knew. Its blade was ornate and seemed to glimmer in the wan light of the forge. The buyer had been ecstatic even with its lateness. She had receive a bonus, her first, though she had not attributed it to the askew glances the nobleman had given her body when her attention was elsewhere. She was oblivious to these things at times, and oversensitive to them all the rest.

Maybe soon I will be able to craft my masterpiece, to become a master myself, Aella thought, although losing her money did not factor well into the equation of things.

She tried to reason with herself. Maybe this was karma for profiting from the destruction of something else? Aella imagined the ugly thing that should have been a sword that had become something else entirely, broken and scattered still in her workshop, waiting for her empty-handed return. She should not have had to make it twice, or she should have remade the first one, or...

No, Aella thought, huffing again. She would not reason with herself. She was far beyond that now.

Where was the thieving vlareon?

She had not noticed the tarp that was placed atop her back (for she was laying face down on the cobblestone, not the most comfortable or elegant of positions), nor had she noticed the person resting beside her. At least, she had not noticed it initially.

Now she did.

It confused her, threw off her internal clock. How long had she been here, to have accumulated passers-by? Was he sleeping beside her? In the middle of the street?

Her words were acerbic and abrupt as she glared down at him with burning amber eyes. "Some lackwit stole from me. I hope it was not you." The air seemed to wrap around her, to grow stronger and more wild, creating a soft undercurrent of noise that did little to obscure the sound of her wildly beating heart thrumming in her ears. She feared he might hear her heartbeat over her, or that he would be able to hear it at all. She did not want to seem easily intimidated.

Aella had so hoped that he was awake, that she was not just talking dumbly to empty air. As she glared down at him she noticed him truly, taking in his features and his overtly feminine appearance — this was a male, right?

A sidhe, maybe... She had not seen them in so long.

She tried again in Sylvan, though anger did not translate as well in her native tongue, and she was a bit shy about using it after being so long accustomed to Elysian and Anyeli. She still spoke it excellently.

[Kiel]

The sound of Kiel's scuffle with the guy was quiet at first. Like, Pria was wary of setting the little town on fire, even though Kiel told her, like, "Stone doesn't burn!" As he was trying to concentrate on blocking the man's bloodied blade, she was reminding him of all the Anyeli forts that had been sacked and burned to the ground, leaving a bunch of stony husks dotted throughout the mountains.

Like, “Wah!” He didn't like learning stuff, you know? Not, like, head stuff, anyway. He loved learning body stuff — which was a good thing, 'cause, like, despite first appearances this guy was actually pretty good with his dagger. He'd managed to evade Shane's fangy lunges and Kiel's katana, drawing blood from a shallow slice on his upper arm (like, man, now he'd have to explain to Zeph again why he'd been hurt on a simple courier run). “Like, dude, are you gonna help me or not?!”

Pria's breath rumbled out between her huge teeth in a hiss of smoke. “You told me to stay here.” Kiel opened his mouth to protest, then, like, totally realised his mistake. Okay, so even with a good relationship, a 'Varian didn't tell his bonded partner what to do.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay?!” Darting to his left to avoid being gutted, Kiel winced as the other guy's blade ricocheted off his and shot a wave of smarting pain up his arm into his shoulder. If Zeph were here, he'd be like, "You should have downed him by now. Focus, focus!" but, like, Kiel wasn't even entirely sure why they were fighting. There were a whole bunch of reasons the guy's blade could be bloody; even with that earlier scream, he would have probably stood aside if the guy hadn't been acting so suspicious. And, like, “You totally attacked me first!”

Pria stayed where she was a few seconds longer as if driving home his stupidity and arrogance, but then finally got off her ginormous butt and shook herself out. Before she even turned her head to look at Kiel's assailant, the guy had whipped around and took off running like he had a bunch of vlareons on his tail.

Kiel turned around just to make sure — no shadowy, hooded figures with burning orange eyes, thank Xanth — before whipping after the guy. “Hey, like, wait!” It totally wasn't fair trying to kick his butt and then fleeing at the first sight of somebody bigger and scalier. It hurt his feelings, you know? “Like, dude, stop him!”

