Errands and Meetings

[Derin Edala]

Oh. No.

Rosemary felt something sink inside her as she heard the voice on the wind. There was no way that letting the dragon get anywhere near chickens was a good idea. But the trader would be going to market, right? Rosemary wasn't stupid enough to lead the dragon through the market.

Still, if he was in hearing distance, how long before the stupid thing picked up the sound and smell of the chickens he was shouting about? She could always abandon it, but that could result in an awkward conversation with the woodcutter. Instead she checked that the makeshift leash was still intact enough to serve its purpose should the dragon bolt (taking care not to remind herself that it wasn't the leash's strength that had failed last time) and increased her pace, hoping to get the dragon back to her house before any incident could arise.

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori politely backed away from the door as it opened, and the man from earlier opened the door. As he looked up to Kori's eyes, the trembling lip and heavy gulp were actually quite noticeable. Trying to appear non-threating was near to impossible for Kori, but he attempted it anyways.

"What do you want?" Yosef spoke to the giant, bordering on rude in his fear. He immediately gulped again as the giant cocked one eyebrow.

"I have come to collect the payment of wood." The Giant's voice rumbled forth from his barrel chest, and Yosef was reminded of thunder, and was also reminded of hunters descriptions of a bear rumbling. Still, he needed his proof.

"Where is the Demons head? How do I know that you didn't just show up and demand the wood, and the Demon will attack my chickens again?"

Yosef was suddenly aware that he was not a big man, he did not have his crossbow, and this man had very large and capable looking daggers on his hip, as the Giant man filled his doorway.

Kori spoke very softly to the man.

"The Demon is dead. Do not call me a liar. If it ever comes back. I will kill it again, next time for free. Now, I am here to get the wood. Do you mind?"

Yosef slowly shook his head. Kori walked to the area where it was stored, and lifted the wood that was now Rosemary's onto his shoulder. Waving to the man, Kori began to walk down the road back to town.

Yosef's wife looked out the door at her husband, and then at the man walking away with the wood. He looked familiar, but not as someone she knew, more like someone who had been described to her.....

[Dragon]

Of course the dragon could smell the tainted air of chicken, but that was a common smell in and around Shim. What interested him more was the other weird smells that went with the chickens of creatures he knew he didn't know. Instinct told him that many of these were dangerous and to avoid them as much as he could, but who knew how long the voice of self-preservation would actually last. The important thing was that the smell of chickens was coming from multiple sources, not just the donkey cart in the square. So, the dragon kept moving, letting his female lead him while the scent of her and the fact that she was leading him made him rowdy.

He perrooed to her again and galloped forward awkwardly a few paces, tugging on the belt and obviously eager to see where it was she was taking him. He hoped it was her den, because of things. Food and other necessities of life.
______

Today was not really a great sales day, despite the fair weather (an amazing thing in this damned place). Most of the villagers had either seen Angladu before, or they recognized his stupid prices from a mile away. Knowledgeable farmers, or at least those who thought they were smart, weren't about to spend a single extra bishani on overpriced chickens, or any of the other animals the man was selling today. Shim was not exactly a bustling town full of suckers. Those who had stayed here knew how to survive on little, and preferred to keep men like Angladu away.

To get anywhere he would need to move to the more bustling market in Marn, but that was easier said than done for this kind of cargo and he didn't really feel like dealing with the Guard right now and making excuses for the fact that he in fact had a small dragon stowed in a crate made of welded iron panels, hiding beneath the minmijor and Karian pygmy elephants (barely larger than cats).

Then again he didn't realize anyone was seriously watching him at that point.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary was surprised at the ease with which she was able to lead the dragon now that they were out of the forest. The trick was to be decisive, she concluded. She led the beast up to her front door and pushed it open. It took some effort, with damp, rot and ill-aligned hinges sticking it in the doorway.

The twin smells of alcohol and rot no longer affected her, but she hoped they wouldn't bother the dragon. What really concerned her, though, was the deep, angry voice that raised from the kitchen as she entered.

"What's this, girl? Did you buy a pet? You can't look after your dear old father and yet you waste money and bring vermin into my house?" Rosemary's father stood and entered the porch. She glanced at the dragon nervously. Would it panic? Carefully, she reached down and untied the belt from its neck, then wove her way past the man into the kitchen. He followed.

"You are the most useless -- " the man's heavy hand swung towards Rosemary as it had countless times before, but she dodged easily. This man was such a slow learner! It must be the alcohol. She saw the flash of fear and surprise in his eyes, but knew he wouldn't back down. He had too much pride. And drink.

"How about you go and rest while I fix your dinner?" she asked reasonably. It wouldn't do to provoke a fight. Her father was a lot stronger than her and she didn't want to panic the dragon. And she knew he didn't want to fight, either, because he was still scared of the recent changes in his daughter that had caused her to be assertive, and stop fearing him.

