Errands and Meetings

[Derin Edala]

"He never specified that the head be removed from the body," Rosemary shrugged. "I suspect that if we were to bring him the head in its current form he'd be happy to give it right back to us. But your plan does cover for the possibility that he hasn't seen the beast properly and believes it's a lot more vicious than it is."

Noting the dragon's reaction to Kori's actions, she backed up a few steps before slowly drawing her knife, cutting a few superficial holes in the bottom of her skirt and slicing the blade down her left arm a couple of times. Only after sheathing the blade again did she slowly approach the dragon, holding out her unbloodied right hand. "What are we supposed to do with you, eh, little dragon?" She murmured. To Kori she added, "We could tie him to a tree or something with my belt but I think he'd just chew through it and disappear on us. I don't carry chains around with me."

[KoriStronghammer]

The dragon snapped at him. It was tiny. What was it going to do? Gum him to death? Listening to Rosemary, he thought for a few moments as she took care of making herself look like she had been in a fight.

Kori patted down his sides. "Yea, no chains on me either, and my mail will not work for a chain."


Looking at the Dragon, Kori thought some more about what they could do with it. He seemed to like and trust Rosemary, and did not like Kori at all. Therefore, he had an idea. Scratching some of the new cuts he had, he spoke.

"You can alway take him out of one side of the forest, and I can go get the wood and tell the man what happened. I can carry all that wood by myself and bring it by your home today. You can hide and do something with the Dragon at the point while I'm getting the wood."

[Dragon]

He was downright confused by what was going on. The female and male moved their lips and made those strange, organized sounds that were supposed to be what comprised language, but the dragon was a lot more concerned by their seemingly random attempts to hurt themselves. He spun in a circle and stomped his feet on the ground in confusion while he continued to chirp at increasingly loud and fast intervals. He could smell their blood on the air and he didn't like its rustic scent. Well, okay, he sort of did. It made him salivate but it was still concerning because he didn't understand why they were hurting themselves and if they expected him to do the same. These people were strangers, not friends, and they had come to him in a threatening way in something of an attempt to kill and eat him, from his viewpoint.

And now they were killing themselves.
Okay then.

They obviously just had poor survival mechanisms, but that made them less threatening. The female held her hand out to him and he licked it several times, circling her fingers with a long, reptilian tongue, gurgling in protest when he found little to no traces of food in her palm. He snorted in frustration while they debated about what to do with him, not realizing that his fate lay in their hands.

Bored of their conversation, the dragon began snuffling his nose around in the roots of the elm tree, looking for bugs.

[Derin Edala]

"If you like," she shrugged.

How was she supposed to do anything about the dragon?

She pulled another piece of food out of her pouch and held it out with her right hand, her left scrambled with undoing her cloth belt. She hoped that the creature would come over to eat and not attack her as she made the belt into a makeshift leash, but even if it did panic... how much damage could it do?

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori shrugged.

"i don't like it at all, but I like killing poor, defenseless, retarded creatures even less. He seems to like you more than me. If we leave him here, he'll get into the chickens again, and the farmer will say we were false in our duties, and may take it up in a legal way. And I may not be the best person to be involved with getting in legal trouble. I doubt they could do anything to you, but better safe than sorry. "

Sheathing his daggers, Kori picked up his ax and slipped it into the leather sheathe on his back. He wandered off a little ways, waiting for Rosemary to decide what to do. Finding a decent sized rock, Kori sat down and crossed his legs in front of him, bracing himself with his arms on the rock. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes to catch the warm sun on his face. There was plenty of sunlight where he came from, for half the year anyways, but it ever felt as warm as it did here.

[Dragon]

After finding a particularly juicy and ripe beetle, there was a scent in the air that caused the dragon to become even more vacant and instinct driven. It was, obviously, the smell of food, meat specifically. Dangling teasingly from the female's light-skinned fingers, there was a splendorous assumption made then by the dragon due to such a presence of digestible material: the female was a food-giver. He'd only met a handful of humans and human-like animals that were food-givers. They generally only supplied food for him once and then left him in the hope that he would find his own way in the world.

He'd had owners before, all of them quite brief, and all of them too naive to understand how he was supposed to be cared for. Still, he was a sturdy little thing despite first appearances. Something stinky and leathery was looped around him while he stupidly and unknowingly exchanged his freedom for a small morsel of unidentified, possibly poisoned food.

He watched the axe-carrying giant carefully, mostly disinterested, and then immediately began to pull toward him out of blatant curiosity.