The guy had run down the same street where Aella and Erasmos had been laying, a heavy bag chinking from where it was tied to his belt. Kiel gave chase with Shane right on his heels. “Stop himmmmm!”

[Erasmos]

As he settled in, leaning against the wall and huddling under his trusty tarp, the bitter nip of the night air trying to get in, he felt a sort of silence attempt to settle in. He felt his eyes begin to grow heavy, but he mustered the alertness to watch the scene unfold with the gigantic iguana and the strange man, still not realizing that a shadow kin was present. It seemed that words were exchanged, and then, that the words had failed, leaving nothing to do but sort things out with fist-diplomacy. The woman had woken up and started talking now, half-appreciative of his makeshift blanket. "Steal? Naw, I'm not a thief. Not all homeless people are thieves. I'm a student, you know how that goes.", he mumbled, his mind recalling memories where he had "accidentally" knocked loaves of bread to the ground and then picked them up and carried them away free, as damaged goods. And even the memory when he had tried to apply as a student to a vague sorcerer-magician-trickster The soothing call of the night began to droop his eyelids even further when there was urgent shouting, prompting him to flutter his eyes wide, taking in the scene. The suspicious man called for help as a seemingly innocent man ran away frightened from the overgrown Gila monster. "Why do I always get caught up in these things.", he muttered. Wasn't the man running the same one that he had had Jacob perform the bump-stick-and-swap to? He had little time to think about it. Leaning forwards a little and moving his hands outside the tarp, he focused his strength and flexed his fingers into a grasping pose. His mind nearly ached with the amount of exertion he put forwards, trying to replicate the memory when he had made a leaf move in a breeze on his own. The pounding footsteps echoed through the night and drummed in his ear, each second becoming more and more critical. If only he could sum up enough draft to displace a single foot, the man might fall over. But the seconds continued to count down. "Urk...", he grunted with so much exertion he felt his face might be turning blue. The seconds until the man passed were in the single digits now. Six, five, four... Three. As fast as he could, he half-jumped, half jerked ... two.... his leg outwards, directly in the man's path. One. There was an alarmed muffled noise as the man suddenly fell forwards, tripping over his foot. Erasmos face lit up with even more surprise than the thief's, hardly expecting such a childish, last minute move to work. As the man slowly began to get to his feet, Erasmos was quicker, rising, and then plopping himself down again in a sitting position, with the man's back as a chair. "Now what!?", he shouted back to the scaled-newt breeder. He felt his face warm up with a wide accomplished smile. The man and all his large crocodile couldn't achieve this, but he, he'd done it with a flick of his knee. He smirked, he couldn't help it. But Erasmos had forgotten that he was only the size of a human teenager at his full height and weight. The man began to move from underneath him, as if Erasmos was more of a saddle than any sort of burdening weight. "Eeeeeehhhh.... lady, lady.... come help? Sit, sit...", his voice was hoarse as he nearly squawked his discomfort at her with increasing alrm.

[Aella]

(I have no idea where I'm going with this, so feel free to improvise, and I'll just react accordingly)

"You had better hope I do not find out otherwise!" She huffed, and then seeing his eyelids droop again, continued: "And don't you fall asleep on me!" Aella stomped her foot, eyes molten anger.

"I want to know why you were sleeping wi-" She heard the shouting and stopped midsentence, turning her head to seek its source. A heavyset man was sprinting in their direction, moving much quicker than his size would suggest possible. He had in one hand what appeared to be a small blade, glittering wanly with a tinge of red. Blood? Aella thought. At least two others were pursuing him, and she heard the smaller one call out "Stop him!", which she could only assume was directed at the stocky man in front. Aella could not discern their appearance until they had passed underneath a pool of yellow-white lamplight, and then her golden eyes widened substantially.

It was not the slight humanoid creature with red-colored eyes that alarmed her, though she had seen few Dracovari in her life sequestered in the Fae Forest.

No; it was the blood-red dragon thundering towards her. She felt time slow, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. A bead of sweat slid down her thigh despite the biting cold of winter up in the Dusky Mountains. She felt caught in an unfamiliar rictus of fear, her limbs unwilling to heed her requests to move, move, move! She bit down on her lip hard, drawing a fresh bead of blood and shattering her state of disarray.