"Damn right you will," he growled, then lumbered off to the bedroom.

Rosemary sighed. There was still a ham on the bench, so she started slicing some meat off it. She had no idea how much a dragon needed to eat but it did seem to like food.

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori passed a trader in his walk not slowing. He barely acknowledged the man except the return his greeting and well wishes for a good day. Kori had enough to think about with spending all of his money on novelties. His father had told him something when Kori was young, and he had carried it for most of his life. He could remember it now, his father and he standing on a low hill, the wind whipping their hair around them as they watched other villagers buy from a trader. His father had scoffed at them and said,

"Never buy a bauble you don't need. Never use the money you need to fill your belly for something you're only going to like for a few moons at the most."

Of course, this rule hadn't applied when his mother had wanted something. Kori smiled, coming out of his reverie as he walked the dusty path that led him to Rosemary's. If he kept thinking so much, he was going to become a philosopher instead of a warrior. In all reality, he hadn't been much of a warrior since he stepped foot in Shim, except for his ill-advised tussle with that battle-mage, which had also made him wanted by the law. For now, he was content to run his smithy.

Where he had came from, the life he had lived before coming here was very different. The best he had ever hoped for was to die. Now, he had a home, a forge, and would hopefully eventually make friends. As he passed the Red Chalice, his throat dried a little at the thought of a drink. Just one drink, or maybe 6. No more than 8 drinks. He had the money to pay for it, and besides. He had earned it, hadn't he? He had stayed out of trouble, helped Rosemary, finished almost all of his jobs that the people of Shim had for him. Just a little drink. Hell, he could probably stop for one now, Rosemary wouldn't care.... But he may as well get the wood to her now.

Walking up to her door, he tried to set the wood down on it's end leaning against the wall. Of course, it all fell over, throwing a clatter to wake half the town, if they were't awake already.

"Son of a whore." Kori darkly muttered as he tried to gather up the wood.

[Dragon]

The incoming assault to his senses made him snort audibly, and he was too distracted by what he could smell to bother too much with what he could hear. The burning of alcohol grated the inside of his nose, and the smell of old linens and ear potatoes flooding the part of his brain that said, "Hey, there's definitely something dead in here." The yelling of course told him a different story, and he only just managed to focus on what was happening (what's happening?) as the belt was removed from his neck by nimble hands. As it was done, the dragon reached his head up to quickly try to nip her hand and thus inspire play, but she didn't respond.

He watched her move off and became rather interested in the way his feet clacked against the old wooden floor when he tried to follow. About then, a large, threatening male pushed past him to the girl and the dragon click-clacked to follow them both, no longer confused as to what he should be paying attention to.

His posture and body language was what made the dragon tense, and he waved his tail, flicking the soft spade at its tip in a mock threat that on a wild dragon might have been dangerous and stuff. His hand moved to strike her and he missed because of her obvious cunning, and here the dragon uttered a low, odd growl followed by a hissing noise like a large snake. That was his female as far as he was concerned, and if this male was trying to take her away for himself then he was just going to have to die. Or, at the very least go away. Like, forever.

As the man moved off to another box (It seemed they were inside a very large box that had many other boxes nestled inside. Like a box kingdom, of sorts.), the dragon followed after him and waddled side to side, keeping his head low so as to make nipping motions at his heels and sways of his fat tail. While doing this the man's step kicked him in the face because he was following too closely, and with a small chirp, he ignored the sudden bruising of his cheek and pride, rushing (clackety clackety click click click click) back to the girl so he could bump his horned head against her calf and growl.

The noise and racket of a large pile of wood smacking and clattering against the door and steps leading to it, along with the following curse from outside, sent the dragon in another bolt from girl back to door, headbutting it as if it was in fact the terrible enemy who had caused such a sound.

The door needed to die too.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary looked up at the clatter. Her father stirred in his doze in the next room, but didn't seem to wake. What was the dragon doing? Was it trying to defend her? It certainly had m0ore strength than one would expect as she recalled from their dash through the forest, but it would hardly be useful against an actual attacker. And her father's presence had made it nervous., That needed to be resolved.

Before going out to greet Kori, she grabbed a bottle of alcohol and dashed, quietly, into her father's room. He lay on his back, which made things easier. curling one hand under his neck, she gently tipped his head back. This was a stunt she wouldn't dare try on a sober man, but it's amazing what a passed-out drunk will sleep through. Fingers ready to crush his neck if he woke and attacked her, she carefully poured alcohol into his lungs.

He spluttered, but by the time he started to struggle feebly it was already too late.