This was a strange situation. He didn't understand what was going on, he never did, but for some reason there was an odd force holding him back. It was dreamlike, and quite annoying.

[Derin Edala]

"I'll take him back to my place," Rosemary said. "Insist on all the wood as payment and we can split it. Come tell me when the deal is sealed so I can help carry it." She eyed the little dragon. It had survived on its own in the forest, it should be safe to leave it alone in her house for a bit. Surely.

Rosemary tugged gently on the makeshift leash, trying to coax the beast to follow her. She was never really sure how to interact with animals that weren't humanlike -- she still had problems with humans. If it followed docilely, she could simply lead it back to her house, but she didn't want to have to physically drag it there. She had no idea how strong the creature was.

[KoriStronghammer]

Kori cracked one eye open and snorted in laughter. The dragon looked like a shaved dog on a leash with wings. The look on the face of Rosemary was also hilarious, she looked like she had never held an animal on a leash in her entire life. He rose slowly, not wanting to startle her or the animal. He cracked another smile, and shook his head no.

"I can get my own wood little herb. I don't need to take wood that belongs to you for my forge. And I can carry it by myself, and just bring it to your house. I doubt you'll have time, with watching the dragon and keeping your father out of the loop. Give me.." Here he looked to the sky, trying to judge the time, "Two hours, and I will bring all of your wood to your home. We can discuss the silver work you need from me at that time as well."

He sat back down on the rock with his legs crossed and his wood ax in the leather sheath on his back. He was not quite ready to leave the woods yet, or this little green area where the sunshine poured on him so strongly. If Rosemary had a problem with that he would help her, and go get the wood now. At the same time though, he felt he could not leave his seat upon the rock right now. It was a feeling that if he left, the particular peace he felt at this moment would be lost. He didn't want that.

[Dragon]

Both the out of place reptile and the girl seemed out of their element here. The leather bond that now tied them together was a thing that neither had much if any experience in handling, and thus neither creature really knew how to interact with it. The problem with tying together a grand failure with an intelligent creature was that grand failures were known to bring down intelligence a few notches.

In this case, that would take a physical, and not a mental, form.

Theoretically the female would be able to smoothly skip dee doo and lead the mentally handicapped beast to wherever she so pleased. But then, since when do theories hold up so easily?

The fat man just continued to sit on his moss-rock after a bit of lip-flapping, as if so lazy that if he attempted to move now he would merely burst from sudden activity. The dragon was, of course, always very aware that the man was dangerous, although now that the axe had been put away he couldn't really remember why.

As the dragon stared with his yellow eyes, something very immediate happened that was both good and bad news for the lady so unofficially tied to him (literally). The good news was that he began moving in the direction of where she was trying to lead him after over a minute of just standing there, refusing to move with her gentle tugs.

The bad news was the reason why.

In his peripheral vision, one of the only sensory systems on the creature that worked decently, there was the movement of an animal, either a mink or a mongoose, which flew suddenly from the base of a distanced tree. It was here that the dragon presented one of the only valuable things about him, which was his strength. It was impossible to have such a ridiculously stocky creature without strength, which was decent for his size but not incredible by any means. It was like trying to control an untrained, unneutered, lazy, anxious, overexcited labrador. The kind that are built like tanks.

So they were off! It was super important to catch the mink, even after the dragon had mostly lost track of its scent and was soon blindly running ahead of the female with no care for why there was any sort of weight dragging behind his stubborn ass.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary cursed as the creature took her by surprise and yanked her off her feet. Trying to get away, eh? Trying to outwit her?

She wasn't having that.

With the speed of one experienced in surprise attacks, she rolled her feet under herself and ran to keep up with the beast. The stupid little thing wasn't going to drag her through the forest and it wasn't going to make her let go.

With no idea where they were going, she concentrated on holding onto the belt and preventing it from getting tangled in passing branches.

[KoriStronghammer]

"GODDAMN!"

Kori jumped to his feet and chased after the two. The Dragon was dragging Rosemary. Laughing at what he considered a pretty funny bit of word play. He would have to remember that, tell it to Rosemary. Stretching his long legs out, he avoided the branches big enough to stop him and simply crushing and smashing aside the smaller ones with his bodies momentum.


So much for getting to be lazy in the damn sunshine... He though sourly.

Jumping over a large log, he found that the smaller Rosemary and Dragon had ran from his sight. Hearing the crashing noises from further in, he simply followed them at a more leisurely pace. They'd run out of steam eventually.