She turned to her side, half-expecting the feminine man to have scampered off, but he was where he had been, his odd face full of intense concentration. His eyes seemed focused on the man nearly upon them. She wanted to warn him, to yank at his arm and pull him out of here, anywhere away from the rampaging mythical creature. Why was he not focused on THAT?

She felt a tug at the edge of her senses and intrinsically knew that the element of air was being manipulated. The same feeling always occurred when she had ran off to the woods to train, though when she had manipulated the elements the sensation was louder, throatier, and with more resonance. When she commanded the elements, it was if she had thrown a sizeable rock into a tranquil lake; this was a leaf, resting lightly atop the surface.

Then the sensation was gone.

She blinked. The one that the dracovari had asked to stop seemed suspended in air for a moment before falling face-first into the cobblestone road at their side. The feminine man/potential thief had hopped atop him and was beaming proudly at his success, though his face took on an expression of worry when the larger man attempted to wriggle out from underneath him.

The feminine one is nearly my weight, I'd wager... The other, she looked, he is much heavier than me, and built like an ox. There was a large threatening creature bounding towards them. And the shadow of a cat, too, though that made little to no sense to her.

The man grunted and attempted to shove the lighter one off of him, and the blonde pleaded Aella to help. The dragon and the dracovari were still a few meters away, and Aella began to falter, not sure if she should be involved in all of this.

"I don't-"

She saw the red glint of well-forged steel again, a wicked dagger coated in fresh blood still in the pinned man's grip. The blade scratched stone as the man fought for leverage and sent forth a fountain of sparks, as if someone lit a candle in a darkened room for a moment and then snuffed it. She thought back to her home. She had not claimed a demesne yet, and never thought herself bound to the silly nymph customs, but this was her home and the man had certainly hurt someone in her village. Xanth forgive me, I hope, for disturbing the balance.

The man was about to overcome his captor soon. The small hairs on the back of her neck bristled. I must act. She dashed over to the two of them and without hesitation slammed her booted heel down savagely onto the hand that held the dagger, hoping to make him discard it.

To her surprise he had not. She kicked once roughly. Again. The force of it shot up her leg. She heard him grunt, the weapon scattering aside with a metallic clang. The man had shrugged off his attacker as if disrobing for a bath, rose to his feet and turned to face her. Her breathing slowed.

He glanced at his dagger a few feet away, now empty handed, and with a blur of movement ducked down low and lunged to retrieve it. She pushed out with her arm, a low thrust, and felt a strong current of air spiral out from her palm in the direction of the dagger. The air slammed against the dagger with a resounding boom, sending the weapon spinning about its center of weight like a dangerous toy and slamming it with immense force into the brick wall of a neighboring house. It was rooted several inches deep.

The man took the fate of his dagger rather well, for he was immediately upon her. She could not fathom why he would fight instead of flee but had little to say in the matter. She threw her hands up and attempted to shove him away, but for all her athletic strength he made up with mass. He grabbed her neck with one arm and her shoulder with another and tugged her close to him. The smell of wet dog filled her nostrils. She sent a rough jab at his left kidney, then started clawing at his face, his eyes. Get off me get off! She was in hysterics, her breathing strained and raspy. He leaned in close and she felt the heat of his breath wash over her ear as he whispered:

"We meet again, Aella."

[Kiel]

“Hey, hey, man, hands off.” The blade of his katana glinted in the Neme-light where it pressed against the vlareon's throat. There wasn't much use trying to drag him away from the chick he had his hands wrapped around, 'cause he could do some serious damage before Kiel managed to pull him off, so he was acting all cool and cucumber-like. He was worried the possible murderer wouldn't take the threat seriously, but, like, who wouldn't back off when they had a blade digging into their throat, you know?

The guy was pretty fast, but, like, Kiel was usually faster. Except, like, he'd been tripped by a hole where a cobblestone used to be (like, who the heck stole cobbles, man, for sers!) and yelling for them to stop the man had slowed him down. Dude, he'd thought for sure the pair were just going to stand by and let him pass, so first chance he got, he'd totally thank them.