Deciding it would be rude to leave Kori waiting longer than the fifteen or so seconds it had taken to deal with the problem, she went to the front door. She was a bit hesitant to let anyone in. Kori had been in her house before, but still she was... ashamed... of the state of the place. There were other territories around, and hardly and interterritorial fighting, and everyone else's seemed nicer and better-smelling than her rotting little shack, suffering from a decade of neglect and destruction in alcoholic rages.

She had her own territory and she was ashamed of it. That's how much she'd moved up in the world. A decade ago owning something like that would have been a matter of great pride.

She nudged the dragon out of the way gently with her leg to open the door. She'd been a bit doubtful of her ability to communicate with it at first, it seemed such a simple thing, but now it was following more of a script. Its aggression towards her father and the door were exactly the sort of token displays of aggression she had put on as a child to throw her lot in with a territory owner. It wasn't useful, particularly, but...

When she looked at the little thing, pleasure at its attempts to help her mixed with confusing shreds of instinct remembered from her previous hosts, and she wanted it around. She had a territory and she had a tenant. And they sucked right now but she could improve both. Probably.

She forced the door open. "Kori. Hi. Thank you for bringing the wood." She glanced inside. Her father's body was still in back room where it wouldn't alarm anybody and the barrel of ale under the table was almost full, as she'd only bought it from the Red Chalice the previous day. When you worked in an inn and had an alcoholic father it was just easier to buy it that way. "Would you like a drink?"

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori managed to successfully keep the grimace of disgust from his face. He could smell her father and his presence, a sour wave of unwashed human and alcoholic sweat. He really hated her father, but for more than the surface reasons. He was a great representation of Kori's future if he wasn't careful. Maybe ten, fifteen years from now, if he lived that long, he would be like that. A sour, violent, and humorless man, shaking and unable to do anything but be an annoyance unless he was drunk. Kori didn't want to end up like that. But, there was drink to be had, and his mouth was dry and his eyes drawn to it.

"Least I could do was walk it over for you. And aye, I'll take a drink."

Removing his ax, he set it outside against the wall of the house, momentarily afraid the weight of it would make the wood creak or the house fall. The place seemed to be held together with spit and hope that it wouldn't fall. The inside wasn't as dirty as the last time he had been here, but it was still rough. It had to be hard to clean when you had a creature living with you that refused to clean or wash anything, and only seemed to exist to make it dirtier.

Kori eyed one of the few chairs dubiously before he chose to lean against the wall to rest. If he fell through the wall, at least there was soft (and apparently cleaner) dirt outside. He cleared his throat, and flicked his eyes towards the back bedroom he was sure her father was passed out in.

"Is the Dragon behaving? Did your father take his presence well?"

[Dragon]

While Female was attending to the brutish male who had tried to steal her away, the dragon was rather preoccupied with this barrier that he had never really understood before, though he'd seen doors countless times. Generally speaking, the dragon was found on the opposite side of the door, and it was usually the door to a chicken coop, barn, or storage shack, places he normally received food and other edibles that didn't really qualify as food. The door was a strange function that man had made, an odd swinging barrier that he had never figured out. He usually just chewed through whatever wire frames he could find available to him as well as weak pieces in the wood. Whenever he encountered a door made out of anything stronger than either of these two things, he was completely and utterly perplexed by it.

Doors didn't make any sense. They were weird complications of nature and thus needed to be destroyed. All of them. This one especially because from what he could smell, there was the ugly giant on the other side of the moving wall and it was completely necessary to break down the door and kill it dead in order to get to him.

He didn't know why.

Well maybe he had once. Maybe the giant was some weird threat to Female or maybe he had associated the man with food. The more likely explanation was he just happened to be there and there was OH MY CHANGERS something blocking the path of the feisty little corruption of nature.

He was busying himself with trying to catch his teeth on the wood and peel apart the door piece by piece, making funny little growls while he did it. By the time Female had reappeared to shove him, he was pushing his forehead against the movable wall and was so determined that he pushed back against her for a minute before moving aside, pacing in a weird little space of a few feet in excruciating pain as he anxiously awaited the opening of the demonic piece of man blockage.

When it had been opened and he spotted the giant of a man, he poked his red nose outside of the door and snorted. The Outside. Wow! It had been so long since he'd seen the outside that he didn't quite know what to do with himself! His stocky limbs caused him to half-walk, half-stumble out the door, and, staring in complete awe of the great Outside, he wet himself.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary set her jaw and determinedly ignored the dragon's antics (she was about to replace those floorboards anyway), although she hoped it wasn't about to dash off. Kori probably wouldn't like that. She dropped a piece of ham on the floor in a halfhearted attempt to lure it over.