[Dragon]

Mink. Mink. Mink.

Although translated, that would have been closer to:

Food? Food?! Food!

The idea of it, not the words, flitted through his head every time his clawed feet hit the softened forest earth, sending him onward with the speed that he seemed to have been storing up from birth, since it seemed terribly unlikely that he could move that fast with such short legs. Behind him the girl was managing too keep pace with him while he tore through the wood and searched for that bit of movement that must have meant food.

It was the overgrown root of an elm tree that stopped him and illustrated his lack of coordination, as he stumbled over it mid-run and roll-grrOAWR-rolled into a shrub, landing with his tail up, his back curved against the plant, and upside down.

"Prroo?" he wondered, as he struggled to discover why the world had suddenly shifted gravitational forces.

They were at the very edge of the wood, with the mink safely stowed away in a tree some random place far away from them.

[Derin Edala]

Rosemary somehow managed to keep her feet until the dragon stumbled, but the sudden wrench as the beast fell caught he by surprise.

She stood and brushed the dirt from her skirt. She'd done more damage to her dress in one morning than a month's scullery duty in the inn, and she was running out of patience. She grabbed one of the dragon's horms and attempted to lead it home, as if it were a very small, tame cow.

[KoriStronghammer]

Coming out on the edge of the forest, Kori noticed Rosemary and the Dragon fifty paces down the tree line. He was also quite dumbstruck by what Rosemary was doing. She had grabbed the Dragons horn and was yanking him down the dirt path. It reminded him of an old dairy woman and a stubborn cow, the woman yanking and the cow resisting.

Jogging to her, he stopped and watched their antics for a moment. Trying to hide the smile on his face and the laughter in his voice, he spoke.

"I'll go get your wood for you Miss Rosemary. It'll be over there soon. If you need me for anything besides the silver, we can discuss it then."

Walking away, he tried to get out of earshot before he roared with laughter at the pair of them. Spotting the home of the farmer, he tried to set a look of determination and tiredness, a hard battle fought kind of look. Knocking on the door, he couldn't help but notice the sky. He had become an appreciater of nature lately, and the azure sky with it's white clouds bleeding into the greenery of the forest definitely was appreciated by him. He was drawn once again from his reverie by the opening of the door.

[Dragon]

The animal flopped over and stumbled back onto all fours, still trying to figure out what the heck had just happened. The female's fingers gripped one of his little horns and, not used to the feeling of being pulled by his skull, pulled back from her. After a moment's struggle he gave into the effort to lead him in the light hope that she was leading to him to somewhere with warmth and food and that kind of thing. He grumbled briefly and followed her, ignoring the giant as he lumbered off away from the pair.

Yes. Now he had miss female all to himself.
________________

A mule the size of a Tian Xian elephant and with ridiculously bright red fur plodded along the road to shim, pulling a heavy cart with worn wooden wheels. The cart was colorful, like a traveling circus wagon with all sorts of design-offensive combinations of the primary colors strewn about along the sides. Stacked on the cart were crates and cages of various types, many made of iron but a few closed in with wood paneling. From inside them, brays and cries of various animal voices sounded in desperation, boredom, and confusion. Everything from exotic creatures traded from Ayana to standard hens were concentrated on one cart. The mule pulling it was some strange crossbreed, large and strong enough to pull five times this single load.

Driving the mule was a strange man, no older than thirty with a gaunt face but thick build, perhaps slightly overweight and lacking in real muscle. He had long, black hair down below his shoulders, tied back to keep all but a few short pieces out of his dark eyes. He looked like a man who commonly went without sleep. His clothes were hardly anything special apart from a pair of what looked like dragonhide boots the color of charcoal.

He was called Angladu Majumdor, and he often walked this trade route to buy and sell animals and beasts of all types for too high a price. He was an average hunter and exceptional salesman, nicknamed by many as "Mr. Glad" as a play off of his generally miserable appearance.

Angladu was an adventurer, a thrill-seeker, and a con artist. But today, he merely set up shop on the main road running through Shim in a small square. He was on his way to Marn, but it was always a good idea to stop here first, listen to rumors, sell livestock, and hope that his connections that allowed him into Marn would still hold true (the authorities were not keen on allowing some of these creatures into the general public).

"One hundred for five chickies here, jus' one 'undred!" he shouted, although among these poor folk, he hardly expected a decent price.