Like, he probably wouldn't have even chased the guy, except for the part where he already had blood on his weapon and then attacked Kiel first. Like, what was he meant to do, you know, just let the guy go off and attack someone else?

But Kiel was completely unaware of the subtlety of the thief's interaction with his victim, and too busy being all heroic and stuff to realise there was something more going on here than met the eye. “Like, dude, Pria's really, really mad at you for not being scared of her, okay?” Pria actually couldn't give a damn, though he figured her draconic pride must be a teeny bit wounded, but she played the part really well. Her snarl reached them from above, where she'd landed on the roof of the building Aella was pressed against and lowered her snout over the edge. Behind Kiel, Shane sat quietly in the shadows, ready in case the dude took off running again, and Kiel glimpsed another chick. Or, like, what he assumed was a girl at first glance, and automatically figured the two were together for a night on the town or something. “So, like, I think you should just back off nice and slow before she tries to eat your skull right off your shoulders or something, okay?”

[Erasmos]

I'm sorry this is a bad post and it's quite late

What happened was all a blur of light, a passing feather in the span of eternity. He felt himself slipping off, despite his best efforts, and feeling embarrassed by the fact that he couldn't seem to hold a man down with his weight. Sure, he probably wasn't eating enough, and living on the street, there wasn't much he could do about it. But the crux of it was that it made him feel too feminine for comfort. He didn't want to be weak like females typically were, he wanted to be strong, manly, testosterone, rawr! This single thought was what encouraged him to try to mount the man once more like some sort of strange and immoral orgy. But he found himself quickly shed off again. And all this time, Aella did not do much for helping, but seemed only to only bring herself into graver danger. The blur continued, the attempt of a dagger, the assailant grabbing her, and then the suspicious man arriving. He said a few things, but what stood out in his mind was the long sword to the villan's throat, and the suspicious man's large lizard looking down with glowing eyes of fuming rage which seemed to pierce through the thick of the night. By now, Erasmos had managed to recover to his feet, and happened to notice a second purse on the man. Carefully, he watched what was in front of him while his arm wormed behind the man's back and plucked out the leather pouch. Erasmos' hand, now occupied, sneaked back to behind his own back, and with a slight flicking motion, rolled it into one of the pockets on his pants. His skin jolted when the man spoke again. "We never forget.", he hissed, and then seemed to blur into the invisible. In the blink of an eye, he was no longer there. Unknown to Erasmos, a cockroach Ruby Weevil hurried away from the trio. Relieved, he breathed a sigh. He quickly used the opportunity to try to grope Aela's chest and shoulders. "Any injuries?", he asked, attempting to move his hands from place to place with moderate force. Remembering the man, he now turned to him. "Just who are you anyways! Don't you know the rules about wild pets! They should be on leashes! I mean, look at that thing! It's a house! If it ate you, you could wander around it's belly and organs for weeks without finding a single window!", he now waved his hands about wildly in an exasperated tone of voice. He felt a smug satisfaction: both the man's purses now rested in his pockets.

EDITED: Dec 28th at Xanth's suggestion, Ruby Weevil would be within the range of possibilities for a Therian, but a cockroach would not.

[Aella]

"We never forget" growled the brutish man, the stench of his breath splashing hot against her face; it smelled a mixture of rotten meat and fresh entrails, of butchery and blood. The edge of her vision had grown a dull gray and slowly collapsed inward. Rasping for air, Aella clawed at his massive hand with her tiny ones, carving out myriad jagged chunks of his flesh. He hoisted her up and her feet lifted off the ground and dangled uselessly beneath her. She brought her hands up to his face and pushed the blood-caked nail of an index finger against the soft flesh of his left eye. It pressed into a concave. Then his calloused hand tightened around her throat and she felt herself slipping out of consciousness.

He vanished.