"My father doesn't take anything well," she said as she poured two mugs of beer (checking first to ensure they wereclean). "But I can handle him." Rosemary, the original Rosemary, hadn't been able to. Her body had almost always been covered in bruises. But the bruises on her body now were a side effect of constantly disregarding the vulnerability of her own flesh, and had nothing to do with some drunk. It occurred to her that having a witness present might attest to her innocence on the off-chance that anybody was paranoid enough to suspect her of murder. Not that there was any reason for anybody to suspect, or care. She stood up. "I should probably check on him, actually."

After a few seconds of trying to rouse the dead man in the other room, she called, "Um, Kori? Could you help me?"

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori took a deep drink, draining the mug, before he sat it down and began to navigate the maze that was Rosemary's house. It wasn't particularly complicated floor plan, but the mess she struggled to clean so much made it so. As he got closer to her fathers room, he could almost smell the alcohol sweat that must have soaked into the bed clothes and sheets over the years. As he entered the room, all he could see in the murk was Rosemary standing by the bed, and the still figure of her father laying down. Walking forward, he noticed the lack of chest movement that would indicate breathing. Without being asked or told, he checked the neck for a pulse. When he didn't find one, he looked up to Rosemary. She already knew. He was aware that Rosemary was competent, and much more dangerous than she let on. She had most likely checked the pulse before calling him in. He didn't know what she wanted of him though. At best, he could move her fathers body and help her bury it if she didn't want people to realize he had drank himself to death. Or go get the authorities and have the body buried in the local way. Whatever that was.

"Do you want me to get the authorities?"

[Fayane]

Fay had just been suiting up for her rounds when the orders came in. Now, instead of patrolling the streets of Marn she would go to Shim where someone reported seeing someone matching Kori Stronghammer's appearance. As she wove through the crowd she couldn't help but feel slightly aggravated, why couldn't the bloody man just stay out of sight like any other convict? Of course... he was rather tall. Smiling ruefully, Fay jogged out of Marn and headed to Shim at a quick pace - she really hoped he wouldn't give her too much trouble...

[Dragon]

For any other sentient creature it might have seemed a big undignified to have one of your legs and feet coated in urine, standing in a puddle of the vile liquid. For the dragon it seemed either that he did not notice the obvious wetness on himself or beneath his feet, or simply did not care. More likely, he had more important things to worry about, like whether or not the scents crowding the front entrance of the home were significant.

Once the other two had left him to attend to their own boring matters, he stood there dully for a moment in between the doorway from inside to Outside until at last the strange knowledge that something in the house had died hit his tiny brain. With a small snort, he turned around, barely missing the edge of the doorway with his nose, and clamored back into the little house.

The thick, weird, burning smell of what he would never know as "alcohol" had, from the beginning, flooded the senses. From the moment a being with a sense of smell walked into the home, it was clear that every floorboard, every furnishing, and every little corner of air was imbued and stamped with musky odor of man and drink. The dragon was too simple to realize what such a smell was, but it was a familiar one surrounding the Red Chalice much of the time. He really wasn't sure what they were doing standing around here, and really hadn't a clue as to why he was still here or if he should for some reason leave.

In all honesty, perhaps it would be best if he went back Outside and found his new female a bite to eat. You know, as a courtship gift, as it were.

He snorted again at the funk of weird odor in the air from death and sickness and a vileness that only a superior creature would have recognized. Hunting. Yes, he could do that, or else find something shiny for Female. Without much thought (if he ever was capable of such a feat), the dragon slipped out the door again as quick as he had come.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary bit her lip. It occurred to her that she should have acquainted herself with local customs a little better before attempting this. At home, this would be the time to devour the dead, or give it to Dragon (she wasn't eating anything as poisoned with alcohol as he). Back in the mansion, he would be left for a few days to see if he'd wake up, then buried in the family tomb. She didn't know if this family had a family tomb, and if authorities were meant to be involved then customs were probably different here anyway. She was meant to be a local; she was meant to know these things. But Kori... Kori had a past of his own. If she could trust anybody with suspicious activity, it would be him. Or Saruna, but she was keeping her distance from her. Now, with her father out of the picture, that may not be necessary.

"I'm... not sure of the protocol here," she admitted. "Do I need to buy space in the graveyard or can I just bury him in the backyard?"

[KoriStronghammer]

Yea, that wasn't strange at all. Rosemary should know better than burying her father in the backyard.... But perhaps she was worried. Her honor was at stake, because her drunk alcoholic of a father had died from drinking, and that's all she would ever be remembered for. That, and the pity people would show her for her father dying in that way. There could be many reasons for not wanting him in the town burial mound, but why say she wasn't familiar with the customs? As far as he knew she was born here.

"I can take him, and he can be buried in the woods. I know a place, where it is peaceful, and he will not be disturbed by man or beast."

Kori stood, and thought of the best ways to leave the home.

"I can walk us out the back door, making it look like he is leaning on my shoulder and walk us into the woods, and go from there. You of course can follow, to pay your respects to your father."