Aella's feet hit the cobblestone beneath her before her mind recognized that her attacker had left. Her legs trembled at the shock of the impact, and a fiery hot pain seared through her lithe frame outwards from her throat and chest. She was too weak to stand on her own accord and dropped to her knees. Another jolt of pain shot through her. She lifted a shaking hand up to her now-discolored throat and touched it gingerly, smearing fresh blood against the soft skin. Blood trickled down from the five marks where the man's fingernails had dug into her flesh. She shuddered and collapsed and instinctively curled into a fetal position. Her wide eyes gazed dully at the building before her, unfocused and red and tear-filled. Her world consisted of pain and a plain stucco wall; that the dracovari had saved her with a katana pressed to the man's neck, that the slight and strange fellow had pilfered yet another purse, she was oblivious to it all.

That is, until forceful hands pressed against her breasts and stomach, stirring her from her daze. She feebly tried to shove them away then hugged her knees tighter against her body in an attempt at self-defense. She heard a woman crying, and then realized the sound belonged to herself. Her body shook with every sob and agonizing currents of pain pulsed through her body. She had never felt like this. She closed her eyes tightly though it did nothing to stop her tears.

He knew my name, thought Aella. He acted like he had known me or seen me before. Why did that matter? She hurt. She coughed up a bit of blood on the cold cobblestone that lay beneath her. She hoped that wherever he was, he hurt too.

A strange mood came over her. She started laughing, though she did not know what possessed her to do so. The sound of it was alien to her ears: a slow cacophony lilting unsteadily upwards in pitch. It seemed to beckon dark things. She, like the man who had attacked her, never forgot. Carefully her subconscious deposited the thought in some faraway corner of her memory and her laughter stopped as abruptly as it had began. She swallowed and felt her agony surge. She felt empty and hungry and sore and absentmindedly rubbed at her wet eyes, leaving smudges of blood. She pushed herself onto her haunches, touched her throat again, then looked up at the large draconic creature that she had so feared earlier and smiled.

"Thanks."

[Kiel]

“Hey — ! Ahhh—” Kiel had never really gotten to see a Therian morph so fast before... and didn't, again, 'cause it happened so quick he barely had chance to react. His mind was a whirlwind of, Oh, cool! Ew, that's disgusting! Ooooooh, what is it, what is it, what is it? Ewwww, and then the man was gone and the moonlight glinted off the ruby carapace of a bug big enough to make him jump back and squeal — totally not like a chick, okay?

By the time he realised the bug was only dangerous to imps and started stomping his foot — thud, thwump, splat — onto the cobbles to squish the guy 'cause he'd been all mean and nasty to the chick Kiel saved, the weevil was already gone, scampered into a crevice in a stone wall and just, like, gone. “Wah! Shane, Shane!” The 'kin immediately phased through the shadows to follow, but Kiel hung back to check on the two chicks he'd totally saved.

“Like—” are you guys okay? But the blonde set in on him before he could finish, and Kiel's eyes bugged out of his head when he realised the chick was feeling up the other chick. “Wha? Wah! Peh. Pet? Wahahahahahahah!” Kiel had to clutch his belly, he was laughing so hard. Pria's roar echoed through the streets and into the night, stone crumbling beneath her tightening claws. Her head dropped, her jaw gaping as if she were really going to put the girl's words to the test, and Kiel was still laughing too much to stop her.

Wait. Back up. No boobs. His eyes lingering just a tad too long on the supposedly woman's chest, Kiel tipped his head enough that his hat almost fell off. Pria blinked, snarling low in her throat but too civilised to actually swallow the chick/guy. “Like, dude, man, did you know you're a guy? And, like, wah!” His jaw gaped as he realised what the guy had just been doing! “You're totally not allowed to grope chicks when you're a guy, okay?!”

[Erasmos]

As Aella seemed to sink down as if she would cry, his movements could only become more eager, pointed, and fervent. And then she was laughing, smiling, talking, he withdrew to merely watch her, as if a flame that had nearly been snuffed out and now danced happily atop it's wick. The corners of his mouth couldn't help but upturn happily in a mirrored response, a wave of relief pulling the strings. But when she talked to none other than the dune lizard, his expression faded, wiped clean off it's slate. He didn't know what to say. Had the woman gone crazy? He opened his mouth to say something, but it was Kiel's words that were singeing the air, his speech hurried, excited, and mortified. Erasmos' jaw shut by itself and he turned to look at the man who had never fully redeemed himself in Erasmos view. "I was checking for injuries.", he explained, only a half-truth, he stated dryly, his voice not high enough to pass as a females. "I'm a doctor.", he added, after a moment of though, this time a complete fabrication. He looked back to Aella for a moment, trying to think of anything doctorish that he might be able to do. His head swiveled back to Kiel instead. "Don't you ever feed your pet? Tell it to stop looking at her like a flank steak.", he hissed at Kiel, and then turned to Aella, snapping his fingers in front of him, trying to demand her attention. "Look at me, count to three. One....", his lips exaggerated, elongating and dragging out the syllables. "Why are you out at night anyways? Looking for some poor homeless man to scalp as a snack for your scaly-mc-scales?", his head snapped back towards Kiel, and then in the same breath, went back to Aella with the same tongue-dragging motions as before, "Twooooooooooeeeoooo", his head rotated on his neck in a mechanical fashion, like one of those possessed dolls who tried to murder the entire contents of their household, starting with the family's pets. The two purses began to feel heavy in his pockets, the weight of them pressing down on his conscience and making his tongue edgy. His forehead began to sweat profusely, trying his hardest to keep up his charade.

[Aella]

Despite her masquerade of control, Aella was shaken up by the ordeal. Every breath labored and stung, and her heart frantically tried to escape her tiny frame. She forced herself to inhale, to exhale, to repeat the process over and over again like a mantra, and soon her adrenaline drained out of her system and she was able to think, to focus, to notice her surroundings.

Aella turned to the feminine man when he had addressed her and arched an incredulous brow.

"A doctor? I'm fine, really. It doesn't hurt."

She lied, hurting all over, but wanting to preserve whatever pride she had left after feeling so vulnerable the moment before. She thought to placate him and did count to three at his prompt, though each word was in a separate language, a sort of playful intellectual banter to take her mind off what had transpired. She gaged his reaction out of the corner of her eye, all the while looking about her.

Xanth bestowed upon Aella a natural talent for attracting the attentions of weird individuals it seemed, for she found herself all but surrounded by them: a nonchalant katana-wielding dracovari; a red scaly beast of a dragon clawing at the rooftops (or, as the 'doctor' had mentioned, a dangerous pet the size of a house, sans windows); and an effeminate and scatter-brained man — perhaps a nymph, a sidhe, some inner part of her chimed. Her attacker had vanished as quickly as a shadow, though with keen intuition she suspected he might have been a Therian, a skin-changer — he did smell of rotten dog, she remembered with a shiver. And then there was a shadowy cat that had dashed off at the command of the vari, though she had no idea what sort of creature it was. She felt rather clueless about it all, but was truly grateful for their assistance.

"Thank you as well." Aella said, turning to the armed man at her side. She stood and extended her hand, then noticed that the man was bleeding. "Is the cut deep? You should probably wash it."

She bit her lip pensively then turned to accuse the smaller man.

"And 'doctor', what were you doing this whole time? That guy was about to stab you. I helped and you just watched when he turned his eyes on me." She glowered and huffed, doing her best impression of Pria. We do have the same roar, she thought, amused.

"Such a lousy day. First I get mugged, then two guys have the audacity to lay their hands on me without so much as a peep of consent. Not to mention nearly getting strangled." Her eyes smoldered. "The 'Vari is right; guys aren't allowed to grope chicks whenever they please."

All the while Aella wondered where her attacker had gone, and when she would be fortunate enough to see him again.

Piper's Boutique || Jessica Clark

[Kiel]

Kiel eyed the blonde with suspicion. “Like, dude, I never saw a healer do that before.” And, like, okay, so Kiel had never visited a healer with a chick before so he didn't know if maybe the groping was standard practise, but they'd never groped him, you know? For which he was eternally grateful 'cause, like, he may be dating a guy but that didn't mean he was into the whole... groping... thing.

You know?

And, like, “Dude! She's a dragon, man, for sers. Drah. Gan. You know? You can't call her a pet or she'll eat you, for sers! Or a lizard. Except, like, she's not looking at the chick, is she? She's looking at you like that 'cause you're totally groping her! Wahahahaha, scaly-mc-scales.” For finding that funny, he was treated to a blast of hot air snorted down one of Pria's nostrils, and that wasn't even the worst she could have done. Kiel “Wah!” and slapped his hand across his nose 'cause, like, dragons ate sheep and stuff all the time and he was pretty sure she had sheep bones and bloodied wool stuck in one of her great big fangs, but he wasn't going to tell her that because she'd totally prove Erasmos right with that whole flank steak thing.

“Thank you as well.”

“Ah, hahaha.” Waving off her thanks as unimportant even though his head was totally swelling under his hat, Kiel started to voice the "it's nothing" a few times, but then realised what she'd said. “Wah! Bleeding? Wah!” Grabbing at his forearm, he contorted himself to get a look at the shallow gash near his elbow. Of course, now that she'd pointed it out, it hurt like a vlareon, but he was totally tough and, like, stuff, so he didn't scream like a girl like he wanted to. “Ahhhh, man, Zeph's totally gonna turn me into gurell flakes for this, you know?” The hairball hated when he got hurt, but Kiel could never tell if it was 'cause he was afraid Kiel was going to die or because, like, when he was hurt, he tended to bleed on Zeph's stuff.

Probably the latter. Like, totally the latter. “I don't wanna be gurell flakes, you know?” Even if they did make for a yummy breakfast.

“Hey, hey,” he realised, and poked his arm toward Erasmos. “You're a healer, right? You can totally heal it and be all, like, help me pretend it was never there, right? Like, right? Pleeeeeeease?” And with that, Kiel pouted into his best, most practised, Zeph-defeating puppy-dog expression, like, ever.

[Erasmos]

I'm sorry for the later reply. With all the domain changing stuff, I lost muse for it but I wanted to finish it and have him exit.

The woman said it didn't hurt and he raised an eyebrow at her. But it was when she obliged his request and started counting in strange words reminiscent of languages he'd heard on the street that his eyebrow became plastered on the top of his forehead. His mouth formed a perfect sideways 'S', and his brain faltered. Luckily for him, her attention was quickly caught up elsewhere, absorbed in the man he felt sure he didn't like. Something about the man being injured, but mostly just white noise. Just as his nerves had begun to quell, the woman's eyes were on him , her mouth running out words faster than he could comprehend them and then a stern, steady, expectant gaze. His feet moved themselves backwards and likewise, his arms mechanically emulated the posture of Egyptians, held above his head in surrender. "Jeez, lady.", he heard himself say sheepishly. A hostage now in his on body, his eyes looked outward, feeling hollow and empty, his vacant thoughts slowly becoming populated as his thought process continued to relocate itself from his groin to his head. But the woman wasn't done talking yet and continued to spout off words much larger than three letters long, and something about a groping. Inwardly, his senses chimed a sigh of relief at the thought that the woman had turned her anger from him to something else. He had no idea what that something else was. But the discussion of groping seemed to continue, and it appeared to all be aimed at him. Why was he the bad guy? He stared back indifferently. But it was all a fine price to pay for two hefty bags of coin in his odd pocket-things. The thought of it threatened a smirk on his face but he kept his expressions somber. He had turned around now and begun to nonchallantly walk off, the sound of the man's laughing at his poor insults. He had only gotten a half-step away when Kiel's arm suddenly protruded into his ribs. "Ow!" , he jerked as his skin attempted to jump off his body. Surprised, his looks were alarmed as Kiel spouted off a display of helplessness. It took Erasmos a moment to regain his composure, but when he did, he had the perfect thing to say. "Have your big pet cauterize it with fire.", he viewed the wound in his pheriphery vision for only a split second. His sandals made light sloshing sounds as he trudged away, the great joke he'd just done ringing in his ears. The thought of that whatever it was holding a torch to such a small cut. Or, perhaps it breathed fire, and would barbeque the man's entire arm in the process. It might even give that limb a burnt tan look. But most certainly burn the hairs off. Like a waxing, perhaps? He wondered how he would look with all of his bodily hair waxed off. Or, perhaps he should keep it to look more manly? He presumed the girl and suspicious man were happily chatting away behind him, oblivious of his departure. As for himself, he decided he'd buy himself and the boy an extra drink tonight. -- exit, walks away --